The Boston Celtics simply handed the Golden State Warriors their largest dwelling loss since 1985 on their first sport of their second West Coast highway journey of the month, a 40-point rout. Golden State was with no few rotational gamers, however that doesn’t matter to the Celtics who wish to begin constructing some new momentum after sub-par play during the last two months. Tonight, they’ll be dealing with an analogous state of affairs as they head in to Los Angeles to tackle the Clippers, they usually’ll be trying to reap the benefits of it as soon as once more.
The Clippers will likely be with out Kawhi Leanord, Ivica Zubac, Norman Powell, Kris Dunn, James Harden and Nicolas Batum. That leaves Derrick Jones Jr. because the lone wholesome starter, the remainder of the gamers probably simply getting some relaxation on the front-end of a back-to-back. Boston can be on the front-end of their back-to-back towards the 2 LA groups, and at present have Jrue Vacation, Al Horford, and Kristaps Porzingis listed as questionable.
Do the Celtics stagger resting Porzingis and Horford?
It’s been the coverage for the previous two years now for Al and Kristaps to relaxation on back-to-backs. Each are beginning caliber gamers, so we’ve typically seen their relaxation days being staggered, one resting on the primary night time and the opposite resting on the second. Provided that Ivica Zubac is out for tonight, together with a number of different key Clippers gamers, it wouldn’t shock me to see Boston relaxation each Porzingis and Horford, particularly contemplating that the staff will likely be dealing with Anthony Davis and the Lakers tomorrow. Porzingis was a late addition to tonight’s harm report although, being listed as questionable because of an sickness. That would imply that the staff determined it was higher to relaxation him and Al collectively, or that he’s really sick and will presumably miss tonight, and perhaps even tomorrow’s sport.
How shortly will the Celtics deal with enterprise, if in any respect?
After seeing the energetic roster that Los Angeles is rolling in to this sport with, many Boston followers are this sport as a scheduled loss. The Celtics have been identified to play right down to their competitors every so often. Particularly on this latest stretch, they’ve been discovering methods to shock us with the losses they fall into. They decimated the Warriors on Monday night time, although, so I’m selecting to consider that they’re prepared to show the nook once more.
We’ll need to see in the event that they handle to get again to their killer-whale offense, ramping up their aggression and attacking the weakest defenders to generate straightforward baskets. The Clippers maintain the third finest defensive ranking within the league, however that quantity shouldn’t maintain tonight with a number of of their gamers out. That is Boston’s probability to have one other explosive offensive output and earn themselves some relaxation in direction of the top of the sport. East Coast Celtics followers typically dread the West Coast journeys for the harm they do to our sleep schedules. Right here’s to hoping Boston items us with an early end to tonight’s sport.
Does Jrue Vacation turn out to be a daily within the back-to-back relaxation administration plan?
Jrue missed 3 video games in direction of the top of December with the identical shoulder impingement as he’s tonight. Since getting back from that harm he’s seemed higher as my colleague Jacob Issenberg wrote about just lately.
Whereas he doesn’t have a severe historical past of harm, it’s been a protracted 12 months and a half of basketball for him, and it could be finest to restrict his workload to maintain him contemporary for the playoffs. We gained’t get a definitive reply to this query tonight, however it’s a pattern price monitoring.
