The Boston Celtics emerged from the All-Star break with the same team they started with, but they didn’t play like their pre-break selves Friday night.
The Celtics looked rusty and lethargic at times in their first game in eight days, shooting just 37 percent from the floor in a 111-93 loss to the Utah Jazz at Vivint Smart Home Arena.
Boston hung around in the first half despite an underwhelming offensive effort, but the Jazz pulled away with a big third quarter run to hold on for the victory.
All-Star Isaiah Thomas led all scorers with 25 points, but only three other Celtics (Jae Crowder with 15, Avery Bradley with 12 and Evan Turner with 10) reached double figures. Derrick Favors tallied 23 points for the Jazz, while Gordon Hayward added 22 and Rudy Gobert notched a double-double with 11 points and 15 rebounds.
STARTING FIVE
Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Jared Sullinger, Amir Johnson
OUT OF TUNE
The Celtics hadn’t played a basketball game in over a week, and it showed out of the gate.
Boston had plenty of rust to shake off in the first quarter, shooting just 36 percent in the frame and connecting on just 2 of 8 3-point attempts.
Fortunately, the Celtics’ defense was up to the task, forcing a whopping eight Jazz turnovers in the first 12 minutes to keep pace despite Utah connecting on 63 percent of its shots in the quarter.
DEEP DIVIDE
Apparently the Jazz practiced their 3-pointers over the All-Star break.
Utah lit it up from three in the first half, hitting an incredible nine long balls on 12 attempts and getting multiple 3-pointers from four different players, including Raul Neto, who went 5 for 5 through the first two quarters.
On the other end, the Celtics’ second unit struggled without the injured Kelly Olynyk, going scoreless through the first three minutes of the second quarter. Yet Boston continued to limit turnovers and trailed by just five at the half.
RUNNING AWAY WITH IT
The Jazz threatened to pull away several times in the first half, and they finally did so in the third quarter.
Utah turned up the heat on both the offensive and defensive ends, ripping off a 15-2 run to open up a 17-point lead thanks to sequences like this:
What was a fast-paced frame soon slowed to a crawl, however. Boston scored eight of its final 10 points in the quarter from the free throw line as both teams combined to shoot 27 free throws over a 12-minute span.
SWAT TEAM
The Jazz’s big man duo of Gobert and Favors altered the Celtics’ shots all night, as Gobert blocked four shots while Favors swatted three.
They also went to work on the offensive end, abusing Boston’s big men on the post to help Utah outscore the C’s 44-30 in the paint.
PLAY OF THE NIGHT
Thomas is tough to stop one-on-one, and Trevor Booker found that out the hard way in the first half.
UP NEXT
The Celtics will stay out West, traveling to Denver on Sunday to take on the Nuggets, who are out of the Western Conference playoff picture but won three of their last four games entering the All-Star break. Tipoff at Pepsi Center is set for 5 p.m. ET.
Thumbnail photo via Russ Isabella/USA TODAY Sports Images
