BOSTON – Here’s the thing about Jared Sullinger.
All season he has shown himself to be a good rebounder and a much-improved defender.
But in doing so, often his scoring prowess gets lost in the shuffle.
However, there are games such as the 113-94 blowout win over Orlando on Friday night that remind us all just how effective the 6-foot-9 forward can be when he’s viewed as a focal point offensively.
Sullinger had 11 points and 11 rebounds for his team-leading 14th double-double this season.
While the numbers by no means are eye-dropping, consider this: the dominant victory was jump started by Sullinger scoring Boston’s first seven points, which set the blowout win in motion, and nine of their first 11.
“They had a matchup on that we felt like we could post,” said Celtics coach Brad Stevens.
Orlando began the game with Sullinger, who is 6-foot-9 and listed at 265 pounds, being guarded by Aaron Gordon who is also 6-9 but is listed as weighing 220 pounds.
The eyeball test suggests the weight disparity is more than 45 pounds, which would explain why Gordon had no answer for Sullinger’s back-to-the-basket game.
“We didn’t realize that until the game started,” Stevens said.
Stevens said the first play included an option to get the ball to Sullinger.
“But other than that,” Stevens added, “it’s more about seeing how the flow of the game is going and then reading and reacting and finding the right basketball play, not necessarily getting one person going.”
Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas echoed similar sentiments about the player’s approach to Sullinger’s fast start.
“We seen he basically had a mismatch,” said Thomas who had 14 points and eight assists. “We just wanted to keep feeding him.”
And while Stevens saw getting him the ball often as just making a series of good basketball plays, Thomas saw it as rewarding the one player who at that point in the game had it going offensively.
“That’s the thing about this team,” Thomas said. “Whoever has the hot hand, we’re going to continue to feed that.”
But the Celtics are well aware that duplicating Sullinger’s fast start as well as the dominant nature of their win Friday won’t be easy when these two duel again in Orlando on Sunday.
“Like I’ve said before, playing a team twice in two days, they’ll be a lot better on Sunday,” Stevens said. “And we’ll have to be a lot more alert.”