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Post by bobheckler Sat Dec 10, 2016 10:58 am

They were the team coming off the second game of a back-to-back but we're the team that looked it.  We fell apart in the 3rd and they didn't fade in the 4th nor did we rally.

Great ball movement in the first half, and we hit our shots.  At halftime we were 19-41 for 46% and 9-19 for 47% from 3.  We finished the game 31-83 for 37% and 17-42 from 3 for 40.5%.  Simple arithmetic tell me that we went 12-42, 28.5% in the 2nd half.  I'm not sure which is worse, the 29% or the anemic 12 fgm.  There is a relationship between them, of course, but you can shoot a horrible fg% but still fill it up with more fgas.  You can also get points from the line.  42 fgas in a half is not that impressive.  We've seen this numerous times this year.  We cannot win on defense alone.  They have shooters, they have scorers.  We have IT and to some extent Bradley but that's all we can rely upon.  Not enough.

Here's another point:  Our 2 pt fg% last night was 14-41, 34%.  That's our 2 pt fg%.  Our 3pt fg% was 40%.  That's upside down.  It's either amazing defense by them, and they did play good defense, or we just are lousy finishers when there are bodies near us defending.

Crowder 2-11.  And he didn't need to defend Demarre Carroll, he had to defend Norman Powell, who lit us up.  

The Raptors start a 7'er in Valanciunas, a NOT very strong defender, a 6'9" 230# PF Pascal Siakam (who?) and 3 guards.  That's small ball, and they are good, as are small ball Cleveland and small ball GSW.  What do all those elite small teams have in common?  They are loaded with shooters.  Buh bye dinosaurs.  What is the difference between those elite small ball teams and our team, which is also pretty small ball?  They are loaded with shooters.  All their damage last night was done by their starting guards, 78 of their 101 points.

The funny, and sad, part is that our bench outscored theirs.  Rozier with 12 points, looked very good despite shooting 4-12.  Kelly shot poorly, 2-7, but was Celtic high with 9 boards in 23 minutes.  Think of what that says, that Kelly Olynyk led the team in rebounds.  Granted, 9 boards is a bunch and maybe nobody would get more anyway, but the next closest was Horford with 7 and he played 50% more minutes.  Jaylen Brown added a spark.  Zeller was useless, again.  Jerebko punched out rebounds and did his usual non-stat work.  It was their starters who croaked us, specifically their back court.

Smart was 3-11.  I understand that he is expected to shoot more with IT out and him starting but he is not a shooter (see point made above about teams with shooters).  Bradley was, well, Bradley doing his "Horatius at the Bridge" imitation, chipping in 19 points on 7-11 and holding DeRozan in check for at least a half.  The problem is that nobody stopped Lowry.

Evan Turner just lost his mid-range game crown to DeRozan.  Can't shoot for shit outside of 17'-18' but he is positively lethal anywhere inside of that.

Do we need IT?  Maybe, if you look at our anemic offense and our inability to create opportunities when defenses up their energy levels, but would we miss his 42% fg%?  What we need are shooters, scorers.  We need penetrators.  They don't have to be waterbugs like IT, Evan Turner wasn't fast about he got into the paint, but we need players who have that crossover, that quick first step, that whatever it is to get them past their man and into the paint so the defense must move.  Defenses that are not forced to move are very difficult defenses to score on and you won't make the defense move if you don't put the ball where they feel threatened by its location and whose hands it is in.  Rozier can do it, and is doing it more and more, and Kelly does it in an awkward big ol' white boy type of way, but it is not enough.  We need someone like Terrence Ross, who can go off and shoot lights out.  He didn't do much last night, but he's the type of guy we need.  Do we have someone like that?  Well, it was supposed to have been Gerald Green but...I have high hopes for Rozier but right now?  He's not that lethal.  Give him another year or two (if he's not gone in a package) and I think he'll snap your head up with his offense.

They took 82 fgas.  They took 20 3pt fgas.  Compare that with our 83 and 42.

Nevertheless, despite all this, this was a winnable game, even after we lost the lead in the 2nd half.  We lost the game at the line.  They shot 24-27, 88.9%, from the line while we shot 15-22 for 68%.  We are averaging 79%, as a team, from the line.  When you realize that IT takes more than 50% of our fritos and he is one of the top frito shooters in the league, that should tell you just how bad the rest of the team is from the line.  Horford was 6-9, Smart was 3-5 (which is close to his dog doo 64% season average).  Lowry was 12-13.  That's IT frito shooting, and that is why we missed IT last night.  Not for his poor fg%, we can shoot like shit without any help from him (obviously!) but he gets to the line a lot and he doesn't miss.  There is no excuse for poor frito shooting.

We go to OKC, who lost last night.  Saying this might not be pretty is like saying Medusa needs a new 'do.  Smart usually plays well in OKC, but he isn't the type of game changer we'll need, the type we don't have.  


bob



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Post by hawksnestbeach Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:15 pm

Thanks, Bob, I didn't get to see the game, but between your reporting and comments from the other side, I get the picture. I hope Rozier and Brown continue to play more and more: there's the future. IMO, for the right player(s), Crowder, IT, Kelly, Zeller, among others, are expendable. Hawk

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Post by cowens/oldschool Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:24 pm

hawksnestbeach wrote:Thanks, Bob, I didn't get to see the game, but between your reporting and comments from the other side, I get the picture. I hope Rozier and Brown continue to play more and more: there's the future. IMO, for the right player(s), Crowder, IT, Kelly, Zeller, among others, are expendable. Hawk


totally agree we need to develop Rozier and Brown, I also didn't see the game, troubling that Lowry and Derozen could both go off on our backcourt, I would have thought without IT, that we could do a much better job defending their backcourt....this team is soft, no board eater, I would hate to rely on AB or Kelly for 9 boards a night.

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Post by dboss Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:50 pm

Begin with a series of unforced turnovers 2 for AB and 1 each for Horford and KO.

Ponder the 3 times they went  to Crowder resulting in 3 misses.  

This game is about making buckets.   Truth be told The Celts have yet to figure out a way to beat Toronto.  They own us.

Still waiting for  a signature win from this team.

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