The Celtics will enjoy their Christmas break with a three-game win streak following their 103-95 comeback win over the Indiana Pacers Monday night at TD Garden.
Jaylen Brown scored 14 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter on 11-of-25 shooting overall, to go along with nine rebounds, two blocks and a steal to lead Boston's 20-point rally and improve to a 10-5 record at home.
"The crowd helped us out," Brown said in his postgame comments. "Being on our home floor, we don't want to take that for granted. When the crowd gets behind us, the Garden can be one of the harder places to play. So once we got it going a little bit, the crowd got it going, and I think it made it tough on Indiana."
Derrick White finished with 19 points, while Payton Pritchard and Anfernee Simons each chipped in 11 points respectively for the Celtics, who are now 18-11 on the season and 2.5 games behind the Knicks for the second best record in the Eastern Conference.
Pascal Siakam led the shorthanded Pacers with 25 points on 9-of-18 from the field, while Andrew Nembhard recorded 20 points, seven assists and Bennedict Mathurin added 16 points, nine rebounds in the loss, as they've dropped five-straight and are now 6-23 on the season.
Boston trailed 61-43 at the break after the Pacers -- third worst 3-point shooting team in the league -- went 12-of-20 from behind the arc (60%), while the home team was only 5-of-18 from long range for the half.
The Celtics, playing without Jordan Walsh (illness), were held to a 17-point second quarter, in which they only connected on 8-of-21 (38.1%) from the field and made just one 3-pointer, with Brown also having an ice-cold first half -- 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting and a minus-20 rating, tied with teammate White at halftime.
Joe Mazzulla pulled his starters just over three minutes into the third period with a 69-49 deficit, before the bench used a 21-11 spurt to cut the Pacers' lead in half and make it a single-digit game heading into the final frame.
"Being down 12 in the third quarter, I'm pretty comfortable with that because you see it around the league all the time -- how many possessions are left -- and you just have to chip away," Mazzulla told reporters postgame.
Boston went on a 11-2 run to start the fourth and take it's first lead since the opening quarter on a Brown reverse layup, before the All-Star hit an off-balance 3-ball in front of Boston's bench to put the C's up 96-91 with 2:25 left to play and never looked back.
In the end the Celtics bench outscored Indiana's 32-18 behind rookie Hugo Gonzalez (season-high 37 minutes) and Luka Garza -- who both combined for 12 points and 19 rebounds to help give Mazzulla his 200th victory as an NBA head coach (all in Boston).
"You just have to have an understanding of, 'OK, what are we doing well? What do we have to do better?' regardless of the score," Mazzulla said. "I also told the guys, 'Listen, there are (53) games left. You have to earn wins. It's the NBA.' We were down 12 in the third -- that's almost a tied game in the NBA. Even a 20-point game in the third is nothing. It triggers an emotion, and in reality, you just have to have perspective that there are so many possessions left in the game."
The Celtics are off until Friday when they face the Pacers once again in Indianapolis on the back-end of a home-and-home.
Game Notes:
Boston made 43% of their attempts from the floor, including 11-of-37 (30%) from deep to the Pacers' 39% from the field and 13-of-40 (32%) from 3-point range. The Celtics won the rebound battle 49-36 and outscored Indiana in the paint 52-28.
Joel Pavón
No comments:
Post a Comment