Raps Suffer Season’s First Loss To Big Ticket Celtics
Posted November 4, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It didn’t take Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett long to demonstrate why everyone made such a big deal when they joined the Boston Celtics.
On Sunday, in a battle of Atlantic Division unbeatens, Allen scored 33 points, including a huge three-pointer with seconds left in overtime, while Garnett added 23 points and 13 rebounds to lift the Celtics to a 98-95 win over the Toronto Raptors.
Paul Pierce finished with 13 points in the largely defensive battle, while T.J. Ford scored 32 points to top Toronto in the team’s first loss of the season. Chris Bosh finished with 19 and Jason Kapono added 10.
But it was Garnett that dominated the pivotal overtime period, scoring 10 points including a hook shot over Bosh that gave Boston a four-point lead with 23 seconds left.
Baskets by Bosh and Ford cut the Celtics’ lead to a point with 7.8 seconds on the clock, but Eddie House connected on a pair of free throws before Allen sunk the three that secured the win for Boston .
That the Raptors were even able to stretch the game to overtime was impressive. The team started rather sluggish, shooting just 27 per cent in the first half and looking little like the team that had laid a 37-point shellacking on New Jersey two nights earlier. A sellout crowd of 19,800 at the Air Canada Centre wouldn’t be fortunate enough to see a repeat against the Celtics.
“You’re talking about these three guys probably being in their prime as far as intelligence as a basketball player, athletically and understanding how to play the game,” Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said of Boston ‘s Big 3 of Allen, Garnett and Pierce. “These three guys are in their prime probably for the next three, three-and-a-half years.”
Up next for the Raptors is a visit to Milwaukee to meet the Bucks on Tuesday before coming home to host the Orlando Magic Wednesday.
