In the second night of a back-to-back coming off a tough overtime loss to the Pelicans Sunday night, the Celtics once again gave a strong effort, but came up short in a 94-89 loss to the Mavericks on the road. The C's still remain winless on the road this year against the Western Conference.
The C's trailed by seven at the half, but cut the deficit to three at the start of the fourth and despite playing a strong fourth quarter, getting the lead down to one with just over 20 seconds left, they couldn't overtake the home team thus suffering their fifth straight loss. Jerryd Bayless had a solid game for the Celtics finishing with a team-high 19 points while off the bench Kelly Olynyk had 16 points to go along with nine boards in the losing effort.
Dallas was led by Dirk Nowitzki's 19 points in the win.
The Celtics will return home Wednesday night (7:30, CSNNE) to take on the Heat.
What they'll be saying: Going into the game you wouldn't have expected much coming off the tough loss Sunday night and being without Rajon Rondo (rest), but the C's showed the resiliency they have played with all season going back-and-forth with Dallas, one of the better teams in the Western Conference. The Celtics played better team defense than of late holding Dallas to 42 percent shooting, but as a team the C's shot just 37 percent. They also turned the ball over 17 times, something they had done a much better job of lately. Things don't get any easier with Miami coming to town Wednesday night.
