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Much venting has been done by both pundits and fans alike since Wednesday’s home loss at the hands of the New York Knicks. The airing of grievances has happened and the team must come together quickly and focus on putting forward better performances across all 4 quarters of the game. You don’t ever want to say a team is chasing a must win in November, but keeping things brutally honest, this is a must win game to put the brakes on a losing streak and to keep the team above .500 heading into December.
The Hawks come into the game off a loss to the Toronto Raptors 124-108, Jeremy Lin highlighted off the bench in that one with an impressive 26 point performance including 4-5 from beyond the arc. The Hawks have a bunch of streaky players who can score in bunches, so the Celtics perimeter defending will have to be locked in tonight. As witnessed in the NY loss, even the most maligned players can get going against this Celtics squad in 2018-19.
The Hawks have a pair of active bigs in John Collins and Dewayne Dedmond, so look for Daniel Theis to get a bunch of minutes tonight with possibly a sprinkling of the Time Lord Robert Williams (activated tonight) making a cameo. Taurean Prince is a decent scoring option for the Hawks and in an away win over the Cs last season he posted an impressive 33 points. New Summer signing, Vince Carter who is 3 months younger Head Coach of the Celtics Brad Stevens comes into tonight fresh off scoring 25,000 career points.
Al Horford (knee) will not play tonight so look for Marcus Morris Sr. to enter the starting five alongside Aron Baynes, who has started the last 2 games. Atlanta are 2-6 at home to start the year and 3-15 on the season.
Marcus Morris will start at power forward tonight and Gordon Hayward will continue to come off the bench. Coach Stevens says he made that decision in large part based off of Atlanta’s size up front.
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 23, 2018
Projected Starters
PG - Kyrie Irving – Trae Young
SG - Jaylen Brown – Kent Bazemore
SF - Jayson Tatum – Taurean Prince
PF - Marcus Morris Sr. – John Collins
C - Aron Baynes – Dewayne Dedmond
Injuries
Boston – Al Horford (left knee)
Atlanta – Alex Len (back) Omari Spellman (questionable)
How to Watch
Time – 7:30 PM EST
TV – NBC Sports Boston