Horford sets up Celts
Shows off versatility in victory
Maybe it’s true that certain aspects of Al Horford’s game aren’t appreciated except by those who share the floor with him.
But after watching his teammate match playmaking with scoring in the Celtics’ 117-104 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves last night, Avery Bradley believes the team’s best passer may be its starting center.
“He might be the best passer on our team, one of the best passers in the NBA,” said Bradley. “He’s willing to pass more than anything. We like to get the ball in his hands because we know he’s going to make the right play. The majority of the time he’ll make it for a teammate. It’s amazing. He gets everyone going. He’s so positive he sacrifices a lot for his team. It doesn’t go unnoticed. He’s definitely a great addition to this team.”
It’s not often that Horford puts his scoring ahead of his playmaking, though last night he came close with a near-triple double of 20 points, eight assists and nine rebounds.
Beyond 27 points from Isaiah Thomas and 18 from Bradley (they combined to shoot 8-for-17 on 3-pointers), there was Horford, finding most of the open shooters while also attacking the rim against his Dominican countryman, KarlAnthony Towns.
Though the Timberwolves especially had success early — Towns finished with a 17-point, 14-rebound double-double — the Celtics plowed them under from the third quarter on not only with sound ball movement, but continued improvement in the defensive end.
The win also had an impact on the standings after Washington’s 112-107 home loss to Dallas. The Celtics still trail Cleveland by two games in the Eastern Conference, but are now 11⁄ games ahead of the Wizards with a Garden date looming on Monday.
This is the same team that dressed in black for its win over the Celtics in the Verizon Center on Jan. 24. But to hear Brad Stevens tell it, the Celtics will need a more consistent defensive performance Monday than they put forth between the first and second quarters against the Timberwolves.
“Actually our defense was only not good from about six minutes in the first to six minutes in the second, but after that point I thought we were a little bit more active into the ball and we were able to pull away a little bit,” said the Celtics coach. “Throughout the first few minutes of the second, they got in a rhythm. Some of that’s shot-making, some of that’s lack of ball pressure, and we talked about that. It was a major emphasis at halftime and I thought we were better for the whole 24 minutes with ball pressure.”
In that respect the Celtics turned the game around in the third quarter, when the Timberwolves, under pressure, shot only 35 percent, and were outscored 27-17.
The Celtics opened the third on a Horford threepoint play that billowed into a 14-2 run including successive 3-pointers form Jae Crowder, Bradley and Horford. Horford scored eight points in the run, and assisted on the Bradley and Crowder 3-pointers.
The Celtics carried an 85-77 lead into the fourth, and slowly climbed as high as a 19-point lead, this time with back-to-back 3-pointers from Bradley and Thomas putting the game out of reach at 105-86 with 4:43 left.
Minnesota guard Ricky Rubio could easily tell the difference between last year’s Celtics and this group.
“He’s a great player,” Rubio said of Horford. “He’s been an All-Star and that’s why they signed him here. It’s a