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STUDS AND DUDS: NO MAN BUN, NO PROBLEM FOR KELLY OLYNYK, WHO POWERS CELTICS PAST SUNS

WEEI

By Sam Packard

The Celtics dominated the Phoenix Suns en route to a 117-103 win, Friday Night at the Boston Garden.

The Suns, who entered the game with the league’s worst rated defense, were both unwilling and unable to stop the Celtics from scoring the basketball. The Celtics capitalized on the Suns sloppy play and frequently found themselves with wide open shots.

After a relatively close first quarter, the Celtics blew the game open at the end of the second. Led by an outstanding shooting performance by Olynyk, the C’s outscored the Suns 22-5 in the final 5:28.

In the second half, the Suns were unable to cut the deficit to lower than 15.

Kelly Olynyk scored a game-high 21 points. Isaiah Thomas added 19, while Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder both scored 17.  Coming off the bench, Marcus Smart recorded a nice garbage-time triple-double with 11 rebounds, 11 assists, and 10 points. The last Celtic to record a triple-double coming off the bench was Art “Hambone” Williams, who did it on January 6th, 1971.

After losing four straight, the (21-19) Celtics have now won two in a row. The team will attempt to extend the streak, when they travel to Washington to play John Wall and the Wizards on Saturday night.

For a complete box score, click here.


STUD OF THE NIGHT: Kelly Olynyk’s Flow

Despite Bun vs. Flow splits that would indicate he performs better with his hair up, Olynyk took the court tonight sans bun. While the hair-based statisticians on Twitter were initially skeptical, Olynyk remained aggressive. During the final 3 minutes of the second quarter, Kelly outscored the Suns 13-2 by himself. He knocked down three consecutive three-pointers, before adding two acrobatic lay-ups. For a brief moment, the TD Garden crowd was even chanting his name. Olynyk also finished wit nine rebounds.

DUD OF THE NIGHT: Evan Turner Does Nothing

In a game in which the Celtics seemed ready and willing to attempt any and every shot, Turner shockingly had only one attempt in 25 minutes. For someone who has nicknamed themselves “The Logo,” you would expect more pomp and certainly more circumstance. It’s not like Turner had an impact elsewhere on the stat sheet, as he finished with only one rebound and two assists.

After the game, Turner dismissed the notion that he may have played poorly,  “I made all the right plays.”

Turner was more focused on the team’s efforts, asking reporters, “Did you watch the game? Did you see that win?”

VINE OF THE NIGHT: Kelly’s Sweet Moves

Shockingly, no one Vined tonight’s game. Here is a Sweet Kelly-O throwback.


WHINE OF THE NIGHT: Not Enough Garbage Time

With the game pretty much in hand at the end of the third quarter, Celtics coach Brad Stevens kept to his usual nine-man rotation. Avery Bradley, who is recovering from a hip injury that sidelined him for three games, played an outrageous 38 minutes, while James Young and RJ Hunter didn’t enter the game until there was  one minute to play. With that being said, due to the phenomenal run by the bench-unit, Isaiah Thomas and Amir Johnson did not play at all in the second quarter. Amir Johnson, who at one point went back to the locker room with ice on his left ankle, only ended up playing 19 minutes.

STAT OF THE NIGHT: Assist Percentage

The Celtics recorded 30 assists on their 42 made field goals, which is good for a 71 percent assist percentage. This is an absurd number and a clear indication that the Celtics were doing a great job of moving the basketball. In fact, the Celtics opened the game with 11 assists on their first 11 baskets.
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Celtics start strong, easily beat Suns, 117-103

CSNNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

BOSTON – The Phoenix Suns have been among the worst teams in the NBA this season, the kind of team that usually gives the Boston Celtics some trouble.

That was so not the case on Friday night as the Celtics opened with a strong run and never let up in easily defeating the Suns 117-103.

Boston led by as many as 25 points, only to see that lead nearly cut in half following a 3-pointer by Sonny Weems that made it a 100-87 game with 8:58 to play which was more than enough time for a Suns’ comeback.

Aware of this, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens called a time-out looking to get his team re-focused on closing out the game.

It worked.

The Celtics soon built their lead back to 20 points following a Jonas Jerebko basket that made it 110-90.

There was still lots of time left in the game, but it was clear that the Celtics were determined not to blow this lead.

Boston (21-19) has now won back-to-back games after having lost their previous four.

While the Suns won’t qualify by anyone’s definition as a quality win, any victory at this point in the season has great value for the Celtics who are among the clustered teams in the East fighting to establish playoff position.

The Celtics came into Friday’s game with a win over Indiana on Wednesday, a game in which Boston closed out the game with a 12-0 run.

Boston picked up where they left off with a 6-0 spurt to start Friday’s game.

The Celtics would eventually pull ahead by as many as 11 points in the first quarter as the Suns looked very much like a team that came in having lost 11 of their 12 previous games.

A number of Celtics had solid performances in the first half including Avery Bradley who hasn’t been quite himself since suffering a hip injury that sidelined him for three games.

The 6-foot-2 guard came into tonight’s game having missed his last 18 3-point attempts, in addition to scoring below his 14.4 points per game average in 10 of the Celtics’ previous 11 games. Bradley drained his first 3-point attempt and finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists.

Boston's Marcus Smart finished with his first career triple-double, tallying 10 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Smart's rebound and assists numbers were both career highs.

We saw more of the same from the Celtics in the second quarter, even as Phoenix made a run that cut Boston’s lead to 46-42 with 6:25 to play in the first half.

Following a Celtics time-out, Boston scored six straight to push its lead back to double figures which led to the Suns calling a time-out with 4:22 to play in the half.

The time-out seemed to do more to fire up the Celtics as they went on a 16-5 run to end the quarter and establish a firm grip on the game.

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Why can't we do this every night? I'm serious...why can't we do this every night? I'm not talking about the pnrs, some teams are better at defending them than others, I'm talking about hitting open jump shots. That's all. Hit your open ones just like you do in practice.

7 Celtics in double-digits. Why can't we do that all the time?

Not that there wasn't some ugliness too. Jonas missed a 3pt fga so badly it almost missed the rest of the building. There were at least two if not three passes, definitely one from Thomas and another from Smart, that went directly to a Sun.

One of the beautiful plays in the 1st quarter, when we looked smooth as silk, went: Bradley comes over the top for a quick handoff and back to IT, then cuts baseline and keeps running baseline around the weak side pick by Amir, gets the ball on the pop out curl from IT and goes into the paint with it. Amir rolls after Bradley clears him for a pnr. It was gorgeous. It's winning basketball. They tried it again and Amir couldn't roll because his man stuck with him but Bradley blew the shot. Nevertheless, that's winning basketball and we should keep running it until they figure out how to stop it.

The Phoenix Suns announcers included former womens pro basketball great, Olympian Ann Meyers. She really knows her stuff.


1. Brad started Sully, after a good game by him and a mediocre one by Kelly, and as expected they are making Brad consider flipflopping again. Sully had a general underwhelming game. 10 points on 4-8 is ok, his 10 rebounds were also ok but a lot of them were on the easier side as Phoenix peeled back on defense rather than attacking the offensive glass. They had 9 offensive boards but a lot of them were running down strange caroms and not by just outworking us underneath (although there were one or two of those). Is it just me, or does Sully look like he has put the weight back on again? Kelly, on the other hand, came off the bench and went on to be the Celtics' high scorer with 21 on 8-16 and 4-6 from 3. He also added 9 boards, 3 of them offensive, so he was right there behind Sully in boarding, which is unusual to say the least. Kelly even played good defense. 6'6" Sonny Weems got Kelly alone out on top and tried to drive down the left side of the lane past him and Kelly stayed with him and forced a bad shot. His hep defense was good even if his man-to-man was still a little soft. You don't have to worry about Jon Leuer and Mirza Teletovic posting you up, Kelly, but you do have to get right up on their shooting hand when they are outside and that has to be done absolutely, positively immediately with The Man With The Golden Arm Teletovic. Kelly was "on" last night. He had a stretch where he had 11 Celtic points in a row. He got a Tommy Point for diving to the floor and getting the ball a Celtic, he then hit two consecutive 3s, the 2nd one from about 28'. Then, running the fast break, he gets the ball, does a change of pace to let the defense fly by and hits the layup. An airball by someone falls into Kelly's hands because he's doing his usual lurking around the offensive rebounds and he puts it in and the Suns announcer said "There he is again! He can do no wrong!". In addition the the Tommy Point steal he had two more for a total of 3. Now, Brad will start Kelly and have Sully come off the bench and Kelly will suck and Sully will soar. Go figure.

2. Amir had a very solid game last night and didn't even play heavy minutes. 13 points in 19 minutes. He was the master of the pnr last night with him and Thomas having a nice chemistry going on from early on. No flash. None. Just solid. Except for his fritos. He sucks at fritos.

3. Jae with another great game. I've been watching him in green for a little over a year now and it still kinda blows my mind that he was considered a throw-in with the Rondo deal. He is the deal. He went from being just a defensive bulldog to being a pretty good offensive player. His shooting motion has become very smooth, no hitch in it anymore like he had last year. He completely outplayed the sulky Morris twin who was 2-10 last night. If you're going to pout, Markieff, you better deliver too.

4. Tyson Chandler went from being DPOY to being a stiff. In an era where the league is moving away from massive, monolithic centers Tyson Chandler is one of the last of the dinosaurs, looking around wondering where everybody went. Alex Len, the 7'1, 260# #5 pick out of Maryland, didn't play last night due to a hand injury but he's only averaging 18ppg this season. Brontosauruses are out, tall velociraptors with wingspans like pterodactyls are in.

5. The only Suns who gave me any agita at all was Mirza Teletovic and Sonny Weems. Teletovic was an unconscious 3pt assassin last night at 4-7. I remember reading somewhere that Danny wanted Teletovic from Billy King in the Pierce/KG trade instead of Hump but King actually demonstrated he wasn't a total brain-wipe by holding out and saying no to Danny. He then proved that was just a momentary surfacing to sanity, like a sperm whale blowing out his blowhole before re-submerging down to the lower depths, by withdrawing a $4.21M qualifying contract to him and letting him walk for nothing to the Suns as a free agent. Weems looks like a smooth wing. Is he better than Turner? He sure as shit was last night. Turner with another no-show, 25 minutes of nothing.

6. Jonas with 7 points and 2-3 from 3. I was so rooting for him to hit another 3 so he could be our 8th player in double-digits. He plays his ass off, all the time, he just has that shooting slump that makes him look awful. His season 3pt fg% is 43.6%, so it's not ALL bad, and he shot 66.7% from 3 in his last 5 games. His problem is that he has 2 one-year contracts at $5M/year with the second year being Danny's option and I'm not sure he's worth $5M. $2-3M? Yes. $5M? Hmmm. Maybe with the cap going through the roof.

7. Smart with his first career triple-double. I have to mention, of course, his two blown bunnies at the rim. He also had 2 steals and 2 blocks. His 11 assists were offset by only 3 TOs and that's pretty damn good. Can we afford a player who shoots 4-12 taking shots? He's shooting 31% on the year and 21% from 3 so 4-12, as bad as that is, raises his average. Yuck. His shot has too much arm and is too quick. It's like he can't wait to get it out of his hands. Ok, I'll try to stop harping on this, but it's the reason why he misses at the rim too. He isn't guiding the ball into the basket, he's almost shotputting it and he loses a lot of touch like that.

8. Stat Roundup: 44% vs 39%, 47% vs 37% from 3, 56 rebounds vs 45, 12 steals vs 9, 12 TOs vs 14, 44 paint points vs 28, 10 fast break points vs 8. We beat them pretty much across the board in every area EXCEPT fritos. We shot an atrocious 65.5%. Crowder and Thomas got the job done but Amir at 1-3 plus a sprinkling of 50% shooting by others dragged the average down to BELOW 2 out of 3. Of all the things that happened, or didn't happen, this game this aspect was NON-winning basketball. Winning basketball teams hit their fritos, as we saw with the Knicks and others the last week or two. It is sick, though, that our 3pt fg% was higher than our overall fg%.


Brooklyn lost, just to make this even sweeter. However, there is talk that as soon as Prokhorov finds a replacement for King they will be looking to hire Thibs and that is NOT good for us.

Our goal this season was to get to the 5th or maybe even 4th playoff spot. We are just 2 games out from 4th. The EC this year is tougher.


bob



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