Banner Town Breakdown: Kings Rally to Beat the Celtics
Creator: Winslow Townson | Credit: AP | Copyright: Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. | All rights reserved.
Fresh off of a win against the Warriors, the Celtics traveled to Sacramento to take on the Kings in their second game of a back-to-back. While they held some solid leads throughout the game, Sacramento’s high-intensity play resulted in a 111-116 Celtics loss. Boston fought hard, but the Kings’ young duo pushed them over the edge, leading them to the win.
De’Aaron Fox was looking to follow up a career night that saw him drop 38 points and 12 assists. He’s been playing at an All-Star level all season long. Meanwhile, the C’s would be without Kemba Walker, who will be sitting out on the second night of back-to-backs all season long.
While most assumed Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown would lead the offensive attack for Boston this game, it was actually Tristan Thompson who carried the load. Finishing with 17 points and 10 rebounds, Thompson posted his third double-double of the season. After a recent rough patch of games, he’s been on fire in the last two. His post play and constant attack on the offensive glass were huge reasons why the Celtics were able to consistently stay in this game.
Along with Thompson’s solid play, both Brown and Tatum did their thing as well. Tatum’s offense was silky smooth all night long, as he finished with 27 points, 9 rebounds, and 10 assists. He found a lot of his success while playing with the lineup dubbed, “Tatum and the rest”, which is essentially just Tatum playing with a bunch of bench guys.
As for Brown, he ended up being the leading scorer on the night, staying super aggressive for the entire game. Another development to note is his fearlessness when taking threes. No matter how fast the defender closes out he’s pulling up, and it goes in most of the time. Brown finished with 21 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 assists.
Another shoutout has to go to Robert Williams, who was a constant threat in the paint for Boston throughout the course of this game. Whether it was on the offensive or defensive end, Williams was always attacking the paint. He finished with 9 points and 8 rebounds, including 3 offensive boards.
On the other side of things, Sacramento found strength in numbers, getting contributions in a lot of different areas. Despite this, rookie Tyrese Haliburton shined through as a top performer. Off the bench, he put up 21 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 assists, and seemed to be the most engaged player on the court at all times. No matter what the Kings needed from him he seemed to deliver, highlighted by a great put-back at the end of the third quarter.
A big reason why this game ended up being so close was the relentlessness of Sacramento. A huge storyline for Boston this season has been the offensive lulls that seem to occur almost every game. Fox (26 points and 11 assists) and the starters constantly kept up the pace, and it was the main reason they were able to keep it close. He and Haliburton played with insane energy all night long and made sure that the Kings were always a thorn in the side of the Celtics.
Some sloppy play from both sides led to an extremely tight-knit fourth quarter, as both teams had stretches where they looked completely dominant. Fox and Haliburton would feast on one end, while Tatum and Brown were killing it on the other. It was a truly entertaining duel between two great young duos.
One place where Boston struggled mightily was on free throws. They got to the line 29 times but only were able to convert on 22 of them. What made it even worse was that a lot of the misses seemed to come at times where the C’s were trying to retake control of the game.
In the end, Sacramento’s energy and perseverance outweighed Boston’s star power, as the Kings were able to come away with the win. The Celtics have to be more consistent on both ends of the floor if they want to win games like this. Going up by double-digits just to let the lead slowly die out isn’t going to win many basketball games. They’ll have an opportunity to get back in the win column on Friday, February 5th at 10:00 PM EST on ESPN.
