ORLANDO – Isaiah Thomas' streak of 113 consecutive games played – including the Playoffs – will come to an end Wednesday night when the Boston Celtics take on the Orlando Magic at Amway Center.
Boston's All-Star point guard injured his groin during the second quarter of Monday's game in Houston. He traveled with the team to Orlando after the loss to the Rockets, but his situation did not progress so he flew home Tuesday night to rest.
Thomas' absence will undoubtedly create a sizable offensive void Wednesday night when the C's take on one of the strongest defensive teams in the league in Orlando, and Brad Stevens expects the flow of the game to have quite a different feel.
“He generates a lot in open offense – what we'd call flow, or what we'd call spread offense – and so some of those types of things you might not generate at the same rate (without Thomas),” said Stevens ahead of the 7 p.m. tip-off.
“But certainly there's other ways that we'll look to play when he's not in the game normally or when we're trying to play through the bigs in the post and those types of things. You have different ways to play within all of your schemes and hopefully we can play to each others' strengths and go from there.”
Orlando coach Frank Vogel says his team won't take Thomas' absence lightly. The Magic have faced similar situations recently where they have gone up against a team without its star player, yet still struggled.
“We've had this a lot this year where a top guy is out, and there've been a lot of D-League guys or rookies that have come in to get extended time and light us up,” said Vogel. “The message to our guys here is there's going to be better opportunities for guys on the Celtics, but it won't be from D-League guys. You've got Al Horford and Avery Bradley and Marcus Smart and Jae Crowder… these guys can really play.
“And more touches for those guys isn't necessarily a good thing for us.”
Smart is one player who Stevens will count on to step up Wednesday night, as he has thrust the third-year guard into the starting point guard role.
The coach feels confident putting the ball in Smart's hands to start the game because he's succeeded in that position on many occasions before.
“He's started a lot of games for us in the past as a point guard,” said Stevens. “He's basically our sixth starter, so it wasn't is a good thing, and hopefully we can start well on that end of the floor.”
