Different Opponent. Same Result.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one in the last four weeks. The Celtics played a wildly entertaining, back-and-forth game against a very good basketball team. They looked poised to come away with a big, early season victory… but they didn’t.
The Cs twice rallied from double digit deficits and held a 114-112 lead with under a minute to go after the dunk of the year from Jeff Green and ensuing free throw, but the Suns scored the last six points of the contest to come away with the road win, sending the Celts to a third straight loss.
The Green:
Another aggressive, complete, offensive performance from Jeff Green (28 points, 10-17 from the field, 8-9 from the line and a couple of MONSTER slams)
Tyler Zeller (19 points, 7 boards) had his best game of the season, dueling with back-up center counterpart Alex Len off the bench for the Suns. Len finished with 19 and 7 including two crucial free throws late to stretch the Suns lead to four with 20 seconds to play.
Rajon Rondo was an assist shy of a triple-double (14, 10, & 9), but had five turnovers and missed the first two of three free throws with the Cs down four with 2.2 seconds to play. Making the first two would have made things interesting.
The Gross:
Turnovers continue to doom the Celtics in close games. They gave up the rock 19 times, leading to 24 Phoenix points. None two were bigger than Eric Bledsoe’s lay-up off an Avery Bradley telegraphed pass with the score tied at 114 and just 29 seconds left.
Kelly Olynyk was given the night off by Brad Stev… wait? You mean he actually started? Olynyk played 13 minutes, was 0-2 from the field with three turnovers, four fouls and two very happy Morris twins (they combined for 43 points. Markieff finished with a career-high 30), who abused Kelly defensively for the short time he stood aimlessly on the parquet.
Greenlights
Jeff Green goes up high and comes down hard
Phil Pressey with the wrap-around pass to Sully
Jeff Green steals from Markieff Morris, then makes Marcus Morris cry with a filthy dunk and foul
The Grid:
The Celtics attempted only 10 3-pt FGs, connecting on four.
The Celtics took 15 more FTs than the Suns, but went just 20-31 from the stripe.
Zeller and Len combined to go 16-19 from the field.
The Suns leading scorer, Isaiah Thomas, had just 5 points on 1-8 from the field.
