Celtics Run Out Of Gas

PORTLAND, ME – On the second night of a back-to-back, the Maine Celtics held a six-point lead at halftime but ran out of gas in the second half, falling to the Greensboro Swarm. 

DJ Steward led Maine (17-12) with 25 points on 10-18 from the field and 5-9 from beyond the arc. JD Davison added 14 points and four assists and Neemias Queta had 10 points and four rebounds. 

Marques Bolden paced Greensboro (14-15) with 25 points and 16 rebounds. RJ Hunter put up 20 points with five made 3-pointers and Marcus Garrett chipped in 12 and five assists. 

Davison started the game off with a bang, driving down the right side of the lane for an easy dunk. Queta finished a reverse layup on the next trip, but it wasn’t long before Hunter hit a pair from deep and Bolden added one of his own to help the Swarm build an 11-0 run that handed them an early lead, 14-6. Davison quelled the run with a 1-for-2 and then tossed a lob to Kelley who flushed it home, though Greensboro bounced back and maintained a multi-possession lead for the remainder of the frame. After a methodical, low-scoring first quarter, Greensboro led 22-15. 

A 6-2 run to open the second quarter pulled the Celtics back within three, 24-21, and a pair of buckets at the rim from Queta gave Maine a 25-24 lead and forced a Greensboro timeout. Davison and Steward paced the offense for Maine, tallying 20 of the team’s 26 points as the game settled into a back-and-forth battle. The rim pressure from Davison and shooting gravity provided by Steward boosted the Celtics as the quarter wound to a close, and Steward’s buzzer-beating triple put Maine ahead 46-40 at the half. 

The slow pace carried over from the first half to the second, as Jordan Walsh made the first bucket of the second half just ahead of the 10-minute mark. From there, a 13-2 run from Greensboro put them in the driver’s seat, with Bolden’s inside-out scoring providing the bulk of the offense. The Swarm led by as many as 11 in the third, but the Celtics flipped the switch to close the frame. An 8-2 run into the third-quarter horn trimmed their deficit to five, 68-63, with 12 minutes remaining. 

The Celtics were able to pull within three in the opening minute of the fourth before Greensboro made its knockout punch; a 10-0 run gave the Swarm a 78-65 lead, and the Celtics were unable to get any closer than that in the final quarter. After struggling through a cold spell on the second night of a home-away back-to-back and committing some untimely turnovers, the Celtics fell to the Swarm, ending their six-game win streak. 

The Celtics and Swarm finish off the four-game season series on Sunday, March 17 at 2:00 PM at the Portland Expo. Maine then hosts the Westchester Knicks on March 21 before ending the regular season on a three-game road trip.