Celtics Wrap: Boston’s Late Rally Falls Short In 95-87 Loss To Spurs

NESN

by Darren Hartwell

BOSTON — The San Antonio Spurs didn’t bring their A-game to TD Garden on Sunday. Unfortunately for the Celtics, they didn’t need to. The Spurs got out to an early lead thanks to a poor shooting effort from Boston, and new addition LaMarcus Aldridge hit several key shots down the stretch to help San Antonio hold on for a 95-87 win. Aldridge led all scorers with 22 points. Boston put five players in double figures but didn’t have a 20-point scorer.  Avery Bradley led the way with 18 points, while Marcus Smart tallied 17. STARTING FIVE Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, David Lee, Tyler Zeller

SUNDAY BLUES Maybe the Spurs and Celtics did a bit too much trick-or-treating Saturday night. Both teams got off to rough starts from the floor, shooting a combined 2 for 14 with several turnovers through the game’s first five minutes. The score was 3-2 Spurs at that point. San Antonio finally shook off the rust, but things didn’t get much better for Boston. The Celtics scored just 31 points in the first half on 14 of 48 shooting while committing 10 turnovers. The Spurs never trailed after the 8:23 mark of the first quarter.

DEFENDING THE BEST On the bright side, the Celtics put forth a solid defensive effort Sunday afternoon. Boston held a Spurs team that topped 100 points in its first two games to just 64 points through three quarters. San Antonio committed an uncharacteristically high 18 turnovers, a testament to the Celtics’ aggressive play on defense. The Celtics tallied nine steals on the afternoon.

PLAYING SMART Smart was the best player on the floor for Boston on Sunday. The second-year guard had his best game of the young season, scoring 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting. He was as aggressive on defense as he was on offense, tallying a team-high four steals and making impressive plays like this: Head coach Brad Stevens went to Smart often in this one, playing him a team-high 39 minutes. Isaiah Thomas — the Celtics’ leading scorer in the first two games of the season — played just 27 minutes after struggling from the field early.

COLD AND HOT The Celtics had their chances to come back early in the second half thanks some poor shooting from the Spurs, but they just couldn’t knock down the big 3-pointer when it counted. Boston hit just two of its 20 long ball attempts through three quarters. The C’s turned it on from deep in the fourth frame, though, knocking down six of eight deep balls — including two from Jared Sullinger — to climb back into the game.

PLAY OF THE GAME Bradley came out of nowhere with a monster dunk over several Spurs late in the fourth quarter to bring the TD Garden crowd to its feet. UP NEXT The Celtics will hit the road for the first time this season, traveling to Indianapolis on Wednesday to take on the Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET.
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STUDS AND DUDS: LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE, SPURS TOO MUCH FOR COLD-SHOOTING CELTICS

WEEI

By Ben Rohrbach

It was an ugly shooting night for the Celtics, especially in the first half, when they missed more than 70 percent of their attempts, but somehow they remained with four of the Spurs in the final minutes.

It was a testament to their defense, but despite making several runs to cut into a 15-point deficit, the Celtics couldn’t ever get over the hump in a 95-87 loss that dropped them to 1-2 on the young season.

Avery Bradley led the Celtics with 18 points on 18 shots before leaving the game with 26 seconds left and retreating to the locker room with the team doctor. Marcus Smart (17 points), Isaiah Thomas (15 points on 18 shots), Jared Sullinger (10 points, 8 rebounds) and Amir Johnson (10 points) also reached double figures.


STUD OF THE NIGHT: Marcus Smart.

His offensive game could still use some polish, as he missed his first four 3-point attempts and two of his four free throws, but Smart was everywhere on defense. He stripped each of San Antonio’s big three — Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker (twice) — leading to points each time. And Smart was one of the few Celtics players capable of creating offense. He’s shown an improved willingness and ability to get to the rim, resulting in a handful of layups when nobody on the C’s could hit a jump shot.

DUD OF THE NIGHT: David Lee.

It wasn’t his night, and it hasn’t been yet this season. Lee converted just one of his eight shots and committed two turnovers to his one assist. He did grab eight rebounds in 20 minutes of action, but if his shot’s not falling, then he’s a liability, because he wasn’t much help on the Spurs frontcourt of LaMarcus Aldridge and Tim Duncan defensively.


WHINE OF THE NIGHT: 3-point shooting.

The Celtics entered the game shooting 30 percent from 3-point range (15-50 3P) — one of the worst marks in the league through their first two games — and they were worse on another 27 attempts against the Spurs, shooting 6-of-28 from beyond the arc (22.2 percent). Prior to the season, Danny Ainge said he felt like they’d be an improved shooting team. That is sort of the key to taking a step forward for a team that struggled to score points last season when Isaiah Thomas wasn’t carrying the load. It’s hard to pay with space when the defense isn’t convinced you can make shots from distance.

STAT OF THE NIGHT: 22 and 13.

That’s how many points and rebounds Aldridge finished with. Whenever the Celtics made a run, the Spurs turned to Aldridge in the post, where he generally abused Sullinger and scored almost at will. With only Amir Johnson as a reliable defensive big, the Celtics will struggle to stop teams with two talented frontcourt players, and San Antonio certainly qualifies in that regard.
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Celtics hang around but fall 95-87 to San Antonio

csne

A.SHERROD BLAKLEY

BOSTON – For all the NBA-related analytics data out there, there’s one tried and true measure that speaks to a team’s chances at success.

When you make shots, you give yourself the best shot at winning. When you don’t, games go the way of Sunday’s matchup between Boston and San Antonio.

Both teams struggled in the game’s early moments at making shots as they combined to miss the first eight shots taken. But the Spurs found a rhythm and managed to fend off a fourth quarter rally that ended with San Antonio holding on for a 95-87 win.

Boston trailed by as many as 15 points in the second half, but were within five points (90-85) following a powerful, one-handed dunk by Avery Bradley that left the backboard rattling for several seconds afterwards.

Unfortunately, the Celtics were unable to get any closer as they suffered their second straight loss.

And while the near comeback was certainly something the Celtics felt good about, they would not have had to rally from so far behind had they did a better job of making more of the open to lightly contested shots the Spurs were giving them.

For the game, Boston shot 35.7 percent from the field and 20.7 percent on 3s (6-for-28). The Spurs were better, but they weren’t exactly lighting it up, either. San Antonio shot 43.4 percent from the field and 26.3 percent from 3-point range.

The Celtics (1-2) have now lost two in a row as they close out their three-game home stand to start the season – the first time that has happened since the 1975-1976 season.

Despite San Antonio leading most of the game, there was a noticeable sense of urgency on the Celtics’ part in the fourth quarter. Marcus Smart did his best Tony Parker impersonation by driving into the lane and tossing up a tear-drop floater that cut San Antonio’s lead to 77-72.

Following a Spurs time-out with 5:06 to play, the new guy – LaMarcus Aldridge – came through with a jumper only to have Boston’s Jared Sullinger come back with his second 3-pointer of the game that cut San Antonio’s lead to 79-75. Boston had a chance to make it a 3-point game when Sullinger missed a three.

Celtics head coach Brad Stevens used a three-guard lineup of Marcus Smart, Isaiah Thomas and Evan Turner. But that group, like most that Stevens trotted out there, was never able to gain the kind of traction needed to rally for the victory.

The Spurs were led by Aldridge’s game-high 24 points along with 19 points from Kawhi Leonard. Tim Duncan had seven points, nine rebounds and five assists.

Bradley’s 18 points paced the Celtics, with Smart (17 points), Thomas (15 points) and Amir Johnson (10 points) also reaching double figures scoring.

112288

Trending in the wrong direction..........ouch!

112288

Hi,
Yes, with shooting like this they won't go far.
I'm not sure what's happening - it's the second game where Celtics shooting is horrible. I understand that even the best shooters have night off but not 2 in a row. Hopefully they shake this spell by Wednesday.
They had it going on defensive end, more or less.


AK

Firstly we have 2 new starters in the lineup this year.  Crowder and Lee.  So you have a chemistry challenge.

The Celtics played hard.  Really hard but sometimes the ball is not going in the hoop.  It is unusual however to have so many poor shooting performances.

Last year the Celtics were a very poor 3 pt shooting team.  Thus far we have seen nothing that tells us that this is an area where improvement can be expected.

Personally I do not like the starting lineup.  I'm gonna beat this dead horse until until a change is made or until we can see positive signs.

The Zeller/Lee combo is a bad one.  I also do not like the Crowder situation over Evan Turner.  I do like Crowder as an energy guy off the bench but a starting SF in the NBA?  You gotta be kidding.  I would put Lee and Crowder on the bench and replace them with Johnson and Turner.

Yesterday afternoon there it was again Lee goes to the rim and has his shot rejected.  Then it happened again.  Sorry but I am not impressed with David Lee.  I think that he can help the team but he would be a good addition off the bench.

You cannot possible expect to win games when both your 4 and 5 are absolutely horrible defenders.  

The Smart/Bradley guard combo was very competitive.  The play that Smart made was very similar to the play Rondo made where he is behind the man with the ball and just dives forward to steal and secure the ball and then has the good sense to get off a pass for an easy assist.  But there was nothing easy about that play.  It was a great play.

Our back court looks solid.  But we need an off guard coming off the bench.  IT struggled most of the game but still managed to make some plays.  Overall however the team just did not shoot the ball well.

At some point Brad will need to give Hunter a opportunity to play when Bradley goes to the bench.  We need a shooting guard off the bench.

I did not like the Aldridge/Sullinger matchup late in the game.  That is a bad matchup and I thought the reason why we got Johnson was because of his length and ability to play a guy like Aldridge.

Both Sully and Lee collected 8 rebounds.  Zeller and KO got short minutes.

I do not see how you can get consistent production if KO is splitting minutes with Jonas.  Look I like Jonas but to me KO should be getting all of his minutes.  Jonas scored 6 and KO went scoreless.  They played 14 and 13 minutes respectively.  KO did have 7 rebounds (is it me or has KO become a better rebounder?)

Overall the Celts get an A- for effort but a C- in execution and decision making.  Down the stretch we are still launching 3 point shots and not exploring other scoring opportunities.  We got it down to 4 on two occasions and then there goes the 3 ball.  You know when there is talk about the need for a go-to-guy this is the reason.  We still need a go to guy.

Coach Stevens gets a grade C.  I do not expect him to make shots while coaching from the bench but The Celts only had 5 fast break points and that is a coaching issue.  Plenty of space but NO pace.He also gets a low grade for farting around with the Lee/ Zeller combo.  My guess is that Zeller will go to the bench but if I had my way I would keep Zeller in the starting lineup and send Lee to the bench.  Zeller is regressing quickly and that needs to stop.  Guys like KO and Zeller need to get more shooting opportunities in the offense.  Coach em up coach.



dboss

Same cold start as last year, same final result.  We started out 2-10 with 6 1/2 minutes gone in the first.  The good news is that they started out 3-11 too, but they're a better team.  Starting out even remotely near "warm" was our big chance against a superior team, and we didn't do it.  We missed a lot of easy, open shots, like we did in the previous game vs Toronto but our starters also played without energy.  You are not going to win many games, at home or on the road, if you only score 13 points 26% shooting in a quarter like we did in the 1st.  13 points.  26%.  Awful, just awful.  The funny thing is that, in that awful first quarter, we moved the ball better than them, we were just missing our shots.  The Spurs missed theirs too, but had less movement.

We kept getting caught watching the paint dry, watching the ball.  Of all the teams in the NBA the Spurs are the one team you cannot lose track of your man because they will move.  

1.  Brad finally inserted Jerebko for an energy boost, which he gave.  Brad always talks about Jerebko's motor and he showed it last night.  Immediate offense and immediate uptick in defensive intensity.

2.  Isaiah Thomas didn't help much neither, not when we needed it.  He played 7 minutes in the 1st quarter and was 1-6.  By halftime he had played another 7 minutes and was 1-9.  At the end of 3 he was 2-12 in 18 minutes including a pure frustration foul where he came around a pick and two-hand shivved Patty Mills right in front of the ref.  Stupid and completely unnecessary.  Mills was not roughing IT up, Thomas was just upset with his inability to hit the broad side of a barn.  4-18 for 15 and shooting us out of the game.

3.  David Lee with another bad shooting game.  1-7 for 2 points.  He had 8 rebounds, 3 of them offensive, in his 21 minutes but, as has been stated many times, that's not enough from him.  He's short-arming all his shots.  They are all not getting over the rim, just about every shot.  The mid-range shots I could say "he's old, he's lost an inch on his jump" but it's the same thing from point blank where jumping isn't as important because it's right there in front of you.

4.  Crowder with another bad night too.  He struggled with Kawhi Leonard defensively and was 3-9 himself.  Kawhi is something else.  He has really added to his game and is doing things he didn't do a year ago and he was pretty damn good a year ago.  He showed a turnaround step-back jumper from the baseline that would work over anybody.  Leonard had 19 points on 8-18.  Crowder was 1-5 from 3.  He was responsible for 4 of our team's 16 TOs.  Not good.  I was really looking forward to that match up.  Now I'm looking forward to the next one.  I don't care who it is, just get this taste out of my mouth.

5.  Jerebko came in and started the power surge but then Marcus Smart picked it up.  Big Tommy Point for Smart, tipping a ball away and diving to the floor like Sully did a game or two ago, hitting Jae from his ass for the lay up.  Parker and Mills were happy as hell to be on the bus and outta Boston yesterday, Smart was blowing them up.  Smart with 17 points on 7-12 and 4 steals.  He stole the ball from Parker twice, once from Duncan, once from Ginobili and just made Mills' life miserable.  He was 1-5 from 3, which means he was 6-7 from 2.  Great game by Smart, one of the few Celtics you could say that about.  39 minutes.  Why not?  Even a blind man could see Smart was one of the only things that was working yesterday.  Smart ended up with a +/- of -1.  Bradley played 30 minutes but the rest of the starting unit played much less, with Zeller only playing 6.  This is why the +/- stat is so flawed.  It works better for starters than for bench players, because starters play a lot together as a unit, while benchers are mixed and matched, but when the starters play such a wide disparity of minutes you can't tell easily who Smart was on the floor with, what 5-man unit helped him produce that positive +/-.

6.  Amir is another.  10 points on 5-10, the only other Celtic besides Smart who shot 50% or better.  He's listed as 6'9" but plays bigger.  He's making the flip shots and baby hooks that Lee isn't.

7.  Bradley started out cold but warmed up.  Both our starting guards have heart and pride.  Celtic high scorer with 18.  You know we're struggling when our top scorers are Bradley and Smart.  Overall, the Spurs back court had trouble yesterday.  Parker with only 6 points, 4 assists and 3 TOs, Danny Green 4 points on 2-10, Patty Mills with 8 points.  Only Ginobili, with 13 points and 8 rebounds in 24 minutes had a decent night.  Our starting back court outplayed theirs, and that's really saying something.  Our bench back court of Thomas, and Thomas and, what was that other guy's name again?  Oh yeah, Thomas.  Not so well.  Thomas ended up a KoME-esque 4-18.

Then, there was this vicious Bradley dunk, after IT dragged the defense down with penetration. As long as we're talking about deficiencies in interior defense, Bradley blew past Kawhi Leonard and dunked over LMA.




8.  I've said over the past few years, that LaMarcus Aldridge is the only PF I would trade Sully for straight up.  Sully struggled with 4-12 shooting, but had 8 boards, and Aldridge hit a groove.  I suppose I shouldn't be dismayed, even though I've seen Sully have better games vs LMA.  LMA is, in my opinion, the best PF in the league and he showed it yesterday.  24 points and 14 rebounds including some very, very key momentum breakers in the 4th quarter to hold us off.  We were surging and LMA and Kawhi didn't let their lead get below 4 with some clutch shooting.

9.  Kelly was aggressive.  At this point, that's all I want from him.  He got 7 boards in 13 minutes, just one rebbie less than Sully got in 24 minutes, but he didn't score.  Still, he attacked.  He got stripped a few times by guards swarming him when he dribbled into the paint but that's ok.  I want him attacking, that's step 1 in his development.  One thing, though, looked especially ugly.  We had a 3-on-1 fast break, due to a great steal by Kelly.  He's bringing it upcourt himself, at a pretty decent clip too.  He gets into the paint and the lone Spur back, a guard, stepped in front of him mid-paint or so to cut off his penetration.  Instead of shooting over the much shorter Spur, or pulling up for a second and letting his two running mates create a better angle for a pass and and assist, he flubbed it.  Bad spacing by the Celtics on the break, bad decision making by Kelly.  Too bad, it was a nice steal to start it but stealing the ball doesn't matter if you can't convert the bunny, not unless the clock is winding down and gaining possession with the steal is all you need to secure the win.  Very good rebounding, another 2 steals for Kelly, but abysmal offense.  That's ok, Kelly, shrug it off and keep attacking.  To paraphrase Yogi Berra, "Basketball is 90% mental and the other half is physical".

10.  Another blah game by Turner, which is better than the practically non-existent game by Zeller.  Ginobili, who is dangerous at all times, is a lefty.  Turner kept playing him on his right side and NOT on his shooting hand.  Film, anybody?  

11.  Statistical roundup:  52 points in the paint by us vs 38 for them.  Is that evidence of bad interior defense?  Only 5 fast break points, so we did not "play our game", which is up tempo and running.  21 assists on 35 fgm isn't bad but the key stat isn't that, it's the 35 fgm on 98 fgas.  The 98 fgas is excellent, it's the horrific 36% fg% that killed us.  We blew so many open shots.  Again.  I don't know what Brad can do, he can't shoot them for them and they were good shots.  They had 25 ftas vs 11 of ours, with LMA have 10 of theirs.  Not one of our front court players had a fta.  Zero.  Our ftas were all courtesy of our guards.  

Our weakness is the 4" muscle between our ears.  The Spurs are a team who has been there/done that so many more times in so many more occasions with far more pressure than this.  We're puppies and they're the Alphas leading the pack and we saw that in the 4th quarter when LMA and Kawhi just decided "enough was enough!" and bore down.  It's all fine and good to coo and be enthralled over youth and the joy and growth they show when they get some court time but, if I'm going to war, give me the grizzled, old veterans with the 1000-yard stares anyday.

12.  Finally, not a great game by The Big Fundamental, but I gotta give him a shout out anyway.  It is a joy to watch him play, especially his footwork.  His High School basketball coach should be bronzed and mounted on a podium, even if he's still alive.  This may very well be his last year.  All good things come to and end and Timmy's run hasn't been good, it's been great.  By the way, when you enter the airport on his home island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, there is a giant stone pillar at the entrance with a painting of Tim Duncan, in uniform, waving to you.  Surprised the shit out of me so much I practically drove up onto the divider, which no doubt would have produced some reaction from airport security.

In my opinion, Brad must make some changes in the lineup.  Combos that he thought would work aren't working.  David Lee is not effective and Amir is.  So is Sully, and maybe Sully would respond better as a starter while Amir seems to be fine as a bencher, but Lee has to up his offense or else.  He's an adequate but not good defender, and he is doing a good job of rebounding, but if he isn't scoring he is a net negative.  Also, I don't like seeing Turner and IT on the court together.  Both of them are on-the-ball offensive players who do not move much without the ball.  Furthermore, neither Turner nor IT are good defenders.  So you have a wrestling match for control of the offense and 2 weak links on defense.  I'd move Crowder back to the bench and start Turner again.  Let him run the offense more with the starters, who don't have a really good ball handler, and let IT run the offense off the bench.  When scoring is down, how about putting RJ in?  He'll shoot no worse than what we've seen the past two games and he'll also move the ball with passes and dribbling.  The shocking part is that you would think the starting unit's weakness would be interior defense, with Zeller and Lee starting, but it isn't so much as their offense.  Amir is a better offensive player than Lee?  I never would have expected that.  Never.  I wouldn't mind seeing this starting lineup:  Sully, Amir, Turner, Bradley, Smart; with IT, Kelly, Jerebko, Crowder and Lee coming off the bench.  That lineup would improve our offense and, while weakening our defense at SF, be a net positive.  I think.  The bench would have two facilitators, IT and Kelly, and the rest receivers.  Jerebko and Crowder provide the defensive backbone with Lee rebounding, at least.

I've said all along this is going to be a tough November.  I've said all along we could go 5-14, maybe 6-13 but possibly 7-12 and a big happy smile if we go 8-11.  Well 6 out of 19 games is less than 1 win out of 3.  We're on track.

A record was set last night.  The Big 3 of the San Antonio Spurs; Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili set a new NBA record for most games together, passing the old record set by another Big 3 of another era, the Big 3 of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.  Records are made to be broken, I just wish it hadn't been broken in Boston.  Regardless, they earned it, and then some.  5 rings for Tim, 4 for Tony and Manu.  4 Championships.  Together.  That's pretty damn impressive, record number of games together or no record number of games together.


On to Indiana, where we get to see if Mahcus Smaht can contain Monta Ellis.  How does our front court do against the not fright-inducing front court of Jordan Hill (I like Hill a lot, but starting center?), Ian Mahinmi, rookie Miles Turner, Shane Whittington (who?) and rookie Rakeem Christmas.  That shouldn't be a big test, but the way our front court is playing you can't be sure.  Match up of the night?  Jae Crowder vs Paul George.  Time to step up, Jae.  Three bad games in a row is unacceptable.


bob



.

Great forward pass by Lee to the streaking Smart at :14.

Smart going to the rim repeatedly.

I love he posted up Parker.

The Rondo-like Tommy Point at about the :56 mark.

At about 2:00 he has a great, straight up man-to-man-no-help block on Kawhi Leonard in the paint.  Point blank, and stops him.

More tonight...


bob



.