C’s handle Kawhi-less Clips
Walker spry with 25 points
The Celtics shot 49.4% — 50% from downtown — the Clippers shot 50% overall, and by the time the gasoline fumes cleared the Celtics had pulled out their third straight with a 117-112 win over the other Western Conference power from Los Angeles.
You also wouldn’t have known Leonard was absent by the way the Clippers managed to harass Jayson Tatum with a varied cast of defenders. The Celtics star didn’t score his eighth point until the fourth quarter, but launched from there with a 14point, 5-for-16 performance.
The Celtics, with Kemba Walker leading the way with 25 points, held off the Clippers despite 32 points from Paul George, who largely missed down the stretch thanks to applied pressure from Jaylen Brown.
Like this win over the Clippers, though, the last week has been an exercise in brinksmanship for the Celtics. When Brad Stevens noted following last week’s 15-point loss to Atlanta that the key was in the next four games leading up to the all-star break, the Celtics coach was making a bet on his team’s resiliency.
With one game left before the break, Thursday against Toronto, Stevens couldn’t imagine things falling together much better in the wake of the most difficult stretch of the season. They are once again above .500 (18-17) after falling as deep as two games below the median.
“Two things that they’ve done is they’ve stayed together when they easily could have been pulled apart by the noise,” said Stevens. “I think you have to be able to resist that when you’re at this level and you’re going through the rollercoaster of a season.
“And then the second thing is we’ve slept in our bed for like five straight days. We’re fresher,” he said. “We just looked better. We look more like ourselves, and I don’t think you can discount that either. I think that there’s a lot of factors in navigating a long season, and we didn’t play our best throughout a big stretch. We’re still one bounce away from not being 3-0 in our last three games. And if we don’t play well Thursday, then we’ll lose. And I just think like you try to be your best, but you can’t be your best if you’re pulling apart, and it does help when you’ve got your legs underneath you. And I think staying together and getting some rest and a little bit of a rhythm and a routine has been a positive.”
Last night also marked another level in the rise of Robert Willliams, who, despite continuing to play roughly 22 minutes every night, is also logging more crunch time minutes with each game. This time he had 13 points, eight rebounds and three blocks off the bench, including a late block on Terance Mann as the latter attempted a 3-pointer from the right corner.
“Yeah, and he’s got a lot of experience under his belt, maybe not as much game minutes over the last three years, but I’ve said before that you can’t underscore and under-sell the development of being around (Aron) Baynes and (Al) Horford that first year,” said Stevens. “They gave him a great foundation — last year he started off the season well. We had a lot of bigs, and he got hurt in his fifth game. I thought he did really well in the games at the end of it, and most of his opportunities in the playoffs picked up after that. He’s on a great trajectory, really helping us. One of the things about Rob that sometimes does not get talked about enough is that he’s a competitor. He wants to win, he plays hard, goes after rebounds, and he’s learning how to take advantage of what he does best at both ends of the floor.”
And now, he’s helping this uneven team to turn the corner.
“It’s always more fun winning than losing,” said Williams. “But I feel like it’s really just us getting closer as a team. That’s where the fun comes. Once you’re close and just playing freely out there like you’re supposed to, the fun never stops.”
From teammates to rivals: Though the 3-point field will be, as usual, loaded on all-star weekend, perhaps the greatest story line will be provided by Tatum and Brown, who have both entered the contest.
Brown’s balky left knee was good enough to play last night — he scored 18 points in 34 minutes and guarded George — and on the eve of his first all-star game health is the last thing he wants to contemplate.
“I’m alright, I don’t want to think about my knee or anything. It feels a lot better after a win of course,” he said, looking forward especially to the 3-point contest.
“They asked me and I thought it was obvious,” he said of getting invited. “They got some of the best 3-point shooters including myself. Nah, they asked me to participate and I said why not? The dunk contest would have been great if I could’ve done it, I don’t think my body is agreeing with me right now in terms of that, but that’s something that I was looking to do. But I don’t think it’s going to work out that way. But they asked me to participate in the 3-point contest, and I said, “Why the hell not?” (Expletive), they should have asked me a long time ago.”