Road trip mercifully comes to an end for C’s
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Celtics vs. Suns takeaways: Road trip mercifully comes to an end for C’s originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
At what point is a sample size large enough to draw conclusions from?
Dating back to the start of the 2020-21 season, the Boston Celtics have played 99 regular season games. With Friday’s 111-90 loss to the Phoenix Suns, they have guaranteed themselves a record of no better than .500 through their last 100 contests.
Boston was 36-36 in 2020-21 and is now 13-14 in 2021-22.
Sans Jaylen Brown for a fifth straight game — the duration of their disastrous trip to the left coast — the Celtics trailed by as many as 25 points in finishing the swing at 1-4.
Jayson Tatum led Boston with 24 points on 10 of 25 shooting — 1 for 7 from 3-point range — and Dennis Schroder poured in 15 points on 7 of 15 shooting.
Here are some takeaways from a loss which leaves Boston below .500 for the first time since the middle of November, when it was 7-8:
Marcus Smart turns back the clock, not in a good way
While the Celtics remain as frustrating as ever, the play of Marcus Smart hasn’t been quite as erratic as it had been of late. He’d shot a respectable 45% (20 for 44) from the field over the first four games of the road trip for the Celtics, averaging more than four assists per contest.
That all changed Friday, when he missed his first 11 shots from the field en route to a 1 for 13 night (0 for 5 from 3-point range) with no assists.
Smart avoided making Celtics history, if nothing else, but it was about as poor a finish to the road trip as possible for the enigmatic point guard.
Suns were primed to set early
So long as the ageless Chris Paul (he’ll turn 37 in May) is in the lineup, Phoenix remains a formidable foe.
But the Suns were without their two leading scorers Friday night in Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, who joined with Paul in leading Phoenix to an NBA Finals appearance last season, a franchise-record 18-game win streak earlier this season and will play a role in getting the…
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Source : yahoo
