With a bunch of late night games on this West Coast road trip, the Celtics (12-10 overall, 7-7 away) have been able to hide from the masses after some rough performances and conversely, their nice wins have barely registered locally since few people were watching them live. Today was a different story though as they had a early tip time of high noon in Phoenix (13-9 overall, 6-4 home) and with a snowstorm in New England, you had few other things to do besides watching this ugly game. The Suns topped the Celts 100-91 as Boston fell to 2-4 in its last six contests. C's star Jaylen Brown missed his second game in a row with left knee soreness. These clubs should be roughly at the same level but at the moment, Phoenix is better as the Celtics search for that elusive consistency. Boston got dominated inside-getting outscored 46-26 in the paint-and their shooting was woeful (48.8% for Phoenix to 35.5% for the visitors).
The Suns have been mostly awful (and irrelevant) for years but with point guard Chris Paul (15 points) in his first season with Phoenix, you can sense that he is bringing a culture change to a team that has a bunch of young and talented players. Small forward Mikal Bridges (19 points, 9 rebounds) was the high scorer for the Suns who had five guys score in double figures with at least 15 points apiece. Shooting guard Devin Booker (18 points, 11 assists, 7 rebounds) wasn't too far off from a triple-double while center Deandre Ayton (16 points, 11 rebounds) also had a double-double and small forward Cameron Johnson (17 points) was great off the bench for Phoenix.
Boston head coach Brad Stevens was forced to tinker with his shaky starting lineup and guard Carsen Edwards (2 points in 17 minutes) failed to provide any kind of spark. Swingman Jayson Tatum scored a game-high 23 points (on 22 shots) and had seven assists. Point guard Kemba Walker (14 points) followed up his promising outing on Friday in the upset of the Clippers with his worst shooting performance as a Celtic: he went a dreadful 4-of-20 from the field which seems almost impossible for someone with his shot-making ability. Woof. Power forward Grant Williams (10 points) was the only other starter to reach double figures in scoring. Center Daniel Theis (12 points, 6 rebounds) and rookie guard Payton Pritchard (12 points, 5 rebounds) both showed that maybe they shouldn't have come off the bench vs. the Suns.
The final score is deceptively close because Boston's biggest lead was one measly point while Phoenix's ballooned up to as much as 17 points. The Suns outscored them 27-19 in the first quarter but Boston's only quality frame was the second as they outscored Phoenix 30-25 to cut it to 52-49 at halftime. The Suns didn't exactly run away with it-taking the third quarter 24-19 and then closing it out with a similar last quarter (24-23). Phoenix grabbed nine more total rebounds (50-41) including 13 more defensive boards (41-28). The home team also hit four more free throws (12-8) and blocked three more shots (5-2).
The C's have one last game left on this trip and it's probably the toughest one of them all if they want to finish above .500 (3-2) on it: they are in Salt Lake City on Tuesday (10, NBC Sports Boston) to face the Jazz (19-5) who currently own the best record in the NBA. Utah is always one of the tougher places in the league to play at and the Jazz have been one of the biggest positive surprises this season. Guard Donovan Mitchell (who averages 23.5 points per game) is one of the better players in the NBA even if Shaq stubbornly disagrees with that general consensus. I couldn't tell you what to expect from that matchup since every time you doubt the Celts they play good basketball. A win would put a bow on what has been a weird week for the Celtics traveling far away from home and playing some of the best clubs in the Western Conference.
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