NBA: Schröder once again strong – Celtics tremble

Dennis Schröder helped his Atlanta Hawks to win the Brooklyn Nets with a good performance. The Boston Celtics also won with Daniel Theis, but they have to tremble against the Phoenix Suns in the final phase.

The Celtics had probably imagined this to be easier. Tyson Chandler shortened to 103:105 two minutes before the end and made the fans in the TD Garden tremble again. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Boston had still led with 17 points. Brad Stevens left Kyrie Irving (19 points, 8/14 FG) outside because of this, but when it got tight, Uncle Drew had to take over again and turned up in Crunchtime.

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After the Chandler-Dunk Irving answered with a threesome from the right corner and a little later added some more with a baseball. Devin Booker (38 points, 16/29 FG) reduced von Downtown to three points with 18 seconds left on the clock, but Marcus Smart (13 points, 7 assists) didn’t bruise the free-throw line and put a lid on it with two transformed free-throw shots.

It was the weak defense that finally broke the guests’ necks. 52.5 percent threw Celtics out of the field. It didn’t help that Phoenix, thanks to Chandler (18 Rebounds) dominated the boards and won the duel under the basket with 47:31. In the attack Booker was again the go-to-guy. After his 70-point performance in Boston, the Guard was once again red-hot and just missed 40 points. He would have been the first guest player since 2007 (Kobe Bryant) to score back-to-back 40 points in Boston.

In Celtics, however, scoring was much more balanced. Six players scored at least 13 points. Al Horford (14) also distributed 11 assists (Career High). Daniel Theis played a good first half and was even allowed to start after the break. However, Stevens quickly went small again and the German did not return. De Ex-Bamberger scored 6 points (3/5 FG), 2 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal in just under 10 minutes.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, it was all pointing to an exciting closing phase at the Barclays Center, but the Hawks had other plans. After it stood 90:88, the guests took off with an 18:3 run and rocked the game home confidently. In this phase Dennis Schröder was strong, who had his hands in almost every basket.

The Braunschweig player did not always play efficiently, but finished the game with 24 points (11/24 FG) and 6 assists. It was particularly gratifying that the Guard came through the day with almost no ball loss. Only in the final phase did he achieve his only turnaround.

The role-players of the Hawks also played a major role in this success. With Luke Babbitt (20.4/6 threesome), Isaiah Taylor (11) and DeAndre’ Bembry (12), three reserve players scored double-digit points. Ersan Ilyasova grabbed 8 offensive rebounds (a total of 11 boards). For the injured John Collins, Miles Plumlee (6 points, 7 rebounds) was allowed to start for the Hawks for the first time.

On the other hand, the Nets scored well from a distance (17/42), but they had big problems to finish at the basket and stayed below 50 percent from the two-man range (17/40). Spencer Dinwiddie (15 points, 9 assists) and DeMarre Carroll (9,10 rebounds) each missed a double-double. Allen Crabbe, last injured, scored 12 points (3/5 threesomes).