The Boston Celtics’ road trip to the nation’s capital this week was as much a matter of business as it was pleasure. Just a day after the team visited the White House to celebrate their championship victory with President Joe Biden, the Celtics returned to the court in Washington, DC for their second showdown with the Wizards of the year – which is also the third Emirates NBA Cup of the team. matchup. This was, to be honest, not a particularly exciting game – both teams shot in the low 40% range that night – but the Celtics managed to pull out a win, 108-96, and increase their point differential in tournament play in the process.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown both had nights they’d probably rather forget. The superstar duo combined for 47 points and shot an absolutely brutal 17 of 46 from the field (3 of 23 from three-point range) in the game. Boston’s bench added some strong contributions, including 13 points from Sam Hauser and some impressive second-half minutes from Xavier Tillman. For the Wizards, Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma combined to score 44 points.

Boston’s offense got off to a particularly slow start in this one. They struggled to shoot 40% from the field in the opening minutes of the first quarter, missing easy looks and committing several careless turnovers, including a steal on an inbound pass from Tatum. Fortunately, despite the Celtics’ struggles, the Wizards were even more careless with the ball. Their five turnovers in the first quarter prevented them from building a substantial lead, and a good start off the Boston bench (15 points, 3-for-3 three-point shooting) allowed them to take a 29-27 lead heading into the second quarter.

Outliers off the bench in Boston didn’t seem to carry them when the second quarter started. The Wizards left the games in the second frame on a 9-0 run and quickly built a 10-point lead over a Boston team that couldn’t buy a three-point shot to save its life. And yet, just like in the first quarter, the Wizards couldn’t capitalize well enough to give themselves a meaningful lead. The Celtics went on a 13-0 run as the quarter progressed, and the teams entered halftime in relative stalemate, with Washington leading 51-49.

The collective offensive quagmire continued in the second half. The scoring pace remained slow and neither team seemed able to buy themselves a three-pointer. The Celtics continued to hold Washington’s lead for most of the quarter, but their execution seemed particularly poor – much to the chagrin of an increasingly frustrated Joe Mazzulla. Boston’s lineups seemed disjointed, their defense far less than disciplined, and Mazzulla was assessed a technical foul to protest the failure to call a hit on Brown.

Nevertheless, as we had seen all night, the Celtics simply seemed to outscore the Wizards as the quarter progressed. Washington’s mistakes piled up for the third straight quarter and this time Boston was able to claim a lead. They went ahead by as many as six points in the closing minutes of the third and entered the final quarter with a three-point lead, 75-72.

Derrick White opened the fourth quarter with a splash, connecting on an off-the-dribble 3-pointer — his first in seven attempts that night. It wasn’t a harbinger of better things to come for the Boston offense, as the basket, quite frankly, looked like it had a lid over it. Every shot from the Celtics seemed to bounce ignominiously off the rim. Tatum missed his 10th straight triple of the night as the team fell below 25% overall shooting from distance in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter.

At least White seemed to find a relatively warm streak. His second three-pointer of the game followed the first just a few minutes later, giving the Celtics a five-point lead with just over eight minutes remaining in regulation. A mid-range shot from Tatum – which put him in double figures for the game – pushed the Celtics up by seven, a lead that felt like a landslide compared to the evening’s offensive woes.

The Wizards tried to hold on, with Poole’s three-pointer cutting the lead to four, but they didn’t seem to have enough in the tank to threaten further. Tatum and Brown finally found a bit of a groove — at least from the inside — and their shots were too much for Washington to overcome. Brown connected on a cool fadeaway midrange jumper to restore the Celtics’ seven-point lead with 46 seconds remaining in the regular season, mercifully putting this game on ice for good.

Next up, the Celtics return home this Sunday at 3:30 PM EST to host a Western Conference foe in the Minnesota Timberwolves on NBC Sports Boston.