Here are five things to watch out for when the Boston Celtics and the San Antonio Spurs meet at 3:30 p.m. today at TD Garden.
The Spurs have rattled off rattled off 15 consecutive seasons of 50 or more wins. It doesn’t appear that their streak will come to an end anytime soon.
San Antonio still has its longtime stars on board in Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, but it has added to its core. Kawhi Leonard appears to be well on his way to stardom, as Gregg Popovich already stated this season that the small forward “has arrived.” Another star has also arrived for the party: LaMarcus Aldridge. He signed with the Spurs during the offseason, locking in a core of he, Leonard and their aging co-stars for the foreseeable future.
Needless to say, this is a stacked team. Popovich has so many toys to play with. That’s a scary thought considering that he is one of the greatest coaches of all time.
Good news for the Celtics: they can (and better) leave it all on the floor today, because they’re scheduled to have a nice little break.
Boston’s players typically exit TD Garden at about 10:30-11 p.m. on a home game night. Today, with the 3:30 p.m. matinee start, they’ll be out of the arena by 7 p.m. or so. That’s an extra four hours of recovery time, plus Brad Stevens has scheduled Monday to be an off day.
Add all of that together and the C’s have plenty of reason to empty the tank today. They have no obligation tomorrow and will have plenty of time to refuel before Tuesday’s practice and flight to Indiana.
Boston could easily be 2-0 but fell Friday night to the Toronto Raptors. Isaiah Thomas was not one of the reasons for that loss. His lack of help was.
Thomas led the game in scoring with 25 points but nearly doubled up the next-highest point total of any Celtic. Avery Bradley finished second on the team with 13 points, though a handful of those were scored during the final minutes when Toronto was coasting to a win.
The Celtics could rely on Thomas to carry them to a win against the NBA’s bottom feeders, but not against a team like San Antonio. He needs help, and his teammates had better provide it today.
Boston will need to do a much better job on the glass during this game than it did during its loss to Toronto. The C’s were crushed in the rebounding department, 52-38, during that game, and they’ll be dealing with another strong rebounding team this afternoon.
San Antonio’s frontcourt is loaded with rebounders. Not only does it have Leonard, Aldridge and Duncan in the starting lineup, it also has David West, Boris Diaw and rookie Boban Marjanovic, who stands in at 7-foot-3 and 290 pounds, coming off the bench.
That’s a lot of size to deal with down low. The C’s are going to need guys like David Lee, Tyler Zeller, Jared Sullinger and Amir Johnson to crash the glass early and often to keep the rebounding battle from getting away from them as it did Friday night.
Each of these teams played its first two games of the season at night. Today’s contest will tip off at 3:30 p.m., and that’s a massive change for these guys.
Each player’s day will be completely different than it was for his first two game days. Today, they’ll wake up earlier, they won’t have as much time to prepare, and they’ll be at the arena at a time that would often be associated with their game-day nap.
These guys are pros and they’ll adjust to the time difference, but don’t underestimate how much of a shift this is. Weekend afternoon games will be old hat for Boston and San Antonio come January, but this is their first crack at such a game this season.
