Celts snap out of funk
United effort tips Clippers
LOS ANGELES — With Al Horford (head) and Marcus Smart (hand) late scratches last night, a local radio guy asked Brad Stevens how the Celtics were going to cope against the Clippers.
“Guys got to step up,” shrugged the coach. “It’s an opportunity for other people.”
It would also be, one assumed, a chance for Kyrie Irving to fire at will. Surely he would have to go off for the Bostonians to have a chance against even the .500 Clips a night after his 33 wasn’t enough versus the lottery-bound Lakers.
Instead, “other people” did as requested, and needed, in a 113-102 victory.
Irving went for 20 points, but the Celts had four others in double figures (Jayson Tatum, Marcus Morris, Aron Baynes, Terry Rozier) and two more with eight apiece (Semi Ojeleye, Daniel Theis).
The Celtics hit 14 of 40 3-pointers (35 percent) in a game slowed by 61 free throws, as the C’s sent notorious free throw brickmaster DeAndre Jordan to the line for 13 shots.
The win snapped a fourgame losing streak and was the Celts’ first win in the United States since Jan. 6 in Brooklyn (the triumph over the 76ers came in London).
The Celts quickly turned a seven-point halftime team into 13 with a Tatum drive and two Aron Baynes inside buckets. The Clippers’ Blake Griffin and soon closed the gap to three. Then the C’s stepped on the gas pedal.
Rozier had seven points as the guests outscored the Clippers, 17-6, over the quarter’s last 41⁄2 minutes. Jaylen Brown started the party with a dunk, and Rozier finished it with a trey.
Theis and Ojeleye hit 3-pointers in the last period as the Celts finished it off.
The C’s got seven points from Irving and six from Baynes, two on a thundering dunk off an Irving lob, on the way to a 25-22 lead after one quarter.
Play was a bit sloppy, but after getting smoked on the glass the previous night against the Lakers, at least the Celts were approaching the boards with some measure of gusto. They had seven second-chance points in the first period and were expressing interest in dealing with the Clippers’ physicality.
Speaking of contact, how about Ojeleye getting called for three fouls in a 20-second span?
To be fair to the rookie, two of them were essentially on purpose to send Jordan to the line, and he missed two of the four attempts. Ojeleye picked up a fourth personal in his 3:42 stint in the frame, but he also had three rebounds, two of them on the offensive end.
The Clippers had the last three points of the first quarter and first four of the second to take a 26-25 lead, but Daniel Theis hit a 3-pointer, and Tatum and Rozier began looking to the hoop with greater frequency.
Rozier blew by Milos Teodosic for an easy hoop, leading Clips coach Doc Rivers to call a timeout. And when Abdel Nader took an Irving feed and stuck a trey a little more than a minute later, the C’s had a 10-1 run and a 45-35 lead, and Rivers reached for another TO.
The fouls began to pile up, with the Celts acquiring 18 to the Clippers’ six. Part of that was because the C’s were taking so many intentional calls, but Stevens didn’t agree with all the whistles. He was hit with a technical foul with 3:39 to go in the half, helping the hosts to a 10-2 burst that got them within three.
But Irving and Tatum hit 3’s on consecutive possessions as the Celts went into the break with a 62-55 lead.