Everything you need to know about the Celtics’ 110-102 overtime win over the Mavericks in quickie form.
HEADLINES
Kyrie Irving puts on a show: The 25-year-old put together one of his best offensive performances of his career on Monday night, scoring a season-high 47 points on 16-of-22 shooting, while adding six assists. Irving scored 17 of those points in the fourth quarter and overtime, helping the C’s rally from a 13-point deficit in the fourth and escape with the win.
16 in a row: The visitors had to fight tooth and nail to earn their 16th straight victory, but they joined some elite company in the process. They now have the fourth-longest streak in team history and only 18 teams in league history have won more than 16-straight games in a single season.
Dodging a bullet: The Celtics have had their shares of close calls over the last 16 wins, but this was the game during the streak they probably deserved to lose. Outside of a hot shooting first quarter, the Mavericks dominated the better part of the final three quarters until Irving flipped a switch in crunch time. A 2-3 zone gave the Celtics’ offense plenty of trouble all night long, as woeful shooting from everyone outside of Irving and Jaylen Brown (22 points) helped the visitors dig a deep hole for themselves during the middle two quarters.
TURNING POINT
The Celtics trailed the Mavericks by 13 points (87-74) with just over seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter before Irving came to the rescue. The point guard was directly responsible for 23 of the team’s final 36 points via scoring himself (17 points) or the pass (six points on three assists), helping the C’s close out the road win with a 36-15 run, including a 22-9 edge over the final seven minutes of regulation.
SECOND GUESS
Brad Stevens rolled with some unorthodox lineups in the second quarter, including dusting off Abdel Nader for a few minutes in the midst of those double-digit leads. Nader and the bench unit struggled on both ends, which helped the Mavs get back into a game after a dominant first quarter by the Celtics.
TWO UP
Irving: Entered Saturday’s game in Atlanta with a career-low mark in shooting percentage from the field (41 percent) and 3-point line (31 percent). He’s improved those percentage by five points with his superb shooting over the last two games, combining to score 77 points on 26-of-34 shooting from the field.
Brown: For the second-straight game, Irving and Brown looked like the best backcourt in the Eastern Conference. While Irving did the offensive heavy lifting on Monday night, Brown was incredibly efficient for the second straight game, going 8-of-13 from the field for 22 points while adding nine rebounds. He’s also shooting 50 percent from 3-point range (10-of-20) in his last three games.
TWO DOWN
Marcus Smart’s shooting: It’s generally not a good sign when you go 3-of-15 from the field and your shooting averages don’t go down much, but that was the case on Monday night. The 23-year-old guard hoisted up a team-high 11 3-point attempts against a Mavs defense that successfully goaded him into shooting all night long. He missed nine of them, but still managed to hit a big one late in the fourth quarter to help the visitors close the gap.
Al Horford's shot selection: We hadn’t seen a hesitant Horford for much of the season but he did not look comfortable at all on offense tonight. The big man attempted just five shots in 39 minutes (1-of-5 FG), turning down a host of layup opportunities inside to find open shooters. The problem with that? Those open shooters were misfiring for most of the night.
INJURIES
None
TOP PLAY
A ton of crazy things about this play, but Jayson Tatum’s initial save was probably the most impressive part of it. Now that I’m mentioning him, his rebounding in the fourth quarter and overtime was huge as well in this win.
Marcus Smart doing Marcus Smart things ☘ pic.twitter.com/MY0jLOJllA
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 21, 2017
