Boston Celtics: Top 10 games from the first half of 2019-20

9. 11/25 vs Sacramento Kings

Result: Win (103-102)

This game was special to the Boston Celtics for a few reasons.

Reason number one, the Sacramento Kings were the team that ended the Celtics’ then-league-leading winning streak of 10 games.  That game took place just a week before this second meeting in TD Garden.

The second reason was that Kemba Walker was out for the game after suffering a scary neck injury against the Denver Nuggets one game earlier. This game was set up to be the first that the team played without Kemba, and it felt like a game in which the Kings would scrape out a win.

Thanks to the heroics of Marcus Smart, that was not the case. The Kings went up by as much as 11 in the contest, but Boston fought until the final minute. That resulted in Marcus Smart banking in a floater with 30 seconds left to give the Celtics a minuscule lead.

One possession later, Smart stole the ball and dribbled out nearly the full 24-second shot clock. That left Sacramento with little time to do something with the ball.

Boston guarded well on the Kings’ last few attempts, and some lucky misses helped Boston escape by the skin of their teeth.

This game proved that the Celtics could hold their own without their All-NBA floor general, and it also showed the value of Marcus Smart, if that wasn’t already apparent before. He seems to be one of the more underappreciated guards in the league, but that doesn’t matter to him.