Celtics roll to ninth straight victory

WASHINGTON (NBA.com exclusive) -- It remains true to this day that good teams find ways to win games and bad ones will troll the depths of the ocean to find ways to lose.

Such was the case at the sold out Verizon Center in Washington D.C. last night as the Boston Celtics continued their blitzkrieg of a streak with a 104-102 victory over the Wizards.

The Celtics won for the ninth time in a row, and they extended their road record to 10-1, their last loss in enemy territory coming against Indiana back on Nov. 14. The Celtics (18-4) went into the game with the Wizards tied with Orlando for the best record in the Eastern Conference.

Rajon Rondo led Boston with 21 points and a game-high 11 assists. All five Boston starters finished in double digits. Ray Allen became the 32nd player in league history to surpass the 20,000-point plateau when he drilled a 3-pointer with 4:44 remaining in the third quarter. Allen finished with 18 points, Kevin Garnett added 17, Kendrick Perkins finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Paul Pierce scored 12.

Rondo put the Celtics ahead for good when his driving dunk gave the Celtics a 100-98 lead with just over one minute left in the game.

For the Wizards, the end was sloppy. Gilbert Arenas, who led Washington with 25 points and eight assists, missed a pair of free throws with 26 seconds to play and the Wizards down 100-98.

Down 103-100, Arenas and Randy Foye both missed 3-point shots in the final 10 seconds of the game. Foye missed his with just less than five seconds to play in the game. He did score a meaningless layup after Perkins sank of pair of free throws to put the game out of reach.

"We had opportunities. We can't shoot 63 percent from the free throw line against great teams," Washington coach Flip Saunders said of his team. "We can't give up layups. We played good defense in the second half that put us in position, but you can't give up a dunk with the score tied 98-98."

The Celtics did everything right for most of the night. This included taking a 15-point lead in the second quarter when Perkins sank a free throw to give Boston a 61-46 lead right before halftime. The Celtics also managed to do something that bordered on the spectacular in the second quarter, holding the Wizards without a single rebound in the quarter.

"Oh, really?" responded Boston's Rasheed Wallace when told of his team's accomplishment. "I didn't know that. Man."

Down 14 at halftime, Washington opened the third quarter on a 22-8 run, capped by Antawn Jamison's fast break layup to take a short-lived 72-70 lead with just under five minutes left in the third.

But just as they have done for the better part of the season, the Celtics took their defense to another level over the next few minutes. In fact, after Jamison scored the Wizards would connect on just one more field goal in the quarter while turning the ball over three times as Boston restored its lead to 83-74 to start the fourth quarter. "We have to continue to get better," an unsatisfied Pierce said. "We try to concentrate on playing better basketball. Putting two halves together and putting four quarters together is what is important to us. Yes, we are happy that we won but we are a little disappointed at how the way we played in the second half."

Following Boston's run, the Wizards never again seemed to sustain anything the rest of the way.

"That's one of our problems, we've got to do something to stop these teams from making run after run on us," Foye said. "I know they are a good team, but we're going to have to start beating some teams that we're not supposed to beat if we're going to change the way things have been going around here."

And things really haven't been going well for the Wizards. The loss dropped the team's record to 7-13, and the Wizards remain in last place in the Southeast Division. They have lost three in a row and hope to turn their fortunes around on Saturday when they host Indiana, which defeated them 102-86 when the teams met last month.

Source: NBA.com