Post Game Away Celtics beat Pelicans 124-107

NEW ORLEANS -- Anthony Davis had just trimmed New Orleans' deficit to a seemingly surmountable seven points when Boston's Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum combined to quickly squash any notion of a comeback.

Irving closed out a 26-point, 10-assist performance with a 3-pointer and a tough baseline fade over Davis, and the Celtics pulled away late for a 124-107 victory over the Pelicans on Monday night.

Tatum, who scored 20, threw down a right-handed dunk while being fouled by Davis with 2:26 left, at which point Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry began subbing out starters and fans started filing out, resigned to just New Orleans' second loss in 10 home games this season.

"It's closing time at that point," Irving said. "We knew that we had the game in control just based upon our defensive schemes that we had out there.

"At winning time like that, I have the confidence in my teammates and confidence in my coaching staff to make the right plays and seek out the mismatches that we want," Irving added.

Davis finished with 27 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks, Nikola Mirotic hit six 3s as part of his 25 points, and Julius Randle added 15 points from the bench, but that wasn't enough to end what is now a four-game losing streak for New Orleans.

Al Horford scored 20 points, and Marcus Morris had 19 points and 11 rebounds for Boston, which punished the Pelicans for their 22 turnovers, converting them into 32 points.

"That's how we're used to playing. That's the team we know," Boston guard Marcus Smart said. "We had different guys diving on the floor and doing multiple things on the defensive end."

Irving had five steals, while Tatum and Horford each had three.

"We knew most of their plays and contested and used our length to our advantage," Irving said. "When we're playing at that type of level, then we're tough to beat, because offensively it'll take care of itself. ... It felt good tonight to win like that because that's who we are."

The Celtics put up 39 3s, hitting 19, a statistic that Gentry thought was as telling as his team's turnovers.

"It started with turnovers, but we gave up too many uncontested 3s," Gentry said. "This team is a great 3-point shooting team anyway, so their bigs can shoot them, their perimeter guys can shoot them, and every time we got it within a workable distance, it was either a turnover or they made a 3."

TIP-INS

Celtics: Terry Rozier scored 14 points. He also was assessed a technical foul in the second quarter after he tossed the ball away during a stoppage. ... Boston outscored New Orleans 42-34 in the paint. ... The Celtics improved to 6-7 on the road.

Pelicans: Jrue Holiday scored 13 points but also finished with eight turnovers. ... Forward Solomon Hill saw action for the first time since Nov. 1. He saw no playing time in 12 straight games before his 20 minutes against Boston. He had four rebounds, two points and an assist. ... New Orleans was 27 of 29 on three throws, but went 12 of 32 from 3.

SETTING THE TONE

New Orleans trailed nearly the entire game, falling behind early because of eight first-quarter turnovers that led to 11 Celtics points. Holiday, playing point guard instead of shooting guard while Elfrid Payton sits out with a broken finger, turned ball over five times in the opening period.


The Celtics opened up their largest lead with an 11-0 run that began with three straight three-point possessions: Irving's floater in the lane as he was fouled, Irving's 3-pointer and Tatum's driving layup while being fouled.

Rozier's layup capped the burst and made it 80-60 midway through the third quarter.

Soon after, Randle's free throws and Darius Miller's 3 ignited an 11-2 Pelicans run to close the period, trimming Boston's lead to 10 heading to the fourth.

Davis scored five straight points on a short fade as he was fouled and a pair of free throws to cut it to 93-87 with nearly nine minutes to play.

But Boston never let it get closer than that.

UP NEXT

Celtics host Cleveland on Friday night.

This was a much needed victory on the road against a team that had won their previous 5 home games.  

The tone for this game was set in the 1st quarter with Al Horford looking a few years younger.  Marcus Smart harassed anybody and everybody all night long.

The Celtics won going away against the #1 offensive team in the NBA.  They were able to do this by putting up 97 FGA while holding NOLA to 77 FGA.  NOLA did not help themselves in committing 22 turnovers.  The Celtics were a bit sloppy as well with 15 turnovers.

The Celtics won all of the important battles including PITP 42-34.  We saw a great mix of cuts, give and goes as well as P N R to free guys up for layups and we had a few individual plays in getting to the rim.  It was really good basketball.  The Celtics shot 39 times from behind the arc.  That is more than a ton of 3 point shots but they made 19.  I thought the overall offensive flow was good because they scored in a variety of ways.  Boston was pretty even on the glass 47-48  and killed them with steals 14-8.

We saw two double double performances from our guys with Morris scoring 19 with 11 rebounds and kyrie Irving dropping 26 with 10 assists to go along with 5 rebounds and 5 steals, his only blemish,  6 turnovers.

Tatum has more moves than Allied Vans.  He was playing at his own pace.  He reads what the defense is trying to do and counters with what he wants to do.  He threw it down on a nice slip screen and also on a curl around a screen both starting from the far left side of the court.  It was beautiful.  

But I am giving the game ball to Marcus Smart because his presence on the court in 40 minutes of action guaranteed that Boston would play tough all night.  

Anthony Davis had a great stat line scoring 27 points with 16 rebounds and 5 assists,  Throw in his 3 steals and 3 blocks minus his 5 turnovers and it is easy to see why he is the next prize for any team that can manage to acquire him.

If Boston wants to get in the bidding war it will be difficult.  The Celtics cannot afford Irving, Hayward, Horford and Davis.  You can forget about them wanting or needing Kyrie because Holiday is still owed around $80 million after this year.  They probably do not want Horford or Hayward either.  

But Danny may see it differently.  All has just one year left so maybe the Celtics take a big tax hit for a year.

One thing is for certain.  As good as Davis is, he is not good enough unless he has 2 other allstar type players.

A pretty good game.  I would have preferred that we didn't let them cut a 20 point lead down to 6 but it also showed us there's some fire still in these Celtics that they pushed back from that and won going away by 17.

The offense looks better with Smart starting than Jaylen and our defense doesn't look much worse.  There, I've said it.  Smart has been hitting his shots (I hope I didn't just jinx him), 42.4% over the last 5 games and 45% from 3.  42.5% doesn't sound like much, although we all know that's pretty good for Smart, but it's better than the 39.8% Brown has been shooting this season.  I have NO idea what is going on with Jaylen, but he has regressed.

Our starters finally started playing up to their expectations.  After 3 Tatum had 12 points on 4-11, Horford had 14 on 6-10 and Irving had 16 on 6-15.  They ended up with Tatum having 20 points on 7-14 (3-3, 8 point 4th), Horford with 20 on 8-14 (2-4, 6 point 4th) and Irving with 26 on 10-22 (4-7, 10 point 4th).  There's 24 points out of 35 from 3 of our starters.  Morris chipped in 4 too.  That's bearing down.  

Hayward only played 23 minutes, 7 minutes in the 4th.  A mediocre game by him.

Williams came in and did just about everything well.  Yeah, it was garbage time, but it was good.  Just 2 minutes, but 2 rebounds and 2 points.  Compare that to Yabusele who played 2 minutes and got eaten alive by Julius Randle.  2 quick fouls and the hook for Yabby.  I don't understand why Randle hasn't added a simple mid-range jumpshot to his game in the past 4-5 years.  Surely he must know that's what is holding him back, maybe the only thing holding him back?  He always plays well against us.  15 minutes in 21 minutes last night, but 9-10 from the line (4 of those courtesy of Yabu).

Rozier with a good, solid all-round game. FINALLY!! Feel good, Terry, this was a good one.

Mirotic can't do much besides hit 3s, but he sure can do that.  His release is as quick as Korver's.  His shooting brought them back.

Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid are the best bigs in the game, with my lean going towards Davis.  He had 14 points in the 4th on 4-6 and 6-7 from the line.  Some of that was the refs protecting him but a lot of it was just Davis being stronger and more skilled than everybody else.  I can see why the rumors are swirling.  He is clearly the best player on that team, by far.  As goes Anthony Davis so goes the Pelicans and no team built like that will go far, I don't care how good Davis is.  LeBron couldn't do it by himself in Cleveland the first time around and Irving couldn't do it by himself when he was there and LeBron was in Miami.  I just hope Pels management doesn't get happy feet before this summer, when we have a shot.

Only 77 fgas for the Pelicans, and 22 TOs.  At least some of that is our defense.  Jrue Holiday with 8 TOs.  We had 13 TOs, not bad, and that's despite Kyrie having 6.  It's sometimes up to the stat keeper to decide whether something is a turnover or a steal (assuming the ball stays in bounds).  So 22 TOs by the Pels and 14 steals by the Celtics = a lot of opportunities for us.  In fact, we had 97 fgas.  I love that up tempo game.  We played it right from the start.  18 fast break points.  What's not to love about quick, easy points?  When we ran, or at least pushed the ball up court, we looked really good.  There was one possession where the ball was at the rim in 2 passes and maybe 3-4 seconds off the clock.  The final pass was too long, but that's what we need to see.  Look up court and pass it up court.  Tatum also needs to give up the ball on the break and run, in my opinion.  He likes to go coast-to-coast too much.  Give the ball to a guard, give it to Kyrie or Smart or Rozier, and then run.  You'll get it back, kid, you'll get it back.

A long break, until Friday, for the Celtics.  Then it's Cleveland @ home.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401070979






bob



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Smart had a great match up going against Holiday, against not elite speed guards that he can press on, he’s a load. He definitely set the tone for a strong team defensive effort. When Al plays like this we are a completely different team, Rozier also had his first good game in awhile. Kyrie was pissing me off, turning over the ball enough to let Pelicans back in the game, thankfully he made big shots later on, glad our 3 point shooting was on enough....that today’s game. Tatum had some good moments, would still like to see him play better. I don’t know why Williams isn’t getting more minutes and at least all of Yaba’s minutes, we could use his defense and rebounding, which looks a lot better than Yaba’s.

Three players score in the 20's, great to see. We actually played with a 8 man rotation with a few minutes given to a couple other players. I think this allowed our chemistry to happen. I like Smart in the starting lineup when he is not forcing shots and being the defensive player we all know about. The only thing again I don't like is we nearly got tripled in free throws attempted. Other than that looks like we played the game right with the usual mistakes every team makes over the period of a game. We play like this and I won't be worried.

Pelicans play by play guy sounds like he is on quaaludes. sooo slooooow and uninspired........

Bob

The Celtics won this game by having a great 1st QTR and a great 4th QTR.

Al Horford who has been struggling shooting the ball scored 12 of his 20 points in the first QTR. I thought his fast start was the key to getting off to a fast start in the QTR.

I do not think that Marcus in the starting lineup had anything to do with Al shooting the ball well. Marcus however does look better shooting the 3 ball but I am certainly not ready to declare that he has figured that out. Marcus was however very instrumental in this win because of his tenacity.

Coach Stevens was careful not to declare that they have found their best starting 5.

I do not think that Jaylen has regressed. I think that he has been struggling primarily with shooting the 3 ball. He is not the only one.

Certain matchup situations are quite favorable for Smart to be in the game. I think we will see several different lineups throughout the year.

Not to take any shine off of this win. It was a great road win but NOLA is not a very good team this year and last night was their 4th straight loss and they are now below .500 at 10-11 for the season.

The Celtics are 4-6 over the past 10 games. They are a long way from playing with any semblance of consistency. Last night they took a step in the right direction. Now let's see if they can continue to diversify their offense and stay engaged defensively.

This game was a carbon copy of the ATL game. 1st Quarter was most if not all inside. And guess what? We built and insurmountable lead that the opposition could not overcome. Is this going to work all the time? No. Will it work most of the time? Absolutely.

I could not believe they shot 39 3's! It really didn't seem like it. That's still probably too many but when they are going in, it's hard to shut that down.

Regardless, Brad has tipped the scales and is making the proper adjustments. The solution is somewhere between taking nothing but 3's to everything inside. The problem we have seen with taking an abundance of 3's is the opponent hangs around almost the whole game no matter how big the lead or how good our defense is. We couldn't put them away until the last half of the 4th. Finding that sweet spot balance between 3's, Inside/Outside, Mid-Range Shooting is where Brad makes his dough.

Overall it was a great game for us. Keep tinkering Brad!

db

All good comments. As far as the best big men, I would take Giannis over Joel.

definitely Giannis is better than Embiid.

A. Sherrod Blakely @ASherrodblakely
yesterday
Couple leftover stats from last night's #Celtics win over the #Pelicans ... Among regulars for the C's, top offensive rating belonged to J. Tatum (137.0), top defensive rating to K. Irving (92.5). ... #Pelicans defended by A. Baynes, 1/8 shooting including A. Davis who was 1/5.


bob



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That is very good news.

This will help to silence the folks who bang the "Kyrie doesn't play a lick of defense" drum. Or maybe not.

Percussion posters seldom see the gray areas of an argument and oftentimes round up or down to black or white to better support their argument.

gyso