Recap: Warriors defeat Celtics 124-119 in Double OT
The Warriors extended their record setting season to 24-0 as they defeated the Celtics 124-119 in 2OT. This was a thriller as each team made big time plays down the stretch, but Stephen Curry and company made some clutch free throws to seal it. Golden State finished with 31-39 from the charity stripe, Boston 9-16.
Curry lead all scorers with 38, securing 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. Draymond Green filled up the stat sheet with 24 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals, and 5 blocks.
For Boston, Kelly Olynyk played huge in overtime and finished the game with 28 points. Avery Bradley had 19, Isaiah Thomas chipped in 18, and Jared Sullinger had 7 points with 13 boards.
Bradley came out of the gates hot, defending Curry on one end and handling the team’s scoring load on the other. He scored 12 of the Celtics first 15 to take a 5 point lead, forcing the Warriors first timeout with 5:34 remaining in the quarter. Curry was 1 for 6 in that span. The quarter ended Warriors 26 Celtics 25.
The second quarter remained even throughout with Jared Sullinger and Draymond Green trash-talking and trading baskets. After 14 lead changes and 7 ties, Warriors led the Celtics 57-53 at the half with Bradley and Curry even with 15 points a piece.
The third was all Golden State, but after a questionable (phantom) foul call, Curry was forced to the bench with 4 personal fouls. Although it seemed fair, considering the Warriors were 16-23 compared to Boston’s 3-9 from the free throw line. That gave Boston some life, as they closed an 11 point deficit to a manageable 7 heading into the 4th.
David Lee came ALIVE in the 4th with 3 straight buckets to give the good guys an 84-83 lead with a little over 9 minutes remaining. Behind two CLUTCH blocks by Evan Turner on Curry, the C's defense in the 4th seemed inspired and the Garden crowd appreciated it. A nice fade-away baseline jumper from Kelly Olynyk gave Boston a 101-96 lead with just over 2 minutes to play, but after a ridiculous tip in by Livingston and two automatic Curry free throws the lead was down to 1 with 1:17 to play. In a tie game, after a Curry miss, Thomas dribbled out to clock to take a pull up 3 for to the win, only to be blocked by Shaun Livingston, leaving 1.2 seconds left.
The Warriors threw it out of bounds on an attempted alley-oop, leaving Brad Stevens 0.7 seconds left to draw up a play. An Olynyk fading miss forced overtime.
Avery Bradley picked up his 6th foul in the first OT, but played a tremendous game guarding the best player in the world. Kelly Olynyk was otherworldly scoring all 7 of the team's points in OT #1, tieing the game at 110 each. A missed floater by IT lead to another missed alley-oop side out of bounds play by Warriors, forcing the second OT.
It was Evan Turner who took on the scoring role in 2OT, scoring his 7th point after he made a deflection and Crowder made an amazing save out of bounds to lead Turner to the basket, cutting into the Warriors lead at 118-117. After Green made a running layup, Turner answered again with a layup. Giving up an offensive rebound to Golden State hurt, as Boston was forced to foul and Livingston made both free throws with 17.8 remaining. A layup by Crowder and two free throws by Curry made it a 3 point game again with 13.4 seconds left. A missed shot by Crowder, 2 free throws made by Andre Iguodala, and a desperation heave ended the game.
Notable Scratches:
Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes both were out tonight for the Golden State. Marcus Smart and RJ Hunter were out for Boston.
The Celtics move to 13-10 on the season and will fly to Charlotte for a game tomorrow night.
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