Celtics bounce back and take care of the Knicks, 97-89

The Boston Celtics defeated the New York Knicks 97-89 in an impressive display of team basketball. Coming off a tough loss to the Orlando Magic, it was great to see the Celtics get back on the winning side of things.

Both teams played a pretty sloppy first half filled with fouls and missed shots. Isaiah Thomas led all scorers with 13 first half points. Kelly Olynyk and Jae Crowder both got into foul trouble with three fouls each in the first half. The Knicks led the Celtics at halftime, 47-45.

The Cs stepped things up coming out of halftime and played some great defense which lead to easy buckets on the other end. They led 70-65 by the end of the quarter. Things got pretty chippy in the 3rd quarter with a plethora of questionable calls by the referees which resulted in a technical foul called on Thomas.

Boston started to pull away in the 4th quarter and while a small Knicks run threatened to get them back into the game, the Celtics put the clamps down on defense and put the Knicks to bed with some great offense on the other end.

Isaiah Thomas (20 points) and Jae Crowder (16 points) helped lead the way in terms of scoring for the green team. Tyler Zeller was a big contributor off the bench tonight with a double-double 16 points and 10 rebounds. Evan Turner also had a big game off the bench with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists while hitting some big time jump shots in the 4th quarter. As a team the Celtics outscored the Knicks 58-28 inside the paint and forced the Knicks to commit 16 turnovers as a team. It was tremendous to see the bench have a huge game, especially in the 2nd half, which helped turn the offense around. Kelly Olynyk also chipped in with 12 points.

The Celts are now (28-22) and tied with Atlanta for the 3rd/4th spot in the Eastern Conference. Next up for the Celtics is a back-to-back with a matchup against the Detroit Pistons at home in Boston on Wednesday.

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