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The Boston Celtics who had started to turn around their mediocre start to the season are now on a two-game losing streak. They lost Wednesday night to the lowly Phoenix Suns. The score was 111-103. The Celtics offense stalled in the second half. After scoring 62 first-half points for a 62-59 lead they only managed 41 second-half points and 18 in the third quarter.
The Suns got 23 points and 18 rebounds from DeAndre Ayton. They also got 21 points from T.J. Warren and 25 points and 8 assists for Devin Booker. For the Celtics, Kyrie Irving recorded a double-double with 29 points and 10 assists. The Celtics also got 18 points from Jayson Tatum and 12 points apiece from Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart.
Aron Baynes fractured the left fourth metacarpal and will be out indefinitely. The injury happened on a turnover when Kyrie Irving knocked the ball loose from Devin Booker and Baynes sort of got tangled with DeAndre Ayton in the scramble to claim the loose ball. With no real center presence on the floor for the Celtics. Here are three talking points from tonight's game.
#1 Offensive rebounding
The Phoenix Suns had a real advantage in this game. With Al Horford already missing time due to knee inflammation the Celtics lost Aron Baynes after just 2:02 of playing time. With no real interior threat offensively or defensively, the Suns dominated the glass and especially the offensive glass.
The Suns recorded 21 offensive rebounds. DeAndre Ayton had 8 offensive boards out of 18 that he recorded in this game. The Suns also got at least 1 offensive rebound from all 8 men they played.
With Baynes now out indefinitely and Horford dealing with knee problems, the Celtics will have to rely on Robert Williams III. The 6’10 C/PF in his rookie season will be relied upon to anchor Boston’s defense and tonight was a bad night for him to be pressed into action. Williams played 24 minutes scoring 8 points and grabbed 8 rebounds but was a -13 for the game.
#2 Boston’s imbalance
With Baynes and Horford out of the lineup, Boston is strictly a perimeter scoring team. They shot 44% against the Suns which isn’t horrible. However, they were not efficient. Tatum was 7/17, Jaylen Brown was 3/9 and Rozier was 4/11. Kyrie Irving is going to need some help.
The Celtics need to find a way to get Gordon Hayward going. He was brought in as a free agent by general manager Danny Ainge in the summer of 2017. He suffered a nasty break and dislocation of the leg, literally 5 minutes into last season and that was it. Hayward has played in 25 games for Boston this year but is only averaging 10.9 points per game. Just three seasons ago Hayward was averaging 21 plus points per game for Utah.
Many teams are in that phase of the season where nagging injuries or start popping up and a star player like Gordon Hayward needs to start shining for Boston. For example, The Raptors were without Jonas Valanciunas, Serge Ibaka, and Kyle Lowry and found a way to beat a good and streaking Indiana team after leading for all of 29 seconds in their contest tonight.
Also at issue is that Kyrie Irving, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward are all guards and wing players. They have two true centers left on the roster in Robert Williams III and Daniel Theis.
This is in his second year and Williams is a rookie. The Celtics need help at center. Horford has already missed 6 straight games and now Baynes is out indefinitely. Further, Theis is only 6'8 and Williams is 6'10. Boston is not only inexperienced they are small at center right now. This also means Boston will be playing a lot of small ball in the immediate future.
While every team in the NBA has enough talent to beat anyone on any night, the Celtics are better than Phoenix. However, they are going to need to find a way to balance their inside-out game so that they do not become one dimensional.
#3 DeAndre Ayton
The Phoenix Suns' rookie and 1st overall pick of the 2018 NBA Draft had a monster game. He is currently moving up the rankings for consideration to be rookie of the year. He is second in rookie scoring at 15.7 per game, He is mere percentage points ahead of Trae Young.
Only Luka Doncic scores more than Ayton, as a rookie, right now. Doncic is averaging 18.4 a game. Ayton also averaging 10.2 rebounds per game. Saturday night he had 18 points and 12 rebounds against the Timberwolves. On Monday night, he had 21 points and 13 rebounds. Against the Celtics, Ayton scored 23 points on 10/14 shooting. He pulled down 18 rebounds and 8 of those were offensive rebounds.
Ayton is starting to rack up double-double stats and is averaging one for the season. The Suns have a pretty good one-two punch with Devin Booker attacking the perimeter and Ayton patrolling the middle down low.
For the moment, the Phoenix Suns are on a 4 game winning streak but are still the worst team out West. As for the Celtics, they are 8-2 in their last ten games after the Pistons broke the Celtics 8-0 win streak on Saturday night. The Celtics are now on a two-game losing streak and are 5th in the Eastern Conference.
