Post Game Thread - vs Heat, Home 12/4/19

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Post by bobheckler Thu Dec 05, 2019 10:38 am

No Dragan and they were on the 2nd game of a b2b and the previous night's game in Toronto went to OT.  On the other hand, no Smart and no Hayward.  Hard to say how much weight should be put on this victory, even though it was by a convincing 19 points.  But let's give Miami and Spoelstra their due, they are giant-killers.  Milwaukee and Toronto are both 9-1 at home and Miami is the team that gave both of them that one home loss.  That makes them very dangerous since they have no fear.  They are who we were a few years back, with IT and Crowder, and we made that deep run into the playoffs.

Other than there was no Heat player in double-digits until garbage time.  That means we did a good job defending a wide-range of Heat players.

Except for Jimmy Butler.  He went nuts.  He was hitting everything and Brad was throwing all kinds of defenses at him.  In one possession Javonte Green was guarding him out at the perimeter, above the break, and Jimmy threw in a buzzer-beating 3.  I mean Green was right there, right there on body and on his shooting hand, and it didn't matter.  It was one of those nights for Butler.

Jimmy and Jaylen work out together in the summertime.  I don't know if they do it now, Jaylen travels a lot in the off-season, but definitely in the first 2 years they worked out together at Jimmy's home in Malibu.  Jimmy wanted to make a point last night, and he did, and so did Jaylen, and he did too.  The student wanted to show the master he wasn't that far behind.  While 30 year old Butler got 37 points on 12-18 and 6-10 from 3 his student, 23 year old Brown got 31 points on 10-20 and 5-9 from 3.  It really is amazing, and impressive, at the offensive growth we're seeing from Jaylen this year.  He has not just added an additional shot, or two, he has taken an entire quantum leap up.  No way, prior to this year, would he ever have scored 31.  Too unsure with his shot, too deferential to other players, too raw.  Not anymore.  His average is now up to 19.9 ppg.  That's right on the lip of All-Star and, given all the other things he does well (defense, rebounding) might even be enough.  Remember when some people were saying he was a reach at #3, that he was more of a #7 or #8 pick and that Danny had overreached?  

Kemba has been in a shooting slump lately, so it was nice to see him have a big game.  I don't care if he has poor games against the Knick or the Nets or the Hornets but I do want to see him perform well under the pressure of playing likely playoff foes.  7 assists and only 1 TO in addition to his 28 points.  Butler was 6-10 from 3.  Kemba offset that with his 6-11 from 3.

Tatum was 6-20, not very efficient, but what concerned me is that he showed zero shot discipline and he was getting doubled and wasn't passing out quickly.  He keeps trying to dribble through double-teams.  Out of his 20 fgas 12 of them were 3s.  That many 3s out of that many fgas is ridiculous, just on the face of it, but when you add into the equation that he was only 2-12 from 3 it gets really bad.  He had 3 blocks, guarded Butler for a lot of the game (or, at least, tried to, just like everybody else) but his shooting disturbed me.  2-12 from 3 out of a total of 20 fgas?!  Awful.  His average is 40.5% from the field this year and 34.8% from 3.  Neither of those numbers are good, he's just taking a lot of fgas (18.7pg), the most for the team.  Oh well, move on.  We won and tomorrow's another game.

Grant Williams got the start in place of the sick Marcus Smart.  He made a few good plays, some bad ones.  Not one that showed me he should play more minutes.  

Semi, who is our other undersized 4, had a very good game.  What was weird is that he was a Coaches - DNP for the 1st and 3rd quarters and played all 12 minutes of the 2nd and 4th quarters for his total 24 minutes.  I've never seen a substitution pattern like that before.  He had 7 rebounds, paid his dues guarding Jimmy for a bit as Brad was throwing darts at him, and got some Tommy Points for floor burns.  He brought energy and defense to the table.  We were down 11 to Miami and then we started playing defense and a lot of that was generated by Semi moving his feet.  I'm pretty impatient with him and GWill, I guess, so I'm very happy to see a good game from either of them and that's what I saw from Semi last night.  After quarter 1, which Semi was a DNP, Miami shot 52%.  At the half, which Semi played all 12 minutes of, the Heat were at 44%, shooting 7-19 (36.8%) that quarter.  After 3 the Heat were still at 44% but only shot 8-17 that quarter.  A good shooting %, but not many fgas.  And in the 4th quarter, which Semi played the entire 12 minutes of, the Heat were 7-17 (41.1%).  If it looked like they were struggling to get shots off it's because they were and we did a good job of defended the few shots they took.  Our two best defending quarters were the 2nd and the 4th and Semi was right there for all 24 minutes of them.

We haven't seen The Time Lord in a while.  He's been playing but hasn't been notable.  Last night he had 10 rebounds in 19 minutes, 4 of them offensive.  That's impactful.

The understated Mr. Theis had 9 boards, 8 points and 3 blocks.  One of those were on Meyers Leonard at the rim.  To be honest I have no idea what Leonard brings to the table, he's 27 years old and doesn't rebound well, doesn't score well, doesn't shoot fritos well.  And who names their kid after a lemon?   I suppose it's better than 'Key', or 'Delicious' and it's definitely better than 'Granny'.  'Bartlett' might work.  

They had 18 turnovers, we had 9.  Excellent.  That's where we were starting the season, creating a lot of turnovers but leading the league in fewest turnovers given.

Expect to read a lot of bitching about fritos in the Comments From The Other Side thread today.  We had 32 ftas and they only had 17.  I think some of that is that they had players like Kelly O and Justice Winslow taking 3s when both of those players could post up smaller players (e.g. GWill for Kelly) or drive on smaller players (e.g. Winslow on Edwards, who got switched off on him a couple of times).  You don't get awarded fritos from taking wide-open 3s, whether you make them or not (unless you're Kelly O getting fouled on a corner 3 by GWill in an incredibly brain-dead foul).  Besides, Miami only hit 65% of their fritos, so even if they were given 15 more they still wouldn't have won.

78 and 80 fgas.  A very slow-paced game for a couple of fast-paced teams.  I think they really missed Goran Dragan.  He is very, very difficult to control in the full court.

Next up is a revenge game against Denver.  We almost got blown out in Denver due to our now usual cold start, but rallied back to lose by only a bucket.  While I hate losing as much as anybody I thought it was impressive how we came back in Mile High when it was the 5th game in 8 days of our longest road trip of the year.  Let's hope Smart is back.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401160952






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Post by dboss Thu Dec 05, 2019 12:17 pm

With no Marcus Smart and no Gordon Hayward, this was a quality win.  The Celtics have beaten the Bucks, Raptors and the Heat.  The game 1 Philly loss was an outlier.  I expect them to match up with the Pacers and any other team in the East.  There are 6 teams in the East that are very good defensive team.  A healthy GH changes the dynamics for us on offense.  

In the meantime, Brad will find a way to keep this team in the mix.

Semi is making a case for getting equal or more playing time over GW.  

Great energy from RW last night and of course Daniel Theis.

The Celtics will be impossible to cover when Gordon returns.
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Post by dbrown4 Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:06 pm

I'm going to agree with dboss. Dragan vs. Hayward is a wash at best and I would have to say we get the nod/push if they were both back if you want to go stat for stat. So quality win with what both teams had on the floor. Oh and crap, I forgot about Marcus Smart and his would be add on. Yeah. Quality heads up win across the board.

It sure seemed like RWill had a ton more than 10 rebounds. He also tapped a few away ala Russell to open teammates for their rebound(s).

Good group effort by the bench. Everyone contributed. No one stood out via points on the board but it was a good team effort by all.

Kemba is just ridiculous...in a very good way. He is even more effective when GH is back. What a blessing.

Aggressive in getting all those fouls from MIA. And then adding insult to injury with 81% from the line. Nice.

Rooting for Edwards after he hit that sweet, no net three and then on their next possession he got an open set up pass I think from either Jaylen or Jayson who knew that he was probably going to go off for about 8 in a row if he hit that next one. But he bricked it and didn't see the ball again. Still hoping he gets consistent because he can be a great wild card that no team in the league has a game plan for. Just like GH.

All in all, not what I was expecting. Was expecting our first home loss. But very pleased. Now I'm thinking we can crush DEN's soul tomorrow. MIA can't complain or make excuses. They were soundly beaten whether short players or B2B or whatever. LAL won their B2B and I was expecting them to be 0-fer December against tough competition.

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Post by cowens/oldschool Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:24 pm

Considering the injuries we have sustained, and the teams we have already beat and our present record, we have already exceeded my expectations at this point in the season. We really don’t need Romeo this year for the varsity, I just want him to get healthy and start developing. This team with GH and Smart coming back soon is really going to be a force to reckon with, if GWill and CE can just start getting their shots to fall....

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Post by dbrown4 Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:44 pm

cowens/oldschool,

I think we really only need one more consistent 10-point member off the bench to get this bench up in the charts.

#1. Wanamaker
#2. Kanter + 10 rebounds
#3. ??

It would be nice to have a Lou Williams coming off the bench but we ain't got that right now as it stands. We do have GH and MS coming back soon so one of them will be the third 10-point+ scorer. The other two bench players to round out that 5 can be the revolving door depending upon who we are playing.

Yeah, this MIA game may have swayed me just a smidge more to your language and description once the Death Star is fully operational again. We did get a brief taste very early in the season and it was VERY sweet before the wheels came off.

I'll have a better feel after tomorrow if we win and by how much. But I'm with you. I am over the moon with this team. My main glimmer so far is no panic from top to bottom and the fact that we are in EVERY game at the end. So we have a chance to win and/or are in a position to win every game. The next vital step to accomplish is winning most if not all of those potentially winnable games. Up until this season, the UNC Tar Heels in college basketball have been able to accomplish these two rare feats with regularity. While I loath them, (and thoroughly enjoyed their trouncing last night in the Big10/ACC Challenge, BTW!) I respect their ability to do that year in/year out.

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Post by gyso Thu Dec 05, 2019 4:36 pm

The game was the Heat's 3rd in 4 nights, as well as the second in a away-away back to back.  That is what some call a "scheduled loss" for the Heat.

Even with us missing a couple key players we still won.  Sure, the Heat just beat the Raptors, but it took OT to do it.  Even that fact worked to our advantage for their "scheduled loss".

Our next game with the Nuggets is the same.  It will be their 3rd in 4 nights, as well as the second in a away-away back to back.  Another "scheduled loss" for our opposition.

There was a thread some time back this summer (I think, it may have been from last season) that proved out the whole "scheduled loss" thing and it was backed by stats.  Statistically speaking, we should win both games.  We got one under our belt, more than likely we'll get the other as well.

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Post by dboss Thu Dec 05, 2019 5:00 pm

Cow I think we do need Romeo.  I do not expect a major role but he is more talented than either GW and CE and he brings more versatility.

He was a lottery pick although late at #14.  He has to get healthy.  Those string of minor injuries is preventing him from getting reps for the Claws.  But it is still early in the season.  Sooner or later the Celtics will make the call.  Lottery picks do not spend an entire season in the minor leagues.
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