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Celtics Wrap: Boston Cruises To Dominant 119-103 Victory Vs. Hornets

NESN by Joshua Schrock on Sun, Dec 23, 2018 at 8:14PM


If the Boston Celtics held a team meeting after Sunday night’s game against the Charlotte Hornets, its only purpose would be to slap each other on the back.

Two days after the Celtics aired their grievances after a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston came out and ran the Charlotte Hornets off the floor with a 119-103 win at TD Garden.

The Celtics held a slim advantage after the first quarter, but Boston exploded for 39 points in the second to take a 21-point halftime lead and they never looked back.

Kyrie Irving had it cooking early, scoring 14 first-quarter points en route to a 25-point night. Jayson Tatum (17), Marcus Morris (12), Al Horford (10) and Daniel Theis (10) also scored in double figures.

With the win, the Celtics improve to 19-13, while the Hornets fall to 16-16.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE:
PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Marcus Smart
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Marcus Morris
C: Al Horford

BATTLE OF THE STARS
The Celtics came out of the gates firing, opening the game on a 9-0 run that was fueled by seven points from Irving.

Charlotte didn’t fold early, though, as the Hornets responded with an 18-9 burst to tie the game midway through the first stanza. Irving fired right back with five quick points to push the Celtics ahead, but Kemba Walker answered the spurt with a 5-0 run of his own to even the score at 23 with under three to play.

Boston closed the period on a 6-3 run to take a 29-26 lead after one.

Irving led the Celtics with 17, while Walker paced the Hornets with 14.

BOSTON BURTS
Boston opened the second with a flurry, putting together an 11-2 run to take a 40-28 edge with nine minutes to play.

Charlotte tried to claw its way back, with a Tony Parker layup cutting the lead to eight a few minutes later, but Morris answered with a quick 5-0 spurt, and then Terry Rozier found Horford for a dunk to push the lead to 15 and force Charlotte to take a timeout.

The stoppage of play didn’t do much for Charlotte, as the Celtics continued to get whatever they wanted on offense for the remainder of the quarter, with an Irving 3-pointer pushing the lead to 22 with two minutes remaining in the half.

The Celtics outscored the Hornets 39-21 in the period and led 68-47 at halftime.

Irving had a monster half, tallying 23 points, while Morris added 10 for the C’s. Walker led Charlotte with 18.

TOTAL CONTROL
After taking over in the second quarter, the C’s continued to assert their will in the third.

Boston opened the frame on a 12-6 run to grow the lead to 27 and the C’s lead hovered between 25 and 30 for the remainder of the quarter. The Hornets were unable to get much going offensively and Irving, Tatum and the C’s offense picked their defense apart.

The Celtics outscored Charlotte 26-20 in the third and led 94-67 after three.

Irving led all scorers with 25 through three quarters. Tatum (17), Morris (12) and Horford (10) also were in double figures for Boston.

GARBAGE TIME
Both teams emptied their benches to begin the fourth quarter as the Celtics had the game firmly in hand.

Time Lord did his thing in the final frame.

The Hornets bench won the quarter 36-25 to make the final score more respectble.

PLAY OF THE GAME
Go up and get it, G!

UP NEXT
The Celtics will take the floor again Tuesday when they host the Philadelphia 76ers for a Christmas Day bout. Tip-off from TD Garden is set for 5:30 p.m. ET.

112288

Celts moved the ball well on offense and stayed in front of their man on defense. The rotations were crisp and automatic.

We won by 16 and the game wasn't that close, their garbage time team is just better than our garbage time team.

Unlike the Milwaukee game this game started out as a battle between stars and ours didn't disappoint, theirs did.  Oh, and that we had two of our starters back.  Oh yeah, don't want to forget about that.  Horford is pure glue.  Everything on both ends of the court just looked more coherent with him.  Morris going inside and out.  Turns out we're not that bad a team when we are even close to being healthy.  The lug nuts are still secure, the wheels aren't going anywhere quite yet.

Rozier was 3-10 but he had 6 boards, 6 assists, a turnover and a steal.  Still not shooting well, but he did other things quite well and that's good enough.

Jaylen came on the court in the 1st quarter like a house on fire.  He had 2 steals in his first 5 minutes of play and had his 3rd steal in his 7th.  He also had 3 fouls.  A little too aggressive, but I will take that from Jaylen Brown on the defensive end all day.  Offensively he was 3-9.  So, offensively, Jaylen and Rozier were a combined 6-19.  I honestly do not understand what the Hell happened to them on that end.  We know they can score, this isn't a question of them developing their game to be able to score.

Theis with a nice game but Willie Hernangomez with a nicer one.  People were talking about him on the "what do we do about our 5-spot" thread.  I don't know what MJ would want for him, but I like him.  Very earthbound, but crafty.  He's only 24.  I'd also be open to Thon Maker but mostly I'd rather just wait until we're healthy again.

We always like to complain about how many 3s we take and how we're too 3-centric.  Well, 39 of our 86 fgas were 3s (45%).  That is a HUGE percentage.  Furthermore, we only shot 33% on them.  Rozier and Brown were a combined 0-8 from 3 by themselves.  Not good, right?  Only if you don't take the next step and think about what that says about our 2-point shooting.  We shot 30-47 from 2 (64%) from 2.  That's very good.  Also, our starters shot 11-22, 50%, from 3.  It was our bench that went 2-16.

This was the worst I've seen Williams play.  Normally, if there's penetration, he rotates over and picks up the ball very effectively.  This time he didn't.  And down low Hernangomez used a variety of moves that froze Williams.  Just one game and all, not making a big deal about it, just mentioning it.

Garbage time was sloppy, a lot of running down the court and chucking it up, but our energy level and execution for the part of the game that the top 8-9 players were in were quite good. Very satisfied with that. Bodies were flying around as we played inspired defense at times.

After the game Kyrie and Jayson were doing a joint interview, well, mostly Kyrie.  Jayson was just standing there with his arm draped over Kyrie's shoulders.  A big show of camaraderie.  Towards the end of the interview Morris sneaked up behind Tatum and photo-bombed the interview by rubbing Tatum's head.  The interview continued and, at the end, Kyrie made like he was going to rub Tatum's head too.  Did this come out of those two team meetings?  I'm specifically talking about rubbing Tatum's head.  I remember, back when I was young, rubbing someone's head was a good-luck charm. Is that the veterans' way of telling Tatum as he goes so goes the team?

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071169






bob


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Good to see Bob, Tatum and Kyrie have the Duke connection, don’t see Kyrie going anywhere, he wants to play with his younger brother....

Been wondering why more aren’t on Rozier like some are on Jaylen, I’ve noticed Jaylen has been getting more steals lately, as they get their games together and learn to play together better, Rozier Jaylen and GH are going to make/lead an awesome swarming force off the bench. Good to see a beat down, ball movement was crisp all night, defense looked good.

Here is the game flow:



Charlotte is not that good of a team. I'm just glad that we did not play down to their level.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Good to see Bob, Tatum and Kyrie have the Duke connection, don’t see Kyrie going anywhere, he wants to play with his younger brother....

Been wondering why more aren’t on Rozier like some are on Jaylen, I’ve noticed Jaylen has been getting more steals lately, as they get their games together and learn to play together better, Rozier Jaylen and GH are going to make/lead an awesome swarming force off the bench. Good to see a beat down, ball movement was crisp all night, defense looked good.

Rozier has been playing down to his minutes. He best turn it on soon, or he may cost himself some money next year.

kdp59 wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Good to see Bob, Tatum and Kyrie have the Duke connection, don’t see Kyrie going anywhere, he wants to play with his younger brother....

Been wondering why more aren’t on Rozier like some are on Jaylen, I’ve noticed Jaylen has been getting more steals lately, as they get their games together and learn to play together better, Rozier Jaylen and GH are going to make/lead an awesome swarming force off the bench. Good to see a beat down, ball movement was crisp all night, defense looked good.

Rozier has been playing down to his minutes. He best turn it on soon, or he may cost himself some money next year.

kdp,

"May"? He wants to be a starter. The way things have gone this season he'd be the lowest paid starter in the league because nobody is going to pay him big bucks for this shit.


bob


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