Celtics at Spurs
The Boston Celtics are in a pack of four teams vying for the final two Eastern Conference playoff spots. Boston can provide a statement that it intends on landing one of those berths when it visits the defending champion San Antonio Spurs on Friday. The Celtics had a season-long five-game winning streak ended by Oklahoma City on Wednesday and are tied for eighth place with the Indiana Pacers.
San Antonio is battling for position in the Western Conference and currently stands seventh, one game behind both the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks. The Spurs have won eight of their 10 last games but suffered a horrific 104-100 overtime loss to the lowly New York Knicks on Tuesday. “I gave up a long time ago trying to understand the game of basketball,” Spurs point guard Tony Parker told reporters. “It is weird.”
TV: 8:30 p.m. ET, CSN New England (Boston), FSN Southwest (San Antonio)
ABOUT THE CELTICS (30-37): Boston rookie Marcus Smart has improved over the second half of the season and the guard poured in a season-high 25 points in the loss to the Thunder. “It’s just one of those nights,” Smart told reporters. “My teammates did a good job of finding me in the right positions to score the ball.” Smart had been in a shooting slump – 11-of-36 over the previous four games – before making 8-of-14 attempts against Oklahoma City and will again see a lot of action against the Spurs with point guard Isaiah Thomas (back) slated to miss his sixth consecutive contest.
ABOUT THE SPURS (42-25): Parker has put together a string of good games and he had 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting in Wednesday’s 114-103 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. He is averaging 22 points in eight games in March and has topped 20 points in five of them while shooting 58.6 percent from the field. Power forward Tim Duncan has recovered from his dreadful 0-of-8 shooting game against the Chicago Bulls on March 8 to average 15.2 points over the last five games.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. San Antonio has won the past six meetings, including a 111-89 win in Boston on Nov. 30.
2. Celtics C Tyler Zeller is averaging 18.7 points on 25-of-33 shooting over the past three games.
3. Spurs SG Manu Ginobili (ankle) is expected to miss his third straight game.