Mavericks at Celtics
The Boston Celtics looked impressive while ripping an Eastern Conference contender and a pair from the West in consecutive wins and will try to make it four straight when they host the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. The Celtics knocked off Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Houston by a combined 44 points in their last three contests.
Boston just came through a stretch of five games in seven nights with four wins, capped by triumphs at Oklahoma City and Houston on back-to-back nights. “We're showing that we're going to come out and fight each and every night,” Celtics forward Jae Crowder told reporters. The Mavericks, who traded Crowder to Boston last season, come into the contest on a hot streak as well with four straight wins and continued a stretch with 10 of 13 games on the road by holding off winless Philadelphia on Monday. “Well, it’s a hard game,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle told reporters. “They’re clawing and scratching, trying to get their first win. And they’ve got some inexperienced guys that go really hard, so they made a few mistakes and we made a few buckets. And there’s the difference.”
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (Dallas), CSN New England (Boston)
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (7-4): Chandler Parsons exploded for a season-high 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting in a season-high 21 minutes on Monday and continues to improve following offseason knee surgery. “It felt good,” Parsons told reporters. “It’s been a while since I got a lot of shots to fall. You know, they were going under ball screens early, so I had to make them pay. I knocked some shots down early and just ran the floor.” Parsons is still being held out of both ends of back-to-backs but survived a bloody nose on Monday and returned from the locker room in time to give the team a boost.
ABOUT THE CELTICS (6-4): Boston is riding strong defense led by its trio of standout guards, and Marcus Smart followed up a 26-point performance in Sunday’s win with five of the team’s 16 steals in Monday’s triumph. "We can feel (opposing teams are defeated), and that’s what we’re trying to do," Smart told ESPN.com. "Once we get on a roll like that in the defensive end, we lock down. We want teams to feel defeated. We want to keep our foot on the gas pedal and keep going." Smart, Avery Bradley and Isaiah Thomas are not only fronting the defense but doing the bulk of the scoring, and Thomas leads the team with an average of 21 points.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Crowder has scored in double figures in six of the last seven games.
2. Mavericks G Wesley Matthews is 4-of-21 from the field in his last two games.
3. Dallas has taken five straight in the series and averaged 118.5 points in last season’s two victories.