Celtics Live Blog: C’s Win Fourth Straight Despite 41 Points From Warriors’ Monta Ellis

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Mar 4, 2011

Celtics Live Blog: C's Win Fourth Straight Despite 41 Points From Warriors' Monta Ellis

Final: Celtics 107, Warriors 103. Despite an incredible effort from Warriors guard Monta Ellis, the Celtics have survived by the skin of their teeth to earn their fourth consecutive win.

 

Ray Allen and Paul Pierce finish with a matching 27 points each, while Jeff Green pours in 21 off the bench before fouling out.

Ellis, despite arguably the best game by any opposing player in Boston this season, can't do enough to win the ballgame.

The Celtics are cruising. Now they hit the road to take on the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night.

Fourth quarter, 12.0 seconds, Celtics 105-103: Kevin Garnett misses the jumper to ice the win, but Ray Allen comes up with the biggest rebound of the night. The Warriors are forced to foul.

Ray will shoot two. If he makes them, that should just about do it.

Fourth quarter, 1:31, Celtics 105-101: Pierce scores again. He's got 27 points; Rajon Rondo has 16 assists.

The C's need a couple more stops before they can breathe easy.

Fourth quarter, 2:14, Celtics 103-101: Paul Pierce gets a nice three-point play, but the following possession ends in a turnover and a fast break for a Dorell Wright dunk. The Celtics are in trouble.

Fourth quarter, 3:16, Celtics 100-99: That was a very bad 50 seconds for the Celtics. First Monta Ellis hits another 3 — he's now 4-for-8 — and then Jeff Green is whistled for his fifth foul.

The Warriors are only down one, and they have the ball back.

Fourth quarter, 4:06, Celtics 100-96: Monta Ellis for 3. He's got 38 points. The Warriors are right back in this thing.

Ellis is chasing the season high for a Celtic opponent this year. Kobe Bryant dropped 41 at the Staples Center back in January.

Fourth quarter, 5:32, Celtics 100-91: Paul Pierce hits a really difficult off-balance jumper. The Celtics break the century mark early tonight.

The Warriors are down nine despite a 35-point effort from Monta Ellis. This is quite something.

Fourth quarter, 6:13, Celtics 98-91: David Lee beats KG to a jump ball, but Vladimir Radmanovic misses a short jumper in the lane and loses control of the ball out of bounds. He's called for a technical foul disputing the call.

The Celtics, meanwhile, are keeping their composure. Rajon Rondo just took a one-minute breather and he's ready to finish this thing.

Fourth quarter, 8:22, Celtics 94-87: Stephen Curry just knocked down a jumper over Chris Johnson, who's almost a foot taller than him. All righty then.

The Celtics won't be able to close this thing out until they get their starters back out there. KG and Pierce are still on the bench, recharging for the final minutes. This will be a whole new ballgame when those two retake the floor.

Fourth quarter, 9:51, Celtics 90-85: David Lee with the huge slam. Chris Johnson does nothing to deter him.

Lee now has 24 points, and the Warriors are still very much alive.

The Celtics need to play some D.

End of third quarter, Celtics 88-81: The Warriors aren't going away just yet. They've strung together a couple of nice stops defensively, and Monta Ellis now has an absurd 29 points on 10-of-17 shooting.

They need 12 really, really good minutes of defense to have a chance, though. Don't bet on them.

The Celtics have a good chance to pull off their fourth straight win.

Third quarter, 2:39, Celtics 86-73: Ray Allen still has 23 points; Paul Pierce now has 20. He's had a monster third quarter.

The Celtics are 31-for-51 from the field as a team, over 60 percent. That's pretty insane.

You've got to hand it to the Warriors, it's always an entertaining ballgame when they're involved.

Third quarter, 4:23, Celtics 84-70: This is looking like a pretty typical Warriors game — Monta Ellis now has 22 points, and the Warriors are down 14 in the third quarter.

He's putting up numbers, but if the Warriors can't D up, it'll never matter.

How many will the Celtics score tonight? 125? 130?

Third quarter, 7:08, Celtics 77-61: Ray for 3. He's now 5-for-5.

The C's shooting guard now has 23 points, and he's going to play a boatload of minutes with Von Wafer off the floor. Wafer's done for the night with a calf injury, opening the door for Ray to take over the second half.

Third quarter, 7:51, Celtics 74-61: Ray Allen tosses up the alley to Kevin Garnett, and KG oops it with ease.

The Celtics look like kids in a toy store on offense against the Warriors. They're having fun with it in every way imaginable.

Third quarter, 10:34, Celtics 68-55: The Celtics didn't get much out of Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce in the first half, but both guys might turn it on now. KG knocks down a jumper; Pierce adds two free throws.

These C's are really tough to beat when their whole starting five is scoring.

Halftime, Celtics 64-53: The Celtics know how to beat the Golden State Warriors — you just outscore the heck out of them.

The C's have strung together back-to-back monster quarters offensively, with 32 points in the first quarter and 32 more in the second. Ray Allen has 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting, 4-for-4 from downtown. Jeff Green adds 13 off the bench, including a couple of explosive dunks.

David Lee has 16 points and Monta Ellis, 13 for the Warriors.

Second quarter, 2:03, Celtics 61-51: Dorell Wright is reminding the Celtics that he can still score a little. He just knocked down a 3 and nailed a driving layup, giving him nine points for the night. He's the one thing keeping this game close.

The Celtics have 29 points already in the second quarter, with a couple minutes still to go. Ray Allen and Jeff Green have been ridiculous. The Celtics' lineup with Green and the four All-Stars together is just so, so potent.

Second quarter, 5:23, Celtics 53-43: The Celtics just stunned the Warriors with a one-two punch — first Ray Allen passes up a 3 and kicks it inside to Jeff Green for a dunk, and then on the following possession, he takes the 3. Swish.

Green has 11 points off the bench on 4-of-6 shooting.

Allen? Still perfect. 6-of-6 from the field, four 3s, 2-for-2 from the line. He's on his way to a season high — he'd have to match his 35 on Nov. 11 against the Heat.

Second quarter, 7:47, Celtics 40-36: You knew it would happen eventually — Monta Ellis is starting to get hot.

Ellis goes for a driving layup, then knocks down a 3. He's got seven points in the second quarter, 10 in the game.

It was only a matter of time before he took over.

Second quarter, 10:20, Celtics 34-29: Von Wafer looks like he's hurt his right leg. He'll have to come out, and Ray Allen will pick up some serious minutes in the second quarter.

Hopefully Wafer's OK. The Celtics are really starting to run out of depth at the guard spots.

We may see Sasha Pavlovic's debut soon.

End of first quarter, Celtics 32-27: The Celtics finish out the first quarter with their complete second unit — Avery Bradley, Von Wafer, Jeff Green, Troy Murphy, Chris Johnson. But the big story of the first quarter for the C's is Ray Allen, who has 10 points and has yet to miss a shot.

Meanwhile, David Lee is on fire with 14 for the Warriors.

Strap yourselves in and get ready for a wild ride. This could be one shootout of a ballgame.

First quarter, 2:44, Celtics 28-20: Von Wafer knocks down a corner 3. The Celtics are killing it from downtown — they're now 4-for-5.

The Warriors are making really minimal efforts to contest these shots. If they stay open, the C's will keep shooting all night long.

First quarter, 5:41, Celtics 18-15: Ray Allen for 3, again. He can't miss.

Ray's got 10 points on perfect shooting so far — 3-for-3 from the field, 2-for-2 from 3-point range, 2-for-2 from the line.

First quarter, 7:04, Celtics 13-10: Ray Allen isn't afraid to drive to the basket and post up Steph Curry. He's done it a couple of times now, and he's got seven early points.

Meanwhile, KG is having some serious trouble guarding David Lee. The former Knick has been repeatedly knocking down jumpers in his face. Lee's got eight points on 3-of-4 shooting.

First quarter, 9:11, Celtics 6-4: Nenad Krstic makes a beautiful move to go up and under Ekpe Udoh for a reverse layup.

Kendrick Perkins never made moves like that.

The Celtics now have a legit post scorer, and that's going to make things really tough for opposing defenses. Especially the Warriors.

First quarter, 11:24, Celtics 2-0: After Keith Smart throws a curveball by calling timeout 27 seconds in, the Celtics get the ball back and score first on a pair of free throws from Ray Allen.

Nice steal and nice outlet pass from Kevin Garnett to start the break and get Ray going. Good to see the Celtics getting the running game started.

7 p.m.: It does sound like Sasha Pavlovic will make his Celtics debut Friday night against the Warriors. Doc Rivers says he's likely to bring Von Wafer off the bench first at that wing position, but depending on how the game goes, he could see using Pavlovic as well.

In other words, he's hoping for a blowout so he can let the new guy get plenty of run.

We'll see how that turns out.

5:40 p.m.: Welcome to the TD Garden, where the Celtics will host the Warriors, looking to sweep a two-game season series. They won the first one in Golden State last week, and now they'll try to make it back to back.

You can look forward to Rajon Rondo chasing around Monta Ellis for 48 minutes, plus Troy Murphy having a blast against his former team.

This should be a good one.

12 p.m.: The Celtics' week has been an action-packed series of injuries and personnel changes. Their rotation has been ripped to shreds, rearranged and taped back together again — and oh, by the way, they still can't stop winning.

The C's won their third straight game, and sixth of their last seven, at the TD Garden on Wednesday night against the Phoenix Suns. They remain home Friday, where they'll take on the Golden State Warriors and look to make it four straight wins.

Without Glen Davis, who's taking the next few days off to rest a sore knee, the Celtics will have a handful of new players manning their front line. With Troy Murphy at backup center, Jeff Green at backup power forward and Sasha Pavlovic at backup small forward, this is a dramatically different Celtic team than it was last week.

The C's will be without Delonte West, who remains out with an ankle injury, putting the burden on Von Wafer and Avery Bradley to be the two backup guards. Look for Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen to play plenty of minutes — the two starters are the two guys Doc Rivers trusts most.

The Celtics have battled a lot of adversity, but they're still going strong with a veritable 10-man rotation, 11 if you count D-League callup Chris Johnson. They'll look to keep their winning ways going against the Warriors, starting at 7:30 p.m.

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