Opener shows Celtics' strength at closing out quarters

http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/opener-shows-celtics-strength-at-closing-out-quarters?p=ya5nbcs&ocid=yahoo



Opener shows Celtics' strength at closing out quarters


October 29, 2015, 1:30 pm








BOSTON – There was a lot to like in the Celtics’ 112-95 season-opening win over the Philadelphia 76ers.

Lots of players chipped in.

The defense forced turnovers that led to easy baskets.

The bench was as dominant as we’ve seen around here in recent years.

But one of the more easily overlooked factors in Boston’s victory was their play to end quarters.

“The end of the quarters are important to us; we want to finish well, we want to do well in those situations,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens.

Now we don’t put much stock in the fourth quarter because the game, truth be told, was all but decided by then.

But if you look at the way the Celtics ended the first three quarters, it was exactly what they were looking for.

The Celtics closed each of the first three quarters delivering a shutout, literally.

The first quarter ended with Boston on a 4-0 run. In the second, the Celtics were slightly better as they closed it out with a 5-0. Not to be out-done in the third, that too ended with a Celtics spurt of seven straight points.

Here’s a look at Boston’s scoring down the stretch of each quarter.



FIRST QUARTER

Trailing 26-17, Jared Sullinger made a lay-up after getting a sweet assist from Isaiah Thomas. http://on.nba.com/1kev1hL  That made cut Philadelphia’s lead to 26-19 with 1:23 to play in the first.

With three seconds remaining in the quarter, Sullinger scored once again. Only this time, it was on a driving, 6-foot hook shot in the lane which left the Sixers ahead 26-21 after the first.



SECOND QUARTER

With Boston ahead 46-40, Isaiah Thomas made a pair of free throws http://on.nba.com/1kew5lW with 5.7 seconds in the half. Moments later, the Sixers turned the ball over with 2.9 seconds to play.

Brad Stevens called a time-out as well as made a couple of substitutions. Marcus Smart and Jared Sullinger were in for Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko. Take a look at how this play developed.  http://on.nba.com/1RfjVUN



THIRD QUARTER

Clinging to a 72-67 lead, the Celtics got a pair of free throws from Isaiah Thomas http://on.nba.com/1MkZdyu, followed by another pair of free throws from Smart http://on.nba.com/1kewrcf. Boston finished off the 7-0 run with a 3-pointer by Thomas. http://on.nba.com/1Oasu5u



bob
MY NOTE:  This is something new, something that I have not seen before.  The way these links work is you click on them and they take you to the play-by-play of the game.  When something happens they describe it and then identifies it as a video with >.  If you click on it you get the choice of either "video" or "movement".  The video click is, of course, the film while the movement click shows the players in motion like they were chess pieces.  Pretty cool.

Otherwise, closing quarters strong is VERY big deal. This was just against the 26ers, so who knows how we'll do against a real NBA team, but we looked good last night.


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