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Celtics Wrap: Jayson Tatum Hits Game-Winner As Celtics Beat Knicks 104-102
 
NESN by Chris Grenham on Fri, Nov 1, 2019 at 10:02PM
 
It wasn’t pretty, but the Boston Celtics snuck by the New York Knicks on Friday to grab their fourth consecutive win. After handling the Knicks with ease less than one week ago, Boston found themselves in a back-and-forth battle with their Atlantic Division foe. Similar to Saturday, it was Kemba Walker who led the way. But it was Jayson Tatum who finished the job with a game-winning bucket as time dwindled down. Walker (33 points), Tatum (24), Gordon Hayward (13) and Grant Williams (10) all finished in double figures for Boston. Ex-Celtic Marcus Morris Sr. led the way for New York with 29 points and nine rebounds. Here’s how it all went down:
 
STARTING FIVE PG: Kemba Walker SG: Marcus Smart SF: Jayson Tatum PF: Gordon Hayward C: Daniel Theis
 
STRUGGLING ON THE GLASS Boston forced four turnovers in the game’s first four minutes, putting some immediate pressure on the Knicks. Tatum opened the floor for Boston on the offensive end, using his improved court vision to toss some passes that his former self wouldn’t have been able to. His second assist stood out in particular, which was partially due to Theis’ strong finish. But Boston got crushed on the glass early, with New York winning the battle on the boards 12-5 through nine minutes, including six offensive rebounds. They’d finish the quarter with 16 total and eight of the offensive variety. Grant Williams led the Celtics with a game-high eight first-quarter points off the bench.
 
SCRATCHING AND CLAWING The Knicks pushed their offensive rebounding advantage to 11-1 early in the second, but they found themselves locked at 34 halfway through the quarter. It wasn’t pretty, but Boston was able to even the playing field with some nice ball movement, collecting nine assists on its first 13 field goals. Tatum had a game-high 13 points points at the break. He collected three of Boston’s four first-half 3-pointers as part of an ugly 4-of-16 shooting clip from deep. The Celtics trailed 50-49 after 24 minutes of shooting 42.1 percent from the floor.
 
LOOKING FOR A RHYTHM Boston used a quick 9-0 run to take a five-point lead four minutes into the quarter thanks to some quality stops. Good things happen with this team when they let their defense dictate their offense, and such was the case early in the third. The Knicks didn’t go away, though, as they took advantage of some poor shot selection on behalf of the Celtics. Boston went small to close the quarter, with Hayward playing the four. Walker’s third-quarter scoring burst helped keep the Celtics take a one-point lead into the fourth, as the point guard had 21 points through three.
 
TO THE FINISH Back and forth we went through the final frame, as the score was locked at 82 with 6:53 left. Similar to Wednesday’s win over the Milwaukee Bucks, Walker managed to get to the free throw line quite a bit down the stretch, notching 10-plus attempts for the second-straight game. But the Knicks refused to go away. Walker continued to provide the scoring punch, recording his third straight 30-point performance by the two-minute mark of the fourth quarter. His teammates were very solid down the stretch, namely Hayward and Tatum, who were a combined 13-for-27 from the floor with 90 seconds remaining. After Walker’s 13th and 14th free throws pushed the Celtics’ lead to three with less than 30 seconds left, a broken play put the ball in Morris’ hands, who knocked down a game-tying 3-pointer in front of his former fans. Boston called timeout with 4.7 seconds left, and managed to get the ball into Tatum’s hands. With 1.3 seconds left, the third-year guard knocked down a game-winning, stepback jumper to give the Celtics their fourth consecutive win.
 
PLAY OF THE GAME Since you’ve already seen the game-winner… We’re really sure how Theis got this one to go.
 
UP NEXT The Celtics face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, with tip-off from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse set for 7 p.m. ET.


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We were obviously up for the Bucks game and responded. This was a let down game, another game we would have lost last year. We had some good stretches, we had a small team not just at the big positions, but with Jaylen out, our wings aren’t so big or athletic either, plus you miss his effort. Tatum is really developing some nice big shot ability, obviously Kemba has been doing it his whole career.

Great win from a very together team. There was a stretch in the 3rd when I had no idea what Brad was doing with his lineup (Porier, Wanamaker, Edwards, Grant and Semi) - but it all worked out in the end.

Tatum is growing game by game.

A very close game, beginning to end.

This game was close because, in my opinion, Brad went with some ridiculous small ball lineup for way too long.  He has fallen in love with GWill playing center, and Portis feasted on the boards.  I thought Poirier looked ok, but rusty.  Well, the way to get the rust off and see what you really have is to play him.  I really like GWill, he's outperforming most #22 pick rookies, but that was not a good situation for him.  This game, even without Kanter and Williams and Brown, shouldn't have been this close.

They got 51 rebounds, 16 offensive.  That's awful.  It's not like we forgot about their bigs or forgot about boxing out, we were just too small.

But if you are going to play small ball you have to make them pay by running their legs off.  In the end they had 17 fast break points and we only had 16.  So, that didn't work neither.

Very nice game by Mook.  Even with Brad's insanity this would have been a blow out if he hadn't played so well.

Theis with 4 blocks.  He can get the job done on the defensive end.

Tatum with the efficient game that had eluded him so far.  That game winner was icy.  Not a great shot, the Knicks did a good job of taking away better options on the inbound pass, but I can't argue with results.  Congrats on his first career game-winner.

Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
yesterday
Tatum on his game-winner: "I don’t want to get too excited. The guys I look up to in this league, they do things like this all the time."

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Hayward has almost doubled his rebound rate.  His shooting has come around, he has become a primary ballhandler but his rebounding deserves its own mention.  Another 9 last night.  That's pretty good for a player who has now been remeasured and is 6'6".  He blew at least 3 bunnies last night.  This would have been a snoozer if he hadn't.  These things happen, Gordon is proving himself nightly so I'm not really "on him" for that, but it would have taken some of the stress out of it.  Overall, season-to-date, I am very happy with Gordon Hayward.

Kemba is now 12th in the league in scoring @ 26.2 ppg.  Kyrie is 2nd at 32.6 ppg.  The Celtics are tied for 2nd in the EC at 4-1 (Miami and Toronto also are 4-1, Philly is only 1/2 game ahead at 4-0) while the Nets are 11th at 2-3.  I am just fine with what we got.  Also, Kemba is 6th in the league in ftas/game.  That's a really important category.

Sean Grande
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Kemba Walker: 33-6-5a, 14-14 from the line

Just the 5th time in the last 20 years a Celtic has made 14 free throws without a miss.

In the last decade, Isaiah Thomas is the only other Celtic to do it.



Chris Grenham @chrisgrenham
yesterday
The Celtics have 129 free throw attempts so far this year. They had 99 through five games last season, including two games with 10 or less.

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I don't know why Brad plays Semi as much as he does and I sure as hell don't understand why he plays Semi and GWill together, like he did last night.  We got killed on the boards with that lineup.

He only played Poirier 7 minutes last night.  Down two centers, Theis getting his 2nd foul in the 1st quarter, and Brad platoons Semi and GWill instead of replacing Theis with Poirier.  Does Semi have pictures of Brad in flagrante delicto, and that's why he's getting put in ahead of our only full-time 7'er?  WTF is going on with Poirier that he can't get minutes with our center corp so depleted and we're playing a doormat?  Semi is shooting 28.6% from the field this year so far, including 2s.  Not even Marcus Smart ever shot that poorly overall.  Semi must be killing it in practice.  I cannot explain it any other way.

Edwards is playing active defense but he is really, really struggling with his shot.  He's a shooter, he'll be alright, but he has to be wondering what the problem is.

Grant Williams with a really good first half.  He added some rebounding in the 3rd quarter.  He played 11 minutes of the 4th and added nothing that I saw.  Whatever Brad was seeing, I was missing it.  

Bottom line:  I just didn't, and don't, understand Brad's coaching last night.

Tuesday in Cleveland.  Hopefully Kanter and Williams will be back.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401160714





bob



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my guess is the coaching staff doesn't feel the Frenchman is the better option right now.

to be honest when he was in the game last night, he looked lost more than once on the defense rotations and on the offense.

Maybe he'll get up to NBA level as the season goes on, but right now he looks lost to me.

Smart did a great defensive job on rookie stud muffin RJ Barrett. Theis for his size is a very good defender. I would love to see a shutdown line up of Smart Jaylen Jayson Theis and RW, come on Brad give it a shot....