Boston wrapped up their longest road trip of the season in New Orleans by dismissing the Pelicans 118 to 93 at the “Smoothee King” Center. It’s one of those NBA venues where they play music all the way through the game because apparently the home team isn’t good enough to hold the interest of a sparse, late arriving and largely apathetic crowd.
The Celtics came out of the gate looking just a little bit off. Throughout the first quarter and a bit of the second, they were doing most of what they needed to do to walk away with the game, but an uncharacteristic number of turnovers and some bad shooting kept the Pelicans right there with them. Nonetheless, the Celtics looked focused on the task at hand and the team in front of them, and that’s bad news for most of the teams in the NBA.
About halfway through the 2nd, the Pelicans had a six point lead, and that was the high water mark for the team from New Orleans. Almost immediately afterwards, the Celtics started to click behind a red-hot Isaiah Thomas. By the half, they were up 9 and Isaiah Thomas had 19 points.
The lead got as high as 20 in the 3rd quarter before Stevens sat Crowder and Thomas and gave end-of-bencher James Young some extended run. Predictably, the Pelicans narrowed the gap with Young in the game. Stevens stuck with the 20 year old wing, though, even when the lead dwindled to 11 points early in the 4th. For his part, Young rewarded Stevens’ confidence, eventually delivering some tough baskets and active defense–after missing just about everything early–and the Celtics got the lead back up to 21 in fairly short order.
New Orleans and Boston played out the string after that, with the Celtics winning by 18, when Ish Smith made a layup with seconds left to save the Pelicans a bit of embarrassment.
The Green
Boston’s back court
Sullinger’s rebounding (20 RBs)
James Young’s last 10 minutes on the court
The Gross
Sullinger’s shooting (4/13)
James Young’s first ten minutes on the court.
And a bit of an aside on that: Brad Stevens’ decision to give James Young 20 minutes of time in tonight’s game not only showed a measure of confidence in Young, it also reflected a pretty significant amount of confidence in the rest of the Celtics. Essentially, Stevens was willing to put that 20 point lead in danger to give a slow-developing but still very young player meaningful minutes. And Stevens was not quick with the hook after Young badly bricked a pair of threes and then a pair of free throws, and then got burned by playing too far off his man at the other end.
Greenlights:
James Young with a tough finish
James Young with a tough finish on the break. https://t.co/jv5k50JqMW
— Brian Robb (@CelticsHub) December 8, 2015
IT gives the C’s a 9 point lead
ISIH. https://t.co/Xt5sENKXpR — KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 8, 2015
Isaiah with the hustle
IT hustle play: https://t.co/FlQHhbv4Cx
— KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 8, 2015
Yes, that’s IT disrupting a pass to an NBA all-star that’s also a foot and a half taller than him.
C’s go ‘good-better-great’
KO draws defense, finds Zeller for easy two: https://t.co/kX1NjqOVrr — KWAPT (@KWAPT) December 8, 2015
The Grid
Boston’s starting backcourt outscored New Orleans 33-0
The Celtics shot almost 50% on the night (40-81) and almost 43% from three.
Anthony Davis was a team-worst -24, and was ineffective all night, shooting 8-21.
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