POST GAME - DENVER - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum Propel Boston To Win Over Nuggets

NESN by Nicholas Goss on Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 11:20PM

It wasn’t easy, but the Boston Celtics closed their road trip with a hard-fought 111-110 win over the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center on Monday night. The C’s finished their West Coast swing at 2-2 and maintain their lead atop the Eastern Conference standings. Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum led Boston with 27 and 20 points, respectively. The Celtics improve to 36-15 with the victory, while the Nuggets fall to 26-24. Here’s how it all went down:

OUT OF THE LINEUP Marcus Smart (hand) and Shane Larkin (knee) did not play versus Denver.

STARTING FIVE PG: Kyrie Irving SG: Jaylen Brown SF: Jayson Tatum PF: Al Horford C: Aron Baynes

LONG-DISTANCE SUCCESS The Nuggets jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead, but the Celtics hit back to take a 13-12 advantage, led by two 3-pointers by Irving. Boston opened up a 24-15 edge thanks to hot shooting from beyond the arc. The C’s hit six of their first 10 3-point attempts, and the bench connected on three of their four shots from that range. Marcus Morris picked up where he left off against Golden State, scoring nine points off the bench in the first 12 minutes. The C’s got 12 bench points in the quarter, which was an encouraging sign after the second unit’s struggles in recent weeks. The Celtics finished the quarter leading 32-21 on 7-for-11 shooting from 3-point land. Morris (nine points) and Irving (eight) led Boston in scoring. Will Barton paced the Nuggets with eight points.

KEEPING THE LEAD The Celtics increased their lead early in the second quarter, and Tatum was a key reason why. The rookie forward connected on two early 3-point field goals, giving him 10 points with 8:25 left in the second quarter and forcing Denver coach Mike Malone to call a timeout. A Semi Ojeleye 3-pointer gave the C’s a 44-25 lead. With that shot, Ojeleye became the sixth Celtic to hit a 3-point shot in the first 17 minutes. The Nuggets were able to trim the Celtics lead to 11 at the end of the quarter. Irving (15 points), Morris (11) and Tatum (10) all scored in double figures for Boston. Barton led Denver with 12 points.

NUGGETS TAKE OVER The Nuggets opened the third quarter outscoring the C’s 15-10, and Celtics coach Brad Stevens was forced to take a timeout after an easy Nikola Jokic layup trimmed Boston’s lead to 66-60. Two more easy layups cut the Boston lead to two, and then a Gary Harris jump shot tied the score, fully erasing what once was a 20-point Celtics lead. Jamal Murray gave the Nuggets their first lead with a 3-pointer to make it 69-68. Irving took a hit to the knee/thigh area on the perimeter and was forced to leave the game. These teams exchanged leads several times over the last few minutes of the frame, but it was the Nuggets holding an 82-80 edge at the buzzer. Denver outscored Boston 37-24 in the quarter.

PULLING OUT A WIN Irving returned to start the final quarter, allowing C’s fans to exhale, but it was the Nuggets who opened up the stanza strong and took their largest lead at 88-82. The Celtics withstood that Nuggets run and reclaimed the lead at 92-91. A 3-pointer from Terry Rozier and a layup by Irving increased Boston’s edge to 99-93. A driving dunk by Tatum and a sweet reverse layup from Irving put the C’s up 105-102 with 2:45 to play, and shortly after that, Horford hit a 3-pointer to improve Boston’s edge to 108-102. The Nuggets got within 108-106 with 1:15 to play. Irving hit a tough shot off the backboard that was waved off for a 24-second violation, giving Denver a chance to tie or take the lead with 59 seconds to go. Murray then hit a leaning shot in the paint to tie the score at 108, capping a 6-0 Nuggets run. Brown, who had been 0-for-4 from 3-point range, hit a shot from beyond the arc to give Boston a 111-108 lead with 43 seconds to play. After the Nuggets cut the lead to one, they forced a stop and had a chance to win at the buzzer. Barton’s 30-foot heave at the buzzer was wide left, and the last-second putback was a second late, allowing Boston to escape with a one-point win.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT That’s a veteran move by the rookie Tatum. UP NEXT The Celtics return to TD Garden for a Wednesday night game against the New York Knicks at 7 p.m. ET.

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5 Celtics in double figures = balanced scoring = a win!

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Celtics had 7 guys hit at least 2 three pointers.  They said that was a record.  Looks like Daniel theis is starting to find his groove.  Looks like he was playing on the perimeter a bit more and he knocked down 3 treys.

The Celtics really needed this win and did it against a team that has been really good at home.

The Celtics almost blew this one with those turnovers late in the 4th. (shot clock violations)

dboss

The pilot of the Celtics' plane probably pushed whatever button there is to make the oxygen masks drop in the main cabin on the flight home because the Celts were gasping like fish on a dock in the 2nd half last night in Denver.  An almost epic collapse from 20 up, but we held on.  You could see our legs were going badly.  A friend of mine who likes to gamble once told me that, if you want to make money, to bet on Denver against any team, but especially against east coast teams, that are playing Denver the last game of a 4+ game road trip.  He said Denver wins those games a high percentage of the time.  Well, he would have lost money last night but it was definitely nip-and-tuck there for a while.

Kyrie is Kyrie.  I'm at the point now where he's worth talking about only if he has a bad game.  That's not fair, perhaps, but it's boring always gushing about what he does every single game.  I love The Little Guy and what he gave us, heart and body, but Kyrie is a machine and, like a machine, he is usually under control.  IT would launch himself into a bunch of bodies hoping for a foul whistle and sometimes he'd get it and sometimes he'd turn it over.  Does Kyrie make mistakes?  Sure.  Does he turn the ball over?  Last night he got his pocket picked at mid-court just because he got a little lazy with his dribble, but usually Kyrie has that ball on a string and it goes where he goes.

Tatum woke up last night with 20 points on 8-13 and 2-4 from 3.  In his previous 5 games he has been:

Orlando - 9 points on 4-11 (36.4%)
Lakers - 4 points on 1-6 (16.7%)
Clippers - 18 points on 7-16 (43.8%)
GSW - 4 points on 2-9 (22.2%)
Denver - 20 on 8-13 (61.5%)




Over the last 5 games he has been over 40% twice.  So it's really nice to see him get some rhythm out there.

Jaylen, on the other hand, was 4-11 after a great offensive game in GSW.  I can't wait until BOTH of them are playing well offensively at the same time.  Right now, though, Jaylen is as inconsistent as rookie Jayson.  I suppose that's to be accepted, he came in as a defensively-oriented player and not an offensively one, but consistency is the hallmark of a good player.  I'm not down on him, I recognize this is only his 2nd year, but his next steps up have to be in his handle (he had an angle to the hoop last night but he lost his handle and had to hold up to regain control of the ball and that opportunity was gone), his fritos (although he shot 85.7% from the line his last 5 games, 12-14.  Has the worm finally turned?  Is his head slowing down?) and his consistency.  The hardest, of course, is the consistency.

Morris does what Morris does, he scores but is a black hole when it comes to passing.  I don't know if he's happy but I really don't care.  He scored 14 points on 4-8 in 20 minutes last night and that's pretty good efficiency.  No assists, of course, but very efficient scoring.  Other than Kyrie he's our "break glass in case of emergency" scorer.

Theis didn't have many rebounds but he scored well, 3-6 from 3.  Being the smart German he is he figured out what Brad likes his bigs to do and he wants minutes, so...considering Baynes was 3-11 Theis is standing out.  Baynes, in particular, looked completely gassed in the 4th quarter last night.  Plumlee was outrunning him EASILY.  Theis will struggle down low against brutes like Jokic but against most of the mobile, long and lean new NBA centers he does well and he defends the rim very well against penetrators.




Rozier with 9 rebounds, a few of them unreal.  Also 6 assists.  All on an ankle he twisted in GSW.  


Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach

about 9 hours ago

Also, Terry Rozier, who played through a sprained ankle, said he's never missed a real game due to injury in his life. Long live Terry.
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http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975489



bob



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Bob

You pretty much touched on my thoughts as well.

Nice bounce-back game for Tatum. Simi knocked down a couple of shots. Theis seems to be becoming more and more sure of himself. The Denver announcers kept harping on his 30 % three point pct., but we need to take into account that he missed ,like 98 of his first hundred ( ok, I`m exaggerating). Morris shot selection can be frustrating , but I see him as a definite plus , overall , and Avery Bradley has had a godawful season. We were killed in the paint and on fast break points. As bobheckler pointed out, Celts were huffing and puffing down the stretch. They won the game with the long ball. Like it or not, this is a team that lives , and sometimes dies , by the triple shot, and will remain so until we get somebody besides Kyrie who can score can score at he rim consistently. Rebounding -- who needs rebounding. Celtics were crashing the boards last night, but simply were not big enough to prevail very often.

jrleftfoot wrote:Nice bounce-back game for Tatum. Simi knocked down a couple of shots. Theis seems to be becoming more and more sure of himself. The Denver announcers kept harping on his 30 % three point pct., but we need to take into account that he missed ,like 98 of his first hundred ( ok, I`m exaggerating). Morris shot selection can be frustrating , but I see him as a definite plus , overall , and Avery Bradley has had a godawful season. We were killed in the paint and on fast break points. As bobheckler pointed out, Celts were huffing and puffing down the stretch. They won the game with the long ball. Like it or not, this is a team that lives , and sometimes dies , by the triple shot, and will remain so until we get somebody besides Kyrie who can score can score at he rim consistently. Rebounding -- who needs rebounding. Celtics were crashing the boards last night, but simply were not big enough to prevail very often.

JR,

Yeah, they really were living off of stats.  I suppose that's to be expected for announcers who only see the Celtis 2x/year.

FWIW, Theis is shooting 32.6% from 3 on the season but 54.5% from 3 over the last 5 games, so their statistician needs to show up for work and not force them to use old stats.  He's really settling in nicely into the NBA speed and into Brad's system.  Coaches love consistency.  They like to know that if they put a player in at a specific time he's going to give them what they expect the players to deliver.  When they don't, and we've seen this with Brad, the coaches start throwing darts and hope they can find one that hits the target.  I think we're going to see more of what we have been seeing the past month or so and that is Baynes starting, Morris coming off the bench for firepower, and Theis getting more minutes than Baynes (unless Baynes has one of his really good games).  Over the past 5 games Theis has gotten 16.6mpg and Baynes 14.7mpg but Theis outplayed Baynes in all of them, IMO.


bob


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I agree on all points, Bob. Theis shot the 3 pretty well in Germany and is establishing himself as a shooter here. Baynes has that little 15 footer facing the basket, but misses all too often at the rim. I don`t know if it`s a lack of coordination or what, but gather yourself and throw it down , big fella!