Boston vs New Orleans: Celtics Overcome Hornets, Bench Comes to the Rescue
After last night's debacle against the Houston Rockets, you would've expected a motivated Celtics team to come out tonight—at the end of one quarter; nothing could've been further from that.
Much the same way the Rockets did to the C’s; New Orleans came out of the gate with a full head of steam. Marco Belinelli alone scored as many points as Boston, 14, and by the end of the first, the Hornets had doubled up Boston, 28-14.
The Celtics would be able to win the second quarter, 26-23, but that only meant New Orleans went into the half with an 11-point lead.
Behind Ray Allen and the bench, the Celtics were able to do to the Hornets in the third what the Hornets did to the Celtics in the first. Led by 12 points by Allen and 10 from Glen Davis, Boston outscored New Orleans 27-13 in the quarter, and headed into the final quarter ahead, 67-64.
Boston wouldn't trail again in the game, but that doesn't mean it was easy. David West put in 11 of his game high 32 points in the fourth to keep the Hornets within reach. New Orleans would even tie the game at 74, on a Trevor Ariza three, but from there Boston led to the finish.
In the final half-minute, New Orleans could only hope for Boston to miss their free throws—they wouldn't. First by Davis, and then by the automatic Allen, Boston did what they had to, and left the court victorious, 89-85.
As mentioned, West led all-scorers with 32; he also added eight rebounds to his stat line. Belinelli finished with 23, including five three pointers. Chris Paul had only five points, but added 15 assists, and seven boards. Ariza and Emeka Okafor each added 10 points.
Allen and "Big Baby" tied for the Celtics lead in points with 20, each putting in 15 in the second half. Kevin Garnett nearly had a double-double with 12 and nine, Paul Pierce only had nine, while Nenad Krstic put up a goose egg.
Rajon Rondo put up a high of the last five games, but that still didn't crack double-digits as Rondo had nine, with only five assists.
As the title of the article states, the Celtics bench came up huge tonight. Even though Doc Rivers only used three men from it, Davis, Jeff Green, and Delonte West combined for 39, and were the spark that Boston needed.
