The Golden State Warriors (45-11) headed to TD Garden to face the Boston Celtics (23-33), a team that has been playing well of late since the NBA trade-deadline acquisitions of second-unit players Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, and Jonas Jerebko.
The Warriors were without the services of Festus Ezeli, who was suspended for one game for instigating the altercation with Tyler Hansbrough in the win against the Raptors two nights ago. Andrew Bogut was supposed to rest this game, but obviously was forced into action. Andre Iguodala also returned after taking a night of rest in Toronto.
1ST QUARTER: Boston Comes Out Hungry
As this was the Celtics’ “Superbowl”, the young, up-and-coming and well-coached team came to play. Evan Turner got out to a hot start, hitting four jump shots in a row before the first timeout.
The Warriors weren’t making all of their shots and there were a few miscues by the Warriors. Harrison Barnes started the game with a baby step travel on a drive from the right wing, Stephen Curry made a bad swing pass that Marcus Smart stole and converted a run-out dunk on, Curry then mishandled a dribble with the shotclock winding down and about to shoot a layup, and Curry also missed a layup on a nice lead pass to the hole by Andrew Bogut. Bogut also missed an alley-oop dunk that rolled in and out, on a nice lob by Draymond Green.
Even after Turner’s hot streak, the Celtics continued their good shooting, with Avery Bradley drawing a foul from beyond the arc on a fade-away against Klay Thompson, then hitting a jumper as well.
After Barnes, who had a nice tic-tac-toe three previously, attacked on the left baseline, got a lot of contact under the rim with no call and missed it, Smart came back on the other end for a triple from the left elbow and, just like that, the Celtics were up early, 20-13, with 6:15 to go in the first frame.
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Turner added his fourth straight jumper after that and Golden State head coach Steve Kerr had seen enough, calling timeout with 5:43 left, down 22-13.
After the timeout, Cody Zeller got into the mix, hitting a variety of layups on nice plays by Boston. Bogut missed a tip-in of a Draymond Green post-up of Turner that went too hard off the back iron, then blew another bunny too hard off the backboard after Thompson spun and drove baseline for a dish into the interior.
At the mandatory timeout with 2:31 to play, the Warriors found themselves down 28-18, shooting just 35.0% (7-for-20) while the Celtics were at a 57.1% clip (12-for-21).
Iguodala then entered the game and Curry took it upon himself to close the gap, getting a beautiful lefty, high-arcing finger roll and, after Thompson swatted Isaiah Thomas, a pivot-and-pop three-pointer, closing the gap to 30-23.
But Thomas was hungrier, shooting an early-O trey, then after Curry got a banker to fall from the left side on him, got Curry back with a layup against Steph with David Lee not provided quick enough help from the weak side. Then Thomas ended the quarter with a pull-up three on Klay after a pick-and-roll had Curry switched off.
The Celtics took a 38-25 lead into the second quarter.
Curry had 14 points, but Thomas had 8 off the bench, Zeller had 7, and Turner had his hot start of 8 points.
2ND QUARTER: Thomas Continues His Run
Thomas wasn’t finished, getting iso’ed against Lee on a switch and taking him from the right side with the left hand, and-one, then splitting the double-team for a layup with the left hand. That gave his 13 points scored in just 6 minutes of play and Kerr called timeout with 8:35 to play with Golden State down 45-28.
Things got worse for the Warriors as Thomas hit another layup on a fastbreak, Lee was blocked and James Young made them pay with a three from the right elbow, then Crowder got a triple from the left elbow. Jerebko then got his own trey from the top and Kerr called another timeout, now down 26 points, 56-30, with 6:47 left in the first half.
Golden State chipped away at the lead. A Thompson left-handed drive that resulted in a right-handed conversion over Crowder, and a Barnes trailing three-pointer assisted by Iguodala forced a timeout by Boston head coach Brad Stevens with the lead cut to 19, 58-39, with 3:46 remaining.
Things could’ve been worse, as the Celtics missed a few buckets within one or two feet of the rim, as hustle help desperation defense from Green on more than one occasion saved two or three baskets. The last one was saved against Bradley’s two misses at point blank range, and Iguodala zoomed down the court to find Curry for a three-pointer, cutting the Boston lead to 63-48 with 42 seconds to go.
But Zeller got his hands on a offensive rebound over Barnes after Turner missed a jumper, and he converted at the charity stripe to give the Celtics a 65-49 lead heading into halftime.
Curry led all scorers with 19 points on 8-for-14 field, 3-for-6 downtown, but he also had 3 turnovers. Barnes had 13 points, 6 rebounds, and Thompson chipped in 11 points. Thomas led Boston with 15 points off the bench on 6-for-11 shooting, while Turner added 10.
The Celtics outrebounded the Warriors, 34-27, and were 15-5 on points scored from second chance rebounds. Boston also was up 17-3 on fastbreak points.
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