After more than a year apart, the Celtics (23-24 overall, 13-8 home) finally allowed a small percentage of fans (12% capacity) to attend tonight's game vs. the Pelicans (21-25 overall, 7-14 away) at the TD Garden. Naturally with this season's mediocre squad, the Celts gave their fans a few wet farts in the form of no Jaylen Brown (who was unexpectedly out with a left hip contusion), swingman Evan Fournier's (0-for-10 shooting in 33 minutes with 2 steals and 2 blocks) Celtics debut went about as poorly as possible (minus Gordon Hayward's horrific ankle injury a few years back in Chicago) and they trailed by as many as 17 points en route to a 115-109 loss that gave New Orleans the two-game season sweep.
Boston entered with a little momentum after winning back-to-back road games at Milwaukee (29-17) and Oklahoma City (19-27) over the weekend but that was quickly snuffed out by a hungrier team that is in a playoff race of its own in the deeper and tougher Western Conference. New Orleans was led by its two young All-Stars: power forward Zion Williamson (team-high 28 points, 8 rebounds, 4 steals) and small forward Brandon Ingram (25 points, 9 assists) were more than your usual selfish guys from Duke. Speaking of which, their fellow Dukie swingman Jayson Tatum (game-high 34 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals) was superb but naturally with Brown out, the Celts didn't have enough depth to make up for his absence. Guards Nickeil Walker-Alexander (17 points, 7 rebounds) and Eric Bledsoe (13 points, 5 assists) also scored in double figures for the road team with shooting guard Josh Hart (15 points, 15 rebounds) notching a beefy double-double in 33 minutes off the bench.
Celtics point guard Kemba Walker scored 23 points while guard Marcus Smart added 15 points and two blocks then center Robert Williams (7 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks) did some nice things in his third start in a row and he played a career-high 32 minutes in the loss. Additionally, guard Payton Pritchard (11 points, 5 rebounds) and Boston's new backup center Luke Kornet (11 points) both put together fine performances off the bench. New Orleans led basically the entire game as they were up 32-27 after one quarter and 64-55 at halftime. Boston took the third quarter by a basket (26-24) and they trimmed the Pelcians' lead down to three in the fourth quarter before they ran out of both time and energy.
New Orleans snuck into the bubble playoffs last season and let's hope that one of the more exciting young teams in the NBA likewise can return to the postseason this spring. The Pelicans shot 7% better from the field than Boston (50-43%), they hit two more 3-pointers (16-14), dished out nine more assists (30-21), had three more steals (8-5) and scored seven more fast break points (15-8) so yeah, I would say that they deserved to win. This was the beginning of a pivotal and season-high seven-game homestand for the C's, up next they host another young superstar-Luka Doncic-and the Mavericks (24-21 overall, 13-11 road) on Wednesday (7:30, NBC Sports Boston) at the Garden. With any luck, Brown will be back for that one and no matter what, Fournier figures to improve on his nightmare start as a Celtic.
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