The Celtics Finally Winning In Toronto Is A True Christmas Miracle
8 straight losses on the road up in Toronto. The Celtics so far during the Brad Stevens supported a 1-11 record in this building heading into today's game. Add in the fact that it's a Christmas game which they don't exactly thrive in mixed with it also being the early game and who knew what to expect. There are players on this roster that had never won in this building in their entire career. Now personally I'm more of a Hanukkah guy, but if Christmas is suddenly going to mean the Celtics win basketball games I think I could get behind this holiday. Now winners of 4 of their last 5 games on Christmas no wonder the league wants to showcase them.
Now while every Celtics fan should enjoy this win simply because it has been so rare over the last 5 years, you cannot mention the fact that the Raptors being without Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol, and Norman Powell had. No doubt about it you miss those guys it's going to be an issue. Safe to say that would be true of any team missing their best players. We should also mention that I don't give a shit. We all have our own injuries issues to deal with. Marcus Smart almost went blind, Robert Williams doesn't have a hip, shit happens. The Raptors are still good and are beast enough at home where nobody could have predicted this blowout. Considering the Celts spotted the Raptors a quick 10-0 lead it wasn't exactly without stress. It doesn't matter who plays, things tend to not work out for whatever reason when the Celtics go up to that arena. In the end this was a game they should have won because of who they had available and how well the've been playing, but head to heads within the divisions are always tough, especially in a house of horrors like that.
The reason the Celts were able to pull this one out? Easy. Kemba and Jaylen went nuts
They combined for 52 of the 118 on 18-29 shooting and 10-17 from deep. Kemba was more his usual self, a quiet but effective offensive output where he's just solid. But then there's Jaylen. A breakout performance on the NBA's biggest day in the regular season certainly doesn't stink. Outside a few turnovers it was pretty much a flawless Jaylen performance, at least offensively. The shooting (10-13), going deep in his bag on numerous occasions, I'm at the point where I'm ready to call him underpaid.
We'll dive in more tomorrow once the Kool Aid wares off. All I know is this made for a great Day 4 of Hanukkah and I hope you all enjoy the rest of this glorious day.