POST GAME MIAMI - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Shorthanded Heat Deal Boston Deflating 90-89 Loss

NESN by Joshua Schrock on Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 9:55PM

The Miami Heat have the Boston Celtics’ number. Miami ended Boston’s 16-game winning streak earlier this season, and despite missing Goran Dragic, Hassan Whiteside and Justise Winslow on Wendesday, the Heat still were able to get the best of the Celtics at TD Garden. Kelly Olynyk scored a career-high 32 points in his return to TD Garden, going 12-for-15 from the floor and 6-for-8 from the 3-point line to lift the Heat to a 90-89 win. Kyrie Irving led the Celtics with 33 points, but Boston failed to get into any sort of rhytym against the shorthanded Heat. Jaylen Brown (16 points), Marcus Smart (15 points) and Jayson Tatum (11 points) also scored in double figures, but Al Horford only scored six points before fouling out, and Irving missed the game-winning shot at the buzzer. The Celtics fell to 26-8 with the loss, while the Heat improved to 16-15. Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE PG: Kyrie Irving SG: Jaylen Brown SF: Jayson Tatum PF: Al Horford C: Aron Baynes

INJURY SCARE Celtics fans were holding their collective breath during the first quarter when Tatum dove for a ball and suffered a dislocated right pinky finger. The rookie forward headed straight to the locker room but returned to the bench before the end of the frame.

STRONG START The C’s got off to a hot start against the shorthanded Heat, as Brown tallied 12 points in the quarter to lead Boston to a 24-15 lead after the first frame. The Celtics held Miami to 36.8 percent from the field and 0-for-6 from 3-point land in the period. Despite the C’s hot start, the Heat pulled within six before Smart canned a deep trey at the buzzer to push the lead to nine.

ROUGH SECOND Boston had a chance to stretch out its lead, but the Celtics let the Heat hang around as they only made five field goals in the first nine minutes of the quarter, two of which came courtesy of Guerschon Yabusele. The Dancing Bear knocked down two 3-pointers in the frame and busted out a celebratory dab after the second trey. Miami stayed with in arm’s length in the first half, thanks to eight points from Josh Richardson and seven from former Celtic Kelly Olynyk. Jordan Mickey, another former Celtic, cut the C’s lead to six with 21 seconds to go before half, but Irving beat the buzzer with a tough floater to stretch it to eight at the break. Irving and Brown led the C’s with 12 points a piece in the half.

HEATIN’ UP Despite missing three of its best players, Miami continued to push the Celtics and the Heat finally took the lead midway through the third quarter. Miami made just one 3-pointer in the first half, but the Heat knocked down three during a 22-7 run to open the quarter to take a 58-51 lead with 3:49 left in the third. Boston closed the frame on a 8-4 run thanks to a pair of Smart 3-pointers to trim the lead to three heading into the fourth.

MIAMI SEALS IT Boston continued to battle in the fourth quarter, but the C’s were unable to stop the Heat down the stretch. 3-pointers by Wayne Ellington and Olynyk stretched the led to 12 midway through the fourth, leading to a Brad Stevens timeout. The stoppage gave the C’s a bit of life, as Boston cut the lead to four following two treys from Smart and a triple from Irving. Richardson and Olynyk repsonded to push the lead to nine with 2:30 to play.

But Boston had one last run. Irving drove to the lane, drew the foul and finished at the rim to cut the lead to six. After Brown blocked Dion Waiters on the ensuing possesion, Irving found the second-year man for a wide-open trey to cut it to three. The deficit remained at three with 37 seconds to play when Irving cut it to one with a slick layup. Boston had a chanced to win the game with 6.8 second left, but Irving’s buzzer-beating attempt clanked off the rim to give the Heat a one-point win.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE GAME Tatum seems to be OK.

UP NEXT The Celtics will take the floor again Thursday when they visit the New York Knicks. Tip-off from Madison Square Garden is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.
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Celtics can't overcome Olynyk's career-high 32 as they are edged by Heat, 90-89

NBC SPORTS BOSTON

By A. Sherrod Blakely December 20, 2017 9:53 PM

BOSTON – The late-game surge that has come to define the Boston Celtics this season was alive and well on Wednesday night against Miami.

The defense was forcing turnovers.

Kyrie Irving was getting his share of "How-did-he-do-that?" buckets in the fourth quarter.

But the comeback, while impressive, was not enough as the Miami Heat rallied in the second half and held on for a 90-89 win.

Irving’s potential game-winning shot hit the front of the rim and rolled off as time expired.

Leading the way for the Heat (16-15) was former Celtic Kelly Olynyk who had a career-high 32 points.

Boston led the entire first half, but the Heat continued to keep the game relatively close and tied the game at 49 following a 3-pointer by Josh Richardson with about six minutes to play in the third quarter.

Miami eventually took the lead 51-49 on a driving lay-up by Dion Waiters.

They weren’t done.

Olynyk scored on a drive to the basket as part of a second-half run which gave Miami a 58-51 lead with 3:49 to play in the third.

Brad Stevens had seen enough and called a time-out, but it didn’t matter.

Miami’s 23-9 run to end the third gave them a slim 62-59 lead going into the fourth.

The game began with the Celtics dominating the action.Boston opened with a 6-1 spurt, and soon pushed its lead to double digits 21-11 before settling on a 24-15 after one quarter of play.

The Celtics continued to play with a double-digit lead for most of the second which ended with Boston ahead 44-36 following Irving’s buzzer-beater to end the half.

Irving and Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 12 points each in the first, while Al Horford was trending towards another double-double with five points and five rebounds. He would finish with six points and eight rebounds before fouling out with more than six minutes to play.

Olynyk wasn’t the only ex-Celtic giving Boston problems on Wednesday.

Second-round pick Jordan Mickey came off the bench to tally eight points and eight rebounds.
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Jayson Tatum Injury: Celtics Forward Suffers Nasty Dislocated Pinky Vs. Heat

NESN by Adam London on Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 8:10PM

For a moment Wednesday night, not all of Jayson Tatum’s fingers were pointing in the right direction. Just minutes into the Boston Celtics’ matchup with the Miami Heat at TD Garden, Tatum dove to the floor in an attempt to corral a loose ball, and appeared to sustain an injury to his right hand in the process. The Celtics rookie noticeably favored the hand in question before fleeting to Boston’s locker room. Well, it turns out Tatum dislocated his right pinky during the sequence, which is pretty clear to see in the photo below. Tatum’s absence wouldn’t be long, though, as he quickly made his way back to the Celtics’ bench with taped fingers and returned to the game moments after.

112288

YOYO Basketball...........Up & Down....Up & Down.

Need consistent basketball for 4 quarters!

112288

I will have more to say after a good night's rest to sleep off the drunkenness.

This was a classic trap game for the Celtics and they got caught in the trap.  Showing up for work and putting in 5 minutes is not a job well done.

Every Team in the NBA can beat any team in the NBA.  The Celtics have to find the motivation to gut out a game that provides little challenge.

Coach Stevens should have enough ammunition to get them ready for the game in NY.  This was not just a loss, it was an embarrassing loss.  The Celtics need to stop acting like front runners.  

Dboss

The Celtics miss Morris when healthy.  Let's face it, we are playing short also....No Morris...No Haywood.

It may wind up that we play through this ...........get Morris healthy for the playoffs and hope we can go to the Eastern Finals.

I am beginning to think this is a write off year where we achieve some success as a top team ...................play some of the new rookies.........do some house cleaning next summer with trades and a free agent or two signing..........and get Haywood prepped for next season.

112288

I wouldn't counting any big free agent signings next year, we are already OVER the projected cap by about $6M. (with cap holds)

http://www.spotrac.com/nba/boston-celtics/cap/2018/



trades...maybe?

big dollar Free agents from other teams....not likely.


reality is we have played above our skill level the first third of this season with Hayward gone, for whatever reason.

starting to come back to reality it seems the past week or so.

This is the team Danny built and the one we will have (more or less) for the next two years (until Horford's deal is done).

Haywards return next year should be a nice boost though along with the time that Jaylen and Jason are tingeing this year

This loss was a bad loss especially all around when Miami did not have Winslow, Whiteside and Johnson.

Terrible shooting, only 21 total points from the bench in over 100 minutes, only two guys off the bench even scored a point (Smart 15 and Yabusele 6), Horford, Rozier, Theis and Baines combined for 8 points, etc, etc. OUCH!!

Again, without Whiteside (who usually kills the Cs) and not being a very good defensive team even with Whiteside there is no good enough reason to lose to the Heat. Irving should probably have been sitting down for most of the fourth quarter never mind having to try to steal another win with a fourth quarter blitz.

Only 18 total team assists is terrible against middle of the pack type of team on any night and against any team. MOVE AND SHARE THE BALL, guys!!!

Screw with the basketball gods and they screw you back.  Disrespect the game and it will cost you.  Miami was playing without most of their starting 5.

The player who was so emotional and happy he needed to be piggy-backed off the floor into the locker room in Indy had just 6 points on 2-10 shooting and fouled out because he couldn't defend NBA All-League-for-the-night Kelly Olynyk who had a career-high 32 points on 12-15 and 6-8 from 3.  Al was 2-5.  That has nothing to do with the refs, that's just too much leftover happiness.  Or whatever.

No front court for Miami and Baynes goes 0-5.

At one point in the 1st quarter the score was Jaylen Brown 12, the Miami Heat 11.  Brown ended with 16 but disappeared for the next 2 quarters, scoring his only next 4 points in the 4th quarter.  

Terry Rozier went 0-5 too.  Just too much happiness again.  Visions of Indiana sugar plum fairies dancing in his head.

We got outrebounded, again.  We had the #1 rebound rate for the beginning part of the season but have been 30 out of 30 since then.  We were the #1 rebounding team in the league and we had a 16 game winning streak.  We become a lousy rebounding team and we're needing miracles in Indy and losing to a mediocre, when healthy, and undermanned Miami team in Boston.  I'm seeing cause-and-effect.

Credit does need to be given to Marcus Smart.  He tried to carry us, as did Kyrie, and he almost pulled it off.  15 points on 5-9 from 3 and just on non-boxscore play after another after another.  He and Kyrie were the only players who played hard.  Tatum had some effort, he dislocated his finger and came back afterwards, but he was off.  Ok, he gets some slack because of that but otherwise?  The rest of the squad slept through this game.

Is this really a good team, good enough to get to the NBA Championship series?  Can we say a team that looks very mortal just by losing Marcus Morris, who is now looking like a seriously unreliable player healthwise, is a team that has a shot?  We are one player away from being mediocre, as we have seen the last 2 weeks or so with the losses to Chicago and Miami and a miracle win in Indy.  If Morris comes back but Smart goes down we'll be right back in the soup.  These are bench players, albeit ones that play heavier minutes, and yet losing either one of them is all we need to become very rocky.  

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975207



bob



.

This team was never going to go 72-10. So I agree, we aren't that good.

We aren't a middle of the road team either. We have proven to be better than that.

The team hasn't played consistent roundball since the streak ended. In fact, it's been since before the streak ended.

But when the team does play well we can beat any team in the league and do so in a playoff series.

So I'm not wringing my hands nor gnashing my teeth.

Perhaps if Bear had played just 3 more minutes he would have scored and we would have won. Seriously, he is getting played more and starting to produce. I hope this trend continues. He has the potential to be a difference maker on this team and I hope he continues to get a few minutes here and there. At some point he will explode for 20/10 and win a game for the team.

Always tough to lose a winnable game. I saw the comeback, knew it would happen, but it was just a tad short.

Next!

I'm not going to over-analyze this one.

I'm not going to analyze it at all.

It's almost a sick-humor twist that we got beaten by a red hot Kelly O.

I'll say that much and then leave it there.

Like Mulcogi said, "Next!" Please.

60 wins .?


Need to play better game in game out.

sisters of the blind are not on the schedule


beat

No matter who it is, this team has a habit of playing down to it's opponent. Last night is no different. Not to take anything from him, but they made Kelly Olynk look like a superstar. It made me angry to watch this game knowing how hard they CAN play. Keep this up and they may have a hard time getting Irving to sign a new contract when he is due. There are ramifications
for a team that under achieves over and over again.

Let's put this behind us and move on. We are so much better than last night

It is hard to make more of this game than what it was unless we are inclined to peel back a layer or two.

A team with injuries to multiple key players, against all odds, pulls out a one point victory.  There is nothing unique about that story.  

That loss however may reflect a culmination of several games that were lost this month.  The Celtics are 7-4 in December.  The loss to SA on the road was a hard fought contest.  But losses to the Jazz, Bulls and now the depleted Heat reflected deficiency with this team.  It is not just about not having Morris but it seems to be more mental than physical.

During this time, Brad has been tweaking his rotation as he is still experimenting with combination but sometimes he appears to get too locked into his minute distribution chart.  If a guy is playing good do not take him out just yet.

The other flaw is related to the Celtics offense.  In his mind simply moving the ball creates a better shot.  I think we all can agree on that but too many time that ball ends up in the hands of the wrong guy.  They play a free flowing offense and they have an artist who can create his own offense but there are times when a little more structure would be helpful.

The Celtics often struggle over long stretches of the game to score the basketball.  They miss a lot of low hanging fruit because fast break basketball is not part of Stevens' coaching philosophy.

Despite the athleticism on this team the Celtics are 18th in the league in fast break points.  I think most of us agree that Brad is a marvelous coach but for the long time Celtics fans, the lack of a fast break attack given the youth and athleticism on this team has no levels of justification.

Unfortunately developing an appetite for fast break basketball is a tactic that should be instilled in training camp.  You have the no defense no play rule.  How about the no run and you get no run rule.

Stevens should sit down with Tommy and learn a thing or two about what a devastating weapon the fast break is.

okay so it's on to NY as I am finished with my rant.  For interested parties here is a nice link to team stats on fast breaks.  

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/fastbreak-points-per-game?date=2017-12-21

dboss

10-6 since the winning streak I believe.

if we play at that rate from this point out, we will end up with 56 wins. Probably a 2 or 3 seed in the East.

kdp59 wrote:10-6 since the winning streak I believe.

if we play at that rate from this point out, we will end up with 56 wins. Probably a 2 or 3 seed in the East.

Kdp59

Just echoing your thoughts.

Following a 16-2 start (.888 winning percent) - could the recent play be a sort of STOCK MARKET type correction back to a more realistic winning percentage. After all - only 5 teams (truly super teams) over the last 70 years have been able to play at a .850 percent rate or better for an entire year. Temper hope with a little realism. It's quite possible that the won-lost record could decline a lot further over the next 50 or so games.

swish

Kdp59 and Swish

I think Boston will lose their share of games just like everybody else and I think they are good enough to win 7-10 the rest of the way.  That would put them at the 60 win plateau.

The Celtics do not live in a vacuum.  Every team goes through bumps in the road.  Should Houston fans be overly concerned that they lost to LAL last night at home despite an offensive explosion from the guy with the famous beard?  Are Cavs fans wringing their hands because the Bucks beat them last night?

Have we ever seen a Steven's coached team trend badly as the season progressed?

I think each of us should have a high degree of confidence that the Celtics are well positioned to win 7 of 10 over the next 48 games.  They do not have to accomplish this by themselves.  Many teams will contribute.

When Boston plays the right way they are pretty dynamic and I know that they can play the right way.  

Go Celts!

dboss

Those are great comments above.

I lean to the positive side. There will have to be quite a number more of bad losses before it seems something must be done. Danny should definitely do something. There's an open roster spot. Or maybe he doesn't want to fill it just in case it may help facilitate a trade.

So yeah, for now the team goes to war with the players it has. Hello Yabs? A 4-4 record over the last 8 is what it is. It ain't anything special. I agree the Celtics are vulnerable. But I also agree that so is every other team. If 4-4 stretches out to mediocre results over a decent sized sample pool, then I might consider throwing in the towel. But that means waiting until at least after the trading deadline. And even then, you never know. One Doc/Big Three year was quite mediocre then they turned on the switch. That is not something to count on, but if Horford, Irving and nearly all of the core is ready to go for the playoffs, the regular season if it continues to fizzle won't mean anything.

It's like a video game in which the Celtics at the peak of the win streak had all these lives saved, but now they are into new levels and have lost some but are still in the game.

I like what Mr. Heckler wrote on Al Horford going nuts with emotion over the Indiana comeback. Act like you've been there before.