Boston Celtics steamroll Dallas Mavericks: 3 takeaways from blowout win
The Boston Celtics won their second consecutive game without Kyrie Irving Friday night at TD Garden behind great ball movement and timely defense.
No Kyrie Irving, no problem. In fact, the undermanned Boston Celtics team always seem to find a way to win basketball games and that is a testament to the team’s depth and also players ready to step up when their name is called.
In Friday night’s 114-93 victory over the Dallas Mavericks, the Celtics avenged an earlier loss to Luka Donocic and the Mavs by coming out of the gate flying. The team grabbed an early double digit lead in the first quarter off some hot shooting by Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart and aggressive defense that led to early turnovers by Dallas.
Jaylen Brown, who got the start in place of Marcus Morris, continued trending upward with his play by driving aggressively to the hoop and allowing the offense to come to him.
After jumping out to a 17-point lead in the second quarter, the Celtics did allow the Mavericks to get back in the game, but a late quarter spark gave the team a 58-51 lead going into halftime.
Early in the second half, the Mavericks got within a point of the Celtics, but a quick timeout by Brad Stevens motivated the team to respond with a frenzy of points. A trio of 3’s by Terry Rozier, Al Horford and Jayson Tatum put the Celtics back up double digits in the game and basically put it away.
Although the Boston Celtics did go through a scoring drought in this game, they continued to move the ball and find open shots. Eventually, the shots started falling again and the team was able to cruise to their 13th home victory of the season.
From the play of Brown to another solid game from Gordon Hayward, there were a lot of positives in Friday night’s game that should give fans reason to believe this team has finally put it all together.