Isaiah Thomas has averaged more points in the fourth quarter this season than any NBA player since at least 1996, and he found a good platform for honing his finishing act last night. Thomas, rejoined in the backcourt by Avery Bradley to start the Celtics' 108-98 win against the Charlotte Hornets at the Garden, scored 17 of his 35 points in the fourth.
The Celtics thus won their 12th game in the last 15, including seven of the last eight. Kelly Olynyk came in strong off the bench again, following up his 26-point performance in Friday's win in Atlanta with 15 points and nine rebounds against Charlotte. Al Horford added 22 points to the win.
After a nine-point first half, Olynyk put up another four in the third quarter, then continued the progression when he hit a right-corner 3-pointer for the first basket of the fourth quarter. That cleared the way for Thomas to score five points over the next minute on an 18-footer and his fifth 3 for an 88-75 Celtics lead with 10:29 left.
Ramon Sessions cut the Celtics' lead to nine with a drive. Sessions' bucket gave heft to an 8-0 Hornets run, but Thomas was now well into his fourth-quarter routine. He followed with two more jumpers - from the key and his sixth 3-pointer - and answered two Kemba Walker free throws with 3-pointer No. 7 for a 96-85 lead.
The Celts then got sloppy with the ball and the Hornets scored the next four points to make it a 96-89 game. Thomas was on the bench when Jaylen Brown, after getting stuffed by Nicolas Batum, came back with a fast-break drive off a Charlotte giveaway. Thomas, Crowder and Bradley returned to the floor at the right time, just as the Hornets were cutting the Celtics lead to 100-96 on a Cody Zeller three-point play. Thomas, apparently bottled up deep on the right baseline by the much longer Zeller, somehow found enough room for a 20-footer and a 102-96 advantage.
The next time down, Thomas was blocked, but Charlotte responded with an empty two-shot possession, leading in turn to a Thomas 20-footer to ice the game at 104-96 with 33 seconds left.
The Celtics had slowly built their third-quarter lead, with Jae Crowder hitting a pair of 3's early in the quarter, Olynyk and Horford again figuring prominently in rotating the ball, and the Celtics hitting a peak lead of 12 points on Bradley's baseline jumper.
Charlotte chipped its way back in with four straight points, but Olynyk, with one of his off-kilter drives, drew a foul with 3.5 seconds left in the quarter. He hit the first of two free throws for an 80-71 lead.
In what was probably not the kind of defensive start coach Brad Stevens wanted to see, the Celtics slipped out of the first quarter with a 34-30 lead. But it was the way they closed out the first that got the crowd on its feet. Brown, who opened the evening with an impassioned speech to the crowd about Martin Luther King Jr., scored the last five points of the quarter. The rookie's spurt started with an ever-rising drive through traffic, followed by a free throw after he drew the foul. He came back with a full-court drive off a rebound, and finished it off with another hang time finish.
Olynyk began to heat up early in the second quarter, with seven points in the first 3:16 on a put-back, a 3-pointer and a dunk off the wing for a 41-40 lead. He came back with a scoop after driving the lane. One Charlotte turnover later, Jonas Jerebko fed Brown off the break, and the Celtics led 45-40 with 7:32 left in the half. But it was the C's turn for a timeout when, on the end of a 6-0 Hornets run, Spencer Hawes dunked for a 48-48 tie.
The Hornets took the lead back briefly, and tied it again at 53-53 on a Walker trey, before Thomas closed out the half with back-to-back bombs, including one buried over the outstretched fingers of 7-footer Frank Kaminsky for a 59-53 halftime lead.
No comments:
Post a Comment