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Celtics Wrap: Boston Drops Third Straight With 120-107 Loss To Bucks

NESN by Adam London on Fri, Dec 21, 2018 at 10:32PM

BOSTON — The Boston Celtics are back in a rut.

After their win streak was snapped at eight last Saturday, the C’s now have dropped three in a row with Friday’s 120-107 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at TD Garden.

First-half struggles doomed the Celtics, who simply couldn’t get their offense going through the first two quarters. Boston showed some guts in the second half, but it was too little, too late.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was his usual self with a game-high 30 points, while Khris Middleton shined with 21. Five Celtics players scored in double figures, with Jaylen Brown (21 points) and Jayson Tatum (20 points) leading the way.

With the loss, the Celtics drop to 18-13, while the Bucks improve to 22-9.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE
PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Marcus Smart
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Gordon Hayward
C: Semi Ojeleye

BUCKS BUILD LEAD
The Celtics came out with a ton of energy, opening the game on a 7-1 run while drawing three offensive fouls less than three minutes into the contest. But it was pretty much all Bucks the rest of the way in the first quarter, which concluded with the visitors holding a 35-22 lead.

Milwaukee was efficient from the field in the opening frame, shooting at a 63.2 percent clip. That was in large due to Tony Snell, who led all scorers after one with 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting. Middleton wasn’t far behind with nine, but the C’s did do a respectable job defending Antetokounmpo, who only notched five first-quarter points. Boston was paced by Irving’s seven points, while Tatum and Ojeleye both provided five.

STRUGGLES CONTINUE
The C’s had trouble finding the basket in the opening minutes of the second quarter, which allowed the Bucks to extend their lead to 26. But thanks to a 16-7 run to end the frame, Boston trimmed the deficit to 65-48 at the break.

Interior dominance helped Milwaukee keep control of the first half, owning a whopping 31-13 rebound advantage through two quarters. Middleton posted another fine quarter with eight points, while Eric Bledsoe chipped in seven after being held scoreless in the first. The C’s were aided with a bench boost, as Brown notched seven second-quarter points to go along with Daniel Theis’ five.

FREAK UNLEASHED
The Celtics showed quite a bit of fight in the third quarter, but their rally was subdued by Antetokounmpo. After being limited to just 11 first-half points, the Greek Freak erupted for 17 points in the third to help Milwaukee take a 93-78 lead into the final frame.

Tatum carried the offensive load for the home team with 12 points in the third, but no other Celtic logged more than four points in the quarter. Boston did a fine job defending outside of Antetokounmpo, as no other Bucks player besides the star forward logged a point until George Hill knocked down a 3-pointer with 4:37 left in the quarter.

MILWAUKEE WEATHERS STORM
The Celtics took the momentum to start the fourth quarter and cut the deficit to just 11 with a Hayward layup at the 7:39 mark, forcing the Bucks to call a timeout. The regrouping evidently was all Milwaukee needed, as it put its foot back on the gas en route to a tough road win.

Brown’s high energy and 10 fourth-quarter points helped the Celtics keep things somewhat interesting, but the green never truly threatened at notching a comeback victory.

PLAY OF THE GAME
How do you stop this? Short answer: you don’t.

UP NEXT
The Celtics return to action Sunday night against the Charlotte Hornets. Tip off from TD Garden is set for 6 p.m. ET.

112288

HUMMMMM

WILLIAMS 8:03 MINUTES

WHY???????????

112288

112288 wrote:HUMMMMM

WILLIAMS 8:03 MINUETES

WHY???????????

112288

Makes no sense

Thirty minutes after the finish and the locker room is still not open. Usually 15 minutes. Huuummmmmmmmmm?

112288 wrote:HUMMMMM

WILLIAMS 8:03 MINUTES

WHY???????????

112288

Good question - especially only 4 minutes in the 1st 3 quarters - but I'll bet that Brad had a good reason.

swish

swish wrote:

112288 wrote:HUMMMMM

WILLIAMS 8:03 MINUTES

WHY???????????

112288

 Good question - especially only 4 minutes in the 1st 3 quarters - but I'll bet that Brad had a good reason.

  swish

I saw too many instances we were outrebounded and their perimeter players were driving through us like Swiss cheese....going right to the rim.

Lots to question with Boston's play. Among the issues, shot selection and player rotation were terrible. The injury bug is also compounding problems big time.

Going a different direction for a minute here, and instead giving credit to The Bucks. That is one tough, deep and quickly improving team. They're about to challenge Toronto for top spot in the East. Along with an Indiana club making its move, and Philly reloaded and stronger, Toronto is going to have a serious battle holding onto what looked like a strong grip on first.

NYCelt wrote:Lots to question with Boston's play. Among the issues, shot selection and player rotation were terrible. The injury bug is also compounding problems big time.

Going a different direction for a minute here, and instead giving credit to The Bucks. That is one tough, deep and quickly improving team. They're about to challenge Toronto for top spot in the East. Along with an Indiana club making its move, and Philly reloaded and stronger, Toronto is going to have a serious battle holding onto what looked like a strong grip on first.

 Yeah Giannis is a fucking relentless stud, Lopez helps them, Middleton, Brodgen, Bledsoe all good players, if Maker doesn’t go 4-5 from 3, if, if if....we lost. They are big and play fast.

for god sake get Hayward out of the first team, please.

in fact get him out of HERE period.

BAD signing for a MAX contract, injury or no. now we are stuck with him.

please put him back the second team where he belongs, there he can out class other teams backups.

Christ, I hope Danny can somehow dump his deal on someone soon. Send him back to Utah for Gobert please!!!

IF ONLY Utah WANTED him back.

Haywood could be suffering from a mental problem from his injury similar to a baseball batter getting hit in the head and loosing his nerve at the plate. But that does not excuse Haywood from shooting poorly as he has!

While I am at it Brown is like a yoyo, he has great games then shxt games. He would garner value and would like to see him moved in a trade. I think he has reached his peak as a performer on the court.

112288

Here is the game flow.



The Bucks were a good team to test our depleted team against.  We were missing our two best bigs and our best medium-big.  The Bucks are a tall, long and fast team, something that we aspire to be when we are at full strength.  Obviously, we are not that when we are missing three (THREE!!) of our players that would have been in our starting lineup tonight.

Starting out small seemed to work at first, but after about 6 minutes, it proved to be a failure.  Lessen #1: With Horford and Baynes out, one of either Theis and Williams HAS to be on the court at all times.

Brad's false dilemma was which one to start, Hayward or Brown?  I'd say neither, both of them coming off the bench was working, why change that.  That is why I called it a false dilemma.  Lessen #2:  Keep those two coming off the bench and start Yabusele along with Williams.  That gives us length and strength.  The Horford/Yabusele combo worked in last year's playoff run, why not go with its weaker sister, the Williams/Yabusele combo.  With a strong bench and a weaker starting unit, at least we would not be a fail on both accounts.

Someone needs to take Brown's puppy away much earlier in the game.  The fire under his ass was on slow-burn to start the game, but it got turned to after-burner mode later in the game.  That's the Jaylen Brown we need in every game.  Lessen #3: There is no flexing when you are down by 15-20 points late in the game and you were one of the late arrivals.

I saw Smart getting on his team mates on the sideline late in the game.  I also saw Morris gently steering Smart away from the pack of players.  That, and the reported late opening of the locker room after the game probably means that Smart was chewing off other players ears again.  Over time, that may not work for all players.  That rah-rah malarkey only goes so far and if it hasn't worked in the past against certain players, it may help to push those certain players in the opposite direction and cause problems in the locker room.  Red certainly knew who he could push and who he couldn't . . and wouldn't, for the betterment of the team.  Lesson #4: If Smart wants to be the leader of this team, he needs to know who he can push, and how much.

So where are we?  Lets see a show of hands from everyone that thought our rag-tag crew would handle the finely-tuned one year older Bucks squad. I see a few in the back and one or two over there.  Optimists!

Back to the drawing board, Brad Stevens.  You got some work to do!!

gyso

Fine analysis Gyso.

I have tried to embrace Brad's system of small ball. I see its merits. I understand the analytics. I believe that it can be the right way to play. This roster was made to make a case for how good this new way of playing can be. Starting Semi was probably based on sound reasoning. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

It hasn't worked out too well all season. Is it the system that is flawed? Is it the personnel? Is it the fact that three bigs were out last night and Brad was loathe to play the ones he had?

Say what you want about Guerschon but he puts his head down, he takes it to the basket, and he scores. The two J's can take a lesson from him. They still make the same mistakes of trying to dribble into a double or triple team and think they will finish. They are not IT or KI. Very few can do that at a high level. They need more work. They need to stop believing the clippings and believe more in themselves and the team. Which brings me to...

This team is filled with head cases. People with serious personality issues, viewpoints, and other oddities (not necessarily to be confused with flaws ) Kyrie sez the world is flat and Guerschon has colorful hair. Marcus wants to take advantage of everyone and shine and Smart is even worse. Tatum wants to mamba but people keep telling him he's the truth and Jaylen is having a hard time understanding what truth really is. TRo still wants to start but he only plays like it during the second half of the season. And Brad sticks to his guns even tho there is mounting evidence that he needs to make some changes to his play and subbing styles.

If I didn't like this team so much I might get mad.

17goingon18

It would have been beyond a "signature win" if we had beaten the #1 offense in the league, the #11 defense and the #1 biggest MOV without Horford, Baynes and Morris.  While I cheered along with everybody else on the Game On! thread I knew the final result was a foregone conclusion before the game even started.  Let's not tear open the bottom of the rain clouds over this game.  They are healthy and on a roll.  We are neither.  Giannis is almost impossible to defend as it is and Brad's primary defender against him, Al Horford, was out.

We got off to a great start in the 1st quarter, went up 10-1.  Then, they got their shit together and rallied and we just stood around and looked at each other like we couldn't believe they wouldn't just fold cash out their chips and go home.  With 9:13 left in the 1st we were up 10-1 and they called timeout.  They then went on a 34-12 run to end the quarter.  That's why the crowd started booing.  They were outworking us even though we went into the game knowing that for us to even have a chance we'd have to outwork them.  The 2nd quarter was closer 30-26, but the damage was already done.  

What bothered me most is the collapse of effort.  Everybody knew we were short bigs,  everybody knew EVERYBODY was going to have to crash our defensive boards, but nobody did.  They all stood and expected someone else to go for the ball.  Rebounding is all about ganas.  It's all about wanting it, badly.  Throwing yourself into the middle of the mosh pit under the basket and fighting for your piece of the ball.  We didn't, they did.  When Kyrie Irving is your #1 rebounder you know EVERYBODY else doesn't give a shit.

What also bothered me is that, in the battle of the stars, their stars played like stars and ours played like crap.  Irving with 15 points.  If we're going small we NEED to score.  A lot!  That means he needs to be in superhuman offensive beast mode.  He wasn't.  I watched him on defense a lot last night, especially off the ball.  His eyes were often anywhere except where they should have been.  Staring at the ball instead of opening his stance so he can watch the ball and still track his man.  His man has the ball and his eyes are looking around for picks being set on him.  That's his teammates' job.  They are supposed to speak up when a pick is coming on him.

Hayward stunk.  3-13, 1-6 from 3, 3 rebounds AND ZERO ASSISTS.  36 minutes of emptiness.  He is untradeable.  Not untouchable, untradeable, and he'd be untradeable at half the money or even more than half.

I am as perplexed as everybody else about why Brad only played Williams 8 minutes with half of those 8 in the 4th quarter.  Going small obviously wasn't working, we were getting croaked on the boards AND on penetration.  We've seen Brad start throwing darts at the board in far more dire circumstances than this.  Maybe that's it?  Does Brad consider Williams a "Break Glass ONLY in Case of Emergency Against Good Teams" type of player?  Well, he got that wrong.  Theis is the better offensive player, BY FAR, and his spacing is far superior as well but Williams is a World-Class shot blocker and rim protector.  When you have The Freak on fire and going to the rim almost at will you need to grab any bucket you can find and start throwing water on him.  Brad just hoped Giannis would tire himself out.

Terry who?  He's killing himself.  He wants to start somewhere?  Not like this.

Jaylen came alive and showed some pride towards the end.  In fact, he ended up the Celtics' top scorer with 21.  But what a bullshit technical they blew on him.  He dunked on The Freak and, as he was backing away saying nothing, he flexed and they blew the whistle.  What a joke.  Not only can you not touch Giannis, he took 17 of the Bucks' total 28 ftas, you apparently cannot even look at him hard and show him your muscles while walking backwards.  Another reason for thinking this game's final result was pre-ordained.

Tatum ended up with 20 points, but he was 5-15.  In a game where we went small and going small means you have to run and score to make up for your lack of size our top three offensive players available (Hayward, Irving and Tatum) were a combined 15-48 (31%) for 46 points.  We took a total of 91 fgas, so these three shooters represented 50.5% of our total fgas.  If you are going to take half your team's shots, and that's what these three should have been doing, you cannot shoot like that.

There was a half hour team meeting after this game.  Players and coaches, not just players.  I have to ask the question "has Brad Stevens lost this team?".  If he has then changes need to happen.  Usually, when that happens the coach is gone.  In this case, however, I do not see Danny or Wyc firing Brad.  That would mean that players are gone.  Rozier should be gone.  He has been less than useless this year.  The problem is that he has eviscerated his trade value with his play this year.  Jaylen rallied to have a good game, even a very good game, but his season-to-date has stunk as well.  While we have played a lot of away games we have also had the easiest schedule in the NBA as far as the win/loss record of our opponents. In other words, our mediocre season-to-date has been against chumps. The next few weeks to a month will be critical.  We are entering open season for trades and, if Danny doesn't see a contender, his trigger finger will start twitching and right now we are not a contender.


http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071154


bob


.

Several glaring problems are facing the Celtics and there needs to be answers to solve them.

It all begins and ends with the roster.  Although collectively the Celtics have talent spread between the starting unit and some bench players, the question remains can this talent play cohesively together as a unit, and function at a high level performance wise.

To play both cohesively as a unit, and function at a high level of performance,  boils down to four simple questions.

1) Can each player assigned his role, execute that role at a high level?
2) Can each player perform at a high level given the average number of minutes that is assigned to his role?
3) Can each player score at an efficient percentage rate given the number of touches that player is expected to get given the numbers of minutes and role assignments?
4) Can a player asked to come off the bench perform his role at a high level be it be  scoring, or rebounding, or defense? Some players cannot.  Some players need to start because they get into a better flow of the game as a starter.

In my opinion, this team is not gelling based on the four questions I listed and many No's assigned to players from my questions.  Call it chemistry if you would like, but this team does not have the kind of chemistry you need to be an elite team.

I think Danny needs to reflect on the talent he has via the draft and fee agents and toss the salad again and see what players are making this current salad taste bitter.

112288

It is too early to freak out. We have had key injuries which have set us back, and key role players -Terry, Jaylen, and Gordon - have been head cases. This can turn around. I hope Jaylen's show of pride last night is a turning point for him. I expect nothing performance wise from Gordon for another two months. His mind is readjusting. he's got PTSD. Give him time. He will come around. What other option do we have with him? Untradable as Bob observes. Terry - who knows?

I hope Brad is not too stubborn to learn from his coaching mistakes. Rob needs minutes now that the other bigs are out. Period. End of discussion.

Patience

mrkleen09 wrote:Patience

MrKleen,

Is there a secret message hidden behind Brad's banner?

It has a close resemblance to the Freemasonry or Masonry symbol and what is used on U.S. currency.

Wow, this is too deep for me!


LOL  112288

112288, In gematria one assigns a number to each letter; for example A=1, B=2. One then adds up the numbers related to each letter to get a secret message. The letters in Brad's logo sum up to 18.

TOO HEADY FOR ME

https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/lol.gif

112288

112288 translates as AABBHH

worcester wrote:112288 translates as AABBHH

And 112211 is a Swedish rock group.


bob


.

Looking at Jaylen's stats for the first 20 games he has played this year, there is one obvious and dramatic fall off. That is with his 3 point shooting. The pecentage is down about 100 points, from something like .395 to .295. If he gets his head and stroke right, and if he learns to relish driving to the basket, he will reemerge as the Beast we know him to be. This is but early in the third chapter of perhaps a 15 chapter career. I think by May we'll be celebrating his year.