The
Boston Celtics (37-12) were looking to capitalize on their big
victory over the Lakers this past Sunday, but could not take advantage of the
Dallas Mavericks (34-15) to push their winning streak to three.
With
Kendrick Perkins making his first start of the season, the Celtics came out gunning with
Ray Allen scoring 24 points to lead Celtics, and Perkins in his first start had 13 points and 12 rebounds.
Rajon Rondo dishing out 12 assists to go along with his 8 points but missed a key assist at the end of the game.
Kevin Garnett and
Paul Pierce did not have big games, with K.G. scoring 16 and Pierce scoring 12 respectively.
K.G. scored 12 of his 16 points in the first quarter and did not produce much more as the game went on. Even despite the lack luster numbers from Garnett and Pierce the Celtics still had a chance to win the game but could not capitalize on the Mavs mistakes.
With the lead 97 – 96 in favor of the Celtics, K.G. stole the ball but could not knock down a jump shoot that would have put them up by three points. On the ensuing play the Mavericks scored on a broken play were Terry tried to hit Nowitzki who bobbled the ball at first then kicked it out to Kidd who pumped Allen in the air to get space. Kidd then set his feet and knocked down a 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds left in the game.
Dallas was lead by
Dirk Nowitzki who had 29 points to lead all players in the game.
Tyson Chandler had a monster game with 14 points and 15 rebounds.
Jason Kidd finished with 10 points and 9 assist, but the Mavericks had it going off the bench.
Shawn Marion scored 13 points with 9 rebounds and
Jason Terry added 17 points and 2 steals.
The Mavs went on a 10 – 0 run to end the game after Perkins put the Celtics up 97 – 91 with 2:42 left in the game. Nowitzki had a three-point play to make it 97 – 94, and Terry added two key free-throws to help the Mavs go down by one.
After Kidd’s big shot the Celtics still had a chance to win but came up short when Rondo throw the ball over Garnett’s head while he was breaking to the basket. Garnett faked the Mavs out running to the top of the key and then bounced back down toward the rim and Rondo just could not hit him. The ball sailed out of bounds with no one touching in leaving 2.2 seconds left on the clock.
The Mavs got the ball in to Nowitzki who was fouled by Garnett and knocked down his to free-throws to ice the game.
The Mavs will finish their East coast trip against the
Charlotte Bobcats Saturday in a back to back situation before heading back to Dallas. They will go into Charlotte with a seven game winning streak. The Mavs have now swept the season serious with the Celtics the first time ending their five game win streak.
The Celtics will stay home to face the
Orlando Magic this Sunday after losing in Orlando on Christmas.
