The chatter from the Celtics locker room after Monday’s win was focused on the improved defensive performance in the wake of an ugly three-game losing skid and that’s a healthy thing. Defense was the focus of the film session on Sunday and needs to be a point of emphasis for this team going forward on a nightly basis for them to stay in the running as an East contender. The team’s size and matchup issues will force them to be sharp on that end of the floor no matter what – in order to succeed.
Still, that mentality buried perhaps what should have been the lead out of the last night’s 139-107 demolition of the Lakers. It had been nearly a month since the Celtics had a full core healthy and quite frankly, this group hadn’t looked this explosive on the offensive end since November when they were running on all cylinders. The end result was the best offensive performance of the season, with the C’s scoring over 139 points per 100 possessions against the NBA’s third-best defense entering the contest.
The most encouraging part of the performance? The Celtics offense kept coming period after period, scoring 33 points or more in all four quarters to take away any chance of a legitimate Lakers rally.
“That was really important tonight,” Brad Stevens said. “We’ve all seen LeBron go on his runs where an 18-point game becomes eight and all of a sudden you’re unsettled for the rest of the game. I don’t know what it was at halftime, but we pushed it out and just kept pushing it out consistently. We weren’t getting stops at the start of the half, but we were scoring. We did a good job of spacing and attacking. And then we settled down and got some stops and were able to push it out from there. But you still never quite feel comfortable as long as he and Anthony Davis are on the other team.”
While shooting 55 percent from the field certainly helps in putting up 139 points on any given night, the good news about this effort for the C’s was the balance across the offense. Six players scored nine points or more while five of those six players shot over 50 percent from the field.
A few other key eye-opening stats from the performance:
- 2nd highest offensive rebounding rate of the year (36.8 percent)
- Third best shooting night of the year (55.9 percent)
- Third best shooting night of the year from 3-point range (47.1%)
- Second most 3-point makes (16) in a game
- Sixth-most free throw attempts (29)
- Second most assists (31)
