Post Game Celtics beat T-Wolves 118-109

Okay so this one was not chopped liver.

I'm calling it a signature win.  Please feel free to disagree.

For the first time we have seen what the Celtics offense looks like when Gordon Hayward carries it.

The stat line: 30 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.  10-10 from the line cause that is what he does and throw in 2 steals.  That was a big part of the 21-21 from the line.  He was happy.  His teammates were happy for him.  It was a coming out for him.

I'm not betting against this team if he is going to play like this.  Skill wise he has the game to score at all three levels and he makes his FT;s  just like Kyrie Irving.    What a tough road back,   Good for him.   Other thoughts,

I mentioned how good Rose was playing in my Up next thread.  See....

Marcus Smart keeps making ridiculous plays.  All of a sudden, he takes the ball from the other team.  He is a highly skilled defensive star that also is looking better on offense,

I looked at the box score and Jason Tatum dropped 19 points and grabbed 9 rebounds.  I hardly noticed.  

Kyrie struggled with a ho hum 21 points and 9 assists.

Al return with an efficient 15 points on 7-11 shooting.  He only had three rebounds but with our wings domination on the glass, his production was not missed.

Rozier also made a few plays but overall he had a quiet night.  I liked his two handed dunk.

Other guys also contributed.

I did not like all the 3 point shots but they shot 38.6% so what's not to like.  17-44.

The new NBA is here.  Make 3's and you are likely to win.  Miss too many and look for a loss.  

Next Up.. NY Knicks at home.  A good spot to beat them back.

Celts have played 14 games on the road and only 9 at home.

Here is the game flow:



The Timberwolves made a couple of runs in the fourth quarter, but the Celtics held them off each time!!

Hi,
I'm afraid to jinx it but will say it anyway. It looks like the team is starting to click.

AK

This was a good test for us.  The 2nd game of a b2b, on the road, vs a team that was running a 4 game winning streak, were 7-2 in the 9 games since they traded Jimmy Butler (now, still, a very healthy 7-3, .700) AND a 9-3 home record heading into the game.  In other words, they had found their bottom and had come up off it while we still weren't sure, despite a win over the Love-less (as opposed to 'loveless') Cleveland Cadavers, that we had found ours.

There was a new, rookie ref working this game who was still making NCAA traveling calls all night.  Made for a choppy game to watch.  Of the total 30 turnovers in this game a surprising number were from travel calls.  

The TimberPups were wearing a chartreuse uniform that is eminently puke-worthy.  They looked like school crosswalk guards on stilts.

Wiggins and Towns, their two stars, were a combined 11-27 (40.7%).

Not only was this Gordon Hayward's best game as a Celtic, obviously, he was the best player on the floor last night for either team.  When you have Kyrie Irving, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns all playing, that's saying something.  What I loved about his game, other than him hitting his shots, were the way he attacked the offensiive boards.  He got a tip in off a miss off a weakside baseline crash but also got 4 frito attempts by battling for position down low and getting fouled by the man who failed to box him out.  One of those fouls were by KAT with just 3:10 left and the Celts up only 2, 103-101, and the 2nd was with 1:23 left and the Celts up 8, 111-103.  How did we go from a 2 point lead to an 8 point lead in just 107 seconds?  Hayward scored 8 of the Celtics' next 10 points (Tatum had 2ftms) and had a steal while only giving up 2ftms to Wiggins.  A minute-and-a-half of crunch time and we only give up 2 points on 4 Minny possessions.  Hayward scored 11 of his 30 points in the last 3:10 of the game.  Clutch play.  I don't expect this type of game from Hayward regularly, but this game shows he is capable of taking over a game and that should send shivers through ever opposing coaching staff in the league.  I mean, who do you key on, who do you overplay?  Kyrie, Tatum or, now, Hayward?  Coaches around the league are waking up this morning, seeing this boxscore and thinking "Oh shit".  This was a max contract player game, his first.  Let's see how long it takes New G to have another Old G game but the irrefutable evidence that he can have this type of game is a game-changer.




I am loving Smart as a starter.  I don't know if it's going to stick but everything about him is better.  He's now shooting 48.5% in his last 5 games and is 45% from 3 in those games.  And he's still doing the same old Marcus Smart stuff on defense too, 4 steals and including and absolutely insane, made-for-Sportcenter hockey-assist off the flat of his back that can be seen at about 5:00 in the game highlight film below.  He hit Tatum, in stride.  If you missed the game you really have got to watch that sequence.  Even if you did see the game it's worth seeing again.  Most players would have held the ball and fought to get a jump ball, maybe they'd pass it to a player who was nearby.  I don't know any that would have had the instincts and court awareness to make that pass that far up court and right on the money besides Smart.

We shot 47%.  Nice.  We took 85fgas.  A nice, but not great, number.  We shot a fairly average 38%, so it wasn't that.  We had 30 assists on 40 fgm.  VERY nice, that shows good movement (and that we took advantage of the open shots we were given and hit them).  We won 2 quarters and then traded 2 point wins/losses in two other quarters.  That's how you win games.  Win two quarters and then break even over the other two.

We are now 13-10.  We are 7-7 on the road.  Playing .500 on the road is a key factor but also consider we have played 14 of our 23 games on the road too.  That might help to explain our overall record.  No other team has played as many games on the road as we have except the NY Knicks, they're 4-10 on the road and only one team has played fewer home games than us.  That's Utah.  They've played 8 (2-6) while we've played only 9 and are 6-3.

Maybe, what with our schedule to-date and the 6 weeks Hayward needed to round into playing shape, the sky isn't falling after all.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071016





bob



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The Celtics do not play again until Thursday. That is a much needed break.

Love these breaks, allowing us to practice is great.

Love what I saw from GH and Smart and Horford surprised me taking it to KAT a bunch of times both ends, when he’s feeling good, he still has a lot left. After some very good all around games, Morris was getting killed on boards. Good to see team look like what we have hoped and we won without Kyrie having to carry us.

Before the season started we all hoped that GH would be ready to play. He has struggled early on but the past few games we are starting to see him get better.

Last night was huge for him but more importantly, it was huge for the Celtics.

The Celtic's offense is now ranked #20.  Still not great but when you consider that just a week or two ago it was mid-to-high 20s it's coming up.  It also says you cannot put too much weight on stats this early in the season since it only takes a nice little run to make them look very different.  We are scoring 108.5ppg.

Our defense is #2, giving up 104.1ppg.  That's a +4.4 differential, aka "Margin of Victory" or MOV.  That makes us #6.  We have the 6th best MOV in the league.  The Clippers and OKC are ahead of us, as are Toronto and Milwaukee.  My prediction is that the Clips will return to earth and it will only take an injury to either Westbrook or George for OKC to plummet as well.  Even so, as things stand now, 6th ain't bad considering we haven't hit our stride yet.

We are 4th in opponent points scored in the paint.  Only Memphis, Milwaukee and Indiana are better.  That's damn good interior defense (and that's without Robert Willams).

We are 5th in opponent points scored on fast breaks.  

We are 10th in opponent points scored on 2nd chances.

We are #1 in opponent points scored off of our turnovers.

We are #6 in defensive rebound percentage.  That's a measure of how many defensive rebounds do we get out of total defensive rebounds available.  So, complaints about not doing a good job of defending our own glass are short-sighted.

We are 4th in opponent's fgm.  

We are #2 in opponent's fg%.

I could go on, but we are in very good shape statistically in virtually every defensive category.  Our biggest single weakness, offensively, is that we are 29th in ftas.  If Gordon Hayward keeps playing like last night he's going to be going to the line a lot more than the 2.4ftas/game he's averaging so far.  If he doubles that, to 4.8ftas/game, we go from averaging 19.2/game to 21.6ftas/game.  That would put us in 25th place.  Not a huge upgrade, but that's 2.4 more ppg and 2.4 more ppg would put our offense in 13th place.  That's the difference between a 20th place offense, where we are today, and 13th place offense.  2.4 more points per game.


bob



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No surprices here - when, as a team, your shooting lights out good things happen. Going into the last 3 games the Celts were only shooting .343 on 3 point attempts and.499 on 2 point attempts. Over the last 3 games those averages were .465 on 3's and .525 on 2's. Over the years teams with the highest shooting percentages dominate the standings. Now the trick is to continue the excellent shooting for the rest of the year.

swish

No surprices here - when, as a team, your shooting lights out good things happen. Going into the last 3 games the Celts were only shooting .343 on 3 point attempts and.499 on 2 point attempts. Over the last 3 games those averages were .465 on 3's and .525 on 2's. Over the years teams with the highest shooting percentages dominate the standings. Now the trick is to continue the excellent shooting for the rest of the year.

swish

A very nice team win last night. There was no huge hole (often made by the starters in the first 20 games) to pull out of with the new starting lineup doing great in this regard, out-rebounded the Wolves, had more assists, shot better, got to the free throw line, etc, etc.

Celtics are averaging 117 PPG over their past 5 contests.

This game is all about buckets.

as someone who feels signing Hayward to a max deal will turn out to be a mistake (not because he's a bad guy or anything more because of Tatum), it was good to see him earn his money this game.

I hope he continues to be one of the top 2 players on the floor for the Celtics the rest of the time he plays here!

and it's also good to see him coming around after the nasty injury.

who knows maybe it will all help in trading him for Davis after the season?

I decided to re-watch the CLE game and just randomly took a survey of ten possessions by the Celtics. It was evenly split between jacking up the 3 ball and layups/dunk/in the paint shots.

I really do like it when they start off the 1st quarter and abandon the 3-ball for going inside. This is where they develop they big, insurmountable leads and then they can fire away from downtown and throw the dirt on the grave.

Great, great, great game by Hayward. You have to love this kid. Not panicking at all. Looked like he was almost in tears after this game....like...FINALLY! I know I can do this night in/night out now!

Right about Smart. I think Brad almost has no choice but to start him. He's contributing everywhere.

db

dbrown4 wrote:I decided to re-watch the CLE game and just randomly took a survey of ten possessions by the Celtics.  It was evenly split between jacking up the 3 ball and layups/dunk/in the paint shots.  

I really do like it when they start off the 1st quarter and abandon the 3-ball for going inside.  This is where they develop they big, insurmountable leads and then they can fire away from downtown and throw the dirt on the grave.

Great, great, great game by Hayward.  You have to love this kid.  Not panicking at all.  Looked like he was almost in tears after this game....like...FINALLY!  I know I can do this night in/night out now!  

Right about Smart.  I think Brad almost has no choice but to start him.  He's contributing everywhere.

db    

dbrown,

"It was evenly split between jacking up the 3 ball and layups/dunk/in the paint shots."

Welcome to today's NBA. GSW started it by drafting perhaps the best shooting back court of all time, Houston followed (in part because that's D'Antoni's style anyway) and Brad and Danny are right on their tails.


bob


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We’re not the only team off to a slow start from 3, Durant is shooting 32% from 3 and Kay Thompson is at 34%, Curry at 48% has been carrying them. I suspect by years end the numbers will be back to their usual history and thinking our 3 ball% will only improve too as roles get defined and team will hit its stride.

cowens/oldschool wrote:We’re not the only team off to a slow start from 3, Durant is shooting 32% from 3 and Kay Thompson is at 34%, Curry at 48% has been carrying them. I suspect by years end the numbers will be back to their usual history and thinking our 3 ball% will only improve too as roles get defined and team will hit its stride.

Tom Westerholm @Tom_NBA
1 hour ago
Here’s a fun stat: If Marcus Smart made one more 3-pointer this season, he would have a better 3-point percentage so far than … Klay Thompson.

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bob
MY NOTE:  Yeah, but if you had to bet your life on a clutch 3 who would you bet on, Marcus Smart or Klay Thompson (or KD?)



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bobh,

Agreed. It just seemed like in those first games that was all we were shooting were 3's and that was leading to the loses. I'm going to put together a possession spreadsheet over the next few games and see if that reveals anything.

I still have Game 7 vs. CLE fresh in my mind for the last 7 minutes. We were jacking up threes the whole time and we blew it.

db

Sean Grande
Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 7 minutes ago
Celtics win Saturday looking even more impressive. Minnesota has now won 8 of 11 and are the NBA’s best defensive team since the Jimmy Butler trade. Wolves held Houston to 29 2nd half points. Celtics scored 27 in each quarter Saturday, on the road, in a 118-109 win.



bob


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