Celtics eye fifth straight win as road-weary Wolves visit
The Boston Celtics will attempt to extend their winning streak to five on Sunday when they face the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves.
The reigning NBA champions are coming off one of their worst offensive performances of the season, but still beat the host Washington Wizards 108-96 on Friday in an NBA Cup matchup.
Boston, which improved to 8-1 on the road, shot 42.4 percent from the floor (36-of-85), including 23.9 percent (11-of-46) from 3-point territory. Jayson Tatum, Boston’s leading scorer (29.1 ppg), was 0-for-10 on 3-point attempts.
Jaylen Brown tossed in a game-high 31 points to go with 11 rebounds and five assists for the Celtics, who trailed by two at halftime before outscoring the Wizards 59-45 in the second half.
“We came out a little bit sluggish,” Brown said. “We lacked some energy, but I think we picked it up in the third and the fourth. Just enough to get us over the hump and win the game, but a slow night for us. Settled for a lot of shots. Gotta be better.”
The 108 points matched Boston’s lowest scoring output of the season and came against a Wizards team that entered Friday last in the NBA in several defensive categories. Boston, which ranks second in the NBA at 120.7 points per game, also scored 108 in a four-point overtime victory over Brooklyn on Nov. 8.
“It’s good to win a game when you’re not playing at your best offensively, and we had three 25-point quarters defensively,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “You’ve got to win different ways, and winning down the stretch and doing that with your defense is good.”
After Mazzulla received a technical foul in the third, the Celtics scored 12 of the next 18 points and took a 75-72 lead into the final quarter.
“(The tech) changed the energy in the arena,” Mazzulla said “Did you feel that?” It wasn’t really about energizing the team. I think it was just manipulating the environment. I thought it was what the environment needed at the time.”
Minnesota received a 26-point performance from Anthony Edwards and 23 points from Julius Randle but dropped a 110-105 decision at Toronto on Thursday. The Timberwolves fell to 3-5 on the road.
Jaden McDaniels added 22 points for Minnesota, which received 13 points and 11 rebounds from Rudy Gobert.
The Timberwolves have lost four of their last six. Randle called Thursday’s loss the low point for the Timberwolves this season.
“I know we’ll turn it around,” Randle said. “I have faith in everybody in this locker room that we’ll turn it around, but at this point we gotta look (ourselves) in the mirror and decide what type of team we want to be on a consistent basis. We’ve had great games, we’ve had not great games. Myself included. I have to look myself in the mirror and say I gotta be better.
“We gotta be professional and understand that it’s about us as a team, us every night coming out building the right habits, doing the right things.”
Edwards is averaging 27.9 ppg as Minnesota’s leading scorer. The Timberwolves are averaging 113.3 ppg and allowing an average of 111.0 ppg.
The Celtics enter Sunday 5-2 at home.
