The Rockets met the Celtics’ challenge Monday night at TD Garden, foiling what Jaylen Brown believed was a solid defensive game plan.
After Houston’s 114-112 victory, Brown said Boston entered the game intending to neutralize Jalen Green, Fred VanVleet and Alperen Sengun. The Celtics accomplished that, holding the Rockets’ top three leading scorers to 30 total points on 9-of-32 shooting (3-for-14 on 3-pointers).
But their decision to force Houston to play through Dillon Brooks and Amen Thompson backfired.
Thompson, a Rockets reserve until recently, racked up a career-high 33 points, including a game-winning jumper in the lane with one second remaining. Brooks turned in one of the best 3-point shooting performances ever by a Celtics opponent, going 10-for-15 from beyond the arc to finish with 36 points, his most in a game since 2021.
Brooks became just the fifth NBA player to make 10 threes in a game this season (joining Tyler Herro, Anthony Edwards, CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard) and the fifth ever to do so against Boston. Only Stephen Curry and Buddy Hield (11 apiece in 2021 and 2019, respectively) have made more against the Celtics.
“I thought we competed,” Brown said postgame. “Give credit to Houston. The people we wanted to make beat us, beat us tonight. We wanted to get Jalen, Fred and Sengun – we wanted to take them away, and we kind of accomplished that. But Dillon Brooks and Amen Thompson made us pay.”
Brooks’ previous single-game career high was six made threes. He came averaging just 2.1 per game this season and 1.7 across his more than 450 career NBA games. His 10 on Monday set a Rockets franchise record.
“I mean, you want to adjust, try to make things tougher on him,” Jayson Tatum said. “But I don’t know. He hit 10 threes tonight. It’s tough. We didn’t account for that at all.”
In a way, that nonchalance was understandable. The Celtics were in a position to win despite Brooks’ long-range eruption and Thompson’s around-the-rim acrobatics, leading by 12 points in the fourth quarter before caving late. Had Brooks only made seven or eight threes instead of 10 — which still would have far outpaced his usual production — Boston might have won comfortably.
But Brooks was far from the first 3-point outlier to burn the Celtics this season.
Since Christmas Day, at least 12 opponents have set or tied their season highs or made 3-pointers in games against Boston: Philadelphia’s Caleb Martin (7-of-9) and Joel Embiid (4-of-5); Indiana’s Jarace Walker (3-of-5); Minnesota’s Julius Randle (5-of-7) and Jaden McDaniels (4-of-8); Denver’s Russell Westbrook (4-of-9); Sacramento’s Keegan Murray (5-of-8); New Orleans’ Trey Murphy III (5-of-10) and Dejounte Murray (6-of-9); the Clippers’ Derrick Jones Jr. (4-of-7); the Lakers’ Gabe Vincent (4-of-7); and Brooks.
The Celtics lost five of those nine games, won two by one possession after failed buzzer-beaters and won another in overtime. They beat Denver by 12 but were tied in the fourth quarter of that contest despite the Nuggets playing without superstar Nikola Jokic.
“I think we live with the results,” Brown said. “But going forward, it’s something that we take into account. But I think (against Houston), our game plan, nobody would’ve expected Dillon Brooks to hit 10 threes. It happened tonight, so I think you live with it.”