If there was an ideal night for Jaylen Brown to miss his first game of the season, Thursday was it.
The Celtics didn’t need their No. 1 option to get past the last-place Wizards, coasting to a 146-101 victory at Capital One Arena. It was the third straight win and eighth in the last 10 games for Boston, which improved to 13-9 and climbed to fifth place in the Eastern Conference.
Brown was ruled out with an illness earlier in the day. In his absence, Derrick White delivered his best performance of the season, finishing with 30 points on 12-of-21 shooting, nine assists, seven rebounds and one steal in 29 minutes.
“JB has obviously done a lot for us this year, so next man up,” White told NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin. “We’ve just got to find a way to get a win.”
Boston also got another standout game from Jordan Walsh, who followed up his strong outings against the Cavaliers and Knicks by scoring a career-high 20 points on perfect 8-of-8 shooting. Walsh added seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block. Payton Pritchard chipped in 20 points, eight assists and six rebounds as the Celtics blew the Wizards away in the second half.
Washington, now 3-18, entered with the NBA’s second-worst record, a defense that’s on pace to be one of the worst in league history and some of its top players in street clothes. Six Wizards missed the game with injuries, including starters Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly.
Up next for Boston: a marquee matchup with the Lakers on Friday night at TD Garden.
Sam Hauser started in Brown’s place on Thursday, and the Celtics played much of the game without a traditional center on the floor, continuing to lean on the small-ball lineups that have served them well of late. Neemias Queta (17 points, 7-of-9, four rebounds, four blocks) played 21 minutes, and his backups did not see the floor until garbage time.
Seventeen of the Celtics’ first 23 points came from Queta or White, who controlled play early. The Wizards staged a 7-0 run late in the first quarter, but Hugo Gonzalez — whose swarming defense on Karl-Anthony Towns helped spark Boston’s comeback in Tuesday’s win over the Knicks — got the Celtics back on track with a chasedown block, a corner 3-pointer and two drawn fouls. White capped the quarter with a buzzer-beating three that put Boston ahead 32-26.
Gonzalez’s chaotic tenacity has made him an asset for head coach Joe Mazzulla, but it’s also led to some ill-advised fouls. The rookie had two of those early in the second quarter, after which Mazzulla lifted him and reinserted Walsh.
Walsh quickly took over the game. Over the next two minutes and change, the breakout wing blocked Will Riley from behind and scored a fast-break and-one layup; drew a foul on a nice move from the dunker spot; converted another layup off a Josh Minott steal; and, after a Wizards timeout, picked off a pass and threw down a transition dunk.
Later in the quarter, back-to-back threes by Minott and Walsh put Boston ahead 54-37. Walsh scored 15 first-half points, more than he’d scored in any previous full game for Boston, and White and Pritchard combined for 31 before the break. But Washington, aided by a 12-0 run that featured a poster dunk by Justin Champagnie over White, stayed competitive. The Celtics led 66-59 at halftime.
Boston pulled away in the third quarter, with White, Queta and Walsh again leading that effort. Midway through the period, Walsh drew a foul on a corner three, then skied for a full-speed dunk. A 3-pointer by Baylor Scheierman on the next Celtics possession, off a feed from White, stretched Boston’s lead to 19 points.
Pritchard’s buzzer-beating coast-to-coast layup made it 109-86 entering the fourth, and the Celtics cruised from there. Seven C’s players scored in double figures, with Minott (11 points), Gonzalez (14) and Anfernee Simons (16) rounding out that group.
White, who’s greatly improved his shooting efficiency in recent weeks after a dreadful start to the season, did not play in the fourth quarter, getting some extra rest as his team began a stretch of three games in four nights. Mazzulla began emptying his bench with eight minutes remaining.
“We’ve just got a lot of guys that stepped up,” White told Chin. “(They) continue to get comfortable in the system, what we’re trying to do, and every game, we’ve got to continue to get better. It was a good step today, and we’ve got another one tomorrow.”
The Celtics’ encouraging start to the season without Jayson Tatum heightens the intrigue around Friday’s clash with the Lakers, who sit second in the Western Conference behind defending champion Oklahoma City. But Boston might not see a fully loaded LA squad.
Lakers star Luka Doncic missed Thursday’s game in Toronto for personal reasons. LeBron James, who sat out LA’s first 14 games with a sciatic nerve issue, suited up against the Raptors, and he has yet to play games on back-to-back nights this season.
Ex-Celtic Marcus Smart also was held out Thursday night for lower back injury management. Smart has made multiple returns to TD Garden since he was traded away in 2023, but this will be his first time back as a member of Boston’s oldest rival.
Brown’s status for Friday was unclear as of Thursday night.
The Celtics will visit Toronto on Sunday, then head to Milwaukee next Tuesday to face a struggling Bucks team that likely will be without ailing superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo (calf strain).
