Marcus Smart wins revenge game, Celtics lose to Grizzlies 127-121

After beating the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, the Celtics are back in action to welcome back old friend Marcus Smart and the Memphis Grizzlies. Last year Smart was injured and didn’t get to play in his first game back at TD Garden so this will be his first game playing against his former team. Smart was the heart and soul for the Celtics for 9 seasons and even though it still looks weird seeing him in a Grizzlies uniform, its good to see him playing on the parquet again.

Al Horford is out tonight on the second half of a back to back and Kristaps Porzingis, the main piece in the Marcus Smart trade, returns for the Celtics. For the Grizzlies, Zach Edey, Luke Kennard, and Vince Williams Jr were ruled out.

Marcus Smart checked into the game at the 8:50 mark for Memphis to a standing ovation from the TD Garden crowd.

It was a back and forth game early in the first quarter but the Celtics offense started sloppy. Boston started the game shooting 2-11 from three including Jrue Holiday going 1-6. The Grizzlies defensive strategy of “make Jrue Holiday beat us” worked early as they went on a 10-0 run to get a 10 point lead.

The Holiday strategy didn’t work for long however as Holiday drilled back to back wide open corner threes. Holiday finished the first quarter with 11 points on 4-10 shooting and 3-8 from beyond the arc.

Smart was given a rude awaken in his return as he went 0-5 shooting in the quarter including a Neemias Queta block which led to a Payton Pritchard hustle play to save the ball from going out of bounds.

The Grizzlies role players stepped up big as guys like Jay Huff, Santi Aldama and Jaylen Wells made sure Memphis kept a 31-27 lead over the Celtics to end the first quarter. Holiday’s 11 point quarter led the Celtics and Ja Morant led the Grizzlies with 11 points as well.

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After Neemias Queta was the first center off of the bench for the Celtics in the first quarter, Luke Kornet started the second quarter.

Jaren Jackson Jr and Brandon Clarke started to take over for the Grizzlies to begin the second quarter and started to pick on Kornet as Ja Morant threw a lob to Clarke who dunked right over him. The Celtics would be without Sam Hauser for the rest of the game as he was ruled doubtful to return during the second quarter with Right Adductor Tightness.

Points in the paint were a real problem for Boston as the Grizzlies outscored the Celtics 32-14 in the first half highlighted by Clarke’s 8 point second quarter on 4-4 shooting in the painted area. Memphis continued to leave Holiday open and it started to work as his three ball was not falling and he took a career high 17 shot attempts in the first half with only 5 of them going down.

A somewhat scary sight for Boston as with 1:35 left in the half, Kristaps Porzingis went back to the locker room as a misstep led to what looked like an ankle sprain that had him limping.

The sloppy play continued for the Celtics as they started too look like a team that played 5 games in 7 days. To end the half they turned the ball over on back to back possessions that led to a Morant layup and an impressive block by Derrick White on Desmond Bane as the Celtics went into the half down 66-54.

Jrue Holiday finished as the Celtics leading scorer at the half with 16 points on 5-17 shooting (4-12 from three). Holiday was the only Celtic in double digits at the half as Boston shot 18-50 (36%) from the field and 9-31 (29%) from three. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown only scored 6 points in the half, with Tatum having a rough shooting split of 3-11 from the field and 0-7 from three.

For Memphis, Ja Morant led the Grizzlies with 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists as he picked apart the Celtics defense. Jaren Jackson Jr (13 points) and Brandon Clarke (12 points) were also big factors as Boston had no answers for them at the rim.

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Memphis continued to force Holiday to beat them and Jrue continued to shoot it but could not take advantage of the open looks. A good sign for the Celtics was when Porzingis started the third quarter in the game and he hit back to back threes to cut the Grizzlies lead to 6.

The Grizzlies were able to counter the Celtics attempt at a comeback as Ja Morant took over. He found Brandon Clarke for an alley-oop, hit a mid range shot over White, and finished off with a highlight reel, double clutch, behind the head dunk that stunned the TD Garden crowd.

When Morant went to the bench, the Celtics started to find their offense. Porzingis and Tatum both scored and-1 layups attacking Jay Huff at the rim, Queta got free throws attacking a rebound, Porzingis got a free throw on a foul before an inbound, and Payton Pritchard splashed a three.

A 12-3 run cut the Grizzlies lead to 2, however Ja Morant checked in and hit back to back threes to push the lead back to 5 as Memphis took a 94-89 lead going into the 4th quarter. Kristaps Porzingis and Jayson Tatum were the main catalysts of the Celtics third quarter surge as they combined for 30 of the Celtics 35 points in the quarter.

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The Celtics offense continued to roll to begin the 4th quarter as a Payton Pritchard midrange shot, Jaylen Brown three, and another Pritchard three gave the Celtics their first lead of the night with 10:32 left in the game, much to the delight of Ean Horford on the bench.

At the 9:20 mark of the quarter, Jrue Holiday hit an and-1 layup over Ja Morant for his 16,000th point of his career.

The Celtics would run a double big lineup of Kornet and Queta which yielded not great results. The Grizzlies would retake the lead as Jaren Jackson Jr scored 11 straight points for Memphis but Jaylen Brown would match him almost every time down the floor to keep Boston in the game.

Both teams continued to battle back and forth as the Celtics had the chance to re-take the lead multiple times but could not hit a three. The Grizzlies started to pull away slightly as a Desmond Bane three and layup had Memphis leading by 9 with under 2 minutes to go.

Jaylen Brown hit a turnaround three over Morant to cut it to 6 and then chaos ensued as White was going for a loose ball, Jackson pushed him to the ground that resulted in no foul called, much to the dismay of the Garden crowd. Morant and Pritchard exchanged going 1-2 from free throw line and Brown picked off a pass that led to a layup as the Grizzlies led by 4 with 21.7 seconds left.

Out of a Grizzlies timeout, an inbound pass to Jackson Jr resulted in a jump ball. Porzingis won the tip and the ball hit off of Bane out of bounds, Celtics ball with 17.1 seconds left. However, Memphis challenged the out of bounds call and won it, Grizzlies ball.

Desmond Bane hit 2 free throws, Pritchard missed a three, White missed a three, and the clock went all zeros as the Grizzlies win it 127-121 over the Celtics. This is the first time in Jayson Tatum’s career that he has lost to Memphis as Marcus Smart wins his first game in TD Garden as an opponent.

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Ja Morant led the way for the Grizzlies in this game scoring 32 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals on 11-20 shooting and 4-6 from three. Jaren Jackson Jr also had a big game with 27 points and 9 rebounds.

Jrue Holiday would be the Celtics leading scorer with 23 points shooting 8-26 from the field and 4-17 from three. Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard would both have 22 despite the loss as well.

The Celtics get 4 days off in between their next game on Thursday December 12th against the Detroit Pistons, as this game was added to the schedule after Boston failed to qualify for the NBA Cup playoffs.