Popovich described Dedmon as ¡°the star of the show for all four quarters with basic, solid, discipline basketball he played on the board and blocking shots that allowed us to stay in it.¡± Dedmon finished with six points and three blocks, while Mills scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter.
Youth Derrick Rose Jersey Kawhi Leonard, left, and Patty Mills combined for 24 points in Wednesday’s fourth quarter, when the Spurs overtook the Mavericks in a 94-87 victory.
¡°He is playing great,¡± shooting guard Danny Green said. ¡°He has always played great for us, though. Hopefully he continues to play that well throughout the whole year because we are going to need that from him.¡±
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Leonard, meanwhile, knocked down just 5 of 16 shots for 21 points, inflicting the majority of his damage in the second half.
Both Celtics coach Brad Stevens and Boston big man Al Horford showered Detroit with praise for the way its offense was clicking. Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy called it Detroit’s “best offensive performance of the year,” and the Pistons — 1-8 on the road before Tuesday night — reveled in beating playoff-caliber foes on consecutive nights.
The loss spoiled another brilliant offensive outing for Isaiah Thomas, who scored a game-high 27 points for the Celtics. His most impressive moment might have been the one make that didn’t count.
The Pistons’ degree of difficulty was notably lower on most shots but that didn’t stop them from coming up with big makes every time the Celtics tried to generate some momentum.
“You have to give them credit because they hit some tough, tough shots,” Horford said. “I feel like our guys were there. The way they were shooting, there was just no room for error. We have to look at the film tonight and just see how we can be better and we can impact those shots because they had their way with us from the beginning. They just did.”
The only other area on the box score that left Stevens uncomfortable was seeing only five shots attempts for Horford, who hadn’t attempted fewer than eight in a game this season. Only 15 times in his 585-game career had Horford attempted five or fewer field goals when playing 30-plus minutes.