Celtics Sweep the Hornets in Charlotte
The Boston Celtics win both games in the back to back against the Hornets with tonight’s result ending in a 113-103 contest. The Celtics played their first game of the season without Jaylen Brown who is dealing with a left hip flexor strain, but gained back Al Horford who said at the beginning of the year he will only play one game of two in back to backs. The Hornets got back Brandon Miller who hasn’t played since the season opener, but were without Seth Curry and Nick Richards
The Celtics continued to play in the Mazzulla ball fashion, high volume 3’s, switching on most screen actions, and tonight it was a success. The Celtics did not shoot great from deep (only 16/52), but they were getting to the line and converting shooting 25/28 from the stripe. Charlotte was efficient again from deep, hitting on 40% of their three balls, but only getting to the free throw line for 9 attempts and hitting only 6 of them.
Lamelo Ball had another stellar performance, as he has all year so far, scoring 36 points on 56% shooting from the field and 50% from deep. He is averaging 29 points per game, with 6 assists, 5 rebounds on 45/39/89 splits. This is great production, he is finally finding the flow and the offensive pieces that work well. The overall attitude of the Hornets is much better, Charles Lee has them hungry and fighting and wanting to win basketball games. That is great to see.
For the Celtics, JT lead the scoring again with 29 on 7/15, but was atrocious from 3 going 1/9. If he turns these iso threes into drives or pull up mid range attempts, then that point total will only go up, and his efficiency will increase as well. But he showed his playmaking ability again by finding the open man whenever the double would occur and getting it to the open man, either with a open 3, or an extra pass for another open shot. Payton Pritchard was back in form scoring 22 points off the bench shooting 6/12 from 3. He has had 5+ threes in 4 of 7 games this season so far. Luke Kornet had his best game of the season shooting 6/6 from the field, with 19 points and 2 blocks. He was great in finding space in the paint, leading to easy buckets. The Stock exchange of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday played like they usually do. White had 18 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks. And Jrue had 13 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists, shooting 3/7 from 3.
But the main storyline of the night was what the tension was going to be like between the C’s and Grant Williams. Grant said in a post game interview that he had no foul intentions and didn’t do it on purpose. But JT didn’t care, he said he begrudgingly accepted Williams apology, but at the end of the game Grant fouled Tatum rather hard sending him to the line. As well, he scored a layup with 17 seconds remaining and blocked Derrick White from getting the ball and flopped. Just childish behavior from Williams who still thinks he was a big piece to the C’s success during his tenure.
The Celtics leave Charlotte and the B2B 2-0, first B2B on the season, and are 4-1 on the road so far this season. Boston has one more game on the road in Atlanta on Monday against the Hawks. Meanwhile the Hornets next game is also on Monday, in Minnesota against the Timberwolves.
