GAME: No. 13 of 82
WHO: Celtics (10-2) vs. Hornets (5-6)
WHEN: 7:30 EST
WHERE: TD Garden
RADIO: 100.7 WZLX
TV: NBC Sports Boston
BOX SCORE: NBA.COM
Projected Starting Lineups:
Celtics
PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Jaylen Brown
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Marcus Morris
C: Aron Baynes
Inactive list: Al Horford entered the league's concussion protocol on Wednesday and is out for the second straight game. Gordon Hayward (leg) is out.
Hornets:
PG: Kemba Walker
SG: Jeremy Lamb
SF: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
PF: Marvin Williams
C: Dwight Howard
Inactive list: Nicolas Batum and Julyan Stone are out. Treveon Graham (ankle) is questionable.
THIRD QUARTER THOUGHTS
- Early injury scare for Marcus Morris in the quarter as the veteran forward took a hit under the basket and remainder down for several seconds. He remained in the game but clearly still isn't at full strength with his knee despite scoring eight points in the frame. He remains on a minutes limit.
- Jaylen Brown joined Marcus Smart on the shooting woes train. He went 1-of-10 from the field through three frames, but has been a monster on the glass right now with 10 rebounds.
- Brad Stevens has not been happy with the officiating for most of the night after a couple tough loose ball fouls and shooting foul calls that haven't gone Boston's way
- Careless turnovers on a couple easy perimeter passes by Boston, which has prevented the hosts from really making any progress on a double-digit Hornets lead all quarter.
- Nice stretch continued for Larkin, as he drew a couple of shooting fouls in his minutes at the end of the quarter.
SECOND QUARTER THOUGHTS
- Very nice stretch for Shane Larkin to start second quarter, scoring eight points in 6 minutes. Surprised Brad Stevens didn't stick with him for longer to be honest.
- Boston's bench played with energy but were also burned by playing with a true big (Aron Baynes) guarding a stretch five in Frank Kaminsky. The 6-foot-11 forward abused Baynes on the perimeter and scored a team-high 14 points in the first half.
- Shooting struggles continue for Marcus Smart (2-for-10). He's being a little too aggressive with his shot given his skillset. Some nice tenacious in the frame on the defensive end and got into it with Dwight Howard while boxing out, which the Garden crowd loved.
- Jayson Tatum looking a bit hesitant on both ends with his sore left ankle. He's got just five points and zeros across the box score otherwise.
- Brutal sequence that swung the momentum of the game, involving the C's rookie. The C's were going to a hack-a-Howard strategy but Daniel Theis picked up his fourth foul while doing so. He was subbed out for Guerschon Yabusele who did not seem to follow/understand directions from Brad Stevens to foul Howard on the next possession. Hornets scored a 3 and Yabusele then fouled on the next possession, but it was off the ball. Since it came inside 2-minute mark of quarter, the Hornets got a foul shot and the ball. Yabusele was immediately subbed out of the game by Stevens afterwards.
FIRST QUARTER THOUGHTS
- Kyrie Irving took an inadvertent elbow from Aron Baynes a couple minutes into the game to the nose. The point guard stayed down for a couple minutes and headed straight to the locker room with the C's training staff
Kyrie Irving down and bleeding on the court after taking a shot to the face from teammate Aron Baynes. pic.twitter.com/ygNvS1AY6V
— Taylor C. Snow (@taylorcsnow) November 11, 2017
- Brutal offensive start for the Celtics without their top three stars in the fold. Boston began 1-of-11 from the field, missing a host of reasonable looks all over the floor.
- The offense was flat even before Irving's injury. Charlotte was playing some feisty defense and C's weren't running their sets with much purpose.
PREGAME NOTES
- Barring any kind of setback during warmups, Jayson Tatum will play. He left Wednesday's game with a sore left ankle in the second quarter, but x-rays and MRIs came back negative. Here's Brad Stevens on his condition: "They just gave me the medical speech, but it sounded like he had a little bit of pain and inflammation. He didn’t have a reason why. He didn’t come down on it funny or anything, but when he left Wednesday had an X-ray here, and then a deeper MRI the next day and it didn’t show much. He felt way better yesterday, better this morning, and it sounds like one of those things."
- Al Horford will miss his second straight game with concussion symptoms but he's progressing very well according to the head coach and could return next week: "Al’s doing way better, progressing really well, progressing through the protocol to this point," Stevens said. "We’ll hold him out tonight and reassess at the end of the week."
- The Celtics are the first team ever to put together a 10-game winning streak after losing the first two games of the season.
- Kyrie Irving has scored the most points in team history for a new Celtic (245 points) in his first 11 games with the franchise.
- Brad Stevens on the challenge of defending Dwight Howard and trying to keep him off the glass: “That’s easier said than done because Kemba is one of the best in the league and Malik Monk’s had some unbelievable moments over the first few weeks of his career coming off ball screens and shooting. So typically you want to be back against Howard because of his rolls to rebound or lob dunk. But those guards make it so tough. There’s a real fine line there and Howard’s presence is part of that. So we’re going to have to be great at helping appropriately, getting back and trying to protect that rim as well as we can. He’s going to get a few tip-ins, he’s going to get a few dunks, whatever. But we just have to do the best we can to make it as difficult as possible.”