Celtics at Jazz
Isaiah Thomas' fourth-quarter prowess is reaching legendary status and is pushing him into the MVP conversation as the season grinds toward the All-Star break. Thomas will try to guide his team to a ninth win in 10 games when he leads the Boston Celtics into a showdown against one of the best defensive teams in the league at the Utah Jazz on Saturday.
Thomas scored 15 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter on Thursday as the Celtics battled back from a deficit that reached 17 points in the first half to earn a 120-111 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. "We dug deep," Thomas told reporters. “We were down 17 and it looked like it wasn’t our night again. And then we just brought the energy on the defensive end, shots started to go in and we played the right way offensively." Thomas will need to dig deep to reach 20 points or more for the 38th straight game on Saturday against a Utah squad that leads the NBA in scoring defense (95.7 points) and should be plenty motivated after a four-game winning streak came to an end in Dallas on Thursday. Swingman Gordon Hayward, who played for Celtics coach Brad Stevens in college and drew cheers from the Boston crowd when Utah visited earlier in the season, is scoring at a near-Thomas level of late with 30 or more points in three of the last four games.
TV: 10 p.m. ET, NBATV, CSN New England (Boston), ROOT (Utah)
ABOUT THE CELTICS (34-19): Thomas is second in the NBA in scoring (29.9 points) behind Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook (30.9) but leads the league in fourth-quarter average (10.7). Thomas is averaging 34.1 points in the last nine games to help Boston surge into second place in the Eastern Conference but might have played his best overall game of the season against the Jazz at home on Jan. 3, when he scored 29 points on 10-of-18 shooting and handed out a career-high 15 assists while committing only one turnover. The 5-9 All-Star is averaging 6.3 assists and 2.6 turnovers on the season.
ABOUT THE JAZZ (34-20): Utah put together two of their most impressive performances of the season to begin a three-game road trip - beating Atlanta and New Orleans by an average of 29 points - but suffered a letdown in the finale with a 112-105 overtime loss to the Mavericks. "We let up mentally, and Dallas raised their level," Jazz coach Quin Snyder told reporters. "Give them credit. They got more physical, both offensively and defensively, and we turned the ball over." Center Rudy Gobert collected 15 points and 15 rebounds on Thursday but fouled out in 36 minutes and committed five of the team's 21 turnovers.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Celtics SF Jae Crowder (personal) missed Thursday's game and is questionable for Saturday.
2. Jazz SF Joe Ingles is 7-of-12 from 3-point range over the last three games.
3. Boston took four of the last five in the series, with the lone loss in that spanning coming at Utah 111-93 last season.