The Boston Celtics hope a recent trend continues when they tip off a four-game trip in San Francisco against the Golden State Warriors in one of the featured games on the NBA’s holiday card Monday afternoon.
The Celtics head west following a 119-115 overtime loss at home to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night, their fourth defeat in an eight-game stretch of alternating results.
The good news for Boston: It hasn’t lost two in a row since its last holiday appearance — a 118-114 setback to the visiting Philadelphia 76ers on Christmas Day.
The Celtics and Warriors have split each of their last three regular-season series. In each case, Golden State won the first game (by an average of 8.7 points) before Boston captured the rematch (by an average of 25.7 points).
The Warriors opened this year’s head-to-head on a similar note, beating the Celtics 118-112 in Boston on Nov. 6.
Stephen Curry paced Golden State with 27 points, but all eyes had been on Celtics forward Jayson Tatum, who was seeing Warriors coach Steve Kerr for the first time since winning a gold medal together with Team USA at last summer’s Paris Olympics. Tatum was benched twice by Kerr during the tournament despite winning an NBA championship just weeks earlier.
Tatum had a game-high 32 points in the loss. He leads Boston in scoring (27.7 points per game), rebounding (9.3) and assists (5.4).
The Celtics have struggled to resemble last season’s championship team over the past five weeks, going just 10-9 following a 19-4 start.
Boston coach Joe Mazzulla pointed to lessons learned in recent defeats as a potential positive to the club’s inconsistency.
“We’ve got to get better at our late-game execution,” he said. “We had a chance to win (against the Hawks), and we didn’t execute it.”
Golden State has had ups and downs of its own after a similarly fast start. The Warriors were 12-3 after they won at New Orleans on Nov. 22 but have gone just 9-17 since, never winning more than two in a row.
Golden State enters Monday’s contest on a two-game winning streak but finished its 122-114 home victory over the Washington Wizards on Saturday night without Curry and Draymond Green on the court.
Curry limped to the sidelines on a sore left ankle with 1:05 remaining in the game, while Green lasted just three minutes before he succumbed to a tight left calf. Green was scheduled for an MRI on Sunday.
The Warriors’ injury report Sunday listed Curry as questionable with a left ankle sprain, while Green was ruled out due to his calf strain.
Kerr noted after Saturday’s win that he’s confident Andrew Wiggins can help pick up the slack for a team already missing Jonathan Kuminga, Brandin Podziemski and Kyle Anderson.
Wiggins had a season-high 31 points against the Wizards and is averaging 25 points over his last three games.
“The way things have evolved the last couple of weeks, we just really leaned into his scoring,” Kerr said. “He’s doing a lot of good things for us, scoring in multiple ways. The way he rebounded (11 against the Wizards) … He was fantastic.”
–Field Level Media
