|
BOSTON -- Bored but not disinterested with a game in which the Boston Celtics led by as much as 38 points Friday, fans inside TD Garden started a vigorous wave midway through the fourth quarter of a 111-78 triumph over the visiting Washington Wizards. The wave is a polarizing sports topic. It's a familiar -- if hackneyed -- staple at nearby Fenway Park when the Red Sox are in season. But it rarely sneaks into NBA arenas, maybe in part because of the constant action on the court. Wave attempts at TD Garden often fizzle quickly. But not this wave. Shunning any day-after-Thanksgiving lethargy, this wave had the same vigor as a Boston basketball team that responded to near embarrassment (they rallied from a double-digit, fourth-quarter deficit to beat the winless Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday) by throttling the Wizards by 20-plus points for the second time in November. And Celtics players seemed to genuinely enjoy the moment. As the wave moved from the balcony to the lower bowl, Celtics big man Amir Johnson playfully threw his arms skyward as the wave passed behind the Boston bench.  "I think it was great, man," said Johnson, a card-carrying member of the wave fan club. "It was like a playoff atmosphere type of thing and the bench decided to join in because it was unbelievable."
Johnson noted how fans in Toronto would sometimes try to prompt the wave at Raptors games in the past, but to limited success. Told that the wave isn't universally accepted in these parts, Johnson defended it. "No, man. It gets alive," Johnson said. "Everybody's sitting down, the wave gets everybody on their feet, man. It gets them going. Everybody had been sitting down for a minute, so it was good to see." Standing next to Johnson throughout the wave sequence was frontcourt partner Jared Sullinger, who needed only 24 minutes to put up 18 points and 15 rebounds. He spent much of the second half dancing in front of the Celtics bench. Coach Brad Stevens would later note that Friday was about as close to a complete game as Boston had pitched this season. Sullinger certainly did his part on the glass, pulling down five offensive rebounds in the first half (helping Boston to 29 second-chance points overall). Through 16 games, Sullinger has grabbed 20.7 percent of all available caroms, a number that ranks him in the top five in the league (behind only Andre Drummond, Enes Kanter, DeAndre Jordan and Hassan Whiteside). Sullinger, pegged in the preseason as the fifth man on a four-man frontcourt depth chart, has emerged as a double-double machine. He's averaging 11 points and 9.4 rebounds per game over 16 appearances (13 as a starter). Having silenced most of his critics, Sullinger says he still tunes out any lingering noise. "People are always going to have a comment, are always going to have complaints, but I really don’t care," said Sullinger. "When we have wins like this, I know my mom is at home sleeping peacefully, because she doesn’t like close games. She wants every win to be above 20, and I tell her that’s not realistic basketball unless I’m playing '[NBA] 2K.'" Or the Wizards. Washington looked lifeless, and coach Randy Wittman's seat just got a little toastier amid a 6-7 start. His players looked uninspired Friday. The Celtics held John Wall to 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting, doing all they could to limit his transition opportunities and forcing him to beat them in the half court. For Boston, as it prepares for a five-game road trip that will take it away from its wave-happy crowd until Dec. 9, Friday's game was a nice cleanse after a rough three-game stretch in which Boston lost twice. Narrowly avoiding defeat against Philadelphia was nothing to rave about, but it might have given the Celtics a needed boost after pulling out a close victory they probably didn't deserve. "I think pulling that Sixers game out was huge," Stevens said. "Playing that way over the last six minutes, not having played well for a couple of games in a row plus most of that game, and finding a way was probably good for us emotionally heading into [Friday]. And I thought we had a pretty good shootaround [Friday] and felt like we played on both ends as consistently as we played all year."
|
