Post Game Thread - vs Wizards, Home 1/8/21

[bobheckler]

We were up as much as 28 points at one point.  That came down.  A lot of people on the Game On! thread were a bit dismayed.  Why?  The Wizards have the #1 scorer in the league in Bradley Beal and a force of nature in Russell Westbrook.  They were also all healthy.  We, on the other hand, were most definitely NOT "all healthy".  Our bigs were down to Theis and Tacko, not even smallball 5 Grant Williams was available.  No Thompson, no Time Lord, really no front court.  I thought this was going to be a loss, I just didn't see how we were going to be able to defend the rim and rebound.  This is why I don't like to make predictions.  We outrebounded them 50-38.  We had 12 offensive rebounds to 7 for them.  We tied them at 44 points in the paint.  

And what's more our team is a lot like theirs, at least for now.  We're both "2 scorer" centric teams, Beal/Westbrook and Tatum/Brown.  Those 4 players play such a large role in their respective teams' success they cannot take a night off.  This will change when Kemba comes back but for now this is what it it.  So, which dynamic duo won this round?  

Beal had 41 on 16-29, 4-9 from 3 and Westbrook had 12 on 4-16, 2-5 from 3.  53 points on 20-45 (44.4%), 6-14 from 3.  Tatum had 32 points on 14-27, 3-9 from 3 and Brown had 27 on 9-19, 3-6 from 3.  59 points on 23-46 (50%), 6-14 from 3.  Edge to the Js, but it's a bit more than that.  11 assists for the Wiz duo vs 7 for the Js, but 18 rebounds for the Js vs only 7 for the Wizzers (yes, I am fully aware of the innuendo).  12 turnovers for Beal/Westbrook vs 9 for our guys.  Either way, no matter how you cut it, it was a shootout.  These 4 guys combined for 52% of ALL fgas taken by both teams last night.  This was schoolyard basketball at its finest, but that's about it.  We had little choice, being so undermanned, but Washington?  What's their excuse?  The Washington Wizards are now 2-7 and Scott Brooks is in danger of becoming a new trending topic on Google.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
That was Jaylen Brown's first career 25 point, 10 rebound, 5 assist game.

Jaylen Brown with a career-high 13 rebounds.  Just getting better and better and better and...

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Brad Beal has scored 101 points in the last two games and his team has lost both of them.

But if the Fantastic Four were so close, and we're playing way down into our bench, how did we even go up by 28 much less win comfortably?  Remember when our bench was 29th out of 30 last year?  It appears Danny fixed that problem.  Their bench scored 30 points but our bench began with the starting 5.  Semi got the start because we're so depleted.  Think, for a moment, about this.  The guy whose play over the last 3 years made our eyes roll constantly is playing so well now he got the starting nod when needed.  Grant(ed) Williams might have gotten it if he had been available but Semi did and that's a fact.   Semi earned this.  Pritchard and Green with solid performances, although not world-shaking.  Teague with another 'meh'.  The Boston P-Party got 23 minutes vs only 15 for Teague, but we have to be cautious on drawing conclusions here.  Teague might be on a minutes restriction because it's his first game back from a sprained ankle.

A bit more on Pritchard.  Not enough to fully fuel his hype train but he did rocket down the court and got fouled by Westbrook right at the half.  Pissed Russ off like nobody's business, which of course makes me smile.  One other note, he got a deflection (I think Brown got credit for the steal) on a pass to his man.  He was doing a full frontal deny defense and got his hand on the ball and tipped it away.  That was well done.  A lot of players, especially rookies, would have just stayed behind his man and allow the pass to arrive.  Good pressure by Brown on the pass, good deny defense by Pritchard on the catch.

And, then, there's Tacko.  I don't know why he doesn't score more (just stand at the rim!) but, I'll tell you one thing, he needs to stop bringing the ball down below his shoulders.  This has long been a pet peeve of mine and he drives me crazy because he does it all the time!  Perk used to do that too, he'd get the ball and either take a dribble or crouch down before going up with the shot.  Either way he brought the ball to where any player on the court could reach it (it didn't help he had stone hands either).  Someone needs to sit Tacko down in the film room, give him a big plate of nachos (see what I did there?) and make him watch hours of Kevin McHale getting rebounds.  He NEVER brought the ball down.  He also never got stripped.  Ok, now that I've vented about this, Taco (oops) did pretty well.  Not much scoring but fairly solid on defense.  3 blocks in 19 minutes, 8 rebounds.  NO turnovers.  I thought he was a little slow on rotations, but not egregiously so.  He is a natural rim protector, in part because he can reach up flat-footed and tickle it with a knuckle.  I don't want to hit this too hard, but he was a game-changer last night.  

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Jaylen Brown: "Tacko's gotten better since the first day he got here. His body has improved. He's ready, as you saw today."



Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
yesterday
Tacko: "I can see things that maybe a year ago I couldn’t see. I can anticipate things maybe a year ago I couldn’t anticipate...I prayed, I worked hard to be here, I know I belong. It’s just a matter of going out there and doing my job on a consistent basis."

Chris Grenham @chrisgrenham
yesterday
Tacko Fall says the game has slowed down a lot for him. Credits his work with Jay Larranaga for a lot of his improvements over the last year or so.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Brad Stevens broke away from his rotation plan with his two centers because: "I thought Tacko was too good to take out on some occasions."



Now that's we've wallowed in some Tacko gluttony it wasn't all sweetness and light, of course.  We had 21 turnovers; 4 by Tatum, 3 by Smart, 5 by Brown and 3 by Pritchard.  There's 15 right there and that's already too many.  Our saving grace wasn't even ours, it's that the Washington Wizards had 17 turnovers themselves with 7 of them coming from Westbrook (8 assists, 7 turnovers.  He basically washed his own effort out).  Smart played one of the dumbest games I've seen from him in a while.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401267284




Bob


.

[dbrown4]

bobh,

All great points.  I, like you, had this one easily down as a loss as I saw it was a no gainer coupled with PHI's loss the night before.  But this team is showing us some things especially in the "next man up" philosophy realm.

When WAS came storming back, it looked like everyone on the Celtics were having middle school basketball flashbacks.  Just really crappy play, decision making and shot selection.  Hell just flat out throwing it out of bounds to no one or to a standing along WAS player.  WAS wasn't doing anything special enough on defense to warrant that type of behavior.  But, this was half our team and a good chunk of our regular scoring power missing.

One thing this residual team did that the regular team did was blow another big lead.  Now while this is a concern if you are eventually losing the game AND blowing the big lead, blowing it, recovering and winning out has been the trend.  However, you can only play with fire so much before getting burned.  Again, I'm withholding judgment on the lead blowing until it starts to have the negative effect.  Maybe everyone will be back by then.

Yeah, I like it for some reason when Russell Westbrook gets pissed off, especially by a (our) rookie.  As long as he doesn't go nuts on the court as a result and torch us.  I don't think WAS is going to be the place where he can do that anymore and shine.  I see him riding off into the sunset (or "Bolivia" as Mike Tyson said once after losing a fight) more than anything else.

We don't mention it enough because it's an intangible, but the no panicking Brad Stevens definitely gets filtered down to the players.  Brad almost pulled off a Phil Jackson, letting/hoping the players would figure out why the lead evaporated on the court but couldn't stand it anymore and called a TO when the lead got down to 4 points.  They righted the ship, came out and finished the game.  I think I had a few choice 4-letter words for Brad and his coaching ability but later regretted saying them.  

Once things return to "normal", i.e. KW back, getting the 2 Big's reduced to 1 Big at a time, establishing the PP, JeT, RWill/DT/TT second tier bench and whoever fills out that 5th spot, we should really see some great basketball.  

If you look at the standings, which we really shouldn't, and barring a loss by us tomorrow by a revenge seeking MIA team and depleted PHI probably losing to DEN (given the game will even be played) and an IND loss to PHX...(I know, this is a lousy Trifecta!) we will be in 1st Place!!  I know.  Ain't going to happen.  We will lose tomorrow night and shoot ourselves in the foot first.

I think if PP continues hanging around MS and keeps watching and adopting every part of his game except the inappropriate heaving of 3's, that's way too much defense for the competition to handle.  PP is definitely becoming MS, Jr very quickly.  He's a handful for opponents already.    

I look for the bench to score/average 30 points a night.  I won't count last night as that was all we had but still a good performance.  Danny can check that off his to-do list.  Elton John (actually Bernie Taupin) said it best, "The bench is back! Whoa, oh oh!!"

db

[bobheckler]

A reality check for the 'gloom and doomers', Brad doubters and Danny haters.


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 2 hours ago
After their fourth straight win, the #Celtics (7-3) suddenly find themselves just a half-game away from the best record in the NBA:


Bob


.

[sinus007]

Hi,
I'm happy for Tacko. It was career night for him - 19+ minutes.
And we won (!)

AK

[cowens/oldschool]

Great post bob, happy Tacko got a chance to get some minutes and showed he can contribute. What a bonus it would be if we can have 2 young contributors at the 5, the other ofcourse being RWill. Love the direction this team could be heading long term with such a young core. Now we have to worry about this covid thing and make sure it does not impact our players/franchise long term.

[worcester]

Great post bob, happy Tacko got a chance to get some minutes and showed he can contribute. What a bonus it would be if we can have 2 young contributors at the 5, the other ofcourse being RWill. Love the direction this team could be heading long term with such a young core. Now we have to worry about this covid thing and make sure it does not impact our players/franchise long term.

+1 Cow.

Bob, thanks for another stellar post.

I thought we were blessed by the adversity of not having our usual core of bigs available. We were forced to play only one big at a time, and the team decided to pick up the pace as only young racehorses can. We ran, ran, and ran to success, and this team is designed by Danny to be a running team. The only thing which gets in the way of our being a Pat Riley Showtime Lakers type team is when Brad has Theis and Tristan on the floor together...ALSO we need to run consistently to be in shape for that type of pace. I think by the fourth quarter our guys were a bit gassed. Highlights for me were the superb performances of Jaylen and Jayson (to be expected now), marveling at Beal's awesome talent, Tacko's many contributions (he will be a serious asset for the Celts in years to come, and he appreciates our loyalty to him), Payton's overall play, Theis' improved passing, and Marcus' restraint when it comes to not taking so many - too many - shots.

I hope when Kemba returns that Danny has him come off the bench. That will restrict his minutes and boost our scoring where and when we need it.

Does anyone else see a lot of emerging talent on this team?

[dboss]

Tacko can help us on defense when we play zone.

I watch our lead dwindle like my checking account where everything is going out and nothing is coming in lol

I'll take the win (6 out of 7) keeping the Celtics in the top half of the conference.

Our dynamic duo of Jayson and Jaylen are right in the mix for being the best pairing in the NBA. The competition is fierce

Damien Lillard/CJ McCollum

Lebron James/Anthony Davis

kevin Durant/ Kyrie Irving

Paul George/Kawhi Leonard

Bradley Beal/Russell Westbrook

[Shamrock1000]

Tacko can help us on defense when we play zone.  

I watch our lead dwindle like my checking account where everything is going out and nothing is coming in lol

I'll  take the win (6 out of 7) keeping the Celtics in the top half of the conference.

Our dynamic duo of Jayson and Jaylen are right in the mix for being the best pairing in the NBA.  The competition is fierce

Damien Lillard/CJ McCollum

Lebron James/Anthony Davis

kevin Durant/ Kyrie Irving

Paul George/Kawhi Leonard

Bradley Beal/Russell Westbrook

Our dynamic duo definitely has the longest window!

[bobheckler]

One thing I forgot to mention is that, despite being very undermanned, #14 Aaron Nesmith never took off his warmups.

What do you all make of that?  He's a lottery pick and can't move ahead of Javonte Green.  I like Javonte, this isn't about him, but aren't you curious why Nesmith is so far down the depth chart?  Edwards has played more than him.


Bob


.

[worcester]

Brad wants Aaron to be fresh for the playoffs.

[cowens/oldschool]

Tacko can help us on defense when we play zone.  

I watch our lead dwindle like my checking account where everything is going out and nothing is coming in lol

I'll  take the win (6 out of 7) keeping the Celtics in the top half of the conference.

Our dynamic duo of Jayson and Jaylen are right in the mix for being the best pairing in the NBA.  The competition is fierce

Damien Lillard/CJ McCollum

Lebron James/Anthony Davis

kevin Durant/ Kyrie Irving

Paul George/Kawhi Leonard

Bradley Beal/Russell Westbrook

I would add Zion and Brandon Ingram and Luka and Porzingus to the list, but agreed I like ours best and our young guys might already be as good or better right now than Kawhi and PG who have durability and consistency issues. What a blessing to have 2 2-way young superstars in the making studs!! They are going to keep getting better and better and more efficient, they are learning how to close right before our eyes.

[worcester]

Yes, and young as they are, they have so much playoff exoerience.

[Ktron]

A reality check for the 'gloom and doomers', Brad doubters and Danny haters.


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 2 hours ago
After their fourth straight win, the #Celtics (7-3) suddenly find themselves just a half-game away from the best record in the NBA:


Bob


.

That’s nice but lets keep it in perspective.

[Ktron]

One thing I forgot to mention is that, despite being very undermanned, #14 Aaron Nesmith never took off his warmups.

What do you all make of that?  He's a lottery pick and can't move ahead of Javonte Green.  I like Javonte, this isn't about him, but aren't you curious why Nesmith is so far down the depth chart?  Edwards has played more than him.


Bob


.

Very strange indeed. I still believe he’ll end up being involved in a trade but I don’t see where not playing at all helps either way. Weird.

[Ktron]

Tacko can help us on defense when we play zone.  

I watch our lead dwindle like my checking account where everything is going out and nothing is coming in lol

I'll  take the win (6 out of 7) keeping the Celtics in the top half of the conference.

Our dynamic duo of Jayson and Jaylen are right in the mix for being the best pairing in the NBA.  The competition is fierce

Damien Lillard/CJ McCollum

Lebron James/Anthony Davis

kevin Durant/ Kyrie Irving

Paul George/Kawhi Leonard

Bradley Beal/Russell Westbrook

I would add Zion and Brandon Ingram and Luka and Porzingus to the list, but agreed I like ours best and our young guys might already be as good or better right now than Kawhi and PG who have durability and consistency issues. What a blessing to have 2 2-way young superstars in the making studs!! They are going to keep getting better and better and more efficient, they are learning how to close right before our eyes.

What no Harden/Wood? LOL

[Sponsored content]