Terry Rozier played one of the best games of his Celtic career on Wednesday night in his first career start. He followed that up with another gem on Friday night against the Hawks. The third-year guard scored a career-high 31 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the field, helping the Celtics pull away in the second half for a 119-110 win over the Hawks at the TD Garden.
All five starters scored in double figures in the win, as Boston erupted for 66 second half points to turn a tight game at halftime into a runaway. Jayson Tatum added a career-high 27 points in the shorthanded effort as Kyrie Irving (quad), Marcus Smart (hand), Shane Larkin (knee) and Marcus Morris (hip) all sat out, giving the Celtics just ten active players.
Boston has won three straight games heading into Sunday's Super Bowl matinee against the Blazers at noon on Sunday.
GAME: No. 53 of 82:
WHO: Celtics (37-15) vs. Hawks (15-36)
WHEN: 7:30 EST
WHERE: TD Garden
RADIO: 98.5 the Sports Hub
TV: NBC SPORTS BOSTON
BOX SCORE: NBA.COM
Projected starters
Celtics
PG: Terry Rozier
SG: Jaylen Brown
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Al Horford
C: Aron Baynes
Inactive: Marcus Smart (hand), Marcus Morris (butt) Kyrie Irving (quad), Shane Larkin (knee) are all out.
Hawks
PG: Dennis Schroder
SG: Kent Bazemore
F: Taurean Prince
F: Ersan Ilyasova
C: Miles Plumlee
Second Half Notes
- The Celtics decided to wake up pretty quickly in the second half and take care of business against a lowly Hawks team.
- They doubled up the Hawks 41-20 in the third quarter, riding some balanced offense from all five starters (all scoring in double figures) to abuse a bad Hawks defense.
- Al Horford has his way against Ersan Ilyasova in the post countless times, which produced easy baskets in the halfcourt.
- Meanwhile, Terry Rozier caught fire yet again, shattering his previous career-high of 23 points midway through the third quarter. He is riding a wave of confidence right now in the starting spot and has played his best two games of his career, back-to-back.
- The Hawks meanwhile started settling for tough midrange shots and the Celtics locked down defensively on them for long stretches of the third quarter, which helped create the separation.
- With Greg Monroe lingering in the shadows, a very nice game for Aron Baynes (11 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists). He's going to have to continue producing like that to keep his starting job down the stretch here.
- Jayson Tatum remained aggressive and tied
- Terry Rozier's momentum carried over immediately from his triple-double on Wednesday. He started the game a red-hot 6-of-6 from the field and led the Celtics with 14 first half points.
- Jayson Tatum also took a strong offensive cue in this contest with Kyrie Irving and Marcus Morris sidelined, attempting a team-high 11 field goal attempts in the first half. He was efficient as usual scoring 12 points.
- The Celtics' offense performed respectably in the first half with 52 percent shooting but they suffered from a tough whistle from officials. Despite a few very strong drives to the rim, they only got five free throw attempts, which had Brad Stevens gripping with officials for much of the first half.
- Turnovers were an issue for the shorthanded C's as well, as the Hawks scored 11 points of thir eight first half miscues.
- Without their top two defensive point guards available, Dennis Schroder got into a groove early to build a decent early lead for the Hawks. He led all scorers with 17 points in the first half on 8-of-13 shooting. Marco Belinelli also added 12 points off the bench as he benefitted from a pair of 3-shot fouls.
- Kadeem Allen saw some good minutes at backup point guard with the C's down to 10 players. He works hard on defense but his handle needs some work (two turnovers).
- The Celtics will be down to ten active players on Friday night due to injuries up and down the roster. Here's Brad Stevens on the variety of ailments: "Shane continues to struggle with his knee and we thought he’d give it a go as we went through stuff today and he wasn’t able to do that. Kyrie feels a little bit better, again, but still will be day-to-day; not ready to play. Marcus Morris i joked that his butt’s better but we’re not playing him because he wore that jersey the other day when he was being interviewed. But he feels better than we thought he would but he’s still going to be out at least for the foreseeable future, a couple of days. And we’ll go from there. And then Smart’s out. Is that it? I think that’s it."
- While Irving and Morris could return as soon as Sunday's game against the Blazers, Smart still has a longer road back as he recovers from his hand lacerations. "He went back for more of the -- just another checkup and he continues to be a little bit out," Stevens said. "We’re probably looking more at 10 days to two weeks from now. I think we said two weeks originally. Whether that means right before the All-Star break or not, that’s more of our timeline now."
- Stevens wouldn't comment on the reported signing by the Celtics of Greg Monroe since it's not official yet, but he talked about the challenge of integrating new players into the fold midseason.
"It’s always a challenge," Stevens said. "But I think that’s something that, any time you’re in this business, you get used to being on your toes and making sure that you’re able and you’re ready to do those type of things if those things present themselves."
- The Celtics lead the season series against the Hawks 2-0. Dennis Schroder is questionable to play for them.