The Clover Report: Week Twenty-One

There were only two games this week for the Celtics but a one of them was a massive matchup.

The Celtics were in a prime time matchup Saturday night against the best team in the league, the Houston Rockets. Coming into the game, both teams were mostly healthy and the Rockets were riding a 14 game win streak.

Getting to the actual game, it lived up to the hype and then some. The Celtics and Rockets were both on fire from the floor and the game was with 8 points for the majority of the game. Going into the 4th quarter, the Celtics had a 3 point lead and were leading with 2 minutes to go. However, the Rockets were able to create a few turnovers in the final minutes and they pulled it out to win 123—120. Marcus Smart missed a potential game tying 3 as time expired.

For the Rockets, the standouts were Eric Gordon who led the way with 29 points and James Harden who finished with 26 points and 10 assists. As for the Celtics, the bench was fantastic as they scored a season high 67 points. Marcus Morris and Greg Monroe specifically were fantastic as they combined for 39 points and 10 rebounds. However, Kyrie Irving and Al Horford both struggled shooting as they combined to shoot 10—29 from the floor. Considering that the Celtics’ two best players had subpar games and they still were able to hang with the best team on the road; I take more positives than negatives out of that game.

The only other game that the Celtics had this week was on the road against the Chicago Bulls.

Kyrie Irving sat out due to a knee injury, thought it was not considered serious at all. They didn’t need him at all as the Celtics demolished the Bulls. They were up 35—16 after the 1st quarter and won 105—89. Jaylen Brown led the team in scoring with 21 points and Horford had a nice bounce back game as he finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds. While it was a short week, it was a successful one for the Boston Celtics.

Steven Santoro (SVS_1993)