The latest installment of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry was one Boston would like to forget.
Playing their fifth game in seven nights, the Celtics were run off the Crypto.com Arena court by LeBron James and Co. in a 117-96 loss.
It was the most lopsided defeat of the season for Boston, which came in riding a two-game win streak. The Celtics dropped to 31-14 on the season and 10-9 in their last 19 games.
Kristaps Porzingis was one of the few bright spots for Boston, finishing with 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting and seven rebounds. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum scored 17 and 16 points, respectively. Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard all struggled as shooters, going a combined 4-for-23 (3-for-11 from 3-point range).
The Celtics shot 38.5% from the field as a team and mustered their second-lowest point total of the season.
James turned in a 20-point, 14-rebound double-double for Los Angeles, with Austin Reaves scoring 23 points and Anthony Davis notching 24 points, eight boards, three blocks and one steal.
The Celtics will close out their four-game Western Conference road trip Saturday with an NBA Finals rematch in Dallas (5:30 p.m. ET tipoff).
Porzingis, one of three Celtics who sat out Wednesday’s overtime win over the Clippers, was excellent in the opening quarter, scoring 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
Now recovered from his multiple lower-leg injuries, the 7-foot-2 big man has been a consistent difference-maker for Boston of late, and he’s been especially impactful early in games. Porzingis has scored at least eight first-quarter points in each of his last seven games, making 65.0% of his field goals and 64.7% of his 3-pointers.
Despite Porzingis’ hot start — during which he exploited favorable defensive matchups against Max Christie and Reaves — the Celtics trailed by 11 entering the second quarter, having scored just one point over the final 3:30 of the first.
The Lakers’ lead hit 21 points in the second and sat at 67-48 at halftime. What went wrong for Boston? Simply put, LA was getting open shots and making them, and the Celtics weren’t.
Both teams attempted 20 3-pointers in the first half. The Lakers hit 11 of theirs — a 55.0% success rate that far outpaced their season average of 35.2%. The Celtics, who take and make more threes than any team in the NBA, made just six of theirs, allowing LA to outscore them by 15 points from beyond the arc.
And that wasn’t the only issue for Boston. Its interior defense also faltered, giving the Lakers multiple free lanes to the rim. One of those resulted in a seismic downhill dunk by James, with Porzingis stepping aside to avoid posterization.
Offensively, the Celtics paired their suspect 3-point shooting with a lack of touch around the rim, going just 4-for-11 in the first half on shots inside the restricted area. At halftime, Porzingis had 17 points on 8-for-12 shooting, and Brown had 12 points on 5-for-10. The rest of Boston’s roster: 5-for-24 for 19 points. Tatum, announced earlier in the day as a 2025 All-Star starter, had as many turnovers (two) as made field goals over the first two quarters.
The Celtics showed fight in the third, holding the Lakers to 16 points in the quarter. Back-to-back Tatum threes cut LA’s lead from 19 points to 12. But Tatum followed those up with a pair of missed throws, and Brown bricked two of his own on the next Celtics possession.
Had Boston’s headliners converted those foul shots, the Celtics would have trailed by eight with just under 17 minutes remaining. Instead, they went scoreless for more than four minutes, and the Lakers’ lead was back to 18 before the end of the quarter.
“We missed the free throws, they went on a little run and it kind of slipped out of our hands,” Porzingis told reporters.
The Lakers opened the fourth quarter with a 12-2 run that effectively iced the game. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla inserted reserves Jaden Springer and Neemias Queta — both of whom played well against the Clippers — during the ensuing timeout. Jordan Walsh and Baylor Scheierman checked in shortly thereafter as Boston played only backups for the final seven minutes.
Springer went 4-for-5 and 1-for-1 from three in his nine minutes of mop-up duty, scoring 10 points and making another case for additional playing time.
This was a rough night for most of Boston’s bench regulars, however. Al Horford was a game-worst minus-22 in his 24 minutes. Pritchard went 2-for-12 and was a minus-17. Luke Kornet, a standout in several recent games, was a minus-14 in 12 minutes. Sam Hauser logged just 13 minutes, and his two made threes didn’t come until the fourth quarter with the Celtics down 20.
The Celtics now will look to regain some positive momentum as they visit the Luka Doncic-less Mavericks on Saturday. They’ve lost consecutive games just once this season but have had trouble sustaining success, posting a 3-8 record in games after wins since Dec. 15.
Also, after not losing a single game by double digits from the start of the season through the end of December, the Celtics have since suffered defeats of 13, 13, 17 and 21 points, all in their last 10 games. Those also were the only games this season in which Boston failed to score 100 points.
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