In just over three weeks on April 8th, we’ll witness a total solar eclipse. If you can’t wait until then, hopefully you caught the Celtics again overshadowing the Suns 127-112 on Thursday night. Back on Saturday, the Celtics went into the valley of the Suns and won wire-to-wire 117-107, despite a 45-spot from Kevin Durant.
With Paul Pierce in attendance at TD Garden, much of the game resembled an old-fashioned duel. The Finals MVP once outplayed LeBron James and Kobe Bryant to raise Banner 17 in 2008. Through the first quarter, Jayson Tatum and Durant tallied 14 and 15 points respectively. In the second, Jaylen Brown battled Bol Bol, 15-10. After halftime, it was Sam Hauser and Al Horford outscoring KD, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker 16-15. Brown closed out the final frame with 9 points and finished the game with a team-high 37 points.
Heading into Thursday night, the Big 3 of Durant, Beal, and Booker had only played in 24 games together this season (15-9). But even with their combined 65 points and Grayson Allen chipping in with another 20, it wasn’t enough against Boston’s historically efficient offense.
On their five-game road trip out west, Boston hit a lukewarm 37.3% from behind the arc, including hitting just 11-of-38 in a loss against the defending world champs. The Celtics don’t tend to shoot any better in TD Garden, but in their homecoming after ten days away from the parquet, they got some home cooking, hitting half of their 50 three-pointers.
In a throwback game, Horford finished with 24 on 6-of-10 shooting from 3. Tatum went 26-5-5.
The Celtics played their 20th game and 4th in a row without Kristaps Porzingis who is nursing a right hamstring strain. Before the game, Mazzulla said that “he’s getting better and better. He was on the court today and he’s progressing. I don’t think it’s long term, but we’ll just kind of see how he is day-to-day.”
The team will head to DC over the weekend for a Sunday matinee against the Wizards and will return to the Garden for a three-game homestand against Detroit on the backend of a back-to-back on Monday and Milwaukee on Wednesday.
