BOSTON CELTICS (35-19) at GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS (29-26)
Location: Chase Center, San Francisco, Calif.
Radio: 98.5 The Sports Hub
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Jimmy Butler III – OUT (right ACL surgery)
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LJ Cryer – OUT (G League, two-way)
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Seth Curry – OUT (left sciatic nerve irritation)
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Stephen Curry – OUT (right patellofemoral pain syndrome)
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Kristaps Porzingis QUESTIONABLE (left Achilles tendon injury management)
What to watch for: It’s the home stretch. The final 28 games of the regular season. And the Boston Celtics are kicking things off with a West Coast swing.
Will they be rusty? Will they be fresh? Are they staring down the barrel of a trap game? Only time will tell.
And if that weren’t enough, Al Horford and potentially Kristaps Porzingis will get their chance to square off against the very team they won a championship with in 2024.
Tale of the tape: This is the Celtics’ first meeting with the Golden State Warriors this season, and it comes at an odd time for their West Coast counterparts.
Stephen Curry will be out. Jimmy Butler III will be out. Porzingis is questionable. Right now, this team is a shell of itself.
But with guys like Pat Spencer, Horford, and Draymond Green, Golden State won’t be short of competitive fire on Thursday night.
Last game: Heading into the All-Star break, the Celtics went out on a high note. They absolutely dominated the Chicago Bulls at TD Garden, and Nikola Vucevic showed just how valuable he can be for Boston.
Add in a healthy dose of Payton Pritchard and Jaylen Brown isolation scoring, and it was a solid all-around performance (especially after their blowout loss to the New York Knicks on Super Bowl Sunday, the game prior).
Standings check-in: Boston owns a half-game lead over the Knicks, sitting alone in second place in the Eastern Conference. That said, they are still 5.5 games back of the Detroit Pistons, who are still in first.
Warriors check-in: It’s been an up-and-down season for the Warriors this year. Not only did they get off to a rough start, but injuries have significantly held them back.
Obviously, Butler being out for the remainder of the season is a brutal blow, but now, even Curry seems likely to miss significant time. And Porzingis has yet to make his Warriors debut.
Though they’ve managed to get above .500, they have won just four of their last 10 games.
Curry has only played in four of those games, and outside of him (28.5 points per game), Golden State’s leading scorer in their last 10 has been Moses Moody.
In his last 10 games, Moody has put up 15.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 1.1 steals while shooting 47.2% from the floor and 42.9% from deep on 7.7 three-point attempts per contest.
Behind Moody have been the likes of De’Anthony Melton (13.7 PPG in his last nine), Gui Santos (12.9 PPG in his last 10), and Brandin Podziemski (10.9 PPG in his last 10).
One fun play: All hustle and awareness here.
The first Pritchard shot misses, but Ron Harper Jr. hustles to track down the offensive board. He tips it back to Pritchard, and Vucevic immediately sees an opportunity.
Instead of just getting out of the way, he seals off Jaden Ivey so Pritchard could drive into an open lane for a layup.
