Celts Fight Without Rondo, Wins Against Blazers 96-78

Celts Fight Without Rondo, Still Wins Against Blazers 96-78

On the game Friday night, Jeff Green scored 19 points, Jason Terry added 17 and the Boston Celtics cruised to a comfortable win without Rajon Rondo, topping the Portland Trail Blazers 96-78.

Rondo served the first game of his two-game suspension for his role in a brawl Wednesday night against the Brooklyn Nets. Courtney Lee started in his place and finished with 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

The Celtics never trailed. They carried a 56-33 advantage into the break and took their biggest lead on a 22-foot jumper by Kevin Garnett that made it 65-38 with 8:26 left in the third quarter.

The Trail Blazers lost their fourth straight game and had just three scorers in double figures - LaMarcus Aldridge with 23 points and J.J. Hickson and Meyers Leonard with 11 each.

Aldridge provided more than half of the Trail Blazers' points in the first half, scoring 17 while collecting five of their seven field goals. Hickson and Damian Lillard scored the others.

They cut the lead to 58-38 before the Celtics scored the next seven on two free throws by Lee, a 3-pointer by Terry and Garnett's jumper.

Boston led 75-59 heading into the fourth quarter and was never threatened in the final period.

Rondo leads the NBA with 12.9 assists per game but was suspended after shoving Kris Humphries in Wednesday night's 95-83 loss to the Nets. He'll also miss Saturday night's game at the Milwaukee Bucks.

Without him, the Celtics still scored seven of the first eight points and led 25-18 after one quarter, making 57.1 percent of their shots to 31.3 percent for the Trail Blazers.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Monday December 03 2012, 2:25 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0