After dispatching the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA’s developmental league to open the season, tonight’s tilt with the Raptors felt like an early season measuring stick game for the Celtics.
They came up well short.
Locked up at 58 after the first half, the Raptors rode hot shooting, while the Cs fell victim to sloppy passing and uninspired defense in a 113-103 loss.
The Raptors broke the game open early in the third with an 11-2 run. The Celtics starters struggled to score on the offensive end and missed rotations on the defensive end, as Toronto connected on a handful of open 3s. The Cs finished the third quarter shooting 6-17 and trailing by nine.
Any hopes of hanging around in the fourth were dashed by Terrence Ross. The bench spark-plug poured in 11 points in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, bringing the lead to its largest, 101-84. He finished with 22 off the pine.
The Green
Isaiah Thomas was the Cs only constant source of offense. He finished with 23 points on 7-16 shooting. The Cs offense sputtered when IT was on the bench.
He only played 15 minutes and took just three shoots, yet Jared Sullinger connected on all of them. He’s had a very efficient start to the season on the offensive end.
The Gross
Evan Turner was trending big-time on twitter tonight. Unfortunately, his name was usually preceded by “What is” and followed by “still doing in the game?” He finished 2-10 with four careless turnovers and a missed dunk (see below). For this he was rewarded with 27 minutes of playing time. Wait. What?
Marcus Smart was a non-factor -save for a ridiculous 3-pointer falling out of bounds. He had the type of night you expect from a promising, rookie point-guard: follow up a promising opening night performance with a certified dud in the next game. Smart finished 2-10 from field with just three assists. He, along with the rest of the Celtics backcourt, were outplayed by Toronto’s excellent guard combo.
The starters. They looked bad against the Sixers in the first quarter of Wednesday’s game. They were thoroughly outplayed to start the third quarter tonight. It’s great to win the battle of the bench points, but not when it’s because Brad Stevens has to go to the bench immediately to bail out the starters. It’ll be interesting to see who Stevens trots out there to start Sunday’s game against the Spurs.
The refs. A constant parade to the free throw line. There were 43 total free throws taken in the first half. The Cs came out aggressively on defense and the referees weren’t having it.
The Greenlights
Marcus’ ridiculous, falling out of bounds trey
https://vine.co/v/e3mXntdMABw/embed
Sully – beast mode
https://vine.co/v/e3mJ0pBxQeK/embed
IT sends Carroll flying
https://vine.co/v/e3m0jD3ULdA/embed
The Grid
3FG: Celtics 7/26, Toronto 11/26
Avery Bradley -11
Kelly Olynyk in his season debut: 4/10, 11 points, 1/5 3PT
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