Pistons at Celtics
The Boston Celtics followed up a three-game slide with a three-game winning streak and will try to make it four in a row when they host the Detroit Pistons on Monday. The Pistons are trying to avoid their third straight loss after falling to the Sacramento Kings and Miami Heat in the last two contests.
Celtics All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas is pushing himself in the franchise record books and is now second in team history with 31 straight games of 20 or more points - only Hall of Famer John Havlicek at 40 owns a longer streak - after going off for 37 points on the second night of a back-to-back in Milwaukee on Saturday. "I work all summer to prepare myself to be able to outlast the next guy," Thomas told reporters. "So I just try to continue to keep going and show my opponent that I’m not tired." The Pistons looked a little tired in the fourth quarter on Saturday, when they were outscored 26-12 and ended up with a 116-103 loss. "Down the stretch, we were terrible," Detroit coach Stan Van Gundy told reporters. "We didn’t make plays. We’ve got to find better stuff down the stretch. We’ve been heavily dependent on Reggie’s (Jackson) pick-and-rolls down the stretch, which was a great formula last year. I don’t know if defenses have us figured out or what, but we just haven’t been making plays."
TV: 8 p.m. ET, TNT
ABOUT THE PISTONS (21-26): Detroit was one of the top defensive teams in the first two months of the season but is seeing a steady decline on that end, and the team is searching for answers. "We’ve gotten better at finding a way to get the ball moving and finding a way to score, but defensively we haven’t figured it out," Jackson told reporters. "I can’t remember the last time we held somebody under 45 percent shooting and definitely have not done so in back-to-back games. Until we shore things up on the defensive end, it’s going to be a tough outing each night for us to find a way to get a win." The Pistons allowed the Heat to shoot 53.2 percent from the floor - including 14-of-28 from 3-point range - in Saturday's setback.
ABOUT THE CELTICS (29-18): Thomas is the leading scorer in the Eastern Conference at 29.1 points and is bumping that number up to 32.3 points in January. The 5-9 guard seems to be at his best on the second night of back-to-back sets and scored 38 points in a win over Houston on Wednesday after falling at Washington the previous night, and completed the stretch of four games in five nights with the 11-of-21 performance in Milwaukee. "It’s incredible how he does what he does, but he’s done it so often that it’s starting not to be unusual," rookie swingman Jaylen Brown told the team's website of Thomas. "It’s starting to be who he is and what he does."
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Celtics C Al Horford (groin) sat out the last two games and is day-to-day.
2. Pistons C Andre Drummond grabbed at least 17 rebounds in four of the last six games.
3. The road team took each of the first two meetings this season, with Detroit grabbing a 121-114 win at Boston on Nov. 30.