Everything you need to know about Utah’s 107-95 win over the Celtics in quickie form.
HEADLINES
Second quarter disaster: The Celtics looked to be carrying over some offensive momentum from Wednesday’s win over the Nuggets early but things changed quickly in the second quarter. The hosts came out ice cold in the frame, missing 18 consecutive shots at one point when combined with the final few minutes of the first quarter. When the damage was done, the Jazz nearly doubled up the C’s with a 25-13 tally and the C’s were unable to fully recover from shooting an ugly 19 percent (4-of-21) in the frame over the rest of the night.
Supporting cast letdown: Kyrie Irving (game-high 33 points) and Al Horford (21 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists) came to play. The rest of the Celtics supporting cast? Not so much.
This was the nightmare situation people assumed could have often once Gordon Hayward went down. There was no reliable third scoring option as Jayson Tatum scored just seven points. Jaylen Brown had six points. The team collectively shot 26 percent from the field when you subtracted Horford and Irving from the equation, which prevented them from keep pace with the hot-shooting Jazz.
TURNING POINT
The Celtics trailed by double digits for most of the second half but managed to climb within eight points midway through the fourth quarter. Rookie Donovan Mitchell had an awful shooting night through three quarters, but responded when his team needed him most, burying a pair of 3-pointers to push the Jazz lead back to double digits. The Celtics failed to seriously threaten the rest of the way.
TWO UP
Kyrie Irving: He couldn’t hit the 3-ball (2-of-8 from deep), but the point guard took advantage of an injured Jazz frontcourt to attack the basket with a lot of success. He scored a game-high 33 points on 11-of-25 shooting, while making all nine of his free throw attempts. He scored 16 of those points in the third quarter alone.
Al Horford: The big man started the game red-hot from the field, going 4-of-4 from the field in the first quarter to score 10 points out of the gate. He took advantage of a mismatch against Jonas Jerebko for much of the game to post 21 points on 9-of-14 shooting.
TWO DOWN
Marcus Smart: The reserve point guard spent much of the night being a passer first and a shooter second and it didn’t bode well for Boston’s offense. He was a paltry 3-of-13 of the field on the night, including 0-of-6 in the first half. He missed all three of his 3-point attempts as well, bringing his shooting percentage down to 31.8 percent on the year.
Jayson Tatum: We haven’t seen back-to-back duds from the rookie all year, but the 19-year-old is starting to hit a little bit of a wall. He was an ugly 1-of-6 tonight on offense and had quite a few defensive miscues as he tried to hang with the wing-heavy Jazz lineup.
INJURY REPORT
Daniel Theis suffered a broken nose in the second quarter and did not return. He is day-to-day and questionable for Saturday’s game in Memphis.
TOP PLAY
Kyrie's got his dancing shoes on. pic.twitter.com/AZv45dUYDG
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 16, 2017