The Boston Celtics came out of the gates blazing hot… which is to say Avery Bradley came out of the gates blazing hot… outscoring the Wizards by 15 in the first quarter and 19 in the first half before coasting to a …… win.
Bradley was unstoppable in the first quarter. He hit his first seven shots of the game and he finished the first quarter with 15 of the C's 27 points. He was simply murdering the Wizards with backdoor cuts and everyone on the team was finding him. He had a career-high 23 poins on the night.
Greg Stiemsma was hot early too… hitting for 10 points in that same 20-minute stretch. Those 10 points would be it for the night, to go along with 7 rebounds.
The Celtics totally let up with a few minutes to go in the first half. The 3rd quarter was an ugly mess of a quarter that saw the disinterested Celtics get outscored 21-16. The C's pushed the lead back out to 20 in the fourth before pulling everyone… letting the Wizards close the gap a bit.
Make no mistake, the Celtics could have won this game by 40 if they wanted to. Rajon rondo only took 5 shots in this one, but he had 11 assists and 2 steals. If he had given a full effort for the full game, he probably would have had a triple double. Paul Pierce had 21, and most of his damage was done in the 4th to close out the game. KG was off tonight, only hitting 3-10, but he matched his season high with 6 assists.
Basically, the C's came out strong in the their first home game in weeks. Without Ray Allen and Mickael Pietrus, they blew Washington out early and coasted the rest of the way. The minutes were held to a decent level on the front-end of a back-to-back. A good win all around despite a not-so-pretty second half.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
