Sure, John Wall had his best game of the seven-day-old season, with 19 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and just a single turnover.

JaVale McGee also piled up 16 points, 14 rebounds and a season-high five blocks.

The Wizards even outscored a veteran Celtics squad in both the third and fourth quarters.

But Wall’s performance paled in comparison to Rajon Rondo’s 14th career triple-double, a virtuoso combination of 18 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds.

McGee was exploited at the defensive end like clockwork whenever the Wizards gave a hint of threatening, and Andray Blatche (10 points, three rebounds) was a non-factor.

And seven points was as close as the Wizards came to a sniff of a tie or a lead after listlessly falling behind by double digits before the first quarter was over.

“Our inability to get into a game, yeah, we want to be there,” Wizards coach Flip Saunders said. “But they are a good team. That’s the other thing. But we made progress. As I said to [the media] prior to the game, and as I said to our players, it’s about starting to play winning basketball.”

It was too little too late in front of 17,458 evenly-split Boston and Washington supporters at Verizon Center, as the Wizards (0-4) appropriately reprised their woes away from home in the previous two contests wearing their new red road uniforms, shooting just 28 percent in the first half.

Rondo dished out assists on five of Boston’s first six field goals and fed Ray Allen (13 points) for a 3-pointer to push the visitors’ lead to 19-9 with 4:51 left in the opening period as the Celtics (2-3) nabbed their second victory of the season after going winless in their first three contests.

In his second start after reclaiming the starting shooting guard spot from Jordan Crawford, Nick Young had 16 of his 18 points in the second half to assist in the Wizards’ fight. A steal and dunk by Trevor Booker (seven points) brought the Wizards back to 80-73 with 7:48 remaining in the game, but Kevin Garnett (24 points, nine rebounds) drew a foul on McGee and converted a pair of free throws en route to 10 points in the final quarter.

“When [McGee] was matched up a lot with Garnett, Garnett just dominated,” Saunders said. “He dominated the game, both his ability to score, his ability to make passes, move the ball, defend, a little bit of everything.”

Saunders said before the game that if Wall didn’t play with energy and a smile on his face that he would take his second-year point guard out of the game, and Wall responded by changing speeds on the break, looking unselfishly for his teammates, and resisting the urge to show his frustration when seemingly obvious calls didn’t go his way.

“My coaches talked to me and told me what I have to do to be effective, just play, have fun and play my game,” Wall said. “That’s what I did. I think the thing is, just try to win. It’s a tough team, we always get down by 10, 15 in the first half, and always find a way to fight back, but you’re taking a lot of energy from yourself.”

The Wizards hope their young legs will enable them to bounce back quickly in a return game – in the same uniforms – at Boston on Monday. They could be without reserve center Ronny Turiaf, who left Sunday’s game in the third quarter with a bruised left hand and was set to undergo an X-ray on Tuesday.

The bigger task will be to preserve the brave face when there are few signs of the urgency required to keep the shortened season from quickly becoming unsalvageable. At least veteran reserve guard Roger Mason Jr.’s 3-pointer in the fourth quarter counted one night after a roster snafu ruled him ineligible.

“I think there’s still some encouraging things to take from the second half,” Mason said. “We had the energy, but we definitely need to come out a little harder.”

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