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IND 108, BOS 135 Final

Celtics Wrap: Boston Blows Out Pacers, Extends Win Streak To Four

NESN by Adam London on Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 9:20PM

BOSTON — The Indiana Pacers have been a thorn in the Boston Celtics’ side over the past few seasons, but that narrative was nowhere to be found Wednesday night.

The Celtics notched a convincing win in the battle among Eastern Conference powerhouses, steamrolling the Pacers 135-108 at TD Garden.

It was another well-rounded effort for the C’s. Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris led the way with 22 points apiece, serving as just two of seven Celtics to score in double figures. Domantas Sabonis (20 points) and Victor Oladipo (17 points) led the way for Indiana.

With the win, the Celtics improved to 25-15, while the Pacers fell to 27-14.

Here’s how it all went down:

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

JUMP-START JAYSON
It’s safe to say Jayson Tatum was geared up for this one. The second-year pro scored the first two baskets of the contest en route to a game-high 11 first-quarter points as Boston grabbed a 29-23 lead after one.

It appeared the Celtics were going to put the Pacers in an early hole, but a cold shooting spell throughout the back end of the first quarter kept the game close. After knocking down eight of their first 10 shots, the Celtics only connected on three of their last 14. Oladipo was the high man for the Pacers with six points courtesy of two 3-pointers.

BENCH BOOST
The Pacers came out strong in the second and managed to knot the score at 35-35 with just under nine minutes remaining in the quarter. But it was all Celtics from there, as the green employed a red-hot offense to close the half on a 33-18 run and take a 68-53 lead into the break.

It wasn’t just Boston’s starters getting it done, though. Brown served as a catalyst with 11 second-quarter points, while Daniel Theis provided five. The Celtics’ bench combined to score 19 of the team’s 39 points in the frame. Morris led the way for the starting five with seven points in the quarter, which saw Boston shoot 68 percent from the field.

SEPARATION
For a moment, it seemed as though third-quarter struggles were going to plague the Celtics yet again. After an Irving jumper boosted Boston’s lead to 20 at the 8:15 mark, Indiana chipped away and cut the deficit to just 13 at 5:31. But the C’s didn’t let the visitors completely steal the momentum, as they knocked down seven of their final 10 shots in the third along with eight made free throws to take a 105-80 lead into the final frame.

It was a spread-out attack for the C’s, as six players scored five points or more in the third. Morris led the way with 10, while Terry Rozier provided six after being held scoreless in the first two quarters. Oladipo responded to his quiet first half with 11 third-quarter points, while Sabonis added eight.

CRUISE CONTROL
The Celtics didn’t let the Pacers flirt with a comeback in this one. Boston kept its offense rolling right out of the gate in the fourth quarter, including nine combined points from Rozier and Hayward in the first three and a half minutes of the frame. With this one all but wrapped up, head coach Brad Stevens elected to empty his bench at the midway point of the quarter.

PLAY OF THE GAME
Terry got ’em all.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will play the second leg of their back-to-back Thursday night against the Miami Heat. Tip-off from AmericanAirlines Arena is set for 7 p.m. ET.

112288

We know the schedule has been favorable over past few weeks, but you can only play the teams in front of you - and the teams in front of the Celtics lately have been getting annihilated.

The Boston Celtics are a very scary team right now - the rest of the NBA wants no part of this rising tide.

PATIENCE.

mrkleen09 wrote:We know the schedule has been favorable over past few weeks, but you can only play the teams in front of you - and the teams in front of the Celtics lately have been getting annihilated.  

The Boston Celtics are a very scary team right now - the rest of the NBA wants no part of this rising tide.  

PATIENCE.

+1

Celts have 2nd best point differential in the entire NBA, trailing only the Bucks...

The C's are going to have to beat a few more good teams,  and some good teams on the road before they start striking fear in the hearts of other teams.  This game was a good one for us.  Blow out made it great.  If we don't take care of business tomorrow against the Heat it will be all for naught.  

We have to keep this train rolling if we are to make up any ground.  The C's are 7-3 the last ten games and they have not picked up a game on any of the leaders in the East.   Lost one game in the standings to the Bucks I think.   Its going to be a tough road but we need to keep taking care of the teams that we are suppose to beat at home and the road.   This was a good start.

You just picked up a game on the Pacers AND Sixers tonight and blew out one of the hottest teams in the NBA (Pacers had won 7 of their last 8 games)

You had your highest scoring game of the season, swept the 4 game homestand and trailed for 4 minutes during those 4 games. AND they are moving the ball and playing great defense.

 

Where was Oladipo last night? I didn't get to look in until near the end of the 3rd quarter (so missed his outburst before that),but he looked unstoppable the last time they played.

TheHat

Our bench scored 70+. What other NBA team can do that?

Nice win last night.

Taking nothing away from the teams effort, Indiana just isn't the same without Turner. It just points out the importance of the front-court and a bona-fide center to fill that big man role.

As strong as The Celtics have been lately, it makes me think that the addition of a big or two that can board and play D would equal banner 18. If Williams continues to develop and gets minutes, it may be just one more healthy young big could put Boston over the top. Now, and for the foreseeable future.

Hi,
I think this game was a statement. It should be put on signature wins list for this year.
I just hope it's not a fluke - rule, not exception.

AK

All the accolades of course.  Morris is the quietest 22 point scorer ever!  Maybe it is his timely 3-points.  Noticed he was 7-7 from the line.  Nice.  

JB continues to accelerate.  Just keep driving to the hole.  Period.  Don't take any threes.  You'll get all the And 1's you can stand.

This was a night Kyrie wasn't needed really.  Still showed up, though.    

I know I will probably get blasted for this but GH stroke looks almost if not as smooth as Ray Allen's.  I know Ray was a hired assassin for 3-ville, but all of GH's moves are intended and effortless.  He's all one motion out there.  Can't put my finger on it but he is fun to watch.  The team messing with his hair is hilarious as well!

Nice, tight 3-point performance last night.  14-32.  That's plenty.  And more than accurate.    

We got some help last night from an unexpected source...Washington.  I refreshed my ESPN standings page thoroughly expecting to see what I have come to expect over the last month or so and that is us in 5th place alone.  We were still there but I was quite surprised to see PHI has the same number of losses as we did!  Couldn't believe it.  I didn't even record the PHI v. WAS game because I gave it to PHI.  

This game for the C's was clearly a statement game, hopefully opening the eyes of the rest of the league, the media, for some of us and all the critics.  This starting line up is formidable and starting to click on all cylinders.  This bench is ridiculous...70 points?!! I say, Come on, Man!!

Tardust makes the ever so subtle point though.  If we go lay an egg in MIA tonight, we'll never get out of 5th place.  EVER.  Just won't happen.  We've gotten help like this before this season and each time we've given the loss right back the very next game.  

I don't want to hear the Celtics left it all out on the court last night vs. IND, playoff game atmosphere, late flight to MIA, B2B blues, etc. except from JB maybe as he played 29 minutes but I think he can go 100 minutes if he needed to to get him back to the starting 5.  

MIA is a playoff team we're playing at their house.  Another blowout would be nice but I'll take a well fought win at this point.  Just don't hand the loss right back to IND and PHI.

Last night, BOS told IND they better get some help.  The told the rest of the league we're engaged now and beginning to gel very nicely.

I'm starting to get my $200 worth.  I'll just leave it at that!

db

We didn't get the cherry on top, Miles Turner didn't play because of a sore shoulder, but I still can't see him being worth 27 points, and that's 27 points after their garbage time team put on a mini-run against our garbage time team.  Starters and rotation players vs starters and rotation players?  We whupped them solidly.  It was 30 when they checked out.  A signature win, in my opinion, by virtue of it's lopsidedness and a significant win too because we just looked so damn good.  We now have the #2 MOV in the NBA behind Milwaukee, a very healthy +7.1, the #10 offense and the #3 defense, and we've just recently started to find our groove.  If we keep playing like this by the time the season is over we'll be in the top 5 on both offense and defense.

Indy has the #2 defense, behind Memphis and ahead of Boston.  They looked like Swiss cheese last night.  If Miles Turner, who admittedly leads the league in blocks, is the difference between Indy giving up only 103.1ppg and 135 then forget about The Beard or The Greek Freak, the MVP is Miles Turner.  We shot 56.8%, 50-88, and 43% from 3.  32 assists on 50fgm.  Both of those numbers are excellent.  We have really been moving the ball exceptionally well since the Milwaukee loss, and we've been winning.

7 blocks for us vs 0 for them.  Turner is worth 2.78/game, so we still whomped them there.  6 of them came from our bench, so we should take some caution into putting much weight into those numbers.  Williams stopped time twice and Yabby once but they were playing against marginal players.  Theis' 2 blocks, however, were against prime time players.  Theis has been playing very well lately.  12 points on 4-7, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks in 18 minutes.  He has also been very good at tap outs of rebounds, which either give us another possession or, at least, screws up their pace in transition.  Can't run if you don't have the ball because we're keeping it alive.

Indy is 3rd best in the paint in fewest opponent points in the paint at 43/game.  We scored 56 in the paint last night.  We're 5th best (think about that for a second.  Despite some people's moaning about how we don't have a Davis or Embiid or even Drummond we're still 5th in the league in fewest opponent's points in the paint, and Baynes has been out for how many weeks?), giving up 44.5 points in the paint per game and last night we gave up 40.  This is where Miles Turner would have made a difference but, still, we did quite well and at #5 we ARE doing quite well for the season.

This was our 4th straight game with more than 30 assists.  We had 27 vs Spurs, which is still pretty good, but 30 X 4?  We are on a big-time roll.  Having our guys watch Pop's team move the ball on them might have been worth the loss.  We are 6th in the league in assists/game with 26.3.  #1 is GSW at 28.3, so our >30/game rate for the last 4 games is awesome.

Chris Forsberg
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Celtics offense first 20 games:

Based on current win percentage Celts could win 51 games. This was a very good game against a good team.

Top 5 in East all good teams.

In the NBA it is actually a good thing to fly into Miami late on a B2B. Why? Because often the lure of South Beach partying is so great that players get drunk/high and party until the wee hours when they get to Miami early and then play poorly at game time.

Glad Danny signed a tall, big man. We really needed one. Too bad RJ Hunter is 100 lbs. too light!

On the Markelle front, I personally had a really bad case of thoracic outlet syndrome recently, much worse than Markelle's. Two chiropractic adjustments, and it is 95% better... I used to work with an osteopath who cured it with just a few adjustments. I have zero idea what the Philly medical staff is doing. One thing is for sure...Fultz needs a better psychiatrist.

Final note. I watched a Celts trainer stretching Horford's left hamstring last night. He held it in an upright stretched position for about 30 seconds. That is SO counterproductive. My own personal trainer Terry Simes usues Active Isolated Stretching and has trained 20+ Olympic gold medal winning track stars plus Charley Ward and Patrick Ewing while they were on the Knicks. Now that my son sponsors the Red Claws, I am going to try to get him to schedule a workshop with Terry for the Red Claws trainers. Maybe we can trickle up some knowledge. NBA trainees are VERY protective of their turf, so this may be difficult to arrange, but I am going to try. Management of hamstring injuries in pro sports is really misguided. One would think with all the funds available teams would do better, but then again, look at Philly. And think of Bill Walton. Had someone shifted him off his all vegan diet in the 70's his skeletal structure and connective tissue may have stayed intact longer. Don' t even get me started on how t by e Celts managed Kevin McHale's foot!

Hey BobH,

If they didn't have Turner, we didn't have Baynes then!! Now we're even!

db