Post Game Thread - vs Wizards, Home 11/13/19

[bobheckler]

Remember, just a few days ago, when Hayward broke his finger and "experts" were wondering where and how his points, rebounds and assists would be replaced? The Doom-and-Gloomers got dressed up in their finery and paraded in front of the camera, weeping their "more in sorrow than in anger" crocodile tears for the Boston Celtics. Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "the predictions of our death are premature". Put another way, F-them. The last time the Boston Celtics scored more than 140 points was in 1992, Larry Legend's last playing year.

Ok, so our defense sucked last night, but Bradley Beal is no slouch neither. That Rui Hachamura's going to be a stud too.

At the heart of our shitty defense was our shitty defensive anchor, Enes Kanter. I cannot remember ever seeing a center who is as poor a defender as him and, yes, I'm including Cowens' favorite punching bag Mr. Kelly Olynyk. Kelly wasn't tough, he wasn't swift, couldn't jump worth a shit and has alligator arms but he grasped the concept of "sealing the baseline". He tried, not always successfully, to cut off penetration from dribblers who were driving along the baseline. Kanter doesn't even try. Does. Not. Even. Try. He's a rebounder, offensively and defensively, and he can score inside but he only plays one side of the ball. It's not unusual for players who are especially gifted in offense to expend most of their energy on that end of the floor, Ray Allen in his career prior to coming to the Celtics comes to mind, and Tony Allen was the flip side on defense, but both of them at least showed up and pretended to put the effort into their foibles. Not so with Kanter. I love offensive rebounding. I absolutely adore it. Even contesting for offensive boards thrills me because it disrupts the other team's transition to offense, which gives us an extra second or two to get back and match up and get into our defensive set up. I give Kanter full credit for that, of his 9 boards last night 4 of them were offensive and I know there were others they fought for and didn't get, but by contesting them he forced Washington to not just take off down court because they hadn't secured the ball. But that's it. He played 25 minutes because Theis and Williams were out. Thank you, Enes, now have a seat.

Our other true big, Vincent Poirier, only played 9 minutes. There was some mixed opinions on the Game On! thread last night about him. Personally, I was ok with what I saw. He struggled to score around the rim a bit. I think he's still new to the speed and size of the NBA game and how quickly he can get swallowed by 3 defenders. Still, he was 1-1, so he wasn't awful, just not very productive. He had 3 assists and only 1 turnover. That's the same number of turnovers and one more assist, in 9 minutes, than Kanter had in 25 minutes. His 4 rebounds in 9 minutes is really good too, although it's hard to extrapolate that out accurately given the gap between 9 and 25, as well as the small number of minutes Poirier has played this year. Certainly not bad though, small sample size notwithstanding. The thing I probably like about Poirier, and yes I am still on his bandwagon, is that he is quite active and sets nice, big, wide, solid screens for ball handlers. LOTS of them. I'm sure Brad has advanced metrics that show how many screens players set and how effective they are, but my eyeballs saw Poirier run out to the arc to set them and then dive to the rim on the switch, then run out to the arc again for the pick and then dive to the rim on the switch. That's his game, and that's a game I like.

Which brings us to our other "center", Grant Williams. I honestly do not understand Brad's fascination with small ball centers. GWill is just not big enough. He isn't. I like the kid, he works hard, his BBIQ is outstanding, but he's not being put in a good position to succeed. In order for small ball 5s to work they have to be able to spread the floor on offense, drag the other team's bigs out away from where they can own the paint as the biggest players on the floor. GWill has not done that. His offensive struggles are extremely well documented at this point. He is 0-14 from 3. He is shooting 25% from 10'-16', so he's not even hitting mid-range shots. His only points last night came from running the floor and getting fouled. THAT is what he should be doing ALL the time when he's playing 5. Run their legs off, Grant, make their bigs keep up with you or force their guards to try and stop you at the rim with you going north-south. I know the league is going smaller, and small ball 5s are part of that. I don't have to like it, but I know it is what it is, but if you're going to play that game then you have to make it work and GWill isn't making it work. I don't blame him, he's a rookie being sent out with a job he's told to do, I blame Brad Stevens. Change it, Brad, every time you've tried this the results have been negative.

Brad Wanamaker with 4 turnovers, 3 of which were just absolutely butt-ugly. He's proven to be a solid and dependable, albeit not flashy, player who doesn't beat himself. Last night those turnovers were very, very bad. Oh well, everybody has bad nights, I'm not throwing him on the garbage heap, but I can't say good things about those turnovers. On the good side, he had 10 points on 2-3 and 6-6 from the line. Wanamaker is deceptively strong and finishes well through contact.

Tatum with a bounce back game. 9-16, although 1-5 from 3, for 23 points. That's 8-11 from 2. I'm very good with this. His 3pt shooting has been his forte this year, it was his 2pt game that has been awful, so this is a most welcome development.

Kemba getting his 25 in his now, expected, understated way. 8-17, 6-12 from 3. He is the anti-Kyrie. You couldn't take your eyes off Kyrie because he always had the ball in his hands and was doing something, often spectacularly, with it. Kemba moves without the ball, pops up out on top off a pick and hits the 3. He is now shooting 44.4% from 3 on the season. His eFG% is 54.4%, the highest of his career. Once again, Brad is a miracle-worker with point guards. He is also rebounding at the highest rate of his career, despite playing the fewest mpg of his career after his rookie year. His 5.9 ftas/game is the most of his career, despite playing more mpg in every other year except his rookie one.

Dead-eye Marcus Smart. Too funny.

Jaylen started off 0-5, ending the 1st quarter like that in 10 minutes of play. Sat down for while to watch the game and then went back in and did a little better, but not much. He was 1-6 at the half but, after 3, was 7-14 for 16 points. He played the entire 3rd quarter. That shows big time confidence in him by Brad, and it paid off with a 6-8 quarter. He played half the 4th and added 6 more points. 4 assists for a player whose assists/game are way up this year. A stat I watch with Jaylen Brown in particular is his frito shooting, both ft% and ftas. He was 4-4 last night and is now shooting 80% on the season. His ftas/game are almost double last year. That fills me with joy because it is his path to the All-Star game. Whatever happened in this offseason, it finally clicked. He's being aggressive all the time, not just occasionally, and it's paying off. In Jaylen's last 3 games he has scored 77 points (25.7ppg) on 52.8% shooting, 23 rebounds (7.7/game), 10 assists (3.3/game) and just 3 turnovers. (1/game). This is really impressive stuff.

Carsen Edwards is breathing much more easily today. After 3 he had played 13 minutes and had 8 points on 3-5. Not bad, especially considering his shots haven't been dropping like they were in pre-season. Then, in the 4th quarter, he played 7 minutes and went off for 10 points on 4-7. He played pretty good defense on Ish Smith, who always seems to have good games against us, dating back to when he was with Detroit. Last night Smith had 4 points on 2-5 in 18 generally underwhelming minutes. Edwards completely out played him. I was afraid I was going to have to get all biblical and talk about the negative effect cutting his hair off had. I'm glad I don't have to do that now. We need a Shane Larkin type of pain-in-the-ass defender against other teams' waterbugs and Edwards is him this year. Just to show how careful you have to be making firm statements about players, especially bench players, this early in the season; Carsen Edwards, who couldn't throw the ball in the ocean until now, is now up to 36% on 3pt fg%. He shot so infrequently all it took was one big night to bring his average up to something that is at, or above, league average.

Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 7 hours ago
If you were wondering, as I was, the last time the Celtics gave up 133 in regulation and won? December 5, 1990. 148-140 vs. the Paul Westhead Nuggets at Boston Garden. Bird 43 Parish/Lewis 25 Michael Adams 31/17 assists Denver took 127 shots Kemba Walker was six months old.

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Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
The #Celtics now have the No. 1 offense in the NBA after tonight's win, scoring 113.8 points per 100 possessions.

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MY NOTE: We don't have the #1 offense, so what this tells me is that we need more possessions since, when we have them, we're #1.

A tough 5-game west coast road trip now on tap. GSW tomorrow won't be hard, the Kings should be doable too, but the Suns are now a good team, the Clippers will be tough (especially with PG expected back on Monday) and the Nuggets will be very tough. Not only are they a good team but they are game 5 of a 5-game road trip and they are a mile high. Someone I know who gambles told me that, if you want to win money, bet against EC teams that play in Denver as the last stop of their road trip, because Denver wins a very high percentage of those games. Good teams are .500 on the road. We need to be that starting Friday. Wins vs GSW and Sacto and win at least one of the remaining 3 and we're good. Sure, it'd be great to win all 5 but these trips are tough.

And, just for the cherry on top, Philly lost their 4th game last night in Orlando.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401160798





bob



.

[dboss]

The Boston Celtics improved their record to 9-1 while winning their 9 straight game 140-133 over the hapless Washington Wizards.  If you like high scoring games this game was for you as Boston scored the most points they have since January 31,  1991 when they beat Orlando 144-102.

Carsen Edwards had a break out game scoring 18 points with 4 rebounds and 3 assists.  He also shot 7-12 while nailing 4-5 from deep.  Screens help.  Once his confidence got going so did he.

Tatum bounced back from his 1-18 showing the other night to score 23  and Kember notched another 25 point effort while grabbing 5 rebounds and dishing out 5 assists.  He also went 6-12 from deep.

At halftime Jaylen Brown was 1-6 and I was thinking, okay, he is due for an off game but the kid came out in the third quarter and lit it up.  He finished with 22 points 5 rebounds and 4 assists.  He has broken through the 20 PPG mark for the season.

Marcus Smart continue s to show that his improved 3 point shooting that started last year was no fluke.  H e scored 17 and shot 4-8 from deep, added 5 assists and 4 rebounds and 2 blocks.

Grant Williams is the classic example of trying to fit a square peg in a round whole.  He does not help this team playing the 5.  Brad please WTF up.  Send him to jump shooting school.

Kanter 25 minutes and scored 13 points and had 9 rebounds including 4 off of the offensive glass.  VP got a 9 minutes and scored 3 points and had 4 rebounds and 3 assists.  Wannamaker scored 10 with 5 rebounds but the steady eddy label did not apply as he had 4 turnovers including 2 brain fart ones.

Kanter is exactly as advertised.  He can score in the post and rebound the basketball.  Defensively he is slower than an abandoned car on 128.  My word, is it possible that his defense is even worse than advertised?  He cannot stay in front of anyone.  It is as if his defensive trigger is in another time zone.  No help defense at all.  Horrible. 

Vincent Poirier did not look much better.  His reaction time is too slow.  He has slow lateral quickness.  He does not look like a guy who can play anywhere above the rim.  We saw all those highlights from him in Europe but virtually none showing his defense.  Now I know why.  I saw an article that questioned his P and Roll defense and now I know why. 

What I see is a 4 headed center with 2 heads that need to be decapitated. Both Theis and up and comer Robert Williams are clearly superior defenders to the other two jokers.

Kanter and Poirier undermine the very concept of team defense. 

[dboss]

Correction:  The 150 points scored is the most recent previous high mark for Boston

1992-93 (RS) / Nov 25, 1992 / at Boston

150

-

112  

Boston Celtics

Washington Bullets

[dbrown4]

Most amazing stat of the night, given the 140 which makes it easier, but 7 players not named Hayward in double figures?!!  WTH, Bo?  

Yeah, it was my hope that we would even slightly show up on defense and blow them out by 40 or shut down Beal.  Uh, THAT didn't happen.  Still, we had the upper hand getting the lead moved higher several times.  

I'll take it.  2-0 sans Gordon.  Big early test of the season is now upon us.  I don't know.  I was about to push the "This team is ridiculous and we're heading to the Finals" button on my desk just before the GH injury game and I retracted.  This road trip may very well tell us all we need to know.

Let's review the odds....OK, my odds!  

Going 0-5?  Not going to happen.  <1%
1-4?   <1%
2-3?   20%
3-2?   40%
4-1?   20%
5-0?   18% but could go up with late betting.  This team loves the challenge.  I'm pretty sure they are thinking and planning on 5-0 and will do everything in their power to make it happen.

WAS defense was just a little worse than ours.  That's all.  Game of inches.

db

[NYCelt]

What I see is a 4 headed center with 2 heads that need to be decapitated.

First, I'm awarding Quote of the Day.

Second, I'm agreeing, with a slight modification. I'd let Kanter keep his dome, at least until Hayward returns. I like the added scoring and the boards don't hurt. If you want to lop his melon off after that, have at it.

[dboss]

What I see is a 4 headed center with 2 heads that need to be decapitated.

First, I'm awarding Quote of the Day.

Second, I'm agreeing, with a slight modification. I'd let Kanter keep his dome, at least until Hayward returns. I like the added scoring and the boards don't hurt. If you want to lop his melon off after that, have at it.

NYCelt

On a more serious note, rebounding on the defensive glass is a defensive statistic.  Kanter is not a bum.  He just cannot execute the most rudimentary defensive plays other than rebounding.

Anyways, the Celtics hit the road with a game at GS and then 4 more road games.  There will be some challenges to winning especially against the Clippers and Denver.  The Kings and the Suns think they are world beaters.  This is a tough stretch of games for Boston.  Get through that quagmire and serious talk about contending this year will come into play.

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