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One thing's for sure. The Boston Celtics camp has not been carrying the best locker room atmosphere of late. But their latest 107-96 win over the Washington Wizards to snap a four-game losing streak might provide them some much-needed repose.
"Tonight was fun for everybody. You could see that," said Marcus Smart, "Tonight the ball was popping. It was moving. We made every right play."
Boston held the Wizards to just 15 points in the final period for just their fourth win in the last ten games, and they find themselves down at the 5th spot on the East leaderboard.
"I just was happy to see the effort from everyone. Guys were diving on the floor, really getting after it," Horford said.
Brad Stevens' men are now 38-25(0.603) on the season, very likely to not fall lower than their current position considering the gap that separates the sixth place Brooklyn Nets and themselves.
On the other hand, the ailing Wizards have now fallen 4 games behind the eighth-seeded Hornets in the East, with a playoff berth looking highly unlikely from this point on. The loss takes them to a subpar 25-37 win-loss record on the season, as they remain stuck at the 11th position on the Conference standings.
On that note, let's take a look at few of the major talking points from the encounter:
#1 Uncle Drew's bad shooting night
Coming into this one, Kyrie Irving had been averaging a sliver above 21 points for the past 10 games. However, he could only manage 13 in this home win. In order to make up for the scoring deficiency, Irving dished out 12 dimes and pulled down 6 boards, despite shooting 6-of-15 from the field and a forgettable 1-of-3 night from downtown as well.
Seven Celtics players finished in double-digits scoring, led by veteran center Al Horford's 18 points in just 29 minutes. What really separated the hosts from their opposition was that the Celtics, as a unit, came up with 12 steals during the game, forcing the Wizards to commit 18 turnovers.
"Turnovers were the difference. I thought we actually played a really solid defensive game against a team that's loaded with a lot of talent," Washington coach Scott Brooks said. "We game them so many easy opportunities."
#2 Bradley Beal has been carrying the Wall-less Wizards for quite some time now
The Wizards scored 20 points in the first quarter against the Celtics, half of which were chipped in by their leading scorer and 2-time All-Star Bradley Beal. His team couldn't get a field goal for the first six minutes of play until Beal dunked one to start things off.
The aforementioned observations are just a rendition of how the Wizards' season has been ever since John Wall exited the picture. Beal has been averaging around 31 points across all the games he's played this past month, shooting 52.2% from the field all this while.
In this particular loss, Beal ended up scoring a team-high 29 points and pulling 11 rebounds(also team-high), taking 23 shots single-handedly.
The last time he scored below 20 points in a game was in January against the Pistons.
#3 What this win means to the Celtics' plummeting camaraderie
Carrying the fifth best defensive rating in the league, the Celtics held their opponents scoreless across a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter. The Wizards committed seven turnovers in that window, as the defensive intensity proved to be pivotal in closing the game for Boston.
"That one stretch of defense separated the game and that was fun to see," Boston coach Brad Stevens said.
The effort on the defensive end showed that this team can still put aside all the background noise and dial-up the vigor when needed to create separation in close games. Undoubtedly, the recent chatter and locker-room spats have deviated their focus to a large extent, however, their ferociousness on both ends of the floor in crunch situations is still unmatched.
Kyrie Irving and his high-powered group can finally take a deep breath and focus on things that matter - one of them being bridging the gap from last year and making it to the NBA Finals.
