Boston Celtics Win a Wild One Over Devin Booker Led Suns
The Boston Celtics won for the sixth time in seven games, overcoming a career-night from Phoenix’s Devin Booker.
Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns did all he could to ruin the Boston Celtics night on Friday. It’s too bad his teammates didn’t do a whole lot to help him.
Isaiah Thomas had 34 points and Boston raced to a 25-5 lead. They never looked back as the Celtics were able to hold off a late Booker rally in defeating Phoenix 130-120.
The victory kept Boston one game behind Cleveland in the race for the first seed in the Eastern Conference.
Booker scored a career-high 70 points–including 28 in the fourth quarter–but the Celtics were able to do just enough to secure the double-digit win.
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Thomas scored 18 in the fourth, seemingly thwarting every Phoenix rally. He also finished with seven assists.
The Celtics led by 17 heading into the fourth, a lead that was cut to 11 by Leandro Barbosa three-point play with 9:03 remaining.
The lead would swell back to 18 with the Celtics holding a 121-103 lead with 2:57 left. Despite Booker scoring 16 of the Suns last 17 points, Boston–despite ill-advised 3’s down the stretch and the Suns fouling with the game out of hand–held on.
Boston–down starter Avery Bradley (who was out with an illness)–started out slow, scoring only 12 points in the first five minutes. Luckily, Phoenix started out even slower as they began the game going 0-13 from the field.
Jaylen Brown started in the place of Bradley and had an outstanding first quarter with seven points and five rebounds.
The second quarter was the Gerald Green show for Boston. His fourth three of the quarter gave the Celtics their largest lead at 59-33.
Green finished the half with 15 points as the Celtics held a 66-43 lead heading into the locker room.
Booker scored 51 points in the second-half, but the Suns were never able to get it closer than 17 in the third.
A combination of Jae Crowder and solid contributions from Kelly Olynyk kept Boston rolling in the third before the wild fourth quarter.
Al Horford continued to fill the stat sheet, scoring 15 points while adding 10 rebounds and six assists. Crowder also had a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Coming into tonight’s game, Boston had been holding opponents to 97.6 points per game over the last six games. The 120 points allowed tonight were offset by a good performance on offense, but better efforts will be needed as the playoffs begin.
Fouls were also a problem, as the Celtics allowed Phoenix to hit 36-49 (73.5%) from the line.
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Still, a win is a win. And when the battle for one of the top two seeds in the East is in full effect, every victory counts.