Final: Celtics 128, Kings 75 - Total domination

GAME 49
Boston Celtics (24-24, 15-10 home, 8th East) vs. Sacramento Kings (18-30, 6-14 road, 10th West)
TD Garden
7:30 PM - NBC Sports Boston

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS

Boston: Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, Robert Williams

Sacramento: Tyrese Haliburton, Terence Davis, Marvin Bagley, Harrison Barnes, Richaun Holmes

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

- Only PJ Dozier and Bol Bol appear on the Celtics injury report

- De’Aaron Fox and Chimezie Metu are out for the #Kings

- Boston is favored by 8.5 

GOING A LITTLE DEEPER

Can this make the Celtics closer? 

Boston’s season-long struggles have led to a mediocre, .500 season so far and a ton of noise outside the organization full of opinions on how to fix things. This can do one of two things to a team: tear it apart at the seams, or bring it together. 

Marcus Smart says it’s doing the latter. 

“It’s us versus everybody. Nobody really believes in us but us on his team,” Smart said. “It’s the mindset we got to keep and we gotta let that fuel us, whatever that takes, whatever that means. We got to use it to our advantage.”

Any team going through a season this disappointing has to find some sort of common ground. The inconsistency of availability and play throughout the year has led to a number of public scapegoats, so it’s important that similar finger-pointing isn’t happening inside the locker room. 

“The season hasn’t gone the way we expected as far as ups and downs, but we always try to find ways to come together as a team,” Jaylen Brown said. “So the mentality of us against the world is the right frame of mind to be in. If these are the guys that we’ve got, the guys that we’re rolling with, then we’ve got to make the best of our situation regardless of the media or whatever other people are saying.”

A unified mentality is important If the Celtics are going to turn things around over these last 33 games, but it’s also important to understand that there are only 33 games left, starting with this matchup against the Kings.

“Yeah there's always urgency, always a sense of urgency, for sure,” Brown said. “We’re looking to do so more as we took what we learned from the first half of the season into All-Star break and beyond. I think that we have improved in a lot of areas offensively, as a team, as a coaching staff, as players, I think we’ve gotten a little bit more comfortable. We’ve just got to keep that sense of urgency and keep building on top of it.” 

THREE THINGS TO WATCH FOR

1. No letdown: The Celtics are coming off a blowout win over Washington, facing a bad Kings squad missing De’Aaron Fox. One of Boston’s major flaws over the past couple of seasons has been their inability to handle success. So the first thing we’d like to avoid tonight is any feeling of superiority over the Kings that lets Sacramento’s shooters get, and stay, hot from deep. Boston needs to come out strong and make the Kings work for their points. 

2. Offensive cohesion: The return of Marcus Smart has given Boston its full complement of rotation players. The Celtics can now focus on cleaning up some of the key areas that have killed them this season.

“Really zeroing in on end of game situations, what we want to get there. We have stuff that we've done well all year and then obviously some lost leads in the fourth quarter,” Ime Udoka said. “Still got a ways to go. Not content with anything obviously. Had the good game the other night and have to have some carryover and follow up and continue to do what we did well against Washington.”

The key for Boston in these tough situations is having guys who trust each other on the floor. The Celtics can stave off some of these rough closes by working together to run their stuff rather than simply go off on their own to answer buckets. 

3. Transition defense: The Kings will have a chance if they can get out and run. 

“They're playing extremely well offensively over the last 10 or so games,” Udoka said. “Defense hasn't been as up to par for them, so it's more of a shootout and we can exploit some things there on our end offensively. But it's gonna be a challenge offensively to stop them, slow them down. Unique team, similar to us where they play two bigs, so a lot of lineups they can play. But they've been dangerous and just because they haven't got the wins, I don't think it's a reflection of how well they're playing offensively.”

Boston can’t get caught up in any misses or missed calls. They have to get back, match up, and force the Kings to run an actual offense. The Celtics making sure they're getting good shots so they can get back and set their defense will also help a lot. 

GAME THREAD

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