Celtics pour on points
Season best rips Hornets
There’s never been a fourth quarter Kyrie Irving wanted to miss, but thanks to the Celtics’ latest spurt of success, he hasn’t had to worry about his role beyond the third quarter in the past two games.
The Celtics won their fourth straight game with last night’s 134-106 blowout of a hot Charlotte team that had won its previous five. Toronto, a comeback winner against Orlando last night, remains a half-game ahead of the Celtics for the Eastern Conference lead.
But the Celts certainly shot the ball as if they expected to surge back into the top. Their point total and shooting percentage (62.1) were season highs.
Brad Stevens’ reaction to those numbers was more one of relief than joy.
“You better win when you shoot it like that because you don’t have nights like that all the time,” said the Celtics coach, though in the four games since the All-Star break, he’s gotten those numbers from his star.
Irving, who had 25 points and a comfortable seat for the fourth quarter in Monday’s win against Memphis, bettered himself last night with 34 points on 13-for-18 shooting, including 4-for-6 from downtown, all before the third quarter ended.
But every Celtics player feasted, including a Aron Baynes (12 points, 10 rebounds). With Daniel Theis sidelined by a strained hamstring, Greg Monroe logged his first serious minutes with the Celts and (literally) posted 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting in 17 minutes. Monroe, as expected, did all of his scoring in the paint.
Seven Celtics players finished in double figures, four of them off the bench.
“I thought we played with force. I thought we executed well,” Stevens said. “But that just was one of those nights where you had great, great shot-making. Sometimes it’s if the ball’s going in the basket or not. And, you know, we hit a number of shots that we want to get, and we hit a number of shots that we executed very well. We also hit a number of them that were end-of-clock or were a little bit tougher.”
And unlike the brutal fivegame stretch that carried them into the All-Star break, the Celtics didn’t fall into a hole against a hot team.
“I think a few things you just want to become more consistent on, from our effort of starting out the game and being able to play a comfortable game style without necessarily trying to come back from 15 down or 12 down,” Irving said. “It’s a difference in the game when you have control and understand that the system you have in place, you trust in it, you believe in it, and you execute it at a very high level.”
Before the break Stevens talked often of his team’s lack of crispness and effort on offense, aspects that have improved during the past four games.
“Just getting to our spots, playing with pace, playing with assertiveness, not jogging up the court, sprinting to spots, things like that,” Jaylen Brown said. “Nothing crazy. It’s the little things that matter the most, and I think that’s what Brad talks about the most is doing the little stuff.”
Though Stevens has made only minor changes since the break, they appear to be having an effect.
“When shots go in, everything feels a lot better,” he said. “We did small changes on actions, we’ve tried to play a little more off of our cutting, but we’re also just getting a lot more comfortable playing together.
“And that sometimes takes a little bit of time. We had our moments in December where we showed that we’re capable of it, and then we struggled in January and early February, and for whatever reason, in the last four games, we’ve been a little bit better.”