Blue Coats Stop Celtics

PORTLAND, ME – The Maine Celtics dropped their second-straight game to the Delaware Blue Coats, this time falling 116-111 despite yet another double-double from Luka Šamanić. 

Šamanić led Maine (7-2) with 27 points and 11 rebounds on 5-6 shooting from downtown. Two-Way big Mfiondu Kabengele put up 23 and 14 rebounds and Kamar Baldwin tallied 17 and seven assists. Marial Shayok posted his first double-double as a Celtic with 13 points and 10 assists. Marvin Smith Jr. shot 4-5 from the floor on the way to 12 points, adding eight boards. Reggie Kissoonlal put up 11 points and five rebounds. 

Charlie Brown Jr. led Delaware (5-3) with 26 points and four rebounds off the bench. Two-Way wing Louis King notched 16 points and four assists and Michael Foster Jr. had 15, five boards and five assists. Skylar Mays added 11 points and Patrick McCaw scored 10. 

Julian Champagnie’s transition layup broke the ice after a scoreless minute-and-a-half to start the game; Šamanić canned an above the break triple on the next trip to get Maine on the board. The pace was slower at the start in relative to Thursday’s matchup, though it quickly picked up as the quarter wore on. Maine led 10-7 at the first break as both teams were playing through a ton of contact and jawing back and forth. The Celtics, the No. 1 passing team in the G League by assist percentage, assisted on 10 of their first 11 makes, shot 5-11 from deep as a team and led 31-22 after one. 

Maine was able to stretch the lead beyond double digits early in the second, but it didn’t take long before turnover woes hindered the Celtics and allowed the Blue Coats to catch up. Delaware tied it, 47-47, and then Champagnie followed a dunk from Šamanić with a three-ball to give the Blue Coats the lead. The Blue Coats were able to get ahead by three before Baldwin hit a 1-for-2 free throw in the final minute that made it 55-54 in favor of Delaware going into halftime. 

An 8-0 run out of the locker room for Maine quickly put them back in front, 62-55 as Šamanić got himself up to 17 points. King ended the dry spell for Delaware soon after, answering back with a 7-0 run to tie it at 67 on back-to-back transition finishes from Brown. It was a tightly-contested game for the rest of the night after that – the lead changes hands a few times late in the third but neither squad was able to separate. Despite scoring only twice in the last three minutes of the quarter, Maine trailed by just three, 85-82 heading into the fourth. 

Another Blue Coats run, this one 5-0, gave them the lead back early in the final frame. Baldwin dished to Shayok for a trey that cut Maine’s deficit to one, 96-95, as Baldwin delicately balanced scoring and distributing in a back-and-forth second half. The Celtics caught fire and buried five threes in the first five minutes of the fourth, but it didn’t faze the Blue Coats much as they held onto a one-possession lead, 103-101 with six minutes to go. Šamanić flipped in a jump hook to give the Celtics a 107-106 lead, but it wasn’t long before Brown went on a heater to close it out. He hit two threes and a pair of clutch free throws down the stretch, countering the driving layup from Shayok that made it a one-point game in the final minute. Maine’s game-tying attempt fell short with about eight seconds left, and the Celtics dropped their second-straight game to Delaware, this time 116-111. 

The Celtics will be back in action on Jan. 21 and 22 when they host the Lakeland Magic for a back-to-back at the Expo.