NBA Playoffs: Boston Celtics And Washington Wizards Kick Off Eastern Conference Semifinals
The Washington Wizards won the opening tip in today’s game against the Boston Celtics. Even with Boston having home court advantage, Washington started the game on a 16-0 run. Boston finally got points on the board when Isaiah Thomas was fouled shooting a three. He started to get Boston going, even losing a tooth in the process. He hit his face on Otto Poerter’s elbow, and once there was a pause in the action, he went and picked it up off of the floor. For Washington, it was Marcin Gortat who provided the team with a good start.
The first quarter ended 38-24, Washington. They opened with some explosive offense and some great defense to keep Boston from catching up once they got going. In the second quarter, the Celtics came out swinging with a 13-2 run to bring the game to 40-37 for Washington. During this time, Thomas went back to the locker room and had his tooth worked on. The team doctor was able to put it back in and he returned to the game shortly after that. Not long after that, the game was tied up at 42 when Morris went down for the Wizards. He landed on Al Horford’s foot, twisting his ankle. After shooting his free throws, he left the game to have the ankle looked at.
The Wizards inch out the Celtics at halftime with a score of 64-59. The Celtics did a good job of coming back in the second quarter to give themselves a fighting chance in the second half of the game. At halftime, Morris was listed as questionable to return to the game. Moreover, if you missed the moment where Isaiah Thomas lost his tooth, NBA on ESPN’s Twitter has you covered.
Somebody call a dentist pic.twitter.com/VFWg7Lok0C
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) April 30, 2017
Boston kicked off the second half with a nice dunk from Al Horford, who then turns around and deflects the ball out of bounds as Washington tries to inbound it. The Celtics came out with high energy, and the crowd instantly got back into it with them. They grabbed their first lead of the game with 6:55 remaining in the third with the score being 73-71. From there, they started to gain some more momentum. They ended the quarter with a 15 point lead, 95-80. The Wizards made some bad plays, which resulted in quite a few turnovers. Not to mention, Al Horford was on a roll the entire time he played in the third quarter.
The Wizards answered with 4 quick points to start the fourth quarter, which prompted Brad Stevens to call a quick timeout. The Celtics quickly reached 4 team fouls with 9:12 left in the quarter. The Wizards went on a 9-0 run to start the quarter and Thomas ended the scoring drought with a drive to the rim. Shortly after, Marcus Smart fouled Bojan Bogdanovic while shooting a three, which he made. The four-point play made it a four-point game at that point.
Jaylen Brown didn’t see any playing time until about halfway through the 4th quarter. He contributed a timely three to push the lead back up to 10. The teams traded off a couple three’s each. The momentum stayed with the Celtics, and they held on for the win. The final score was 123-111. That’s a 29 point turnaround for the Celtics since they were down by 17 points at one time during the game.
Isaiah Thomas is the main focus of this game. Yesterday, he attended the funeral of his younger sister, Chyna. She passed in a car accident during the first round of the playoffs. His persistence and his performance was outstanding, and his ability to even take the court in this game is inspirational.
[Featured Image by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images]
