Final: Celtics 121, Spurs 116 - Not pretty & not encouraging, but it's a win

Game 38: Celtics (-15) at San Antonio Spurs, 6:00 p.m., AT&T Center, NBCS Boston

Injuries: 

Boston: Danilo Gallinari

San Antonio: Keldon Johnson (hamstring), Jakob Poeltl (achilles), Devin Vassell (knee)

Spurs probable starters: Jeremy Sochan, Tre Jones, Romeo Langford, Josh Richardson, Isaiah Roby

Refs: Rodney Mott (#71), Matt Boland (#18), John Butler (#30)

A little something about this game: The Spurs just beat the Pistons last night to snap a 3-game losing streak. The Spurs are 1-6 on the second game of a back-to-back. They have the league’s worst defensive rating and third-worst offensive rating. 

How the Celtics win: The Spurs are young and they don’t do much well, but this isn’t an invitation to try to go 1-on-1 and embarrass them 1-by-1. The way to beat a young, bad team is to move the ball and make them make bad decisions. Good ball movement will lead to a parade at the rim and an easy night.

How the Spurs win: They’ll win if they follow the Thunder blueprint of playing hard, playing fast, and attacking the rim. Tre Jones can buck the Spurs trend of being a mediocre team at the rim, and revenge games from Langford and Richardson could be good enough to put the Spurs in position to win. 

Gregg Popovich will have his team motivated. They will come out of the gates hard. Boston’s might have to absorb a big punch right away before firing back. The Spurs have to hope that big punch has a follow up. 

One thing I’m looking for:

I’m keeping this whole thing simple. The Spurs are bad, but they're young and hungry. The Celtics know they won’t hear the end of it if they look bad in this game, especially with the Spurs on a back-to-back.

“It's easy to bring it against guys like Luka (Doncic) when it's a nationally televised game,” Malcolm Brogdon said Thursday night. “We got to focus on ourselves. (Against Dallas), we made it about ourselves. We didn't make it about Luka. We knew the challenge in front of us ahead of us, but we made it about ourselves and how good we had to be and I think we got to do the same thing against San Antonio.”

They said all the right things after the Mavs game. Now they have to follow up on them. 

Come out strong, absorb whatever punch the Spurs throw early, and then make them wilt under the constant pressure of good basketball. Then everyone can take the fourth quarter off. 

Follow along below or in the comments during the game, chime in, and let’s have fun.