Celtics bounce back, beat Ime Udoka and Rockets: 8 takeaways

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After an embarrassing loss on Thursday, the Celtics defeated a familiar face.

Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) lets out a scream after a good defensive play in which he blocked a shot on a Rockets breakaway during the third quarter. Barry Chin/Globe Staff

After getting rocked by the Bucks on Thursday, the Celtics made up for the damage done to their net rating with a big win, defeating the Rockets 145-113 in Ime Udoka’s first return to TD Garden.

Here are the conclusions.

1. The general consensus among players and coaches regarding Udoka, including Udoka himself, seemed to be “let’s put this behind us.”

Udoka, who was suspended from the team for having an inappropriate relationship with an employee before the start of the 2022-23 season, expressly said that he and the players involved in the Celtics’ run to the 2022 NBA Finals have moved on. .

“We had a good year, not a great year. I didn’t make it,” Udoka said when asked about entering the TD Garden before the game. “But yeah, I would say I just talked to some people I haven’t seen in a while. Then, once it’s done, it’s done. A first time for everything. “We have been through this and we are ready to move forward.”

Meanwhile, Celtics players remained relatively (and unsurprisingly) quiet about Udoka. Tatum said he wanted to keep the conversations he had with Udoka private. Payton Pritchard, who knew Udoka since he grew up in Portland, greeted his former coach warmly after the game. He admitted that facing Udoka was “a little” strange.

“But I mean, they’re competitors,” Pritchard added. “They are a great coaching staff. He’s a great coach and I just, I don’t know. “It’s just another game for us and I think they felt the same.”

Jaylen Brown, who torched Udoka’s Rockets, said he was happy for the opportunity to face Udoka and members of his staff who jumped ship for Houston.

“It’s always good to see those guys,” Brown said. “It’s not easy to get to the final. So with that group, there will always be something there.”

For their part, Celtics fans’ reaction to Udoka was mixed.

Without a doubt, moving forward is best for all parties. Throughout last season, some factions of Celtics fans on social media pined for Udoka whenever the team struggled, but with a little more time to prepare for a season, Mazzulla is proving more than capable. of leading a team through its ups and downs. The Celtics players seem to respond well to his brand of leadership, and this year’s team has been one of the best in the league. Meanwhile, Udoka has a new team and a new set of challenges as he tries to sneak a young team into the playoffs.

Udoka’s indiscretion last year, whatever it was specifically, cost the Celtics the opportunity to try to finish what they started the year before. As a result, Celtics fans are within their rights to boo him when he returns to TD Garden (and, frankly, the longing for him last season always seemed a little desperate, since he got them into their awkward situation in the first place). . But the franchise has moved on, and with Mazzulla (and Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, etc.) at the helm, the Celtics appear to be in a phenomenal place as we approach the halfway point of the season.

Udoka is right: once it’s done, it’s done.

2. Brown got hot early and seemed to work at an admirable pace. After a jumper over Fred Van Vleet and a nifty step-back against Jalen Green, Brown broke through and went 11-of-13 for most of the game before two 3-pointers down the stretch cut his shooting percentage to just 73. .3 percent (11 of 15) from the floor and 66.7 percent (4 of 6) from behind the arc. Brown finished with a hyper-efficient 32 points with six rebounds, two assists, two steals and two emphatic blocks.

“I still think I have a lot of untapped potential and I’m learning the game,” Brown said. “This is a beautiful game that we can all watch and play and I am having fun learning and trying to reach my full potential. Besides being a team guy, besides making sure our guys are in the right spots and being a leader, it’s been fun trying to figure out how to be the best version of Jaylen Brown.”

3. Tatum was ejected in the third quarter after expressing frustrations over multiple fouls. The one that finally angered him enough to earn him the ejection was a transition block by Cam Whitmore, which appeared to catch much of Tatum’s arm.

For one, Tatum probably could have done without adding two technical fouls to his season-long total (he now has six). On the other hand, he probably wasn’t wrong, and the referee who ejected him compounded a losing call by allowing a superstar to talk himself into being ejected. Plus, Tatum knew the Celtics were in a good place.

“I mean, I’m a very self-aware person,” Tatum said. “I understand the time and the score, the game was practically over and I just had to defend myself. I said my part, they expelled me and that was it.”

Before his self-imposed departure, Tatum scored 27 points on 9-of-17 shooting and was 4-of-7 from behind the arc.

4. So far this season, lineups with Payton Pritchard have outscored their opponents by 8.4 points per 100 possessions when filtering out garbage time, per Clean the glass.

Of course, Pritchard plays a pretty important role during garbage time: keeping the Celtics ahead enough to keep the starters on the bench. He rightly has a high opinion of those minutes, as he told reporters after the game.

“I never look at it as garbage time,” Pritchard said. “This is an opportunity for me to play. I won’t be there for the first or third quarter. So that’s my moment. So I don’t see it that way. I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all NBA players. So this is top-level basketball.”

Pritchard is right and, playing against NBA guys on Saturday, he finished with 19 points (7-of-10 shooting) with four rebounds and three assists.

This wasn’t one of the assists, because the NBA doesn’t allow off-the-glass passes to count as assists, but it was still a pretty eye-catching play.

5. After going 3-for-14 from behind the arc in the last three games combined, Derrick White finished 3-for-5 on Saturday. If he was worried about shooting him, rest assured.

6. Joe Mazzulla felt the Rockets gained a number of margins that the Celtics would have liked to gain.

“I think it gives us room to know that we can improve,” Mazzulla said. “…That’s a good victory, but we have to live in the space where we can improve.

“And it’s not that something is wrong. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. But if we can live in the space of ‘We’re a good team, but it’s not good enough,’ I think that’s a healthy place to be and I think that’s how we can grow.”

7. Ice Cube and 50 Cent sat on the court. Ice Cube will be honored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for founding the popular Big 3 league. The rapper will receive the inaugural Ice Cube Impact Award in Springfield on Monday.

Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) and rapper 50 Cent reunite at the end of the game as the Celtics host the Houston Rockets in an NBA regular season game Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024, at TD Garden . Barry Chin/Globe Staff

8. The Celtics, now 19-0 at home this season, will travel to Toronto for a matchup against the Raptors on Monday at 7:30 p.m. After that, they put their perfect home record on the line against Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs on Wednesday, followed by a matchup against the defending champion Nuggets on Friday.