Saturday 14 January 2017

Isaiah Thomas make way to game winner

According to Boston,Thomas scored 13 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter, Al Horford made a triumphant return and the Celtics snapped the Atlanta Hawks’ seven-game winning streak with a 103-101 victory Friday night.
Paul Millsap and Tim Hardaway Jr. each had 23 points for Atlanta. The Hawks had won 12 of 16 to move into fourth place in the Eastern Conference.
But the third-place Celtics hit 17 3-pointers and got a season-high 26 points from reserve forward Kelly Olynyk to push past a Hawks team that missed too many open looks from the perimeter.
Horford, a fan favorite during his nine seasons in Atlanta, was booed many times throughout the night after leaving the team as a free agent last summer. He received a standing ovation, though, and waved happily to the crowd after the Hawks showed a brief video tribute between the first and second quarters.
‘‘That was pretty cool,’’ Horford said. ‘‘That was a good video looking back at my career here.’’
Horford finished with 10 points, six rebounds and six assists in 35 minutes.
‘‘Like I said, a guy like that, with that type of character, you can’t boo him,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘That’s disrespectful.’’
Thomas was unstoppable in the closing minutes, hitting a 15-footer and a 3-pointer before knocking down the 19-footer that made it 103-101. Millsap missed a jumper at the buzzer.
‘‘We were running some different guys at him from the standpoint of getting different matchups in the pick-and-roll,’’ Stevens said. ‘‘He made a heck of a shot to win the game. It was a great play.’’
Boston blistered Atlanta in the third, using a 20-5 run to go up 77-57 on Terry Rozier’s 21-footer.
Hardaway’s short jumper trimmed the lead to 91-85 with 4:24 remaining, and Mike Dunleavy, making his Atlanta debut for the first time since last week’s trade, rattled in a corner 3 to pull the Hawks within two at the 2:12 mark.
The Celtics hit eight of its first 11 beyond the arc to take a 28-16 lead at the 2:33 mark of the first, but missed their next 10 attempts on 3s to help Atlanta force a 42-all tie on a pair of free throws by Millsap.
‘‘It was a heck of a comeback,’’ Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. ‘‘It was a heck of a game. We’ll learn from it. We’ll be better going forward.’’

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