This wasn’t a pretty game by any means. The Celtics had plenty of opportunities… as usual. But they couldn’t capitalize… as usual. No single player had a consistently good game. Most of Jeff Green’s scoring came in the first and third. Most of Rondo’s in the second. Most of Marcus Thornton’s came in the 4th. The Celtics spent a lot of the game settling while the Hornets spent a lot of it attacking, which led to a massive free throw disparity even Tommy Heinsohn couldn’t get upset about. This was a very winnable game but there was no one on the Celtics who could do the winning for them. So they lost.
The only effective offense early was run through Jeff Green in the post. Of course, it was so effective (Green was 3 of 5) the Celtics decided to get away from it and try something much less effective. The result was the rest of the team shooting 4-16 for the quarter. Meanwhile, the Hornets marched to the line by being aggressive and getting a string of and-1’s that helped turn an early 10-6 deficit into a 22-16 lead after 1.
Kelly Olynyk and his new green headband helped the C’s close that gap early in the second quarter. Neither team had much going through the middle part of the quarter as we saw through a parade of missed shots. But the Celtics then whipped off a 12-2 run to take a 6 point lead on the backs of Rajon Rondo and Tyler Zeller. Rondo scored 8 points in the quarter, Olynyk had 6, and Zeller had 5 as the Celtics used a 29-18 quarter to go into the half up 5.
The third started much like the first in that the Celtics held and early lead, which was erased by an aggressive Hornets offense that whipped off a 16-6 run to flip the 5 point deficit into a 5 point lead mid-way through the quarter. Once again, the Celtics were foul happy, giving the Hornets a bunch of 3-point plays. The Hornets spent half the quarter in the bonus and pushed their lead as high as 12 before a late Celtics run cut the Hornets lead to 7 going into the fourth. The Celtics shot 9-24 (37.5%) in the third while Charlotte shot 11-20 (55%) and went 10-12 from the line.
The trend continued to start the fourth as the Celtics came storming out to start the quarter to cut the lead to 1 behind 6 quick points from Marcus Thornton. Charlotte answered with a run to push the lead back up to 9. Then Thornton kept up the assault and his 13th 4th quarter point cut Charlotte’s lead to 1. Then the Celtics 4th quarter brain farts made their return. Rondo let Walker get to the rim for a 3-point play, Green traveled with the ball, and Rondo got stripped, which led to an Al Jefferson basket and a 7 point Hornets lead with less than 3 minutes to play. At 1:30, Rondo traveled with the ball as the clock wound down, and Jefferson answered with a jump hook that pushed it to 9 again. A Rondo cross-court pass was tipped off Sullinger’s hands and a Rondo air-ball later put it away, and Charlotte came away with a 96-87 win.
The Green
Brandon Bass and Marcus Thornton were solid in limited time. They each played just under 19 minutes. Thornton finished with 16, 13 of which came in that burst. Bass had 10 and each was a team-high +8.
The Gross
The Celtics just can’t handle 4th quarter success. As soon as the game was winnable, the team imploded. The travels, the lazy turnovers… it’s terrible. I’d love for Rondo to take over, but he’s not going to shoot the team to a win, and opposing teams can just clog the lane to prevent him from scoring by driving the lane. That leaves it up to everyone else to shoot the team back into things (or to keep a lead) and no one is good enough to consistently do that. Thus we get this.
Evan Turner & Marcus Smart, last night’s heroes, combined for 0 points on 0-6 shooting.
Avery Bradley was invisible: 2-9 shooting, 4 points, 1 assist.
Boston scored just 4 points in final 6 minutes & 50 seconds
The Greenlights
Olynyk with the sweet move
//platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.jsRondo to Zeller
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Thornton gets hot in the 4th
The Grid
- Rondo: 12 points (6-11 fg, 0-2 fg), 10 rebounds, 10 assists (32nd career triple double including playoffs)
- Olynyk 1st half: 8 points (4-6 fg), 3 rebounds, 1 assist
- Olynyk 2nd half: 0 points (o-1 fg), 1 rebound, 1 assist
- Sullinger: 5 points (2-10 fg), 7 rebounds, 4 assists
- Free throws: Charlotte- 23 for 29 Boston- 6 for 10.
- Al Jefferson: 23 points, 14 rebounds
The Celtics got the ball to Jeff Green a lot early and then got away from him. He had 5 shots in the first quarter and 7 the rest of the way. The Celtics have no formula for what they’re doing, and if they can’t get a balanced attack where Sullinger, Olynyk, Bradley, and Green are all in double figures, then this team is going to do what it did tonight a whole lot this year.
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