Celtics Player Grades From Blowout Loss To Charlotte: Derrick White Only Bright Spot

Game Flow
Ice cold shooting
No second chances
Charlotte protected the ball
The bigs were awful
Player Grades:

BOSTON — The Celtics never really had it on Wednesday night. They couldn't shoot, they couldn't defend, and they couldn't rebound. That's a losing trifecta if there ever was one. The Celtics got trounced by the Charlotte Hornets 118-89

Box Score

Game Flow

The Hornets came out on an 11-4 run as Boston started 2-10 from the field. The three-point shooting leveled off for a bit but the Celtics were too sloppy for too long, and they fell behind by 14. Derrick White scored 12 in the first and Hugo Gonzalez hit a couple of important three-pointers, but their five turnovers gave Charlotte eight points as they took a 35-23 lead into the second quarter.

The lead grew to 22 as the Hornets offense kept on humming and Boston kept missing a bunch of layups. A Jaylen Brown poster dunk and Baylor Scheierman three got the building rocking with 5:32 left in the first half, but they couldn't capitalize on any momentum. The Celtics missed 30 shots in the first half but only had six offensive rebounds and zero second chance points.

Derrick White came out with a vengeance, but the Hornets kept up the pressure, answering White’s onslaught. The Celtics made another run late in the quarter, but a Jaylen Brown layup attempt that would have cut the lead to 15 rolled out, and the Hornets went on a run to make it a 23-point game after three quarters, and the Celtics never really challenged after that.

Here are four reasons why they lost

Ice cold shooting

The Celtics shot 30-79 from the field and 10-36 from three. They were awful at the rim, terrible in the paint, and pitiful from three.

A lot of the looks were good enough, but the offense wasn’t crisp at all. They weren’t running much more than a couple of picks, there were no cuts, and there was generally no flow.

No second chances

Typically, when the Celtics miss a bunch of shots like this, they can rely on their offensive rebounding to keep them close enough to make one good run. But that never happened in this game.

The Celtics could only muster five second chance points, none in the first half.

The Celtics can survive bad shooting nights if they do other things to win the shot margin. A big part of that is offensive rebounding, and aside from Hugo Gonzalez grabbing four, there was no production on that end.

Charlotte protected the ball

The other part of winning the shot margin is turning the other team over while protecting the ball, which is another staple of the Celtics this season. But they didn’t do those things, either. They gave up 18 points of 13 turnovers while only getting three off three Hornets turnovers.

At this point, you can see why the Celtics got smoked.

The bigs were awful

Neemias Queta left the game early in the first quarter with a knee issue, but ultimately did return. I don’t know if the knee was a lingering issue, but this was easily Queta’s worst game of the season. He did none of the things he’s been doing well.

Nikola Vucevic was not much better. Neither was Luka Garza. Vucevic missed a couple of bunnies and Garza looked lost.

Player Grades:

Derrick White: A (27 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists)

He’s the only Celtic who came to play. He had 29 points on 9-17 shooting (3-9 3pt) and was 8-8 from the line. It’s a shame to waste a game like this.

Hugo Gonzalez: B (8 points, 6 rebounds)

He hit a couple of shots early and was the only Celtic to consistently crash the boards.

Baylor Scheierman: B- (9 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds)

He was doing a little bit of everything early on, and being a -9 in more than 31 minutes of a 29-point loss seems meaningful.

Jaylen Brown: B- (20 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists)

The efficiency since January 1 is still a problem. He shot 50.5% from the field, 37% from three, in 30 games during the 2025 portion of the season. In the 25 games since the calendar flipped to 2026, he’s shooting 45.2% overall and 32.5% from three. He did other things, which bumps up his grade, but this was a bad night for him.

Sam Hauser: C-

He shot 1-5 from deep, but he grabbed seven rebounds.

Neemias Queta/Nikola Vucevic: D

Just an awful night out of the center spots. Vucevic did an okay job on the defensive boards, and Queta had a decent stretch in the third quarter, but mostly this was a forgettable night for them both.

Payton Pritchard: F

He went scoreless for the second time in three games. He’s supposed to be the guy that bails out a tough shooting night, but he had nothing going in this one.