The Celtics Bulls 125-111 result on Friday, October 30, 2026, at TD Garden in Boston was a reminder that depth wins in October just as surely as star power does in April. Payton Pritchard scored a season-high 30 points off the bench and Jayson Tatum added 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists as the Boston Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls 125-111 in their NBA Cup group-play opener, winning a fourth straight game after opening the season with a road loss to Detroit.
Payton Pritchard scored a season-high 30 points off the bench, Jayson Tatum added 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Boston defeated visiting Chicago 125-111 on Friday, according to Field Level Media's report on the game. Paul George had 18 points, six rebounds and eight assists for Boston, which led by as many as 32 points in the second quarter and won its fourth straight game after opening the season with a road loss to the Detroit Pistons. Neemias Queta scored 13 points, and Mitchell Robinson chipped in 11.
Caleb Wilson led Chicago with 23 points, including six three-pointers. Norman Powell scored 16 points, Matas Buzelis added 14 and Josh Giddey had 13. The Bulls lost their fourth straight game while shooting 37.6 percent from the field and 30 percent (15 of 50) from three-point range.
The shape of the game was set early. A 32-point second-quarter lead is not a lead a team builds by accident; it is the product of a bench player catching fire, a star playing within himself, and a defence that turns misses into transition chances. Pritchard's 30 off the bench did the damage, but Tatum's 26-7-7 line did the steering, and George's 18-6-8 line did the connecting. Boston, in other words, won this game in three different ways at once, which is why Chicago never found a single adjustment that worked.
Boston's start to the season makes Friday's result more interesting than an ordinary October blowout. The Celtics opened with a road loss to the Detroit Pistons, the same Pistons team that has spent the first week of the season announcing itself as a real force in the East. Since then, Boston has won four straight, and the NBA Cup opener against Chicago was the first chance to put that run into a tournament context, where every group-play result carries a little extra weight for tiebreakers and seeding.
Chicago arrived from the opposite direction. The Bulls' fourth straight loss, on 37.6 percent shooting and 30 percent from three, is the kind of night that starts to define a team's early season, especially when it follows a pattern rather than standing alone. Wilson's 23 points, with six three-pointers, showed that Chicago has shooting; Powell's 16, Buzelis' 14 and Giddey's 13 showed that it has scoring in more than one place. What it did not have on Friday was efficiency, or stops, and against a Boston team that led by 32 in the second quarter, that combination is fatal.
The Pritchard story is the one worth lingering on. A season-high 30 points off the bench is not just a hot night; it is the reason Boston's second unit is one of the league's most feared. When a team's sixth man can outscore the other team's starters for stretches, the maths of a game changes: the starters can rest without the lead shrinking, and the opponent's bench, which is supposed to hold serve, instead falls further behind. Friday was that dynamic in its purest form.
The game was effectively decided in the second quarter, when Boston stretched its lead to 32 points. Leads like that are built on runs, and runs are built on stops, and Chicago's shooting numbers explain why the stops kept coming: 37.6 percent from the field is a cold night, and 15-of-50 from three is a colder one. When a team misses at that rate, the other team runs, and Boston, with Tatum pushing the ball and Pritchard spacing the floor, is exactly the wrong team to miss against.
Pritchard's night deserves its own paragraph, because 30 points off the bench changes a game in a way that 30 points as a starter does not. Starters score against starters. Bench scorers score against the other team's bench, and when the gap between the two benches is 30 points wide, the game is over before the fourth quarter starts. Tatum's all-round line, 26 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, was the steady hand underneath it all, and George's 18-6-8 was the secondary playmaking that kept Chicago's defence from loading up on any one Celtic.
Chicago's consolation, if there is one, is that its scoring was spread: Wilson, Powell, Buzelis and Giddey all reached double figures, which means the Bulls are not a one-man offence waiting to be solved. But spread scoring on poor efficiency is still poor efficiency, and until the Bulls shoot their way out of this skid, the losses will keep coming no matter how many players reach ten points.
No post-game quotations from either locker room were included in the Field Level Media report read for this article, so this account sticks to what the numbers and the game flow say rather than inventing a voice for either side. What the numbers say is unusually clear. A Boston team that lost its opener has now won four straight, and it did so on Friday with its bench star outscoring everyone on the floor, its franchise player filling every column of the box score, and a 32-point lead before halftime.
The quiet statement of the night belongs to Pritchard. A player who scores 30 off the bench does not need a quotation to make his point. The point is in the substitution pattern: every time Boston's starters sat down, the lead did not shrink, and every time Chicago's starters sat down, it grew. That is how a four-game winning streak is built in October, and it is how a team that lost its opener becomes, a week later, a team nobody wants to face in a tournament game.
The win matters for Boston because of what it confirms. Four straight wins after an opening loss is a recovery; four straight wins with a 32-point second-quarter lead in a Cup game is a statement. The Celtics' depth, long their calling card, is showing up early: Pritchard's 30 off the bench, Queta's 13 and Robinson's 11 alongside the starters' production, is the kind of balance that survives injuries and back-to-backs, the two things that actually decide regular seasons.
It matters for Chicago in the opposite way. Four straight losses, on the shooting numbers Friday produced, is a skid that starts to shape a season, especially in a conference where the early games count just as much as the late ones. The Bulls are not short of scorers, as Wilson, Powell, Buzelis and Giddey proved. They are short of efficiency and stops, and until one of those two things changes, the record will keep sliding in the wrong direction.
It also matters as a small reminder of how the NBA Cup changes October. A 14-point final margin in a group-play game is worth more than the same margin in an ordinary game, because point differential can decide who advances. Boston's 32-point lead, even trimmed by the finish, was a useful deposit in that account, and Chicago's cold shooting night cost it more than just one loss.
For Boston, the next test is sustaining this level when the schedule stops being kind. Four straight wins is a run; turning it into a season means winning the games where Pritchard is merely good rather than spectacular, and where Tatum has to carry more of the scoring load. Watch the bench scoring gap: as long as Boston's second unit outscores opponents' by nights like Friday's, the Celtics will keep winning games before the fourth quarter starts.
For Chicago, the next test is shooting. A team that shoots 37.6 percent and 15-of-50 from three will lose to almost anyone, and the fix is partly mechanical and partly mental: better looks, quicker decisions, and a defensive effort that keeps games close enough for the shooting to matter. Wilson's six three-pointers show the shot is there. The Bulls need it from more than one player, on the same night.
Both teams will also keep an eye on the NBA Cup picture, where Boston's group-play win and point differential are early advantages. But the bigger picture, for both, is the regular season: Boston trying to turn a four-game run into a statement season, and Chicago trying to stop a four-game skid before it defines its autumn.
Boston beat Chicago 125-111 on Friday, October 30, 2026, at TD Garden in Boston, in both teams' NBA Cup group-play opener.
Payton Pritchard scored a season-high 30 points off the bench. Jayson Tatum added 26 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Paul George had 18 points, six rebounds and eight assists.
Caleb Wilson led Chicago with 23 points, including six three-pointers. Norman Powell scored 16, Matas Buzelis 14 and Josh Giddey 13.
Four. Boston lost its season opener on the road to Detroit and has won every game since, including Friday's NBA Cup opener.
Four. Chicago shot 37.6 percent from the field and 30 percent (15 of 50) from three-point range in Friday's loss.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Warriors-Lakers comeback: Golden State beats LA 112-95 in NBA Cup opener, Nuggets beat Suns 127-120 as Murray's 39 ignites NBA Cup, Timberwolves rout Clippers 127-101 without Edwards.
Leave a Comment
| Today's Date:
