Celtics To Go Small Against Bulls, Inserting Gerald Green In Starting Lineup
By Cody Westerlund--
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Bulls' dominance in the first two games has caused the top-seeded Celtics to make a change to their starting lineup for Game 3 of their first-round series at the United Center on Friday night.
Boston will start 6-foot-7 swingman Gerald Green in place of 6-foot-9 power forward Amir Johnson. Coach Brad Stevens cited Green's "shooting, length and athleticism" in making the decision to start small.
The Celtics' usual starting lineup of Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Al Horford and Johnson had the 11th-best net rating of any five-man lineup in the league, minimum of 200 minutes played. Asked how tough it was to make
"The biggest thing that I want to be able to do and our guys want to be able to do is able to spread them on offense and shoot the ball and then on defense, I just think if we're not going to play two bigs, we've got to be long and athletic on the perimeter," Stevens said.
Green played in 47 games in the regular season but started none. He averaged 5.6 points and shot 35.1 percent on 3-pointers.
Cody Westerlund is a sports editor for CBSChicago.com and covers the Bulls. He's also the co-host of the @LockedOnBulls podcast, which you can subscribe to on iTunes and Stitcher. Follow him on Twitter @CodyWesterlund.