POST GAME WASHINGTON - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Earns Thrilling 110-104 Overtime Win Vs. Wizards

NESN by Logan Mullen on Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 10:57PM

Coming off a beatdown at the hands of the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday, the Boston Celtics were in need of a redemption performance against yet another top Eastern Conference squad. That mission was accomplished — narrowly — as the Celtics beat the Washington Wizards on Thursday 110-104 in overtime at Capital One Arena. Kyrie Irving scored 28 for the Celtics, and was one of six in double figures for Boston. Greg Monroe scored five points with six rebounds, two assists and as many steals in 18 minutes of work in his Celtics debut. Five Wizards scored in double figures, with Otto Porter Jr.’s 27 points leading the way. The Celtics climb to 40-16 with the win, while the Wizards fall to 31-24. Here’s how it all went down:

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

BACK-AND-FORTH FIRST A quality possession from one side did not go unanswered by the other throughout the first quarter, which hung in the balance as neither side could build much breathing room. Though the Wizards finished the quarter with a 27-26 advantage, Boston put together the biggest run, a 5-0 stretch over 2:25 that turned a two-point deficit into a three-point advantage.

RUNS APLENTY Washington opened up the second outscoring the Celtics 8-4 over the first 2:10, but Boston then went on a run of it’s own. The C’s answered with a 9-2 over 1:57 to go up 39-37, with a rare Daniel Theis 3-pointer forcing Scott Brooks into a timeout with just over seven minutes to play. Ultimately, Washington only extended its lead from the end of the first to end of the second by a point, leading 51-49 at the break. Theis scored a team-high seven second quarter points, while Rozier scored a team-high 10 first half points.

HOT SECOND HALF START Whatever was said at halftime certainly resulted in a jolt to begin the third quarter. Boston opened up the second half on a 7-0 run in the first 59 seconds, turning a two point deficit into a five-point advantage. The Wizards, however, quickly battled back to bring things to a tie at 58, and took a 61-60 lead at the 6:50 mark. Though the status quo of a back-and-forth affair persisted, the Celtics did build their lead to five points to end the quarter leading 75-70. Horford and Irving each dropped nine points in the third.

HECTIC FINAL QUARTER Washington erased the deficit and tied things up within the first minute of the final quarter. But after the Wizards equalized at 75, the Celtics proceeded to build a 13-3 run over 4:58, in turn giving themselves the biggest lead of the game at 10. But the Wizards refused to be buried, cutting the Celtics’ deficit and taking a 92-91 lead with 2:11 to play. The Celtics retook the one-point lead on a pair of Marcus Morris free throws, but surrendered it with a minute left on a Porter Jr. two-point pullup jumper. Down by three with 12.8 seconds to play, the Celtics got the ball to Irving, who took a 3-pointer with nine seconds to play. He missed but was fouled by Markieff Morris and proceeded to knock down all three free throws to tie things at 98. Bradley Beal missed his highly-contested shot at the buzzer, forcing overtime.

BROWN HAS CLUTCH OVERTIME The Celtics struggled to contain Marcin Gortat to start overtime, with the center scoring Washington’s first five points. Irving answered with five points, however, keeping things level at 103. Brown hit a series of critical shots to break the deadlock and put the Celtics in a good spot. After hitting a layup with 2:32 to play, the swingman knocked down a 3-pointer with 1:43 left, putting the Celtics up by five. Though the Celtics would score only two more points the rest of the way, the Wizards struggled to cash in, getting outscored 12-6 in overtime.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT This was a pretty impressive sequence for Horford and Brown. UP NEXT The Celtics will return to TD Garden for the second night of a back-to-back. Tip against the Indiana Pacers is set for 7:30 p.m. ET.

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The trade deadline has come and gone and the NBA is reeling. Players have moved, team outlooks have changed, and rumors are still flying.

Could it be that LeBron takes his talents to South Beach next year so he can reunite yet once again?

I looked up after Monroe entered the game and immediately noticed a much bigger lineup. Theis, Monroe and Morris with TRo and Jaylen. That was a nice stretch esp with Monroe having no practice time yet. His presence is going to make all the other bigs better.

Theis is playing an ever more important role for the Celtics and will be on the floor near the end of close games from here on out. He makes plays that don't always show up on the stat line.

Chalk up another game ball to Kyrie. He's a definite top three for drawing oohs and ahs from opposing crowds.

Jaylen Brown has a very long way to go. Yet it's crazy how far he has come. Those crazy off balance drives last year were already getting cleaned up by the playoffs but what he is doing now is a step way above. He shows much more poise and ability to finish at the rim even though he still gets stuffed. It's going to take at least 3 more years before we can truly begin to project just how big a star he is going to be. Ane then it will take two more years to reach his prime. WoW

mulcogiseng wrote:The trade deadline has come and gone and the NBA is reeling. Players have moved, team outlooks have changed, and rumors are still flying.

Could it be that LeBron takes his talents to South Beach next year so he can reunite yet once again?

I looked up after Monroe entered the game and immediately noticed a much bigger lineup. Theis, Monroe and Morris with TRo and Jaylen. That was a nice stretch esp with Monroe having no practice time yet.  His presence is going to make  all the other bigs better.

Theis is playing an ever more important role for the Celtics and will be on the floor near the end of close games from here on out. He makes plays that don't always show up on the stat line.

Chalk up another game ball to Kyrie. He's a definite top three for drawing oohs and ahs from opposing crowds.

Jaylen Brown has a very long way to go. Yet it's crazy how far he has come. Those crazy off balance drives last year were already getting cleaned up by the playoffs but what he is doing now is a step way above. He shows much more poise and ability to finish at the rim even though he still gets stuffed. It's going to take at least 3 more years before we can truly begin to project just how big a star he is going to be. Ane then it will take two more years to reach his prime. WoW

since you mentioned Jaylen just wanted to mention his defense is really good, he can really go after it.

Jaylen is a stud.  He continues to work on his game.

I can see him dropping 18 by next season.  He is developing into a two way player.

He will be an all NBA defensive player.  As he continues to improve his ball handling skills and free throw shooting he has the potential to become a big time scorer.  

Dboss

I wouldn`t be shocked if JB became a bigger star than JT , and I`m a big Tatum fan. Jayson is probably still growing , though. The bad  Morris twin was extremely helpful with his mind-numbing fouls  on Kyrie`s three-pointers. The one that tied it in regulation was particularly egregious. Irving was off- balance and falling away

JB is more consistent at this point from game to game than JT is but that extra year makes a difference.


KJ

k_j_88 wrote:JB is more consistent at this point from game to game than JT is but that extra year makes a difference.


KJ

KJ 

Jason is still developing physically.  He looks a bit fatigued.  A very grueling schedule.  Jaylen looks like a full grown man.  He is finishing through contact.  

These bookend wings are long term core players that have high ceilings.  

Really great selections by Danny.

Dboss

I'm going to say I'm not that thrilled with an OT victory against the, then, 31-23 Washington Wizards after that embarrassment in Toronto. We should have come out with ferocity and torn them a new one. One thing about this game that was different from our normal style of play is that it was much more uptempo. We ran a lot more. Only 7 fast break points, and that's in an OT game, but we ran and Tommy must be thrilled.

Our perimeter defense was not good, or their pnr offense was really good, either way they had fun at our expense. They shot 46% from 3 and almost all of them were wide-open shots. If we had done a better job of running them off the arc we would have won this in regulation.

Jaylen played superbly on both ends in the 1st half. He disappeared some in the 2nd half but came up huge in OT. 12 OT points and 5 of them were his, that's stepping up. Very happy with his game. We switch SO much it's hard to connect a defender to one offensive player but his ostensible man, Bradley Beal, shot a very KoME-esque 7-27. Lots of good things to say about Jaylen's game last night.

Tatum with another bad game, in my opinion. Ineffective on both offense and defense.
He hit the rookie wall, looked like he finally broke through it after struggling for a few weeks, but is now back to inconsistency. 56 games in one season are A LOT more than he has ever played before and they are coming every other day or, as in tonight, on consecutive nights and not 2x a week like @ Duke. Brad should consider giving him a night off, especially against a weaker team. Let Morris start and have Nader back him up. Nader has earned some minutes, Morris lives to start and Tatum could use the rest.

The Mori stunk (one Morris, two Mori). Their Morris did nothing except help us win the game with his repeated fouls of Kyrie (the first was questionable, it looked like he did the "snake foul", where the two fingers of the defender's hand hits the forearm like the fangs of a snake; the 2nd foul was clear). Our Morris was a Smart-esque 4-15 but he ended up with more points and rebounds than his twin. One thing I'll say for our Morris, he can take a lousy 1st half and turn it around in the 2nd. He was 1-8 for 5 points @ halftime and went 4-6 for 10 points in the 2nd half. He got more minutes than his twin too, despite coming off the bench while his bro started. I hope that sinks into his consciousness and takes root. It doesn't matter who starts, what matters is who finishes, who is in at crunch time, who wins. Markieff got to be introduced, Marcus won. If he doesn't have a clear preference for which he'd rather be then he's the idiot twin.

We saw Brad go with a front court pairing of Monroe and Theis for a first look at Moose last night. Makes sense. Monroe is an 80% offensive player while Theis is an 80% defensive player. Monroe is also an excellent passing big man and will command a double-team down low against most teams. That will create opportunities for the best pnr player on our team, Daniel Theis. Take Monroe's one game out and Theis is also tied for 2nd best offensive rebounder with Horford with 1.4 offensive rebounds/game and they are only .1 ORB behind Baynes. When you consider Theis plays less minutes/game than either of them, that's pretty damn good. Wait until Monroe settles in, learns the playbook and his teammates and starts bull moosing his way to the rim. Theis is going to be very happy going to the rim. He already is. His game is pure old school, no running to the corners for him, he takes a bee-line straight to the front of the iron. Brad rewarded Theis with crunch time minutes last night, evidence that Theis' NBA learning curve is starting to flatten out and Brad is seeing that and liking it. Last night's OT win won't diminish that. He played the first 7:47 in 4th quarter.
He sat to start OT but came in for Monroe with 3:45 left in OT and stayed in the rest of the game. So, out of the 28 minutes he played last night 11 1/2 of them were in the 4th quarter and OT. Big time minutes. Big time. Tremendous confidence in him from Brad. We got ourselves a real player for, basically, the minimum. Copernicus, Stephen B. Hawking, Danny Ainge...

17 TO last night. Tatum with 3, Irving with 3 and Rozier with 4. Irving I can understand. Rozier was making a lot of sloppy passes last night, nothing real crisp, and Tatum was struggling on both ends all night.

We shot 23-34 from the line last night. We could have saved ourselves a lot of grief and agita and won this easily in regulation if we had hit our fritos at our normal rate. Tatum 5-7, Theis 0-2, Monroe 1-3 and Rozier 2-4. For the record Greg Monroe is a career 70.4% frito shooter.

Brad only went 9 deep last night, Scott Brooks went 10. That's weird, for the Wiz to go deeper into their bench than us, but where it counted it hurt. Porter with 40 minutes and Beal with 44. Brown with 38, Morris with 36 and Horford with 35 were the most for us.

They were without John Wall. We're without Smart, Larkin (probably wouldn't have been used against this team) and, of course, Hayward. Next year they will still be salary-constrained and we'll have Hayward. Buh bye Washington...

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975559





Great bounce pass by Monroe early in this film. Morris missed, but great pass. Another great Monroe pass at the end to Rozier. Passers like Monroe and Horford make players want to move.





















bob



.

Nice post bob, at crunch time I see holes in Morris’s game, I would prefer Theis in there for him, much better athletic defender. End of game we need defense!!

dboss wrote:Jaylen is a stud.  He continues to work on his game.

I can see him dropping 18 by next season.  He is developing into a two way player.

He will be an all NBA defensive player.  As he continues to improve his ball handling skills and free throw shooting he has the potential to become a big time scorer.  

Dboss

He is a stud, got to love his ability to hit big shots at crunch time and he’s in early stages of learning to pass much better, he’s already got game similar to young Dominique or Dr J with better D, he’s adding some James Harden already. We are the no 1 defensive team in the league, and it’s not like we’re pounding teams in the paint, it’s our perimeter defense that sets the bar, he’s our best wing defender.....he should be all defensive this year.

Theis held together the D in the 2nd unit (at least what I watched, saw last 2 min on 3rd through end of game). Really impressed with his D when switched onto perimeter players. Did well yesterday but had also had similar success in other recent games. Been starting to consider whether he could be our starting center of the future.

Hi,
I had a feeling that Brad used parts of the last night's game as an experiment. That Big lineup of Theis, Monroe and Morris were on the floor for far too long, IMO.
Also, I was surprised how much tome GM got in his first game.
But regardless, it's great to beat a potential playoffs opponent.

AK

sinus007 wrote:Hi,
I had a feeling that Brad used parts of the last night's game as an experiment. That Big lineup of Theis, Monroe and Morris were on the floor for far too long, IMO.
Also, I was surprised how much tome GM got in his first game.
But regardless, it's great to beat a potential playoffs opponent.

AK

Brad will be trying a lot of different looks.

GM is the first low post option he has had.  I believe it makes the Celtics a better team.  

Dboss

From bobheckler: ". . .  Our perimeter defense was not good, or their pnr offense was really good, either way they had fun at our expense. They shot 46% from 3 and almost all of them were wide-open shots. If we had done a better job of running them off the arc we would have won this in regulation."

From cowens: ". . .  We are the no 1 defensive team in the league, and it’s not like we’re pounding teams in the paint, it’s our perimeter defense that sets the bar, he’s our best wing defender.....he should be all defensive this year."

The 46% from 3 stat and my eye test say that the C's perimeter defense was weak or non-existent last night. Also, careless passing resulting in unnecessary turnovers and poor FT shooting, except for Kyries' clutch FT's at the end, made for a much more difficult game than it should have been. But a win is a win.

Monroe is a reassuring and welcome addition to the frontcourt. He provides a legitimate offensive threat on the low post, whether it's scoring or grabbing rebounds. Despite all the talk about his lack of defense, he didn't look to be a big defensive liability to me, at least not last night.

Sandpd wrote:From bobheckler: ". . .  Our perimeter defense was not good, or their pnr offense was really good, either way they had fun at our expense. They shot 46% from 3 and almost all of them were wide-open shots. If we had done a better job of running them off the arc we would have won this in regulation."

From cowens: ". . .  We are the no 1 defensive team in the league, and it’s not like we’re pounding teams in the paint, it’s our perimeter defense that sets the bar, he’s our best wing defender.....he should be all defensive this year."

The 46% from 3 stat and my eye test say that the C's perimeter defense was weak or non-existent last night. Also, careless passing resulting in unnecessary turnovers and poor FT shooting, except for Kyries' clutch FT's at the end, made for a much more difficult game than it should have been. But a win is a win.

Monroe is a reassuring and welcome addition to the frontcourt. He provides a legitimate offensive threat on the low post, whether it's scoring or grabbing rebounds. Despite all the talk about his lack of defense, he didn't look to be a big defensive liability to me, at least not last night.

Those are facts on our defensive points allowed and FG%, and their best player is a wing Beal an all star, he was held to 7-27, so we’re still doing something right....and saw a bunch of plays with Jaylen making things very uncomfortable to Mr Beal.