Thomas leads Celtics to easy win

They are now third in the league with a 94.1 defensive rating, a metric that factors in the number of possessions a team has during a game. 500 for the first time in Brad Stevens’ National Basketball Association career.

Rocket’s competitive game was tough but Boston ended up being a great challenge for them. That led to 39 Boston points, as eight different players logged a steal in the stat sheet. On the heels of back-to-back smotherings of Russell Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder and James Harden’s Houston Rockets, the Celtics have a growing buzz around their defensive tenacity. He was responsible for four of Houston’s turnovers, with a handful of Celtics defenders sharing the assignment to keep him in check.

The C’s did their damage by doing the dirty work. It led to a frustrating evening for the Rockets, an offensive juggernaut whose confidence was all but gone come the second half. “It’s easier said than done on back-to-back nights against those two guys”.

But this Boston team is not interested in that. The Celtics’ response to the shooting struggles has been to generate significantly more scoring opportunities than their opponent and the Celtics would be no where without the offense created by their defense. When that happens, it just further fuels their edge and effort on that end of the floor.

“One thing that we’ve been working on since the beginning of the year is being able to finish on the break as far as making the right play, if it’s a finish or making the next pass”, said Bradley. “With that being said, it’s going to be a few chippiness out there”. For it to turnaround, we have to press the issues and be a little bit more aggressive and be a little bit more vocal on both ends of the floor. However, it’s the way they are winning that is having a caving effect on the opposition.

“We brought everything up in the meeting”.

Former Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers used to talk all the time about wanting to have “agitators” on his roster, the kind of players that always seemed to find a way to get underneath the skin of opponents.

“We want that to be our rep”, Thomas said, “to where [opponents] know ‘OK, dang, we’ve got the Celtics tonight”. Really, we should be thankful that this team doesn’t expect to contend any time soon.

Houston was up by 1 after a dunk by Ariza in the third quarter. Crowder told reporters, via The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. The Rockets continued that surge into the second, opening that period with a 14-3 run while building a 42-27 lead capped by an Ariza three-point play and a transition basket from Lawson. Celtic’s defense game was really on fire last night.

Not to be forgotten is Crowder, who had a pair of steals Monday to give him an NBA-best 30 on the season.

“This group is relentless”, said Boston’s Isaiah Thomas. “But we play hard, and a lot of guys don’t like it”. You keep thinking negative, then negative things will continue to happen to you. “But it’s got to be our DNA”.

After Jae Crowder started the second half with a layup, Harden nailed a three to give the Rockets the lead again, and the teams went back and forth, but the Celtics closed the third quarter on a 28-8 run, and they built the lead up to 29 points in the fourth. As a team, the Celtics are averaging 5.3 blocked shots per game.