Recap: Kemba Walker burns Celtics in DISASTROUS loss

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In a nutshell… that sucked.

Kemba Walker scored 21 of his 43 points in the 4th quarter to lead the Hornets back from a 10-point deficit and past the Celtics, 117-112.

Screams loudly into pillow

Let me get this straight. Brad Stevens benched his starters in the last game, questioned their toughness, shook up the rotations tonight (Baynes started for Hayward) and…. the Celtics responded by giving up 117 points?

Screams even louder into pillow 

What’s next? Throwing their clothes in the trash and lighting everything on fire? What’s it going to take to reach these guys?

And as I’m typing these words, Stevens is unsurprisingly positive in his post-game media scrum. He says he saw some positive things and chalked this up to a special performance.

ARGHHHH!!!

What went well

The offense was pretty sharp. The Cs shot 50%, had 31 assists, 22 fast break points and 52 points in the paint.

The bench (not including Gordon Hayward) was 15- 27 FG. Daniel Theis (10 points) was very active and Terry Rozier (8 points, 2-4 3 FG) fueled the 2nd quarter run that put Boston up at the half. Oh… Marcus Smart showed up with a 3-point shot (14 points, 4-6 3 FG).

What went horribly wrong

Walker (7-10 FG) outscored the Celtics 21-14 over the final 9 minutes of this game. I have one word for Stevens: trap.

Here’s what really pissed me off: when Walker finally started to cool off late in the game, the Celtics coughed up a few offensive rebounds and allowed Tony Parker to drop the daggers.

Gordon Hayward (4 points, 1-6 FG) looks tentative and… bad. And Stevens stuck with him down the stretch while Jaylen Brown (10 points, 4-6 FG) – who played one of his better games in recent memory – rode the bench.

Highlights

Box score

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