BOSTON — It would have been hard to imagine the Boston Celtics beating the Cleveland Cavaliers without a strong scoring performance from at least one of their stars.
The Celtics’ offense has been guided by Kyrie Irving and Al Horford all season, and their stellar play through the first half of the campaign has allowed Boston to maintain one of the top records in the NBA.
But Irving and Horford both had quiet evenings Wednesday night at TD Garden, and the C’s still took down their Eastern Conference rival with ease.
The star duo chipped in 11 points apiece in Boston’s 102-88 victory, but their lack of scoring was made up for by the terrific effort from the team’s bench. Terry Rozier had one of the best games of his career, scoring a game-high 20 points, while Marcus Smart pitched in 15. Daniel Theis (six points) and Aron Baynes (six points, six rebounds) also provided quality minutes off the bench for the Celtics.
After the game, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens expounded on the lift provided by Rozier and Smart, especially when Cleveland flirted with a comeback.
“They were great,” Stevens said. “They were great. And then Daniel Theis, too, coming in and making those shots in the first half. Like, sometimes against teams like this you have to score; it’s obvious you have score to kind of keep the other team at bay.
You know, when (Kyle) Korver goes on that mini-run that he does,” Stevens continued, “even those really, really hard shots, we went down and scored enough to kind of maintain a lead and our composure to then — once we were able to get some stops — push the lead out. But I thought those two guards off the bench were really important for that.”
Coming into the season, many believed the Celtics’ depth would be a major question mark, as the team’s reserves consist mostly of young and inexperienced players. But Boston’s bench continues to prove it can make a major impact on a nightly basis, a notion that bodes well for a team with legitimate NBA Finals aspirations.
Here are some other notes from Celtics-Cavaliers:
— While Irving had an underwhelming point total, he managed to pull down a season-high nine rebounds.
— Rozier became the first Celtics player to score 20-plus points off the bench in multiple games this season.
— Jayson Tatum has scored 579 points through Boston’s first 41 games. It’s the fifth most by a Celtics rookie through the first 41 games in franchise history, behind only Larry Bird, Dave Cowens, Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker.
— Wednesday marked Cleveland’s lowest point total since scoring 78 points on April 12, 2015.
— The C’s finish the first half of the season with a 31-10 record, their best first-half record since going 32-9 in 2010-11.
