Gordon Hayward: 'I found something in the second' vs. Toronto Raptors

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Gordon Hayward: 'I found something in the second' vs. Toronto Raptors Empty Gordon Hayward: 'I found something in the second' vs. Toronto Raptors

Post by bobheckler Sat Oct 20, 2018 9:00 am

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2018/10/boston_celtics_gordon_hayward_10.html



Boston Celtics' Gordon Hayward: 'I found something in the second' vs. Toronto Raptors



Updated 5:49 AM; Posted 5:49 AM
Celtics' Gordon Hayward felt good against Toronto Raptors





By Tom Westerholm



TORONTO -- In three preseason games, Boston Celtics wing Gordon Hayward looked hesitant -- uncertain how his repaired left ankle would hold up to the stress of NBA basketball, and a little unsure where he should be and when he should be there.

On Friday, in Boston's 113-101 loss to the Toronto Raptors, Hayward looked notably healthier. He cut more comfortably, defended well and made confident decisions in the pick-and-roll. He even pulled up for a mid-range jumper on the run in the first half that looked (dare we say it?) reminiscent of his old self.

After the game, Hayward -- who dropped 14 points on 6-for-13 shooting, which included a three -- confirmed the eye-test: He looked his best so far this season because he felt his best.

"I felt like I found a little bit of rhythm there in the second half," Hayward said. "It was a good step for me. Each game will be progress. Unfortunately, we didn't win tonight, but I found something in the second."


Kyrie Irving noticed it too.

"I agree with him," Irving said. "He got a chance to really let loose a little bit, kind of get in the mid-range, be aggressive in transition as well as off those pick-and-rolls. He just kind of threw himself into the game tonight, obviously, just playing hard and playing himself into game shape. ...

He looked great, he looked great. So I look forward to him progressing more."

On a team full of stars, a fully healthy Hayward raises the ceiling. The Celtics need him to round out the starting five with his floor-spacing and action off the bounce, and they need him to be a star who can lead second-unit lineups at times as well.

Hayward isn't fully healthy yet, obviously. He won't be there for a while, and there will still be bumps in the road.

But tests like Friday against the Raptors and Kawhi Leonard are only helping.


"It's good progress, good to be thrown into the fire," Hayward said. "It makes me figure it out and work through it."

For the first time on Friday, Hayward's finish line felt like it was finally in sight.

"He played really hard in both games, and he's still trying to find his spots and figure out where to fit in," Brad Stevens said. "But you can see he makes good plays."

"I was getting to so me stuff that I normally do, that I'm good at," Hayward added. "I haven't felt that way. There were four or five minutes where I felt pretty good. Slowly that stuff is coming back, and I'm getting more comfortable with the guys. There's times where it still feels like I'm not playing like myself and that I'm thinking too much out there. I was doing that in the first half a little bit. So the more that I can play and not worry about what I'm doing out there, the better."


bob
MY NOTE:  I didn't see the game but if Hayward is starting to feel like his old self, feels like he can do the stuff he was doing in his All-Star year then this loss is a short-term payment on a long-term benefit.


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Post by dboss Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:22 am

Bob, Gordon got into a really nice rhythm in he second half of the game, moving well going to the rim, displaying his skills and making shots.

Gordon looks a lot bigger than I thought he was and he does a really nice job positioning for the rebound. He had 7 boards last night, 2 on the offensive glass. He definitely has some stretch 4 in him. Gordon can pretty much score from anywhere on the court.
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Post by fierce Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:47 am

The Celtic offense was not the problem against the Raps.

It was their defense.

Kawhi dominated Jaylen and Hayward.

Brad Stevens opted to go with Rozier in crunch time.

If Jaylen is going to sit on the bench in crunch time then clearly the Celts need to upgrade that SG position.

That's why I want Ainge to explore trading for Jimmy Butler.

A player like Jimmy Butler will make the Celts better on offense and defense.
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Post by cowens/oldschool Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:54 am

fierce wrote:The Celtic offense was not the problem against the Raps.

It was their defense.

Kawhi dominated Jaylen and Hayward.

Brad Stevens opted to go with Rozier in crunch time.

If Jaylen is going to sit on the bench in crunch time then clearly the Celts need to upgrade that SG position.

That's why I want Ainge to explore trading for Jimmy Butler.

A player like Jimmy Butler will make the Celts better on offense and defense.


He had one nice drive that he beat Jaylen, other than that Jaylen defended him well, he had some nice post ups on GH, the guy he torched was Kyrie on switches, he finished 10-25, he did what he had to do, I wouldn’t say he dominated....

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Post by fierce Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:05 pm

cowens/oldschool wrote:
fierce wrote:The Celtic offense was not the problem against the Raps.

It was their defense.

Kawhi dominated Jaylen and Hayward.

Brad Stevens opted to go with Rozier in crunch time.

If Jaylen is going to sit on the bench in crunch time then clearly the Celts need to upgrade that SG position.

That's why I want Ainge to explore trading for Jimmy Butler.

A player like Jimmy Butler will make the Celts better on offense and defense.


He had one nice drive that he beat Jaylen, other than that Jaylen defended him well, he had some nice post ups on GH, the guy he torched was Kyrie on switches, he finished 10-25, he did what he had to do, I wouldn’t say he dominated....

Kawhi dominated because when it mattered most, Kawhi delivered.

I think Kawhi scored 16 points in the 3rd qtr.
That allowed the Raps to take the lead heading into the 4th.
And if 31 points, 10 rebounds, and 9-9 from the FT line is not dominating I don't know what is.
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Post by cowens/oldschool Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:44 pm

We clearly can’t let him abuse Kyrie going forward, that won’t work.

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Post by dboss Sat Oct 20, 2018 1:18 pm

fierce wrote:
cowens/oldschool wrote:
fierce wrote:The Celtic offense was not the problem against the Raps.

It was their defense.

Kawhi dominated Jaylen and Hayward.

Brad Stevens opted to go with Rozier in crunch time.

If Jaylen is going to sit on the bench in crunch time then clearly the Celts need to upgrade that SG position.

That's why I want Ainge to explore trading for Jimmy Butler.

A player like Jimmy Butler will make the Celts better on offense and defense.


He had one nice drive that he beat Jaylen, other than that Jaylen defended him well, he had some nice post ups on GH, the guy he torched was Kyrie on switches, he finished 10-25, he did what he had to do, I wouldn’t say he dominated....

Kawhi dominated because when it mattered most, Kawhi delivered.

I think Kawhi scored 16 points in the 3rd qtr.
That allowed the Raps to take the lead heading into the 4th.
And if 31 points, 10 rebounds, and 9-9 from the FT line is not dominating I don't know what is.

Just to set the record straight, Boston took the lead at the 9:03 mark in the 4th QTR on a 3 point shot from Jaylen Brown.  That made the score 87-86 Boston.  Leonard had very good 3rd QTR but this game was lost in the 4th QTR.  The Celtics only scored 22 points while giving up 31 points so both offensive and defensive issues popped up.

With 2:53 left in the game we were down by just one possession 99-101.

Then Danny Green and Lowry made BTB 3 pointers.  Lowry hit another jumper and Serge got an uncontested dunk

This thing came down to poor execution at both ends down the stretch.  Leonard was not a factor at all down the stretch.  

The very idea of having Jimmy Butler on this team makes my tummy hurt.

Let's not beat up on our guys for losing a winnable game.  It is just one game characterized by a 3 minute lack of discipline and execution.
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Post by cowens/oldschool Sat Oct 20, 2018 1:50 pm

Fuck Jimmy Butler we don’t need him

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Post by RosalieTCeltics Sat Oct 20, 2018 3:01 pm

My Momma would yell at me Cow, but touche', I totally agree
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Post by RosalieTCeltics Sat Oct 20, 2018 3:13 pm

You could tell in the first half that Hayward was getting comfortable out there, calling for the ball, cutting sharper, and involved in many plays. In fact, in the first half, he did a good job of defending Leonard when he was on him. Jaylen, also. Then in the second half, Hayward hit a couple in a row, rebounded well, and looked more like the Gordon Hayward we were dying for last year. He still has a way to go, but by December, I see him almost back if not back to normal.

This is a team game, to blame Jaylen for the loss and for Leonard going off is totally unfair. I do not understand why he was out, but Brad has reasons for everything and he is not about to tell you or I what is going on in his head.

My one question is: Did anyone watch his post game remarks. Someone asked about something that happened on the court and he said it would stay in the locker room. What happened? I must have missed it.
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Post by gyso Sat Oct 20, 2018 5:29 pm

RosalieTCeltics wrote:My Momma would yell at me Cow, but touche', I totally agree

I also agree with Cow. Except insert the word "Screw" at the beginning so that it ends up with a PG-13 rating. bounce

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Post by fierce Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:42 pm

A lot of you guys also didn't want Isaiah Thomas traded for Kyrie.

And nobody here wanted to trade the #1 pick in 2017.

Ainge is a risk taker.

Toronto was just one game.
But there's no excuse for the Celts almost losing to the Knicks.

Too many good players and not enough great players.

GSW has 5 star players and we want to stick with Jaylen, Rozier, and Morris?

We're past the lottery stage and hoping to make the playoffs.

Lebron, Wade, and Bosh, decided to team up in the summer of 2010 because they wanted to match Boston's Big 3 of Ray, Pierce, and KG.

If our mentality is just to settle then the Celts will just end up being a great regular season team and always coming up short in the playoffs.

We can't be sentimental if the goal is multiple championships.

The bar has to be set high.
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Post by cowens/oldschool Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:02 pm

You must be rambone

Jaylen is going to be a multiple all star and all defensive team player, it’s not if, it’s just when, if you can’t see that too bad.

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Post by fierce Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:38 pm

cowens/oldschool wrote:You must be rambone

Jaylen is going to be a multiple all star and all defensive team player, it’s not if, it’s just when, if you can’t see that too bad.

Potential is just potential.
It's not a reality yet.

And I'm not ram.

I'm not crazy.

There are players with a ton of potential but end up underachieving.
One example is Jeff Green.

On offense I believe Jaylen Brown is very good.
But on defense, he just doesn't have that tenacity like Smart.

Reason why Brad gave Tatum a lot of minutes during his rookie year was because Tatum was solid on defense.

Jaylen Brown didn't get a lot of minutes as a rookie because he was not good on D.

Excellent defensive players, like Smart, Kawhi, and Jimmy Butler, brought defense from Day 1.

You saw the game against the Knicks, right?

So you must have seen the Knicks erase that 4th qtr. lead when Hardaway made back to back 3s because Jaylen Brown was late.

The big difference is Jaylen has potential, not yet a reality, while Jimmy Butler is a sure thing.
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Post by cowens/oldschool Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:24 am

You must not have seen Jaylen play much last year because he was our best wing defender last year, so he got picked and was late on 2 plays and now he’s a weak defender according to you. Smart got beat a few times too, and got historically torched by Devin Booker, but he’s our best defender according to you, and I root for Smart....

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Post by bobheckler Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:27 am

Jaylen Brown is not a sure thing to be a perennial All-Star, but he is a starter on an elite NBA team.

Brown's calling card is his defense.  It is his offense, which we all knew would need to be his area of greatest growth, that is keeping him off the All-Star team.  Also, All-Star coaches don't like to have four All-Stars from one team and Kyrie, Tatum and either Horford or a 100% Hayward are more likely candidates.

Hardaway is a high-volume shooter.  Last night he was 8-21 and a smoking 5-11 from 3.  Some of his 3s were spectacular.  That made him 3-10 from 2.  I can live with this.  I can live with a KoME-esque 20+fgas 38% night from an opposing team's best scorer.

As far as Brown vs Butler goes there is still only one ball, although I'm sure Adam Silver is thinking hard about how to change that. Jaylen took 11.5fgas/game last year, Jimmy took 17.5.  Take away Butler fgas and you take away Butler points.  Give Butler his fgas and who do you take those fgas away from?  Kyrie?  Tatum?  And then there is the difference in salaries.  Take on Butler's contract and you jeopardize Kyrie's.  Horford, Hayward and Kyrie (next year).  There's 3 max contracts already and Butler is in his last year.  FOUR max contracts?!  No can do.

Can Jimmy Butler guard 2s?  Have we ever seen him assigned to guard a 2 for a whole game like Brown is regularly?



bob


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