The bad: Derrick White attempted 10 3-pointers in Tuesday’s matchup with the Jazz and made just two of them.
The good: just about everything else about the Celtics guard’s latest outing.
White finished with 27 points, seven rebounds, six assists and a staggering seven blocks as Boston beat Utah, 129-119, at the Delta Center. He became the first guard in NBA history to post those numbers in a single game, with his career-high seven rejections tying the recorded NBA record for his position.
Long regarded as the league’s premier backcourt shot-blocker, White has swatted aside 289 shots over the last four seasons, 57 more than second-place Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and more than 100 more than any other guard. But even he sounded surprised by Tuesday’s tour de force.
“I don’t know,” White told NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin after the game. “I’m trying to help us win any way I can, and that’s kind of a crazy one. That’s kind of crazy, yeah. I don’t know what to say.”
At the other end, White was perfect from 2-point range (6-for-6) and from the foul line (9-for-9). Twenty-two of his points came in the second half.
“I stopped shooting threes,” he told Chin. “Just kind of got to the midrange, got to the free-throw line and everything started opening up from there.”
Teammate Jaylen Brown could not extend his streak of nine consecutive 30-point games — tied with Larry Bird for the longest in franchise history — but he was productive nonetheless, scoring 23 with 10 assists, six rebounds and two steals.
Anfernee Simons added 20-5-4 off the bench in one of his best all-around games as a Celtic, and Payton Pritchard finished with 18 points. Like White, Pritchard struggled from deep (1-for-7) but was 7-for-8 from 2-point range.
Utah got big games from Keyonte George (37 points, seven assists, six rebounds) and Jusuf Nurkic (26-8-8), who both were instrumental in the Jazz’s upset victory at TD Garden on Nov. 3. But the Celtics pulled ahead late in the third quarter and never trailed in the fourth.
The Celtics will continue their season-long five-game road trip Thursday in Sacramento, where they’ll face the Kings on New Year’s Day (10 p.m. ET).
Boston fell behind by double digits in the first quarter for the third time in four games. During one especially messy sequence for the slow-starting Celtics, George went down beneath the basket with an apparent injury, and the C’s failed to capitalize on consecutive 5-on-4 possessions.
Both of those actually ended in fast-break buckets for Utah’s Lauri Markkanen, triggering a timeout from a frustrated Joe Mazzulla. George also remained in the game and scored 15 of the Jazz’s 38 first-quarter points.
The Celtics recovered after that stoppage, boosted by the insertion of Luka Garza. Cast out for much of December, the backup center has been consistently productive since rejoining Mazzulla’s rotation last weekend. He scored eight points in five first-quarter minutes against Utah, hitting a 3-pointer and converting two shots at the rim off well-timed feeds from Brown, the second of which drew a foul.
Another Garza triple capped an 18-2 Celtics run that stretched into the second quarter and put Boston ahead 49-40. Fellow reserves Simons, Sam Hauser and Hugo Gonzalez also made threes during the rally, with Gonzalez banking his in off the backboard.
Garza finished with 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting, six rebounds, one steal and one block in the win. He was a plus-13 in his 19 minutes, second-best on the team behind Simons’ plus-26. Both have been plus/minus and net rating darlings of late.
Simons leads all NBA players in plus/minus since the start of December.
“I thought Ant was great today on both ends of the floor,” Mazzulla told reporters in his postgame news conference. “… When we get that version of him, it makes us a different team.”
Boston’s starters, however, initially struggled to maintain that momentum.
Brown, White and Pritchard all shot the ball poorly in the first half, going a combined 7-for-23 and 2-for-12 from beyond the arc. At the other end, George stayed piping hot. The 22-year-old poured in 23 first-half points — including a spinning, off-balance, in-the-corner 3-pointer over tight coverage from White — to fuel a 22-5 Jazz response.
That run also featured the one blemish in White’s banner night as a rim protector: Jazz rookie Walter Clayton Jr., who had dunked just once in his young NBA career, hit White with a posterization that seemed to surprise even the Utah bench.
“I’ve got to watch the scouting report, I’ve got to talk to the coaches, because that was definitely not in there,” White told Chin. “I didn’t know he had it like that. So that was definitely surprising, but it’s part of the game.”
Utah led 64-59 at half, but the third quarter was a much stronger offensive display from Boston’s top unit. The Celtics got points on nine of their first 10 possessions of the second half, with every starter scoring at least once during that stretch. Pritchard totaled nine points in the quarter, working the midrange as he has so effectively this season, and White hit a go-ahead straightaway 3-pointer to snap an 0-for-7 start from deep.
Brown created White’s wide-open look by drawing three Jazz defenders on a drive and kicking the ball out to his veteran teammate. He also assisted on both of Simons’ third-quarter 3-pointers, which helped power a 9-0 Celtics run. By the time the quarter ended, Brown already had compiled his second-highest assist total of the season. He finished one shy of his season and career high of 11.
The Celtics closed the third with a flourish. Gonzalez botched a rebound under the Utah basket but redeemed himself by immediately drawing a charge. Moments later, Simons raced for a 2-for-1 layup, and Brown followed with a steal and a finish to put Boston up 99-96 heading into the fourth.
A string of Celtics fouls put Utah in the bonus with 8:34 left in regulation, but White kept Boston in command. With Brown on the bench, his co-star scored 11 points in six minutes and blocked his sixth shot of the night. White added his seventh in the final minutes.
Only San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama, whose listed height is a foot taller than the 6-foot-4 White, has blocked more shots in a game this season. Four other guards have totaled seven blocks since the NBA began tracking the stat in 1973-74, most recently Tracy McGrady in 2000.
Brown checked back in with 5:21 to play and buried three tough midrange jumpers — including one over the 7-foot-1 Markkanen — to put the game away.
With the win, the Celtics rebounded from their turnover-filled loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday and improved to 10-3 in their last 13 games. Their 20-12 record is third-best in the Eastern Conference, trailing only the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks.
