You have to credit the Boston Celtics.
More than half of this season has elapsed, and they don’t seem fazed by anything, which was clearly displayed on Monday night.
They were playing the second night of back-to-back games at American Airlines Center. They were without Kristaps Porzingis, who had scored 32 points the night before in Houston.
It was their third game in four nights.
Plenty of reasons to be off-kilter.
And then they blitzed the Mavericks with a 41-point second quarter and made plenty of plays to protect their lead down the stretch of a 119-110 win.
“I forgot it was a back-to-back,” Celtics’ coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Just watching our guys compete, I couldn’t tell. It’s a credit to them.”
And that’s the way the Celtics have been most of the season. They play hard all the time and, for the most part, they play well, too.
The Mavericks were victimized by a 30-14 free-throw disparity and a frustration with some of the officiating calls. But that’s part of growth. The Celtics were determined to attack Luka Dončić on the Mavericks’ defensive end and that resulted in some mismatches that worked well for the Celtics.
“We were just a little bit frustrated with the officiating and we lost our focus,” coach Jason Kidd said. “And we got to be better. They missed their threes to start the game and then started to get a rhythm. We have to be better defensively.”
As Kyrie Irving said about the way the Celtics attacked the Mavericks:
“We got to give Luka some help, especially when he’s playing well in the first half like that. The second half, I felt like we could have given him a lot more support and he was forcing it a little as every other great scorer does in our league and we just got to be able to pick him up on the defensive end and make sure we’re there to support each other.”
Our other takeaways from the loss:
Rough night at the office: Dončić was equal parts disappointed in his play, but also impressed with the way the Celtics attacked him. “I missed a lot of layups, but they have an amazing team,” he said. “They are No. 1 in the NBA, they have a great defense and two guys that can play basketball really well. That’s why they’re No. 1. It just wasn’t my night. They’re very good on defense and obviously, they’re very good on offense.”
Irving dinged: Irving had X-rays on his right thumb after the game. He hurt it when he was defending against Jayson Tatum on the first possession of the game, but played through it, although not to the level he would have liked. The Mavericks can ill-afford for Irving to miss much time. “I don’t want to take these nick-nack injuries, but it just comes with the territory in this physical, combative game,” he said. “It’s going to hurt. I don’t think there’s anybody in the NBA that’s 100 percent night to night. You just got to keep pushing.” Irving was diagnosed with a sprained thumb.
Wrong numbers: Dončić had 33 points. Irving had 23. That’s 56 combined points. It took 50 shots to get those points. Jaylen Brown and Tatum scored 73 points on 43 shots. That’s about all you need to know about how the defenses of both teams played.
Strong numbers: Dončić had his 38th career 30-point triple-double, but even he admitted afterward that “I played bad.” It’s a tribute to the sixth-year point guard that he “played bad” and still had 33 points, a season-best 18 rebounds and 13 assists.
X: @ESefko
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