The first quarter was an uphill battle for the Celtics and if not for Brandon Bass, the Rockets might have run them over from the start. He scored nine of the Celtics' first 18 points and most of them while battling with the Rockets big men. Meanwhile, Donatas Motiejunas lit it up for the Rockets with nine points of his own. James Harden was relatively quiet with seven points on two three-pointers, one of them ending as a four-point play. The quarter ended 29-21 for the Rockets.
While the Celtics struggled, the Rockets played close to perfect basketball on both ends of the floor, which gave them much better scoring looks than they allowed their opponents to get. They shot 52.2 percent in the first half compared to the Celtics' 36.2 percent.
The Celtics tried to mix their defense with some zone, but that rarely works well against a team that relies heavily on the three-point shot. When the Celtics played man-to-man defense, they put Avery Bradley on Patrick Beverly and Evan Turner on James Harden and switched on the pick and roll. This opened up the paint for the Rockets' quite nimble big men, and they scored 30 points in the painted area in the first half. Motiejunas led all players with 16 points at half time, and the Rockets led the Celtics, 60-42.
In the third quarter, the Celtics showed that resilience that carried them through their recent road trip. They kept rotating on defense, but the rotations were tighter and didn't leave the paint open. The momentum carried over to offense, and they were able to take the third quarter, 22-9, cutting the Rockets lead to five points.
One of the keys for the Celtics defense was that they were able to keep the pressure on James Harden, whether it was Turner, Smart, or Crowder who defended him. He ended with only 14 points on 21 shots for the game.
In the fourth quarter, both teams soon saw themselves scrabbling for points, since there weren't many easy ones to find. At one point, Houston was up by ten, but most of the quarter their lead was between three and six points.
The Celtics had a handful of chances to tie the game all through the last quarter. Like in the recent game against the Golden State Warriors, the Celtics went to full court pressure in the final minute. But they were in a seven-point deep hole with 44 seconds to go. They managed to score on a Jared Sullinger dunk, and then got the turnover they needed, when James Harden pushed too hard off Marcus Smart in order to get free on the following out-of-bounds play. Marcus Thornton, who had 17 points off the bench for Boston, saw the opening for a layup and cut the lead to three points with 27 seconds left.
For some reason, Avery Bradley chose to foul Corey Brewer with 21 seconds left. Brewer hit both his free throws, and that more or less sealed it. Houston won, 93-87.
Donatas Motiejunas scored a career-high 26 points and led all scorers. He added 12 rebounds as well. Josh Smith chipped in for the Rockets with a double-double off the bench, 15 points and 10 rebounds. For the Celtics, Brandon Bass scored 17 points and had eight rebounds.
Next up for the Celtics is a matinee home game on Sunday against the Miami Heat. The Houston Rockets move on to Detroit to face the Pistons tomorrow night.