The Celtics went on to a 40-point first quarter that led to a convincing 118-98 blowout of the Wizards.
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“I’m not going to let anybody just keep me from being me, no matter who it is”, Beal said. “You just can’t give up uncontested layups and two of them were in transition and transition kills you with these guys”. Their pace is great. We won’t make excuses. “We were lucky to respond the way we did”.
For the second straight game, the Wizards blitzed their foes at the game’s start.
“They took our momentum away, ” Wall said. “They did a great job defensively”.
Celtics: The Celtics’ 40 points in the first quarter was seven more than they had scored in a period through the first four games….
The Celtics closed the first quarter on a 24-9 run and Washington never recovered. “There will be more of that as we move forward”. “We haven’t been playing well in the first half of games”.
Boston also kept Washington’s backcourt duo of Bradley Beal and John Wall from getting the Wizards’ offense into much of a rhythm.
The Boston Celtics snapped their three game losing streak against the Washington Wizards, one of the strongest teams in the Eastern Conference.
After Thomas’ first two starts with the Boston Celtics, we finally have a (very small) sample of what inserting him in the first unit looks like.
“Coach told me before the season that I would have to be ready to do different things, depending on matchups and who’s healthy or not”, said Turner. The power forward has been thriving on the court to begin the season which is coming at a good time. You want as many of your bodies on hand as possible and obviously Marcus with his defensive ability and the way he’s impacted games is a guy that we’d hope to have.
The Celtics, who came in shooting 26 percent on 3-pointers, were 12 of 21 after the third-quarter outburst but missed their last nine shots from behind the arc, but it didn’t matter. Kelly Olynyk added 19 points and Evan Turner scored 16 as the Celtics won for the first time since opening night with a dominant performance at home. He was helped to the locker room by Sullinger and Stevens didn’t have a report after the game, saying “I heard that he bumped his knee”. Beal led Washington with 24 points and Wall, who fell into foul trouble early, finished with 13 points and eight assists. Wall was just 6 of 17 from the floor, 0 of 3 from 3-point range. They ran the floor hard with Wall knifing his way into the lane in transition, leading to a few easy scoring opportunities at the basket, the most important of which: an Otto Porter And-1 of a attractive off-ball cut while Marcin Gortat had set up on the block.
It’s clear the Wizards are still searching for answers on both sides of the floor, which was expected, but what they can’t afford is compounding those issues by shooting themselves in the foot. “So I think that’s something that’s real is the fact that you have to play the whole game”. His absence created a matchup problem against the guard-rich Wizards.
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He admits to being surprised this past summer when Celtics coach Brad Stevens told him what would likely happen this season.
