Luke Kornet’s dominant game leads Celtics to 121-111 win over Spurs

Luke Kornet had a career night and dominated San Antonio in the paint.

After destroying the Phoenix Suns in their last matchup, the Celtics continued their west coast road trip against the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday. Boston continued their impressive play on the road this season, defeating the Spurs 121-111 for their eighth win a row.

Jayson Tatum led the way for the Celtics in this game with 28 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists on 10-22 shooting but this game was dominated by Luke Kornet. Kornet had a double-double tonight with 15 points and a career high 16 rebounds as with the Spurs lack of a center, he was able to dominate the game. Boston as a whole crushed the rounding battle as they out rebounded San Antonio 54-35 which was a big reason for their success.

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Kristaps Porzingis began the game with a three for the Celtics as he got off to one of his patented hot starts. With the Spurs not having Victor Wembanyama, they lacked a true center to stop Boston from getting to the paint at will. The Celtics opened up a 10-1 run halfway through the first quarter but the Spurs were able to keep pace with Boston early on.

Out of a Spurs timeout, the Celtics would open up a quick 12-4 run. Jrue Holiday was key to Boston’s offense success hitting 3 shots from beyond the arc but it was Keldon Johnson that kept San Antonio in the game. After Sam Hauser hit a three on his first shot of the game, the Celtics would end the first quarter with a 36-27 lead.

Boston had a great shooting first quarter going 48% from the field and 47% from three while also dominating the boards with 16 rebounds and picking apart the Spurs defense with 10 assists.

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The second quarter started with a big to big alley oop from Kristaps Porzingis to Luke Kornet while a Sam Hauser midrange pull up forced the Spurs to call a timeout just a minute into the quarter.

An interesting note to start the quarter was that both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum started on the bench. The lineup of White-Hauser-Scheierman-Kornet-Porzingis found success and kept the Celtics lead at double digits. When the starters came back in however, Boston started to look a little a sloppy with a lot of careless turnovers. In response, Jeremy Sochan led the Spurs on a 14-2 to cut the Celtics lead 4 points with four minutes to go in the first half.

Jrue Holiday responded to the run with his fourth three of the half to steady the ship as the Celtics found their groove again on offense and took a 64-52 lead into halftime. Holiday had a big half and was the Celtics leading scorer at the half with 16 points on 6-9 shooting from the field and 4-5 from three.

Jayson Tatum had a big half as well with 12 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists while Stephon Castle led the Spurs with 13 points. The Celtics three point shooting dipped a little bit in the second quarter but they still shot well overall going 52% from the field. Boston continued to dominate the glass as they grabbed 32 rebounds compared to the Spurs 18.

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It took the Celtics a little over three minutes to score their first basket of the second half on a Luke Kornet ally-oop dunk from a Jayson Tatum assist but the Spurs couldn’t take advantage of Boston’s cold shooting. Once they saw a shot go in, the Celtics found their offense led by Kornet continuing to punish the Spurs inside with a put back layup and another ally-oop dunk.

After another Spurs timeout, Jrue Holiday picked up where he left off in the first half, hitting his fifth three and completed an alley-oop layup from Derrick White. A 10-3 run by the Celtics opened up a 17 point lead as San Antonio started to get bogged down by Boston’s defense.

After a slow start, Jayson Tatum started to cook towards the end of the end of the third quarter as he got to the free throw line and hit a nasty euro step around the Spurs Blake Wesley with Spurs legend Manu Ginobili in attendence. This Tatum takeover gave the Celtics a 94-81 lead going into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter began with Jaylen Brown hitting back to back tough twos including a bank shot but the Spurs had a response on the other end for each. A lack of transition defense on the second Spurs basket cut the Celtics lead to 10 and made Joe Mazzulla call a timeout very early in to the quarter.

After a cold stretch for the Celtics, Luke Kornet grabbed his career high 14th rebound to and hit a layup that reignited the offense again. The Spurs started to make a rally midway through the quarter behind Chris Paul turning back the clock and scoring 8 straight points for San Antonio to cut Boston’s lead to 8 points with under five minutes to go.

Although the Spurs started to hit shots, they couldn’t cut Boston’s lead any further as the Celtics matched them basket for basket. With 1:07 to go in the game anf the Celtics up by 10, Kristaps Porzingis missed a three that led to a tough Jayson Tatum rebound and putback layup for the dagger that sealed the Celtics victory.

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The Celtics next matchup and the last game of their west coast road trip is on Monday March 31st against the Memphis Grizzlies.