Somehow streak at a dozen
Without Irving, Celts use team effort to tip Toronto
Kyrie Irving missed what, for all intents and purposes, was his second straight game with a facial fracture yesterday.
As Celtics coach Brad Stevens has stressed to his young team, there’s no way of replicating the point guard’s rare talent.
“We’re not going to make up for Kyrie Irving by somebody trying to be Kyrie Irving,” Stevens said. “We just have to all chip in and account for him as a team.”
But at least this time the lineup received a jolt in return.
Al Horford came out of concussion protocol with an especially clear head and his eyes on the basket, leading the C’s to their 12th straight victory, 95-94, against the Toronto Raptors.
The Celtics center, who missed the last two games after absorbing a Kent Bazemore shot to the face in Atlanta on Nov. 6, sprung for 21 points in 33 minutes on 8-for-9 shooting, including a lead-preserving dunk with 2:09 left.
Horford and Jaylen Brown also turned in the night’s biggest stops, each player with tight coverage on a pair of DeMar DeRozan misses in the last minute.
The Celtics last won 12 straight games during the 2008-09 season, when, prior to a Kevin Garnett knee injury, they were the dominant team in the NBA.
Though no one is confusing this team with the defending 2007-08 NBA champions, many continue to wonder just how, exactly, this league-leading streak is growing.
“I’m feeling good. I’m feeling real good,” Marcus Smart said. “We definitely have a lot to work on but I like the way we’ve been playing, the toughness we’ve been bringing every game.”
The trick is not to dwell on this climbing number.
“Try not to think about it. Try not to get too high, not to get too low,” Smart said. “Just trying to stay focused and on to the next one.”
This stretch run was set up by a pair of big shots from Terry Rozier — the first for a four-point play just before halftime that cut the Toronto lead to five points at the break, and the second, with 3.2 seconds left in the third, that gave the Celtics a 77-76 lead. The C’s took the lead twice over the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, before opening up a crack of space on a pair of Jayson Tatum baskets — a 15-footer and a drive — in addition to Daniel Theis’ tip-in of a Tatum miss.
But with the Raptors answering each time, the Celtics carried an 8988 lead into the last three minutes, with Horford immediately turning in three big plays — a finger roll and dunk sandwiched around a DeRozan jumper, and a steal.
The Celts, leading 93-90 with 1:26 left, took another step when Tatum drove off the foul line and curled in a finger roll for a 95-90 lead.
But the Raptors hit back twice with a Kyle Lowry drive and, following a Horford turnover, a pair of OG Anunoby free throws after the Raptor was fouled by Smart on the break.
The Celtics took possession with 56 seconds left and a 95-94 lead, but Smart missed a post-up.
And this is where the Celtics had to flex their credentials as the NBA leader in defensive rating (95.4 points per 100 possessions),
DeRozan, naturally the primary option in any Toronto scheme, got the ball along the right side of the arc the next time down, and drew Horford on a switch. The Celtics center had no problem holding his ground, and forcing the Toronto guard into a long miss.
But Tatum caught Fred VanVleet with an elbow while trying to move the ball up the floor for the offensive foul with 13.4 seconds left, leading to another chance for you know who.
DeRozan, this time under tight coverage from Brown, missed a high 15-footer just before the buzzer sounded.
“I thought Jaylen did well on that sequence,” Stevens said. “DeRozan got him off his feet a couple of times, but DeRozan is one of the best in the league at that. Jaylen was the second jumper and challenged his shot as well as he could on that one.
“Al on the possession before did a great job on DeRozan. But the reality is he often makes those shots anyway, and we’ll come in here and over-react either way to it. If it goes in, it’s going in, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. You try to challenge it as much as you can. We were fortunate it didn’t go in, but our guys gave great effort to make it tough.”