Celtics Drop Back-to-Back Road Games

Friday: Kings 120, Celtics 95
Saturday: Nuggets 98, Celtics 91

I didn't watch either of these games because of the NCAA tournament, but I was sort of following the Gamecasts.

In Sacramento, the Kings blew open a one-point game at halftime by scoring something like the first 15 points of the third quarter. Marcus Thornton got hot in the third and spent much of the fourth padding his stats against the Boston bench, finishing with 36 points. Ray Allen and Brandon Bass shot well for the Celtics, but giving up 41 points in the third quarter means that it wasn't a good night for everybody.

In Denver, the Nuggets got out to a double-digit lead in the second quarter and maintained it through much of the third. It appeared that Boston made a run in the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to two at one point. But they couldn't get over the hump, seemingly due to some untimely turnovers. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce paced the Celtics with 22 points each, and Rajon R-ndo had 12 to go with 16 assists -- but also six turnovers, at least a couple of which I seem to recall were of the momentum-killing variety.

The loss to Sacramento put the success of the road trip in jeopardy. The Celtics are now 2-3 on the eight-game trip, with games in Atlanta on Monday, Milwaukee on Thursday, and Philadelphia on Friday. All three of these remaining games are huge: Boston is just two games back of Atlanta for the six seed in the East, a coveted spot this year because it means avoiding Chicago or Miami in the first round. At the same time, the Cs are just two and a half games clear of the eighth-place Knicks and the Bucks loom just a half-game back of again resurgent New York. On the bright side, Boston is only a game and a half behind Philly for the Atlantic title, which would give us the four.

If we can get hot, then, we can make some real progress this week. Anything less than two wins, though, and the road trip is a failure.