Celtics rout Nets by 50 points to join exclusive NBA club - ESPN

BOSTON — Payton Pritchard scored 28 points and the NBA-leading Boston Celtics routed the Brooklyn Nets 136-86 on Wednesday night to become just the third team in league history to post multiple 50-point wins in a season.

The victory also was Joe Mazzulla's 100th as head coach.

Derrick White finished with 27 points, and Jayson Tatum added 20 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds for the Celtics, who beat the Nets on back-to-back nights. It was the final game for both teams prior to the All-Star break.

«You can't operate by feeling, so regardless if we lost tonight and won five out of six or six out of six, you have a tendency to relax, you have a tendency to put it in cruise control,» Mazzulla said. «So winning is just as dangerous as losing if you don't handle it the right way.»

Boston will enter the break with an NBA-best 43-12 record. The Celtics went 57-25 in Mazzulla's first year as coach last season.

«I told the guys, it's something to be proud of, something to be grateful for, and it's just a testament to the people that you have around you,» Mazzulla said of reaching 100 wins. «In a business where individual success is highly talked about on a nightly basis, the box scores and stuff like that, to have a group of people you can share in your success with is important.»

The Celtics beat the Indiana Pacers by 51 points on Nov. 1. Boston joined the 1992-93 Sacramento Kings and the 1978-79 Milwaukee Bucks as the only teams with multiple wins by at least 50 points in a season.

It was the fifth 50-point win in team history.

Kristaps Porzingis thinks Mazzulla doesn't always get credit, perhaps because it's just his second season as a coach. But he thinks he should.

«He's very underrated as a coach. And different. I think