The Celtics avoided a pre-All-Star letdown Wednesday night, closing out the unofficial first half of their season with a 124-105 dismantling of the Chicago Bulls at TD Garden.
Trade-deadline pickup Nikola Vucevic tallied a 19-point, 11-rebound double-double against his former team to help Boston bounce back from Sunday’s lopsided loss to the New York Knicks.
Payton Pritchard led all scorers with 25 points, eight assists and five rebounds off the bench. All-Star starter Jaylen Brown added 24-4-4 on 9-of-20 shooting, and Jordan Walsh turned in his strongest outing in weeks, finishing with 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting, six rebounds, three assists, three steals and one block.
Former Celtics guard Anfernee Simons was quiet in his return to Boston, finishing with seven points on 3-of-9 shooting and five rebounds. Simons’ trade last week — which netted the Celtics an experienced, floor-stretching big man in Vucevic — was part of a full-scale overhaul for the suddenly rebuilding Bulls.
Six of the 10 Chicago players who saw minutes Wednesday weren’t with the team when the Bulls beat the Celtics on Jan. 24, including three starters. Since that game, the Bulls have lost six straight and nine of 10, sinking to 11th in the Eastern Conference standings.
The 35-19 Celtics, meanwhile, continue to look like bona fide East contenders, even after their Super Bowl Sunday dud against New York. They head into NBA All-Star weekend with wins in five of their last six games and 10 of their last 14, owning the fourth-best record in the NBA behind Oklahoma City, Detroit and San Antonio.
Most of Boston’s roster will now be off until Feb. 19, when the team begins a four-game West Coast swing at Golden State. Two Celtics players were chosen to participate in All-Star festivities: Brown, who will start Sunday’s main event for the first time in his career, and two-way player Ron Harper Jr., who will take part in both the Rising Stars challenge and the Shooting Stars competition.
The Celtics went away from the double-big starting lineup they fielded in the previous three games, shifting backup center Luka Garza to the bench and replacing him with Baylor Scheierman.
It was the eighth start of the season and fourth in the last five games for Scheierman (10 points, five rebounds), who drew pregame praise from head coach Joe Mazzulla for his defense and rebounding.
“Statistically, I think obviously you’ve seen a big jump in his rebounding,” Mazzulla said. “But his defensive versatility — he’s guarded point guards; he’s guarded centers. He has a clear understanding of our defensive system and the adjustments to that within a game, and he can guard different guys. And offensively, same thing. He has the ability to kind of read the game in real time.”
Mazzulla continued to start Neemias Queta at center and use Vucevic off the bench. Queta suffered an apparent ankle injury midway through the first quarter that sent him to the locker room, but he later returned.
After a slow start, the Celtics took control after Mazzulla’s first round of substitutions, which inserted Vucevic, Pritchard, Harper and Hugo Gonzalez in a near-full line change. Boston, which trailed 18-17 at the time, built a nine-point lead by the end of the first quarter that ballooned to 29 in the second.
Pritchard, whom Boston moved from starter to sixth man out of necessity after trading Simons, was uber-efficient in the first half, scoring 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting with four assists. Brown added 18 first-half points, including back-to-back 3-pointers in the first quarter and consecutive driving layups in the second. Vucevic had 10 and 6 by halftime and drilled his first two threes.
Another first-half difference-maker: Walsh. The third-year wing’s playing time has dipped from late, but he gave Boston an impressive shift in this one. Walsh played 12 uninterrupted minutes in the first and second quarters, during which the Celtics outscored the Bulls by 25 points. He also drew one of the loudest pops from the Garden crowd when he picked Simons’ pocket near center court and sprinted for a fast-break dunk.
All told, the Celtics shot 58.3% overall and 52.6% from 3-point range in the first half, doubled up the Bulls on the glass (27-13) and took a 72-44 lead into halftime.
Chicago never threatened in the second half, during which the Celtics got an extended look at their newest addition. Vucevic played 26 minutes in the win to Queta’s 15 and was far more impactful than he was in his rough outing against the Knicks, during which he struggled at both ends and was a minus-24.
Boston outscored Chicago by 26 points with Vucevic on the floor. He was efficient as a shooter (7-for-12; 4-for-5 from three) and held up well enough defensively, notching two blocks and one steal.
Continuing to build chemistry with the 35-year-old center will be a point of emphasis when the Celtics reconvene next week.
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