BOSTON - Jared Sullinger has been a much more dependable player for the Boston Celtics than many thought he'd be prior to the start of the 2015-16 season.
And on Friday night against the Bulls, the Celtics needed to depend on him even more.
With Amir Johnson missing the game due to personal reasons, the C's were going to have to look to their other bigs to carry more of the load, and Sullinger dug deep, finishing with his 13th double-double of the season, and third against the Bulls in three games.
"I thought he played well," Brad Stevens said. "He and Kelly [Olynyk] have played well together, so that combination did pretty well. I thought that a factor in us losing some of that lead was Kelly getting in foul trouble and having to really play him sparingly as the game went on. But I thought that Jared controlled the boards, got his hands on balls. Made shots in the first half but made plays at the rim in the second."
Sullinger had 18 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, and three steals, going toe-to-toe with Bulls center Pau Gasol who finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds. But while Sullinger was a plus-20, Gasol was a minus-26.
The Celtics, as they've done plenty of times this season, allowed the opposition to climb back into things. The Bulls trailed by as many as 16 points in the third quarter, but cut it to one point with just under five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
That's when Boston buckled down on defense at one end, and made baskets at the rim at the other end. Isaiah Thomas and Sullinger each hit two layups down the stretch to give the Celtics a lead they wouldn't lose.
"We’ve been in that situation multiple times this year before," Sullinger said. "The beautiful part about that was we’ve been there, and we knew what it would take to stop it. And we played like a unit at the end. We made big shots.”