2/3 Recap: Celtics snatch fourth straight victory from the claws of the Hawks, winning 123-115

Jaylen Brown scored a solid 21 points against the Hawks in Bostons' fourth straight victory. Photo via the Boston Celtics on Twitter @Celtics.  
In a back and forth night with the Atlanta Hawks in their building, the Boston Celtics eventually came out on top with a final score of 123 - 115. The win is the fourth straight for Boston who is fighting to catch up to Toronto and regain the number two seed in the Eastern Conference standings.
It was Gordon Hayward who had one of the bigger nights for the C's this time around, scoring 24 points with a balanced 7 rebounds and 6 assists. With Kemba Walker sitting out his second straight game and Marcus Smart also absent, Hayward did his thing as the floor general and stepped up big late in the game, clinching the Celtics' thirty-fourth victory of the season.
After their impressive outings against the 76ers, both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown came out relatively quiet in the first half for the Celtics scoring just 8 and 9 points respectively. However, they did manage to step it up in the second half and really helped Boston in pushing past the Hawks once and for all. Tatum came out in the third quarter smoking hot and finished the night with a team-high 28 points, 3 assists, and 7 rebounds, scoring 14 of those points in that quarter alone.
Jaylen Brown, as well, had a rejuvenation in the third quarter. With him and Tatum acting as a dynamic duo, Brown scored 21 points of his own on 53% shooting (9 - 17) coming up strong in the sloppy fourth quarter as well.
Off the bench, Brad Wannamaker had a solid game on both ends of the court. He scored 16 points in 27 minutes and managed to snatch up 4 steals in his time on the floor. Along with this, he also had 5 assists and 4 rebounds. As mentioned before, Smart and Walker were both out of uniform for this one, so it was a big opportunity for Wannamaker to step up and fill their shoes which he managed to do in more ways than one.
Despite the win, it's almost a ritual at this point that at least one player on the opposing team just goes off on the offensive end and tonight was no exception. This time, it was sophomore all-star point guard Trae Young, who is also the only huge offensive threat Atlanta had to offer. He scored 34 points in total tonight on 50% shooting, with 23 of those points coming in the first half. Thankfully, he did cool off in the second half. However, he managed to dish out a solid 7 assists in the process, keeping Atlanta in the game for as long as he could. His downfall was his 9 turnovers, which attributed to more than half of the team's total (17).

The Celtics' next game will be in Boston Wednesday night (2/5) at 7:30 p.m. eastern time, where they will take on the 8th seeded Orlando Magic in the hunt to move up in the standings.

Check out a highlight reel of tonight's game down below as well as the full box score for the Celtics vs. Hawks matchup here.
You can follow Thomas Desmond on Twitter @td_654.


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I'm a college student studying in Creative Writing as well as Communication and Media studies.