Post Game Thread - vs Los Angeles Lakers, Away

[bobheckler]

First time we've swept the Lakers in a decade.  So what? A little bit of drama, we were up 31 and it got cut to 13 but then ballooned back up into the 20s with garbage time in full roar.

We were up 30 and then Jordan Clarkson scored 20 points in the 3rd quarter, most of them with Marcus Smart guarding him.  NOT one of Smart's better games.  He was 1-7, had 4 assists and 5 TOs and, as I said, was the main guy trying to stop Clarkson.  Clarkson was 0-6 and no points at the half and was 7-15 and 20 points after 3.  That's 7-9 in the 3rd quarter.  6 of those 9 shots were in the paint, at the rim and he was 6-6 on them.

6 Celtics in double digits, including all 5 starters.  The 6th?  The Kid.  Not much question who was the better draft pick tonight, Brown or Ingram.  Brandon Ingram was 0-2 on the night, with those 2 fgas both happening with 4 minutes or less left in the game and us up big.  Brown, however, looked great.  You could really see his confidence exploding out there.  He wanted to make a statement vs Ingram, the player who was picked ahead of him.  16 points on 7-13, 8 rebounds and good defense all over the floor.  He played defense on Clarkson in the 4th and Clarkson was 0-4 in that quarter.  Man, I am starting to get revved up about Jaylen Brown!  This is his 4th game in the last 5 in double digits, and the one he wasn't in double digits he had 8. No GMs are perfect, including Danny, but all the people who were shaking their heads when he picked a player projected to go more like 7th-9th are holding their heads in their hands now and it is only going to look more and more ridiculous next year and the year after. Brown with 946 minutes total this season, Ingram with 1746.

The King in the Fourth didn't play in the 4th, so his 4th quarter average is unimpacted.  Says something about the game too, doesn't it? Brad only played him 26 minutes. Think he's going to turn him loose against his last team, the Phoenix Suns, on Sunday?

Horford was 0-2 after 1 and 4-8 for 9 points at the half.  He ended up 8-12 with 17 points and 6-7 from the low blocks and in.  Not used to seeing him play so much inside but he had a matchup he liked against Zubac, who also looked pretty good I thought.  Nice draftee by the Lakers.  Mozgov got a Coaches-DNP.  He was moved to the bench a few weeks ago and now he's on a milk carton.  They are staring Tariq Black and bringing Zubac off the bench ahead of him.  Wow.  Remember when he was a force in the playoffs 2 years ago?

Russell's boxscore looks pretty good, 17 points on 7-12 but so does Avery Bradley's 15 points on 6-11. The reason for Bradley's is because I counted at least 3x Russell lost Bradley on baseline back door cuts for dunks. I don't watch enough Laker basketball to know if that's normal for Russell, but it was terrible defense tonight. Back cut me once, shame on you. Back cut me twice, shame on me. Back cut me 3x and I suck on defense. Also, he had 4 assists but 3 TOs. NOT a good assist-to-TO ratio for a point guard.

Nick Young was 3-10 on the night. He was 3-9 from 3. I guess he can't do anything else besides shoot 3s anymore.

We had 24 fast break points vs 11 for them. Their transition defense was non-existent.

We outrebounded them 46-34. Gotta love that. Crowder and Amir with 6 each, Smart and Rozier with 5 each but The Kid leading the Celtics with 8 boards.

Raptors beat Washington in Washington.  We are now up 2 games in the loss column on the Wizards.  20 games left for us, 12 at home and 8 on the road with a lot of those games vs sub .500 teams.  Wizards have 22 games left, 7 at home and 15 on the road, so this home loss hurt.  I seem to remember their opponents are tougher than ours.  They are NOT a good road team, they are 11-15 on the road this year.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400900313



bob


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[bobheckler]

Here is an alley oop from Bradley to Brown.  UNREAL.  As soon as I can get it on youtube I'll post it.  Some in the media are hyping as being "Jordan-esque" because of the mid-air change of hands.

Check it out.

https://twitter.com/celtics/status/837899056089178112/video/1


Here's another one, a break away with IT flipping it off the backboard for the trailing Jaylen Brown.

https://twitter.com/celtics/status/837894187735465984/video/1


bob


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[bobheckler]

Here it is, just keep it on perpetual loop...




bob


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[bobheckler]

bob


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[bobheckler]

gary washburn‏Verified account
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#Lakers coach Luke Walton on the Isaiah Thomas alley-oop off the backboard to Jaylen Brown #Celtics




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bob


.

[steve3344]

First time we've swept the Lakers in a decade.  So what?  A little bit of drama, we were up 31 and it got cut to 13 but then ballooned back up into the 20s with garbage time in full roar.

We were up 30 and then Jordan Clarkson scored 20 points in the 3rd quarter, most of them with Marcus Smart guarding him.  NOT one of Smart's better games.  He was 1-7, had 4 assists and 5 TOs and, as I said, was the main guy trying to stop Clarkson.  Clarkson was 0-6 and no points at the half and was 7-15 and 20 points after 3.  That's 7-9 in the 3rd quarter.  6 of those 9 shots were in the paint, at the rim and he was 6-6 on them.

6 Celtics in double digits, including all 5 starters.  The 6th?  The Kid.  Not much question who was the better draft pick tonight, Brown or Ingram.  Brandon Ingram was 0-2 on the night, with those 2 fgas both happening with 4 minutes or less left in the game and us up big.  Brown, however, looked great.  You could really see his confidence exploding out there.  He wanted to make a statement vs Ingram, the player who was picked ahead of him.  16 points on 7-13, 8 rebounds and good defense all over the floor.  He played defense on Clarkson in the 4th and Clarkson was 0-4 in that quarter.  Man, I am starting to get revved up about Jaylen Brown!  This is his 4th game in the last 5 in double digits, and the one he wasn't in double digits he had 8.  No GMs are perfect, including Danny, but all the people who were shaking their heads when he picked a player projected to go more like 7th-9th are holding their heads in their hands now and it is only going to look more and more ridiculous next year and the year after.  Brown with 946 minutes total this season, Ingram with 1746.

The King in the Fourth didn't play in the 4th, so his 4th quarter average is unimpacted.  Says something about the game too, doesn't it?  Brad only played him 26 minutes.  Think he's going to turn him loose against his last team, the Phoenix Suns, on Sunday?

Horford was 0-2 after 1 and 4-8 for 9 points at the half.  He ended up 8-12 with 17 points and 6-7 from the low blocks and in.  Not used to seeing him play so much inside but he had a matchup he liked against Zubac, who also looked pretty good I thought.  Nice draftee by the Lakers.  Mozgov got a Coaches-DNP.  He was moved to the bench a few weeks ago and now he's on a milk carton.  They are staring Tariq Black and bringing Zubac off the bench ahead of him.  Wow.  Remember when he was a force in the playoffs 2 years ago?

Russell's boxscore looks pretty good, 17 points on 7-12 but so does Avery Bradley's 15 points on 6-11.  The reason for Bradley's is because I counted at least 3x Russell lost Bradley on baseline back door cuts for dunks.  I don't watch enough Laker basketball to know if that's normal for Russell, but it was terrible defense tonight.  Back cut me once, shame on you.  Back cut me twice, shame on me.  Back cut me 3x and I suck on defense.  Also, he had 4 assists but 3 TOs.  NOT a good assist-to-TO ratio for a point guard.

Nick Young was 3-10 on the night.  He was 3-9 from 3.  I guess he can't do anything else besides shoot 3s anymore.

We had 24 fast break points vs 11 for them.  Their transition defense was non-existent.

We outrebounded them 46-34.  Gotta love that.  Crowder and Amir with 6 each, Smart and Rozier with 5 each but The Kid leading the Celtics with 8 boards.

Raptors beat Washington in Washington.  We are now up 2 games in the loss column on the Wizards.  20 games left for us, 12 at home and 8 on the road with a lot of those games vs sub .500 teams.  Wizards have 22 games left, 7 at home and 15 on the road, so this home loss hurt.  I seem to remember their opponents are tougher than ours.  They are NOT a good road team, they are 11-15 on the road this year.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400900313



bob


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"The King in the Fourth didn't play in the 4th, so his 4th quarter average is unimpacted."


That's not the way it works Bob.  Since IT played in the game and didn't score any points in the fourth quarter (doesn't matter that he sat it out ) his fourth quarter average will go down.  Only way it wouldn't go down is if he didn't play at all.


FYI - at 19-13 the Celtics have the best road record in the East.  Cavs are next at 16-12.  Boston has 20 games left, 11 at home and 9 on the road, not 12 and 8 as you stated.  The fact that Washington, who we would really like to finish ahead of, has FIFTEEN road games left is enormously beneficial.  We have one game left with the Wiz and, being that we trail in the season series against them 2-1, we need to win that game to avoid losing the tie-breaker.  If we end up 2-2 against them, the next tie-breaker is Conference record and we are 26-12 in our conference and they are 24-16.  So we should win the tie-breaker unless we collapse down the stretch.  And right now our opening round playoff opponent would be Indy.


By the way, Brandon Ingram sure looked good tonight didn't he?  Even Marcus Smart is shooting threes better than he is and that was supposed to be his strong suit. And his free throws at 63.9% are shockingly poor for someone who was supposed to have such a good stroke.  By the way, in college he shot threes at 41% and free throws at 68.2%.  But he looks lost on the court for the vast majority of his games.  Bust in the making.  We'll see after another couple of years.  On the other hand, Zubac showed some skills, and at 7-1 and 265 looks to be a pretty good early second round pick for LA.


One last note - Terry Rozier hasn't scored in his last two games but does have 10 rebounds in those 22 minutes.  I think you've occasionally mentioned you like his rebounding.  If I remember correctly!

[steve3344]

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics/2017/03/celtics_version_of_showtime_overwhelms_lakers


IT being EXTREMELY generous to LA:  "Added Thomas, “We knew it was a big game for us. It was the first game of the road trip, and after a huge win against the Cavs (on Wednesday), most teams play down to your competition, but we know the Lakers are a good team.”


Funny mistake - I didn't know there were innings in basketball games: The C’s shot 54.5 percent in the second inning to L.A.’s 38.1 percent.

[bobheckler]

Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 3 hours ago
NBA - MOST WINS (Last 12 weeks) 1. BOSTON 27 Golden State 27 3. San Antonio 26 Washington 26 5. Houston 24 Cleveland 24
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bob


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[dboss]

A 55 Win season looks very possible.

dboss

[cowens/oldschool]

Boy oh boy is this franchise headed in the right direction. Jaylen Brown is the stud of this draft, he does show flashes of a young Dominque more and more, game by game AND is a better defender. The first thing I noticed when he started starting was he can defend the 2, all the types of 2's. Then I noticed vs Raptors he is more athletic in faster and faster better leaper than DeRozen, wasn't expecting that. He then defended Lebron and Cavs really well, he may be able to cover more positions than Smart in the near future. The shifting hands laying it up softly alley opp reminded me of the Bird vs Rockets Finals in 81 play. The great Bird came in in to the league at 23, can't wait to see how great Jaylen is gonna be at 23.

I don't have enough time to breakdown whats wrong with the Lakers, I'm just glad, super glad we don't have players like Randle, Russell and Ingramn on our team and have our future tied to their growth. This is gonna be an exciting playoff run, so glad we kept our core, they deserve to be kept together. Look at our chemistry and look at the Lakers mess, poor Luke, hes coaching babies. Crowder reminds me of a combo of Paul Pierce and Paul Silas, is that a great analogy or what? I really love the line up that can give IT a rest and lockdown, AB, Smart, Jaylen, Crowder and Al. Either way were looking great, rook is coming on and we have 2 lottery picks ahead of us !!!!

Poor Magic.

[dboss]

when a young draft pick like Brown shows this level of development, I really can see Boston adding another young talent like Fultz.

[beat]

Lots were clamoring for us to make a move at the deadline. Names were tossed around offers made but the price was WAY to high, that I think most of us agree on. Certainly we are on the right path and can compete for 1 game with anyone. Sort of like that old movie WARGAMES when the computer WHOPPER figures out the only winning solution of global nuclear war was, "not to play the game." No trade is better than the wrong trade.

Our team is better than the sum of our parts for sure.

Cavs are in our sights, probably won't overtake them but they hear our footsteps.

PS kicking the fakers is always a treat.

beat

[mulcogiseng]

This was an exciting game of runs to follow online. I'm so happy IT got to rest. He is a much better player when he doesn't have to be the best player on the court.

Jaylen is like a Lotus Blossom unfolding before our very eyes. It's just amazing to watch him work on this particular aspect and then that one and cover 5 or 6 during one game. More and more I am seeing him as JB replacing PP on the roster, with every bit of the potential of that HOF career and on a winning team that Paul never had. It's not that he plays like Paul but his impact will be at that level.

Which Marcus will show up in the next game? He is getting better and the more he reigns in his shooting the better he will be. When he is on the floor with Jaylen he has to look to get him the ball and not take shot after missed shot thereby turning the ball over. That was a big part of the Lakers run. It seems to me that the big runs opposing teams make comes with the aid of multiple missed shots by IT and/or Marcus with a real turnover or two thrown in. IT can be relied upon to shoot his way out of a slump. Smart has to pass his way out.

We are about to enter the 4th quarter of the NBA season. Let's be PATRIOTS of the 4th and get the job done. (sorry I hate kings but do love GOT lol) This is our time. One of the hallmarks of a Brad Stevens team is the spring run to the playoffs. Let's really enjoy how this team puts it together because next year the squad will be much different and will play in a different way. But the core will be the same. (Nice seeing AB back in the lineup and being more productive)

Only counts as one regular season win in the stat journal so time to move on to focus on Phoenix and reduxing the last two games.

Is this the glimmer that shimmer?

17goingon18

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