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Rockets host Celtics on Saturday
By: Sam Chase - StatFox
Published: 3/2/2018  at  10:15:00 AM
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BOSTON CELTICS

at HOUSTON ROCKETS

Tip-off: Saturday, 8:30 p.m. ET
Line: NA, Total: NA

Boston and Houston are a combined 8-0 since the All-Star break.

Things weren't looking good for the Celtics entering All-Star Weekend. They lost four of their last five before the break, and had suffered a separate four-game losing streak less than a month earlier. Their defense—once the league's best—looked weary, and an offense that already wasn't much better than average looked completely ineffectual. But since getting a week off for rest, Boston has looked like a new team—or, rather, an old one, the one that won sixteen straight games in the earliest stages of the season. But the Celtics' post-break four-game winning streak has come against a lackluster set of teams, including Detroit, New York, Memphis and Charlotte. They'll get a real test on Saturday, when they hit the road to take on the Houston Rockets. Houston, which has barely struggled at all during any point this season, is also 4-0 since the break, with their wins coming over Minnesota, Denver, Utah and the Clippers. These two teams played a thriller earlier this season in Boston just days after Christmas, when Boston made a staggering comeback from 26 points down to beat the Rockets by a 99-98 score.

While odds are that Celtics PG Kyrie Irving will be playing against the eventual league MVP on Saturday night, he certainly has a good case for the award in his own right. He's carrying this young Boston team night in and night out while still fitting into Brad Stevens' ball movement-oriented offense. He led the charge on Wednesday night as the Celtics launched there biggest offensive onslaught of the season, scoring 34 points on 13-of-18 shooting in a 134-106 blowout of the Hornets. The craziest thing about the offensive explosion was that the Celtics' other offensive studs had little to do with it. C Al Horford, the do-it-all facilitator that makes things go, only put up five points and four assists. And rookie SF Jayson Tatum, the team's best non-Irving scorer, only scored seven. Tatum has hit the proverbial rookie wall a little bit recently, which was to be expected, but he's also proving that he can contribute in ways other than scoring. SG Jaylen Brown muscled his way to 15 points on 7-of-7 free throw shooting, and caused havoc on the perimeter on the other end of the floor. But it was arguably a trio of bench players that stole the show, and PF Marcus Morris, C Greg Monroe and PG Terry Rozier combined for 43 points. Rozier has taken enormous steps as a young player this season, and he is now among the league's premier backup point guards. Monroe hasn't wowed since being signed a few weeks ago, so these signs of life were maybe the most encouraging things the Celtics saw all night—and there were plenty of encouraging things.

If and when Rockets PG James Harden wins the MVP Award this year, he'll be beyond well deserving. He's had a lot of savage highlights, but the most nasty may have come from Wednesday, when he broke Wesley Johnson's ankles, stared at his fallen foe for what seemed an eternity, and then calmly buried a three-pointer. It was downright rude. With averages of 31.3 PPG and 8.9 APG, Harden is putting up a historically good offensive season. And this year, he's surrounded by more talent than ever before—or at least since his Oklahoma City days. That starts with PG Chris Paul, who has thrived as option 1B in Mike D'Antoni's creative offense. There are nights when he's relatively quiet statistically (eight points and eight rebounds against the Clippers on Wednesday) and those when he explodes (25 points, eight rebounds and nine assists against Dallas before the All-Star break, but he's always an enormous part of the offense. SG Eric Gordon is sneakily shooting only 33.5% from deep this season, but he's averaging 18.5 PPG nonetheless. SF Trevor Ariza, SG Gerald Green and PF Ryan Anderson also all love to let it fly from deep. C Clint Capela is being rightly recognized by basketball fans as an x-factor for this team, as the young big man has taken a big step forward. He's tough and athletic, with a surprisingly good touch around the rim. Offseason acquisitions SF P.J. Tucker and PF Luc Mbah a Moute add excellent all-around defense to a team known primarily for its offense.


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