CELTICS HAND RAPTORS SOME CHRISTMAS COAL
Boston guards Walker, Brown bomb away from long distance in win over Toronto
The Boston Celtics brought lumps of coal over the border and dumped them all over the Raptors on Christmas Day.
Toronto’s first holiday appearance since 2001 didn’t go so well, as Santa didn’t deliver a healthy Pascal Siakam to them earlier in the morning.
A busy stretch of games and furious comebacks appeared to take their toll as the short-handed Raptors fell 118-102 to a sharp bunch of Celtics in the NBA’S Christmas kickoff game on Wednesday morning.
Guards Kemba Walker and Jaylen Brown both played the Grinch role in ruining the day for Raptors fans. Both were superb. Walker had 22 points, while Brown matched Walker’s five made three-pointers and turned in one of the best games of his career, with 30 points. Brown was nearly unstoppable, hitting 10 of 13 shot attempts.
“We’ve done that (go down big) the last couple of games, and that’s a well-coached team, hard-playing team,” said Kyle Lowry, who had 14 points. “Jaylen Brown and Kemba, those guys played extremely well, they made a lot of shots, so trying to get back was a little tougher tonight than before.”
Fred Vanvleet led Toronto with 27 points, Chris Boucher dropped a career-best 24 off the bench, and Serge Ibaka added 12.
Unfortunately for Toronto, the team was still without three of its key players, top scorer Siakam, top defender Marc Gasol and top reserve Norman Powell.
Siakam’s energy and abilities were badly missed, as were Gasol’s defensive smarts and Powell’s scoring punch. OG Anunoby and Patrick Mccaw contributed very little offensively and rookie Terence Davis had a rare off night. With the Celtics raining three-pointers from all over the floor, all of the absences proved costly, even though Vanvleet, Lowry, Boucher and Ibaka were all solid.
The Raptors fought to get back into the game, but when Vanvleet appeared to get fouled without a call, it appeared to zap their momentum and they never recovered.
“I thought we lost our spirit when we had a chance to cut it (way down) in the fourth,” head coach Nick Nurse said, alluding to the officiating without putting himself at risk of a fine.
“I feel like we had a run, and then they didn’t call the foul, and that kind of got us messed up,” Boucher added, while Vanvleet told Postmedia that the Raptors got “an unfortunate zebra there.”
Much more of an issue was getting outrebounded 45-34, including 13-7 on the offensive glass. Much was said afterward about fixing that up.
The bright lights didn’t appear to faze the Raptors, who jumped on a sled and rocketed out to a 10-0 lead, but a quick timeout by Celtics coach Brad Stevens seemed to get the visitors turned around and they never trailed again after grabbing a 14-13 lead.
Only two Raptors players had played on Christmas before. Ibaka had done it six times while with Oklahoma City, while Mccaw played in two recent Dec. 25 showcase games for Golden State.
The Celtics had Gordon Hayward back in the lineup after he had missed all but three games due to separate injuries since Nov. 9. Hayward had a nice allaround effort with 14 points, six assists and five rebounds as the Celtics finally got close to whole. Boston has a lot of options and the team is learning how to find enough shots for everyone.
“It’s a beautiful game that we get to play each and every day,” Brown said. “It will tell you what to do, if you listen.”
The Celtics listened well. Boston hit 14 three-pointers to only eight for the Raptors and the Celtics shot 50 per cent from the floor overall.
The loss ended Toronto’s NBA record 34-game home winning streak against Atlantic Division opponents. The previous loss had come against New York on Dec. 13, 2015.
The teams will meet again on Saturday in Boston, with the
Celtics completing a back-toback that night. Toronto fell to 21-10, including just 5-10 against opponents above .500, with Boston improving to 21-7.
BIG GAME FOR BOUCHER
There were a lot of things for the Raptors not to like about Wednesday’s loss, but Boucher’s strong play wasn’t one of them.
A couple of games after setting a new high with 21 points, Boucher went off for 24, added six rebounds, and blocked a couple of shots. with the team down Siakam and Gasol, Boucher is getting an opportunity, and he’s delivering
Still, he didn’t seem all that thrilled post-game, because of the final result. When asked if it felt any different to be playing on Christmas, Boucher said not really.
“Obviously for my family, they never saw me play on Christmas, I never played on Christmas, (but) for me, it’s just another game. But I guess for my family it’s more than that,” Boucher said.
The Montrealer got a late start to basketball, picking it up not all that long ago.
“It’s not like I was watching a lot of basketball when I was younger, but I definitely watched like the last four or five years and it was fun so I definitely enjoyed playing in this one,” he said.
Pressed a bit on the topic, Boucher admitted that later on he would probably look back on the day fondly.
“That’s something that I definitely will remember. It would have been way better if we had won the game, but definitely. Once I know my career is over,
I’ll definitely reflect on my first Christmas game and the careerhigh that I got,” Boucher told Postmedia.
“Hopefully I can keep going on that path and bring that on to the next year.”