C’s finally back in black
Green pick good Friday to end skid
ATLANTA -- It was a coincidence the Celtics wore their black uniforms on Black Friday. But after being left black and blue by seven losses in their previous 10 games, they were determined to finish in the black here at the start of a threegame road trip.
And they were never in the red on the way to a 114-96 victory over the hardly hearty Hawks.
Sure, one might question how much meaning can be applied to a triumph over the now 3-16 Atlantans, who got just five points from prized rookie Trae Young. But, hey, the Celts had just had their lunch eaten by a Knicks outfit that arrived at the Garden with a 4-14 record.
In other words, they weren’t about to look an easy win in the mouth.
“We did what we were supposed to do at the start of a business trip,” said Kyrie Irving after scoring 11 of his 13 points in the opening quarter to set the tone.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a first round knockout. The Celtics had a 7-5 lead three minutes in. Then they bid the Hawks adieu. With Irving aggressive from the get-go, the C’s pulled away quickly. It took fewer than nine minutes to lead by 20, and by the end of the period they had a 45-23 advantage.
It was easily their highest first quarter of the season (34 at Denver) and best period overall.
Irving hit 3-of-4 treys, and the C’s shot an impressive 65 percent overall from the floor. And they were even warmer from long distance, hitting 8-of-12 treys (66.7 percent). They hit nine straight shots in one stretch -- and the last four were all 3-pointers, the final two by Marcus Morris, who got the start in place of Al Horford (left knee soreness).
“It was something we needed,” said Aron Baynes, who opened at center and had a team-high 16 points in 23 minutes. “Our offense hasn’t been rolling over the last, I don’t know, eight games? We’ve had a pretty dry spell. We’ve gotten good looks, but it hasn’t been dropping, so to see it go through the hoop a few times tonight to begin the game was a good thing.
“We’ve still got a lot of room for improvement, but it’s better to learn when you’re winning than to learn when you’re losing, for sure. It was a pretty concerted effort to come in here and play the right way.”
When Terry Rozier threw in a trey with 6:21 left in the second quarter, the Celts had a whopping 29-point lead and Shamrock life was good. Maybe too good. Playing as if the outcome had already been decided and the only thing at stake was personal stats, they began to look more like the team that had drawn boos in its own house 48 hours prior.
That Rozier shot was the Celts’ last made field goal of the half. They went 0-for-7 with five turnovers, producing just five points from the free throw line as the Hawks went on an 18-5 run to get within what would, under most other circumstances, be a manageable 61-45 spread.
Jaylen Brown drove in hard from the right for a dunk on the first possession of the third quarter. Then Jayson Tatum fed Baynes for another dunk, and Brown stole the ball from Young and fed Tatum for a fast break layup. After two Taurean Prince free throws, the C’s scored nine more in a row, with Tatum’s jam of a Morris missed trey the highlight.
“It was a bit of a battle against human nature after the first quarter, you know, being up,” said Baynes. “But it’s about us trying to put together a full 48. We still haven’t been able to do it this year, and I think if we can manufacture that, then we’ll be good for the rest of the season.”
The keys to getting there? “Just not being complacent, not being satisfied,” said Irving. “Obviously Atlanta has some good competition, but we’re going to be going against some better competition tomorrow in Dallas. They’re going to give us a fight. They pretty good on their home floor (7-2 there, 1-7 on the road).”