NBA Scores 2017: The Celtics are winning games without ANY of their superstars now, and 7 other things from Friday night’s games

The Celtics lost Gordon Hayward for the season, started Friday night’s game against the Hornets without Al Horford due to a concussion, and minutes into the first quarter lost Kyrie Irving to the concussion protocol after he got knocked across the face by Aron Baynes’ elbow. That meant, quite honestly, all of their really good players were hurt and unable to play.

For a normal coach, that would have meant a blowout. But the Celtics don’t have a normal coach.

Playing a backcourt of Terry Rozier and Shane Larkin and leaning on the efforts of a rookie and sophomore front court tandem in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Brad Stevens coached the Celtics back from a double-digit deficit against Charlotte to win, 90-87.

Boston has won 11 straight games now. Eleven of those were without Hayward, two without Horford and now this one without Irving. I’m convinced Stevens doesn’t even need players at all to win games. Let’s see him coach 10 dogs. I swear they might win.

Larkin and Tatum each had 16 points, and Rozier had 15 points, seven assists and four rebounds. Because of course.

Irving left the game after he was whacked across the face by an inadvertent elbow from his own teammate, Baynes, and started bleeding.

This shouldn’t be a long-term injury, luckily enough for the Celtics.

It turns out that a team tends to win when Paul George scores 42 points in a game.

That’s what it took after the Clippers — without Danilo Gallinari and Patrick Beverley — came marching back from a double-digit deficit in the fourth to lose, 120-111. That snapped a six-game losing streak for OKC against West coast opponents — out of six attempts.

The Thunder are far from solved, with the ball still struggling to move at times, but this was a quality win for a team without its starting center, Steven Adams.

A sort of ugly finish saw the Bucks beat the Spurs, 94-87, and of course, Giannis led everyone with 28 points, 12 rebounds and five assists.

Giannis dunked like Michael Jordan did in the dunk contest:

Yep.

But the spotlight was on Bledsoe, who finished with 13 points, including a clutch step-back to secure Milwaukee’s lead in the fourth quarter.

The chemistry is already flowing between him and The Freak, too.

Raise your hand if you had the Pistons tied for the second-best record in the NBA, 12 games into the season. Is your hand raised? Congrats on lying to a basketball blogger.

The Pistons hardly edged the Hawks, 111-104, but it’s still another win.

They’re 9-3 now.

That’s their best start since 2005-06... yeah that’s these guys:

The Heat only dropped 84 points, but that was enough for a win over a Utah team that made less than 34 percent of the shots it took. Yikes! They shot 24 percent from three-point range. Gasp!

Here’s a look at who missed what and how many of what:

Pistons 111, Hawks 104 (Detroit Bad Boys recap | Peachtree Hoops recap)

Celtics 90, Hornets 87 (Celtics Blog recap | At the Hive recap)

Pacers 105, Bulls 87 (Indy Cornrows recap)

Thunder 120, Clippers 111 (Welcome to Loud City recap)

Bucks 94, Spurs 87 (Brew Hoop recap | Pound the Rock recap)

Magic 128, Suns 112 (Orlando Pinstriped Post recap | Bright Side of the Sun recap)

Heat 84, Jazz 74 (SLC Dunk recap)

Nets 101, Trail Blazers 97 (Nets Daily recap | Blazer’s Edge recap)