Celtics 110
Wizards 102
March 20, 2017 - TD Garden, Boston, MA
The Wizards fell to the Celtics 110-102. It’s pretty amazing they lost by eight considering the way they were dominated in the second half. The Wizards now trail the C’s by 2.5 games in the Eastern Conference standings for the second seed. Washington road record drops to 15-18 on the season and they need to turn it around considering they only play at home FOUR more times. Nine of the final 13 games are on the road.
Quick Hits:
Losing the battle of the boards.
The Wizards were outrebounded 54-39, a -15 margin which is pretty bad. What’s worse is that the Wizards were outrebounded by the 26th worst rebounding team in the NBA. On the offensive side, the Celtics outrebounded the Wizards 20-8. In the first half, Washington was outrebounded 31-16 with 14 of those rebounds coming from Kelly Olynyk, Tyler Zeller, and Amir Johnson. Boston’s 20 offensive rebounds were a season-high. The Wizards also gave up 24 points off of 18 turnovers.
These teams (still) hate each other
In the second meeting, the game ended in a scuffle between Crowder and Wall. The third meeting was the funeral game. On Monday night, there wasn't as much black worn by the players when entering the arena but the passion and the intensity was still present on the court. In the second quarter of the game, Brandon Jennings and Terry Rozier got in a little scuffle of their own. Jennings was in his Rozier’s face after hitting a jumper to tie the game and Rozier didn’t have it. He shoved Jennings to the floor and each player got a technical foul.
The momentum shift..
Following the Jennings-Rozier skirmish the momentum shifted to the Celtics, who responded with a 21-10 run. Twenty-two minutes later, the Celtics had outscored the Wizards 62-38. The Wizards desperately tried to get back in the game and they would cut the deficit to as small as six after Kelly Oubre stole the ball and slammed it home. That was as close as they’d get as the Celtics would put the game away. The Wizards have now lost four of their last five.
Highlights: