If Tyler Ulis retired today, his NBA career highlight reel will feature his game-winning trey at the buzzer to give Phoenix a 109-106 victory over Boston on Mar. 5. Of course, Ulis won’t be calling it quits anytime soon and he’ll have another shot at the Celtics later tonight.
Ulis finished that game with 20 points across 33 minutes of action of the bench. He’s bound to play bigger minutes in the rematch with Boston with him taking over the void left by Eric Bledsoe (shut down for the rest of the season) in the starting unit.
Apart from expecting a solid showing from Ulis, Phoenix will also be looking to exploit Boston’s interior defense anew. The Suns scored 52 points in the paint in the previous meeting Boston, which only had 32. Phoenix is fourth in the league in scoring inside the shaded area, where they make 47.2 points per contest.
Phoenix has covered the spread in four of their last five visits to TD Garden.
Boston is lurking behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the top spot in the eastern conference with only one game separating the two teams. The Celtics would look to capitalize on Cleveland’s ongoing skid as they try to extend their win streak to three games later tonight.
The Celtics began their six-game home stand with back-to-back wins over the Washington Wizards (110-102) and the Indiana Pacers (109-100) with Isaiah Thomas scoring 25 points in each of those contests. At this point, Thomas is almost assured of dropping at least that many points on any given night, as the diminutive guard is averaging 29.0 PPG thus far this season. Phoenix doesn’t have to look at his stats though to know that, as Thomas scored 35 points on the Suns in the first meeting, going 10-for-25 from the field and 5-for-12 from beyond the arc.
With Ulis now starting for Phoenix, the Suns’ bench scoring could take a dip, which the Celtics should be able to take advantage of. Marcus Smart and James Young forged 25 of the Celtics’ 27 bench points in the previous matchup with Phoenix, which got 33 points from its second stringers.
