 When asked if he called Bank, he said I called game. Counts nonetheless. How's it with the steal? Leads it for Pritchard. Gets it back. Yes, sir! How's money from the corner? And the Celtics have cracked 100 with 8.38 to play. Welcome to Celtics Post Game Live. Scal, Chris Forsberg, Amina Smith here with you. The Celtics beating the Trailblazers 121 to 99. Now two and two on this five game road trip. What's your biggest takeaway after this win by Boston? You can tell Sam's feeling it when he did that little skip. That's when you're a little hot. And so this is the way it went, right? Like the Celtics got even contributions from their superstars. They gave you a little bit of various times. Jalen dominating for stretches. Just business-like. We keep looking up after these games sometimes, and it's just like they just methodical with it at times. They had one little slip up, second quarter, kind of like let that little run. Joe calls time out. They kind of collect themselves, and they're just business-like to the finish. Knowing that front night of a back-to-back, you probably got some rest coming tomorrow. You took care of business. No wavering of energy in this game. Everything was crisp and everything. Listen, you don't make every shot, and they don't miss every shot. It's just not how the league works. But I just liked the way that this team played. The ball movement from the start to set off with the 20 assists right from the jump. Then you talked about the way that in the second half, they kept pushing the basketball. Their spacing was immaculate. They got good shots, and it felt like they were genuinely happy for everybody's success that was on the floor. So I really enjoyed watching this team play, this particular game, and no frustrations about, you know, like the Cavs game. You know, we can remember that. And they were playing good, and they just let go of the rope. None of that happened in this game against Portland. And Skow mentioned the 20 assists in the first half. Let's take a look at those highlights where the Celtics, they were in control from the very start of this game. Forzberg, what was working for the Celtics in order for them to dominate from start to finish. Yeah, we forget. But Al kind of lit the fuse, right? Like three-threes in the first couple of minutes here. Had it going, a little carryover from making that big one. The other night, the Celtics just made the right pass. It was simple. Draw, defender, kick it over. They got Sam coming off the screen and getting him going early. I felt like everybody was involved from the jump there and just really set a tone. And once you're sharing the basketball, once you're pushing it, you create an easy opportunity. It's sort of snowballs from there. Yeah, and we made shots today. You know, sometimes they move the ball and they get a little reluctant when we're missing shots. But today, we're definitely making shots and good balance of outside to inside. The 20 assists with just one turnover, though. That's the thing that I look at. One turnover in the first half, I think, back to last season, even season before that. We were talking about turnovers with this Celtics team. How much better has Boston gotten at just protecting the basketball? A little bit has to do with their spacing. I think those years that you mentioned, they played a lot of five out. Right now, you'll always see a person in that low dunker position. So the floor is more spaced. You see a lot of these where the ball is moving around. It's always finding a corner shooter. When you put guys in the corner, better space on the floor. Everything is geared around Jalen and Jason to make plays. Well, those guys need space. It's a lot easier to make those reads with the spacing that the Celtics have right now. But with the pace of the game, I was worried that this could be a high turnover game for the Celtics. If you just get a little bit careless, but they didn't, they took care of the basketball and good things happened. Well, we saw him at the top of the show, Sam Houser. He's with Abby Chin after this win. Sam, congratulations. Joe said pregame needs next two. We're going to be tough to close out this road trip. How'd you guys? Just played hard, made the right reads on offense, knew our personnel on defense, and made a lot of shots. So that helps too. You made a lot of shots. Season high 22 points, including six threes, some from way downtown. What did that rim look like to you? You know, a rough first half, but was able to turn around the second half. The Blazers bench? I'm not even really sure what that was. Yeah, I was fully immersed in the moment. The reserve unit riding that momentum from Phoenix. How confident is that group right now? Really confident. You know, our job is to come in to bring energy and do the little things really well. And then sometimes we have nights like this where we're always ready when our number's called, and that's how we put the work in every day. First team in the NBA to 50 wins. How does that Sam? It's pretty cool, but we're just taking it day at a time. Alright, Sam Houser with a season high 22 points gal. Just how was Sam Houser able to affect the game? And how did he look in terms of his confidence in this game as well? And that ball was flying out of his hands. And you know, the biggest thing for Sam is just understanding where space is and where to go. When, you know, whether that's coming off the screen to relocate, that's a guy drives and you got to be that emergency release valve in the corner. He sort of understands really how to get his shot off or a catch where he can get a little extra space to get away from the defender. And a smart man told us pregame it wasn't on our storylines, but someone in this little panel here was telling us the same thing. Yeah, I don't understand why Sam Houser wasn't on the storylines when I asked for him. Because, I don't know if we had numbers for him. They were waiting to see what the starters were and, but you were ahead of the curve. What made you confident that he was going to have a big night? I just felt like our star players were going to move the ball today. Hmm. Yeah. I was apprehensive about the Jason Tatum over, but I was like, I've really felt like Jason Tatum was going to move the ball. So when your stars move the ball, you got guys that make shots that's where I thought we were going to be today.