Jared Sullinger, Celtics feast on Wizards

They have the third best point differential in the conference at +5.6, although that was helped significantly by a 33-point victory last night against the disappointing Washington Wizards. “That was pretty consistent all night”. The remaining three quarters featured much of the same, but Beal could not maintain his 44-point pace and managed just five points the rest of the way. Wall assists on 41.4 percent of his teammates’ field goals this season. The surge was highlighted by two three-point makes by Bradley, building a 27-10 lead late in the first quarter.

With both of those squads, along with top-tier franchises like Miami and San Antonio looming in the next week, Brad Stevens knows his team has its work cut out for it.

As exciting as this game was it still did not solve the biggest issue for the Celtics, consistency. In his absence, Wittman turned to little-used DeJuan Blair at center, and the reserves briefly put up a fight, cutting Boston’s lead to nine points at the beginning of the second quarter.

“We just gotta do it together”, Crowder explained. I like the home team and the reasonable chalk.

ABOUT THE CELTICS (8-7): Boston rallied from 11 points down in the closing minutes to knock off the winless 76ers, surviving a season-low 34.1 percent effort from the floor to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

“We just try to eliminate their fast-break points as a team and I feel like we did a great job tonight”, Sullinger said.

On one of Washington’s first possessions, Wall broke free for an open mid-range jumper.

The Celtics got off to a quick start. That’s 229-176 over two games against a team that went 40-42 a year ago and whose most significant addition was probably Amir Johnson. Wall drove into the lane, and Sullinger stepped up to contest his shot.

The Wizards’ lethargy was evident immediately, and was most apparent with Boston’s offensive rebounding.

Building off of the theme of distributing the ball, another area where the Celtics have shown good improvement is in providing scoring support for Isaiah Thomas. The Celtics’ transition defense stopped the All-Star guard from attacking the hoop and forced him to shoot in the Wizards’ half court set.

Crowder wasn’t credited with a steal on this play – in fact, he wasn’t credited for any steals on Friday – but he was responsible for the turnover (and two others as well).

Stevens believes the increase can be traced to Sullinger being in better position and giving himself more opportunities to corral available boards. But Wall’s performance has dipped as Washington is off to a 6-6 start. Boston finished with a 53-45 rebounding advantage and forced the Wizards into 24 turnovers. But they’ve have been bad plenty of times before, including for the vast majority of Wall’s career, and he’s so often been the one bright light in a tunnel of dark and desolate D.C. sports putridity.

The Wizards (6-7), playing their third game in four nights, fell for the third straight game. In the future, he should look to distribute them the ball more in order to promote a balanced offensive attack that is hard to guard.

Bradley Beal and Jared Dudley have been among the few positives so far this season, and we can go ahead and throw Temple into that category, as well. “That’s the most important thing”.