Sorry for such a late recap folks. Our staff are tied-up tonight, either travelling for Sunday’s big bash, or getting things prepared for it. I was actually at the Garden and just got to work myself, but wanted to log-on real quick & give you all a place to talk/comment on/be excited about tonight’s win. I have not seen any of the highlights yet, with the exception of a few YouTube clips, but here’s my quick take. It looked at times like the C’s were going to have a somewhat easy time of it tonight, but they had trouble taking care of the ball, and their 15 turnovers + Josh Smiths’ 31 points meant yet another OT game. But that’s where we saw the resolve of the 2012-13 Celtics rear it’s head. Behind huge shots from Pierce, Jet and Jeff Green, Boston pulled-off another gutsy win. Granted, if the C’s took better care of the ball and better care of the paint at times, maybe this game doesn’t go to OT, but it did. But hey, we won, and what a great win it was. Despite screaming at the refs’ lack of calls for Boston in the 4th, and getting frustrated with Boston’s defensive “mistakes” late, I thoroughly enjoyed this game/win. Once again, guys like Garnett and Pierce reminded us just why we love them. Boston extends it’s win streak to 5 games, is 7 games above .500 (34-27) and 6th in the Eastern Conference playoff seedings.
The Green:
- Paul Pierce scored 27 points on 10 of 16 shooting and buried a huge trey with 1:37 left in OT
- Jet had 19 points, but more importantly was 3 of 4 from downtown, 6 of 6 from the line and sealed the win with a clutch long ball with 35 seconds left in the game
- Jeff Green struggled a bit offensively, with 12 points on 5 of 11 from the floor, but he nailed a huge three-pointer in OT (with a little help from Red), had a big steal on Smith late & his dunk in the 4th got the energy back in the building.
- KG had yet another solid night, putting in 17 points to go with 8 boards
The Gross:
- C’s turned the ball over 15 times
- C.Lee struggled with 4 points and 3 turnovers in 28 minutes
The Greenlights:
Green dunk
Truth and-one
http://youtu.be/oynzXGFDbSk
Lee dunk
http://youtu.be/0IHakYQNGz4
The Grid: (quick stats)
- Celtics bench outscored Hawks’ bench 46-8
- The game had 15 lead changes
- Hawks attempted 27 three-pointers:
Bonus KG postgame vid via B.Rohrbach:
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!