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Celtics Wrap: Jayson Tatum’s 29 Points Not Enough To Defeat Jazz
Utah defeated Boston 117-109


NESN by Alexandra Francisco


The Boston Celtics teased a fourth-quarter lead, coming within a single point late in the game against Utah on Tuesday.

But the Jazz ultimately took home the 117-109 lead.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of Jayson Tatum. The Celtics seemed to stop and end with him, as he took over in the second half to keep Boston in the game. He finished with a game-high 29 points with six rebounds and three assists.

Jaylen Brown followed that up with 28 points and seven assists, Kemba Walker had 16 points and 5 assists. Daniel Theis played great with 15 points, but aside from Robert Williams, the bench left a lot to be desired in terms of offensive production.

For Utah, Donovan Mitchell was clutch, leading the way with 21 points and five rebounds. Jordan Clarkson (20 points), Mike Conley (17 points) and Rudy Gobert (16 points) contributed to a balanced offense.


Boston falls to 20-19 with the loss, and will try again Wednesday.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE
PG Kemba Walker
SG Jaylen Brown
SF Jayson Tatum
PF Semi Ojeleye
C Daniel Theis

STRONG START
The Celtics came out with great energy on both sides of the ball, playing some of their most engaged defense of the season at stretches in the opening quarter. Utah had six turnovers, four of which were Boston steals.

There also was a lot to like about how the Celtics were playing off one another on offense.

Brown did most of the heavy lifting in the first, though. He had 10 points in the first quarter.

Boston got out to an 11-point lead at one point, but the advantage disintegrated to just two by the end of the quarter, where it led 22-20.

THIS ONE WILL BE EARNED
Things flattened out for Boston in the first quarter, but Utah managed to stay neck-and-neck as neither team could create separation.

The offense got a bit more balanced, though, as Tatum and Theis both hit double-digit scoring by the end of the half.

But the second quarter was made most memorable by Theis.

And Robert Williams, with six points by the break, took advantage of the extra time he was getting with Tristan Thompson out of the rotation.

But Utah’s bench, primarily Georges Niang and Joe Ingles, led the Jazz en route to a 54-53 lead at halftime. And that’s not to mention Donovan Mitchell’s nine points and three assists.

DON’T PANIC
The Celtics took their lead back with the first shoot of the second half, but that was the last time they saw it for a while.

But with about eight minutes left, Royce O’Neal got his fourth personal foul, allowing Tatum to go off.

He had 12 points in the third going 3-for-3 from beyond the arc, including the 500th 3-pointer of his career.


Smart hit a 27-foot triple to give Boston the 79-77 lead they entered the final quarter with.

SO CLOSE, SO FAR
Utah, by way of Rudy Gobert, tied the game back up with the first basket of the fourth, and got out to a nine-point lead, their largest of the game.

Jaylen Brown made a 28-foot 3-pointer with just over eight minutes that seemed to keep the Celtics in the game, and allowed them to chip away at the Jazz’s lead.

A jumper from Walker made it a three-point game, and Tatum brought Boston within one with 4:09 on the clock to instigate a Jazz timeout.


That was the closest they got, though, staying within a few possessions but not being able to close it out thanks to a string of 3-pointers from Mitchell, Conley and the ensuing free throw fest that followed.

UP NEXT
It’s a quick turnaround, with the Celtics getting back to work Wednesday night against the Cavaliers. Tip-off from Quicken Loans Arena is 8 p.m. ET.

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Well the Celtics at times showed some great ball movement and Williams III is just a great players and gets better every passing game.

The Jazz are the best team in the league right now, they have the horses, they have solid coaching and two big men to guard the paint.  What more can I say.

If the Celtics could get a great tall center who can protect the rim and has an outside shoot, pairing that player with Williams III could be a nightmare for teams. that would be a good place for Danny to start his semi rebuild.

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If the Celtics could get a great tall center who can protect the rim and has an outside shoot, pairing that player with Williams III could be a nightmare for teams. that would be a good place for Danny to start his semi rebuild.


so would every other NBA team...LOL.

I think i was saying at least one time a year when Hayward was here to trade him for Gobert.

But I was told that was silly.

I sure would rather have Gobert right now than that TPE...hey maybe Ainge can trade the TPE for Gobert and fix the problem!!

We have a few really good players, a very weak bench, an unimaginative coach, and a GM who has not stocked our shelves with talent. Result? Look at the standings: We are in sixth place, just 1/2 a game above the Hawks and a game ahead of the 8th place Knicks, Tom Thibodeau's well coached talent poor team. Season grade for Celts: D-

You will get no argument from me dboss, and yes, let's play Romeo and Aaron so they can develop. Any prayer of reaching or winning the NBA Finals this year is ludicrous, and those two #14 picks need floor time to develop. Either we keep them as valuable assets or we improve their trade value. Sitting them for the next 30 games makes little sense. I do think both will turn into good NBA players, better than Teague, Tacko, Tremont, Javonte, and Semi. Give them a chance to learn from their mistakes. Brad could even use them as an excuse to keep his job.

Our bench back court stunk.  Smart with the worst game I've seen from him in a while, on both ends.  A 2-10 clunker and he really didn't defend well either.  I realize how unusual this is for him, I'm not saying we should trade him (he's on my "over my dead body" list), but he didn't help last night.  Teague and Pritchard were a combined 0-1 last night.  PP took zero fgas in 12 minutes.  He looked like a rookie last night, which is what he is but is not how he's been playing through the season-to-date.  A combined 2-11 and 5 points from 3 players playing a combined 47 minutes.

Theis deserves to be singled out as a player who stepped up.  A great game by the, in my opinion, underappreciated starting center of the Celtics.  15 points on 7-10, 11 rebounds, 3 offensive but those weren't even the most impressive parts of his game.  To me those were his 6 assists and zero turnovers and how completely disruptive he was to the Jazz defense.  Gobert did not want to go out to him.  That's how you beat a team with a stand out defender like Gobert (or Whiteside, or Bam), you hit your jumpshots and force him to come out and Theis did that.  Jaylen led the Celtics with 7 assists, so Theis was just behind him, but Jaylen had 3 turnovers too.  Theis had zero.  A very, very efficient night for our German.

Just to give you an idea of just how underappreciated Theis is the youtuber who does most of the great video highlights of Celtic players' games that I post, Tomasz Kordylewski, didn't create a highlight film for Theis from last night's game even though it might be the best all-round game of Theis' Celtic career.

RWill was, again, great.  A slow start but then he got his rhythm.  14 and 9 in 22 minutes.  You can see he is getting more comfortable with a very easy, almost no-jump jumpshot from the elbow.  If he hits that consistently and has any ball handling skills at all he's going to become unstoppable because when his defender goes out to challenge his reliable elbow jumper he can just blow past him for a rim rocking.



Final Observations:

1.  Their ball movement was reminiscent of some of Pop's great teams'.  It was beautiful.

2.  Their ball movement created open 3s and they hit them.  43 of their 80 fgas were 3s, 54%, and they shoot 44% on them.  That's hard to beat on any night, but we hung in there for most of it.

3.  The fta disparity was ridiculous.  They took 24 ftas, we took 4.  There's a net 19 more points for them and, once again to their credit, they hit 92% of their 24 ftas.

4.  3s, fritos and bench.  There isn't/wasn't much we could do about the fritos, we were attacking the rim just like they were we just weren't getting the whistles, but the shooting and the bench?  They have shooter Jordan Clarkson, who is streaky as Hell but when he is on, boy, is he ever on; and they have the very underrated Joe Ingles coming off the bench.  34 points between those two players vs 21 for our entire bench.

5.  Brad said last night that "if we don't keep doing iso we should be ok".  But that's what our offense is, Brad.  It's a dribble handoff (DHO) to one of our three ME-ballers, who go iso.  What we need, in my opinion, is a new offense.  For that to happen he needs to either grab the Js by the throat (this is appearing to be increasingly unlikely) or he needs to grab Danny by the throat and tell him he needs a strong floor general coming off the bench, a player who will demand the ball in his hands and tell the Js to run the plays he's calling instead of just deferring to them.  They are immensely talented but they are not playmakers, certainly not yet.  Smart can do that, he didn't last night but he can and has done that, Pritchard is too new to have that kind of an authority and Teague isn't it either.  The only way for us to play Celtics basketball again is to get the ball out of the hands of the Js and into the hands of players who will run plays for the Js to exploit.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401307394


Bob


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Calling for Rajon Rondo as a playmaker and assistant coach! Brad would love having him around.

Brad may have nightmares about Danny resigning Rajon. Brad did not get along well with Rondo. I personally think RR would be a big plus for the team.

Stuck in Basketball Purgatory. Perfect comment, dboss. We're not a team that blows big leads anymore or is blown out all the time. That's usually the bottom feeders int he league. Houston for example since we just played them.

We're clearly not in the same conversation as the Lakers, Jazz, Bucks, 76ers, or BKN. We're right where we should and deserve to be. No man's land.

It's funny because someone said before last night we had a chance to 6 wins out of 7 with a victory over the Jazz. Now we've lost 2 out of 3.

I'm thinking what happens (or doesn't happen) in the next 8 days will speak volumes about the Boston top brass. Dboss has already hinted at what to expect reading the tea leaves and between the lines. Sounds like we've tied ourselves up in a knot.

Maybe right about Brad possibly being outgrown. Jury still out.
While we all want to see him cross over into the Promised Land of great Celtic coaches, on a very public platform Steven A. has tapped the brakes recently about what exactly is Stevens bringing to the table after 8 years. Things will be a lot clearer on many things Celtic by the start of next season.

Is Rondo available for play or coaching or both? Danny's probably burned that bridge but if we were ever going to ask a player back, Rondo would be dynamite.

db .

Disclaimer: I have not watched the game yet. I doubt I will, not the whole game anyway as recently I do not enjoy watching the team play at all (have not watched Huston win either i.e.)

What comes to my attention as the potential difference maker in this game apart from the usual "talent", bench or otherwise:

JT and JB with good shooting games, with good distributing games (a bit high on TOs) so "effort" seems to be there (statistically speaking).

JT free throws 1-2
JB free throws 2-2
Rest of Celtics 0-0

Rudy Gobert 6-7
Donovan Mitchel 6-7

WTF... In a close game those stats alone tell me which team is the safe bet to have won the game.

If it was last/another year I would say JB and JT need to learn how to drive and look for contact and finish through contact and so on. I would call them lazy for playing the chuck the 3 ball or ISO mid range.

I have already written a more in depth post however this year where I blame all this on the ATTROCIOUS offensive scheme that Brad Stevens is running. Pretty much what Bob has mentioned above. I cannot remember in which thread I have posted this but it is pretty much the same with a bit more boring/and personal analysis.

I am not saying it is a terrible offense per say. I am saying it is boring, unimaginative, rigid, easy to predict, easy to defend, dead end style of offensive basketball. If your stars can carry it you might be successful, but you will never win an NBA championship this way.

So, might be a bit arrogant, but even without watching this game I would say:
The fact we have a grand total of 4 FT is not on JB and JT so much as it is on Brad Stevens and his dribble-hand off to ISO DESIGN.
So I am blaming this particular loss almost entirely on Brad for his coaching style and Danny for not doing squad the last 4 years to find better role players that can actually benefit from said boring, rigid scheme of Brad's

Just ask James Harden before this year. Still not convinced they will win it this year either.

db

Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the coach has installed an offense that involves ball movement and creates more open looks but that Smiley and the J Boys just have decide to do otherwise??

I am rewatching the Jazz game right now, 4th Q. Brad was just interviewed and said ALL the right things sbout how the Celts should execute their offense. Then it seemed they did completely ignore his instructions.

Rob is playing terrific though.

Celts lost but still played the 4th Q with a lot of heart.
I love these Celtics, win or lose.

Great passing by Tatum. Too bad Marcus could not make those baskets.