2/5 Recap: Jayson Tatum lights up the Garden as Celtics top Magic 116-100

Jayson Tatum scored 33 points in the 16 point win over the Orlando Magic Wednesday night. Photo via the Boston Celtics on Twitter @celtics
Tonight, the Boston Celtics secured their fifth straight win beating the Orlando Magic despite Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, and Daniel Theis all sitting out for health reasons. The final score was 116-100 in favor of Boston who shot an impressive 56.5% from three as a team.
Jayson Tatum led the way once again for the C's as his stardom continues to rise. After 38 minutes, he scored 33 points while absolutely lighting it up in the fourth quarter. He also had a very good night otherwise as he shot 45.8%, grabbed 8 rebounds and dished out 5 assists to go along with 2 blocks and 3 steals. As a result, we can add one more impressive game to Tatum's superstar application.
Alongside Jayson, Jaylen Brown also had a decent game. He scored 18 points with 5 rebounds on 44% shooting. The play of team jay continues to be crucial in the Celtics' success while dealing with such frequently annoying injuries to big minute players. Jaylen did end up leaving the game with less than a minute to go with what looked like an ankle injury, so let's hope it's not too serious. Prior to that, he did manage to add another victim to his posterized list, this time being former rookie of the year Michael Carter-Williams.
Gordon Hayward once again had an impressive night as the floor general, really picking it up in the second half. He tallied a game-high 7 assists at the forward position while also scoring 23 points. Along with all that, he contributed 7 rebounds to the team total of 41 in his 35 minutes.

 Both Enes Kanter and rookie Romeo Langford started tonight for the C's in the absence of Theis and Walker. This was Kanter's fifth start on the year since his early-season injury that gave Daniel Theis the position. He scored 7 points on 60% shooting. He also grabbed 8 rebounds, just 2 less than his starting matchup Nikola Vucevic. He did, however, play a defensive role in holding the former all-star big man to just 12 points himself.

Off the bench, Grant Williams had another solid outing scoring 13 points and snatching up 6 rebounds. As the season progresses, he continues to carve a bigger role on this team due to his contributions to our minimal frontcourt weapons.

For the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic, forward Aaron Gordon had arguably the most impressive night scoring 23 points with 10 rebounds and 4 assists. At the shooting guard position, Evan Fournier scored a team-high 26 points on 53.3% shooting hitting 6 threes in the process. He really stepping up big when it mattered most to keep Orlando in the game. Though limited in scoring, Nikola Vucevic also had a solid night putting up a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds.

 The Celtics' next game will be Friday night (2/7) at 7:30 p.m. in the TD Garden against the Atlanta Hawks and their newest big man Clint Capela. This will be Boston's second matchup with the Hawks in three games.

Check out a video of tonight's highlights down below as well as the full box score of the game by clicking here.
You can follow Thomas Desmond on Twitter @td_654.
Share
I'm a college student studying in Creative Writing as well as Communication and Media studies.