Fueled by Jaylen Brown’s 35 points, the Celtics overcame a nightmare first quarter to blow out the Wizards and snap their two-game losing streak.
For the first quarter of Monday night’s game at TD Garden, the Celtics’ offense consisted of Jaylen Brown, and not much else.
Brown poured in 16 first-quarter points, but Boston trailed cellar-dwelling Washington by 14 — an uninspiring start for a team that had just lost at home to the likely lottery-bound Utah Jazz two nights earlier.
Then, reinforcements arrived.
With Brown watching from the bench, his Celtics teammates blitzed the Wizards, scoring 23 of the first 27 points in the second quarter. Boston built a 10-point lead by halftime and broke the game open in the third quarter en route to a much-needed 136-107 rout at TD Garden.
The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the 4-5 Celtics, who now head to Orlando for two games against the Magic on Friday and Sunday. Washington fell to 1-7.
Brown led all scorers with 35 points on 13-of-21 shooting (2-for-4 from 3-point range; 7-for-9 on free throws) despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter with Boston up big. It was his fifth 30-point outing in nine games since taking over for the injured Jayson Tatum as the Celtics’ No. 1 option.
The Celtics also got an explosive performance from their newest starter, Josh Minott. The 22-year-old scored a career-high 21 points while shooting 8-for-12, hitting three 3-pointers and throwing down three acrobatic dunks — a pair of transition lobs from Brown and Derrick White, and a third-quarter posterization of Marvin Bagley III.
