O’Bryant girls pull off comeback over Latin Academy
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It is not common for Trudy Fisher to see her O’Bryant girls basketball team play tentative, but that’s exactly how she thought the Tigers looked at times in a Boston City League semifinal against Latin Academy on Friday.
But when it mattered most, Fisher’s group found its aggressive streak and made the plays it needed in a 43-38 comeback win at the Tigers’ home gym to advance to Saturday’s City final.
O’Bryant (10-0) will host Fenway on Saturday at 1 p.m.
“The girls were playing very timid,” Fisher said. “That’s not the way they normally play. If they play like that (Saturday), we’ll be in trouble. But I think they picked it up and started attacking the basket. That was the difference in the game.”
Indeed, it felt like O’Bryant was settling for too many jumpers early on, as Latin Academy (8-3, with all three losses to O’Bryant) threw a variety of zone defenses at the Tigers. Whether it was a 1-3-1, 2-3, or 1-2-2, the Dragons did an excellent job of getting hands into passing lanes and making things difficult.
But in the second half, O’Bryant found its rhythm in the half-court, as Lina Guerrero (15 points) and Jasmine Cox (10 points) did most of the scoring. Guerrero showed off a nifty hesitation move to get in the lane, and made good decisions when dumping it off to someone with a better look.
“We saw what they were giving us. We took what they gave us,” said Guerrero, who had five assists and five rebounds to fill out a strong all-around game. “They kept committing fouls. Their best players both had four fouls going into the third quarter. And they kept going through. We kept passing the ball, swinging the ball, going into the middle, and the name of the game is making your layups and finishing, though.”
Latin Academy was led by Jordan Bellot, who scored 16 points and pulled down eight rebounds. Her drive and bucket in the third quarter gave her team a 21-12 lead, the Dragons’ biggest advantage.
But O’Bryant began to kick it into high gear, and took its first lead since 8-6 in the first quarter when a Mcrae Weideir layup off a nice feed from Guerrero put the Tigers up, 36-34, in the fourth quarter. Jahbria Horsley drilled a right-wing 3-pointer to push the O’Bryant lead to 39-35 late, and Guerrero sealed it at the line, going 4-for-4 in the final 10 seconds.
“Tough defense on both ends of the court,” Latin Academy coach Bill Dever said. “It was playoff defense in a short season.”
Per order of Gov. Charlie Baker, Boston’s teams can start admitting fans on March 22, and few kinds of outside help could mean more to a struggling Celtics team right now.
“Three words — ’bout (bleeping) time,” Tristan Thompson, who still only knows the Garden crowd from the perspective of a hated opponent, said during Friday’s shootaround prior to a game against Indiana.
“That’s one reason I wanted to join this organization, because of how amazing their fans are and their fan base,” he said. “Of course we’re limited to 12% or whatever the number is, so I know that will be the strongest 12% there is in the league cheering for us every night. And having them back in the arena will bring that extra energy for us, and give us that boost that we want and need sometimes during the game. I’m extremely excited, and as the weeks and months continue the virus settles down a little bit and the vaccine gets going, we can get a higher percentage into the arena.”
The state is allowing 12% capacity inside buildings to begin, which in the case of Celtics games means 2,300 fans. Though there is a chance, again depending on Baker, that capacity will be increased once the playoffs start the third week of May.
That’s when Thompson may be able to hear some intensified noise.
Celtics president Rich Gotham would certainly appreciate the change, after watching games to the sound of fake crowd noise this season.
Thinking back to a Saturday night game on Jan. 30 against the Lakers, Gotham said that these premium games just aren’t the same without the audience.
“It just didn’t feel right,” said Gotham. “Here we are playing the Lakers on a Saturday night, on national TV, and I’m sitting there with Sully (chief marketing officer Shawn Sullivan), Danny (Ainge), Mike (Zarren) and (director of player development) Allison Feaster, and nobody else except the players. It just didn’t feel right.”
The Celtics will play their first game with fans on March 29 against New Orleans. There will be lots of opportunity over the next two weeks, with this game kicking off a seven-game homestand, the longest of the season.
Season-ticket holders will have priority, and a rotation has already been established to spread tickets over that group.
Fans can be no closer than 30 feet to the players — anyone closer has to be tested — and for now front-row seats are a relative matter. The closest fans will sit along the perimeter behind the hockey boards, minus the plexiglass.
Fans will sit in so-called “pods,” accommodating either two or four fans together. Fans will be texted prior to the game with information on what gate to report to. COVID protocols — the usual slate of questions — will be observed, though no one will have their temperature taken.
Concessions will operate on a non-contact basis, and fans will be kept in respective “neighborhoods,” which will include the concessions in the area directly behind them.
“We hope it’s a good, safe launch, and hopefully the (COVID) numbers in the outside environment continue to improve,” said Gotham. “Then we hope that in time that 12% goes up, and we have more people in the stands for the playoffs. But we’ll continue to rely on the state’s science.”
If the last four games before the All-Star break, all at home, offer a chance at redemption for the Celtics, then they took their first positive step in a while Friday night with a 118-112 win over Indiana.
The win snapped a threegame losing streak.
“It just feels good to get a win on a day that ends in a Y right now,” said Brad Stevens, who initially had some familiar worries take roost early.
The Celtics fell into an immediate 18-4 hole, and the flat start appears to have doubled as a slap in the face. They overcame poor shooting nights from Jayson Tatum (4-for-18) and Jaylen Brown (5-for-12) thanks to Kemba Walker’s best scoring night (32 points, 8-for-8 free-throw shooting) of the season.
But beyond Walker’s endto-end aggressiveness, the bench picked up the pace at a vital time, the shooting woes of Tatum and Brown considered.
Jeff Teague thrived as Walker’s backup, with a 14point, 7-for-8 free-throw performance that was as good a measure of his aggressiveness as any. The Celtics thrived in part because their three point guards — also including Payton Pritchard — shot a combined 17-for-30.
For Teague, in particular, the night was a huge reward, considering the veteran guard’s struggles this season.
“Teague was probably our most encouraging performance on Wednesday (in Atlanta) — he hasn’t played as much and played pretty well offensively,” said Stevens. “I thought he was great tonight.
“I was really happy for Jeff,” said the Celtics coach. “This has not been an easy transition for him. He didn’t play the way he wanted to or didn’t feel good about it. But he’s been putting in as much work as any of our young players over the last two weeks and that’s showing itself.”
Rob Williams was the third Celtics’ reserve to take charge of the game, with the second double-double (14 points, 11 rebounds) of his career in addition to four assists and three blocks.
“Obviously, it’s a big upside for me, knowing that they trust me and believe in me,” said Williams. “Most of all, they are letting me know that they need me in those situations. That boosts my confidence even more.”
Confidence is a fluid matter with this group, as even Teague had to admit after losing his spot in the rotation to Pritchard, the rookie.
“It’s been a different experience than I’ve ever been a part of, but it’s always a learning experience,” said Teague. “Just take the good with the bad and keep rolling. Tonight was a big win for our team, we played well. I’m happy to see a lot of guys play well. We finally helped JT, Kemba and Jaylen out tonight. So it was good for us.
“Just continue to stay the course. It was an adjustment,” he said. “I didn’t play basketball for 10 months so I knew it would be an adjustment period. I mean, I didn’t think it would be like this, but you learn, it’s something that happens and I’m going to continue to grow as a player and as a person. I think those DNPs just made me want to go a little harder so I just tried to get some extra reps in and I’m going to continue to keep doing that.”
Proof is in the production:
Walker has a chance to play every game leading up to the break, considering that there is a day in between each one. It’s not surprising, according to Stevens, that Walker has been that much better coming off a day of rest.
Look for Stevens to ease the wear and tear on players like Tatum and Brown as well with the occasional back-to-back rest night.
“Funny how that works, isn’t it?” said Stevens. “We’ve had a lot of these conversations about the right way to approach the intensity of the schedule. We’ve been in a really tough spot from a standpoint of you’re always missing somebody right now.
“When Kemba’s sitting the second night of back-tobacks now, you’re missing two of your four best players,” he said, also referring to the injured Marcus Smart. “And so that has presented some challenges and some uniqueness, but I think we all have to be alert to that. But it’s also why you’re doing the best you can right now, and I think we’ll have a little bit more freshness as this week goes along just because you’re sleeping in your own bed, not getting in at two in the morning consecutive nights like we did earlier this week, and you’ll just kind of catch up that way and hopefully feel good by the end of the week.”