Five takeaways from the Clippers’ 116-102 win over Boston

The Celtics often go small, even when fully healthy, and losing Horford and Jerebko – all while Tyler Zeller recovers from illness and Jordan Mickey gets thrown back into the fire after a long stretch of DNPs – made it hard to match up against a team like the Clippers with size and athleticism up front headlined by Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. They countered with haymakers like a Jamal Crawford 4-point play and a Blake Griffin fastbreak slam.

Then the fourth quarter hit, Kerr stayed with some funky lineups – Curry out for six minutes, Thompson and Green out during some key mid-quarter stretches – and Golden State’s offense hit its sloppiest stretch. “Today, I felt pretty good”, Iguodala told reporters after the game.

“I’m just playing, just hooping”. Fourth or fifth would likely mean a matchup with the Jazz, whom L.A. has dispatched by 13 and 16 points in two games this season. “He’s known for that”.

With a favorable schedule looming over the final five weeks of the year, the Celtics still have time to right the ship and hold off the Wizards and Raptors.

Thanks in large part to Crawford, Los Angeles’ bench outscored Boston’s 45-33. For a team that looked like the most fit challengers to the Cavs in the East, they couldn’t close out an inferior Suns team and got wiped off the floor by the contending Clippers.

It was mentioned that the “experimenting” statement by Thomas was about them going small ball in the second half versus the Clippers. Boston is also tied with the Warriors for the third-most made 3-pointers per game at 12.1.

“I think this is one of the hardest games as an National Basketball Association team.to come home for one game, which is what they are doing”, he said. They’re in the middle of the most grueling portion of their season. “And then I thought we turned that, and we became the more physical team in the second half”. The Celtics have had their struggles on the road to the point Isaiah Thomas has called his team and coaches out. “We lost the game in the last 15 minutes”. The Celtics are 40-24 in the NBA’s Eastern Conference which puts them only 3 games behind the reigning champion Cleveland Cavaliers.

– Boston has a 9-6 record in the second game of back-to-back contests. PF Jonas Jerebko (upper respiratory infection) is doubtful. Last year, he was still trying to figure out not playing as many minutes; I thought it was more hard. They forced a Jae Crowder miss. “It’s not the end of the season”, Thomas said. We should have won last night.

“First time since (the injury)”, Stevens said. So again, I don’t put a lot of stock.

For the Clippers, Monday night’s game sat sandwiched between a pair of back-to-backs in the Central time zone.

“The biggest one”, Rivers said, “is that I don’t have a championship with this group, where you can have that confidence” to ignore seeding.

Golden State went 6-of-30 from 3 against the Celtics.

Pierce was honored throughout the Clippers’ loss in Boston early last month, but otherwise, his final campaign has been the opposite of Bryant’s season-long vanity tour a year ago.

Elsewhere, Giannis Antetokounmpo had 32 points as the Milwaukee Bucks overcame a third-quarter deficit to beat the New York Knicks 104-93 and the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Clippers 107-91 on the back of 29 points from Karl-Anthony Towns.