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Celtics Wrap: Luka Doncic, Mavericks Too Much For Boston To Overcome

NESN by Sean T. McGuire

The Boston Celtics once again dug themselves into a 23-point hole, fought almost all the way back, and ultimately lost to a better Dallas Mavericks team by a 113-108 verdict.

The Celtics, who cut their deficit to two points with 16 seconds left, never led. They were tied, 2-2, two minutes into the game before trailing the Mavericks for the final 46 minutes.

Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic did Luka Doncic things, but he didn’t need a fade-away 3-pointer at the buzzer to deliver the Celtics the knockout punch like last time.

Instead, Doncic finished with a game-high 36 points on 11-for-15 from the field and 7-for-11 from long range. Kristaps Porzingis (19 points, 6-for-15) and Jalen Brunson (21 points, 8-for-10) also helped in the effort.

Jayson Tatum scored a team-high 25 points on 23 shots while Jaylen Brown scored 24 points on 17 shots. Kemba Walker also chipped in 20-plus with 22 points on 19 shots.


The Celtics drop to 23-25 while the Mavericks improved to 25-21.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE
PG: Kemba Walker
SG: Marcus Smart
SF: Jaylen Brown
PF: Jayson Tatum
C: Mo Wagner

KEEPING IT CLOSE
The Mavericks used a first-quarter run to take a double-digit lead, but the Celtics closed the frame with heightened defense and transition scoring to cut Dallas’ lead to 30-25 after the first.

Dallas went on a 9-0 run late in the quarter, taking a 11-point lead after Luka Doncic’s second 3-pointer of the game, but Boston came away with a pair of forced turnovers to close the gap in the final minute.

The Celtics’ defense, especially during the early going, still allowed the Mavericks to get off quality looks as Dallas shot 50% from the field (11-for-22) with five hits on 12 shots from long range. Doncic led all scorers with 11 points.

Brown paced Boston with nine of his own while Tatum was held to just two points after missing his first three shots. The Celtics shot 39 percent (10-for-26) but assisted on six of those 10 baskets.

And Smart was making plays on both ends.

DONCIC TAKEOVER
The Celtics trailed the Mavericks by just three points with 10 minutes remaining in the half before Doncic, along with the help of Jalen Brunson, led a Dallas charge en route to a 64-45 halftime advantage.

Doncic scored 13 of his 24 first-half points in those final 10 minutes while hitting eight of his nine shot attempts with a pair of 3-pointers. Dallas extended that three point lead to 11 midway through the second, and then extended it to as large as 22 points, 61-49, following a trio of 3-pointers by Doncic (2) and Brunson.

The Mavericks shot 52% from the field and 56% from beyond the arc in the half. Boston, meanwhile, shot a brutal 34% from the field (16-for-47) and abysmal 17% from long range (4-for-24).

Brown scored three points in the second to give him 12 while Tatum added six in the second to give him nine.

Newcomer Evan Fournier scored XX in the half, too.

CUTTING IT MINIMALLY
The Celtics made a mini run to cut their deficit to 15 points midway through the quarter, and were able to cut their halftime deficit minimally to 90-73 entering the fourth.

Boston split up their scoring production with Tatum (10 points), Brown (nine) and Walker (seven) all making a handful of contributions at the offensive end.

Boston also held Dallas to 26 points in the quarter on just 16 shots. They had given up 30 points on 22 shots and 34 points on 22 shots during the first two periods.

Doncic was held to just seven of his then 31 points in the third, too.

OF COURSE THEY MADE A RUN
Are we really surprised the Celtics made a run in the fourth quarter? It’s one of the few things they’ve done well this year, but rarely haven’t been able to finish it.

Boston cut its deficit to 12 with 9:20 left, and it was eight points, 101-93, with four minutes remaining.

Here’s how the final minutes went: Tatum recorded a steal and transition two to cut it to 101-95; the Mavericks got an offensive rebound which led to a 31-footer from Doncic; Brown cut it back to six, 104-98, with 2:30 remaining; the Celtics got a stop; Brown missed a good luck at three with 1:10 left; Walker fouled Doncic on a three, in which he made all three to go up eight with 56 ticks left; Walker cut the lead to six with 51 left; Tatum cut it back to six with 31 ticks left; Walker hit a 3-pointer to cut it to four with 25 left; Smart finished on a bucket after a Tatum steal with 16 seconds left to cut it to two; before the Mavericks finished the game by making it two possessions at the foul line.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will return to host the Houston Rockets on Friday at TD Garden.

112288

THE WHEELS ARE COMING OFF!

This is a case example of the whole season of Stevens not knowing his axx from his elbow on how to run a team.  

So what the hell am I talking about.   Well here it is!

You want to run a balanced game of both defense and offense, a carefully blended approach that the players can settle into and be aggressive on both ends of the court. BUT OH NO, OFFENSE, OFFENSE, OFFENSE WILL WIN THE GAME!   I say BULL shoot!

Two way ball (offense and defense) has not been the approach for the whole season beginning with the tip off at mid court to begin a game.  This squarely falls on Brad Stevens THE COACH AND HIS GAME PLAN TO HIS PLAYERS OF .........Shoot the 3 ball on offense and hurry back without ball pressure, play soft defense by waiting for a rebound to begin the next offensive attack by shooting another 3 ball.  Guess what Brad, Doncic does not miss many 3 balls, nor Porzingis!

The Celtics know how to play defense especially Brown, Tatum and Smart, but they only get a chance to shine their defensive talents when the team is down by 20+ points and Brad finally yells PLAY DEFENSE!

This one sided approach is difficult for a team to get into a balanced flow of the game.  You just cannot turn on a light switch and change your style.

Please Please.... perhaps there is another college team Brad would consider!

TIME TO CHANGE HORSES DANNY.

112288

I don't know if Brad is resonsible for the problems on defense. Could it be the players themselves who are disinterested?
Whichever, it's tiresome and frustrating to watch, especially when one can see how well they can play defense when putting out the effort. Why wait until the game is practically out of reach before slamming on the brakes? This happens over and over again and along with the dribble, dribble step back three shot on offense is getting very old.
Maybe we'll just have to accept that although we have some very talented players, they haven't matured yet to the point where they are able to make good decisions. I remember Paul Pierce, who as a young player also did some dumb things before he grew up.

Berlin-T

112288,

I have to agree with you on one point or implied point. I've gone through the phases and progression of a team from pretender to contender before. One of the things that shows up in the early stages is consistently getting behind by a large number of points, over 20 let's say. It takes the most toll on a team and some never get out of it as we can see there are a few teams in the league that are consistent cellar dwellers. You can even give them top draft picks and they still squander those.

While the Celtics are not one of those teams, it appears they are regressing like a child who was potty trained but then goes back to wetting the bed for some unknown reason. Relapse.

The 20-point+ deficits are coming back over the last couple of games. Or at least they are more noticeable. I don't know why. By the end of the game, we are still "in" it, but we've expended so much energy getting back into the game, there is nothing left in the tank. That is classic regression in my book. Worcester, am I on to something?! Although this sounds more psychological than my possible feigned medical reference!

Sorry, folks. No passengers can get off this train now until we get to our destination...Game 72. Can't promise whether there will be a connecting ride to the playoffs when we get there. Weather looks choppy at best.

db

Tatum and Kemba were cold early missing a lot of makeable shots and not having the efficient RWill didn’t help as he is the perfect cover for Porzingus and helps us on offense. The only player playing well early was Jaylen. Doncic must be a historian and like a good challenge, seems he loves to play us and he knows we have 2 elite wings, so it’s a great proving ground game for him and he certainly proved it.

We made a game of it, still saw some terrible calls against us, some I couldn’t resist venting on, on the Game On. There were 2 huge non calls on Tatum drives, one early when Tatum got body checked on his right side hammered and another late when he went for a dunk and his forearm clearly got hit in the dunking motion with enough force that he couldn’t complete the dunk. There were more, but how do you not call a foul on those 2? Such bush league bullish.t and the refs keep on getting away with this? That’s 4 possible points at the line that we don’t get on obvious fouls. This is so out of control all these non calls.

Yes, we don't play disciplined D for 4 quarters. Yes, we have to expend a great deal of energy playing catch up. However, for a while our biggest problem has been a weak bench. Tonight was an example. Marcus, Kemba, Jaylen, and Jayson scored amply. Production from center? With RWill out and no TT or Theis, so very few points or rb's from the 5 spot. Tough to win games that way. Again, I just don't get our medical staff. Still no Romeo or TT, way past the time for any Covid protocol. Is Semi at MGH with them?

Luka was unconscious.  He was throwing in 40'ers like they were layups.  We, on the other hand, were throwing up layups like they were 40'ers in the first half.  That was a spectacular performance by Luka Doncic last night.

Our defense is no longer coordinated.  There were several times when a player, like Brunson, would take his man off the dribble and there was no baseline defender rotating over to help out.  That's because our bigs are two players who just showed up a week ago.  Offensive plays like PnRs, PnPs, setting picks for DHOs are easy.  High School athletes know how to do those.  NBA defenses aren't easy.  They are quite complex and, due to the unavailability of RWill and Tristan, the only logs Brad could throw onto the fire were the newbies and Grant.  He tried Grant at small ball 5 for a couple of possessions but Porzingis posted him up with ease and Brad pulled Grant because he saw that wasn't working.  I was underwhelmed, a bit, by Wagner and Kornet last night on defense.  Not just because they blew some rotations, I fully expect that from every new player including experienced veterans like Fournier, they just weren't as aggressive as we saw them last week.  Play hard, make some mistakes, but fight like hell.  6 rebounds and 6 points in 32 combined minutes isn't enough out of our center spot.

Our perimeter defense is half-hearted.  I'm going to stop beating this dead horse eventually but we're not fighting to stay in front of our men at the arc and that puts tremendous pressure on our interior defenders.  When those interior defenders are new that is a recipe for disaster but even when they aren't new it will deliver an inferior defense.

We shot 11-47 from 3.  That has nothing to do with our defense.  Tatum was 1-8.  Walker was 2-9.  Smart was 2-7.  Brown was 4-11.  That's 9-35 from our starting top 4, 25.7%.  This is a make-or-miss league.  It is also a league that has migrated to the 3pt arc.  Any team that shoots 26% from 3 on the game in 2021 is unlikely to win.  Period.  The question is "were they good shots, open shots, or were they contested?".  There were a lot of open shots, we just missed.  So, another question might be "do we just have shitty shooters and that's why we're shooting so poorly, even when we're open?"  Jayson is shooting 37.8% on the year.  Jaylen is shooting 39% on the year.  Those aren't problems.  Kemba is shooting 35% on the year.  Smart is shooting 33% on the year.  Those are problems.  They're not problems just because the fg% is poor they are problems because they average 13.8 3pt fgas/game between them.  As a team we average 34.7 3pt fgas/game, so they represent 40% of the team's total.  You cannot take 40% of a team's shots, from anywhere on the court, and shoot those percentages.  I can live with Smart's shooting because of everything else he does on the floor, but Kemba?  The #1 worst contract in the NBA.  Every other bad contract just got bought out.  

This is a telling quote:
Jay King @ByJayKing
3 minutes ago
Brad Stevens said the most frustrating part is that the Celtics let adversity knock them off course. “It’s the same old story. ... We’ve gotta respond better in the middle of a game. And we just haven’t.”

I see this as youth. Kids let themselves get down when things aren't going well. Veterans have been there, seen that and just keep grinding. If you'll notice, when we went down by 10 or so we were launching 3s every possession, and missing. We stopped heaving 3s when we were down 23 and starting taking it to the rim and it worked. Then, when we were back under 10 and only a few possessions away from a possible lead, we starting chucking 3s again.


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401307513


Bob


.

Continuity (or lack thereof) is to blame.  Until we get some, I expect more of the same uneven results.  

And as Bob suggests, we are a very young team. When we hit our threes early in the game, everything falls into place. When it doesn't, frustration and hero ball is the result.

So, lack of continuity and youth is a bad recipe for success. Hopefully, we can get some of the prior before the playoffs begin. Jeff Van Gundy spoke to this in the pregame. In his opinion, if we do, we will become a very dangerous opponent (or words to that effect).

The health issues continue to rear their ugly head.

More than any other single factor, injuries and sickness have been the big downer this season. That also leads to lack of continuity, which gyso talks about above.

We had to start Mo Wagner at center last night. Mo Wagner.

We started a guy at center who couldn't start for his former team when their center went down. A guy who wasn't even with this team a week ago.

The fact that we almost pulled it out against another team that looks better than their record and has some seriously emerging players is almost a miracle in itself.

Health. Center spot. Defense. Those have been our problems. This team is a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon waiting to bust out and fly.

worcester wrote:Health. Center spot. Defense.  Those have been our problems. This team is a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon waiting to bust out and fly.

A caterpillar, wrapped in a cocoon, inside of a hive. Would this be a Russian Matroshka caterpillar?


Bob


.

bobheckler wrote:

worcester wrote:Health. Center spot. Defense.  Those have been our problems. This team is a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon waiting to bust out and fly.

A caterpillar, wrapped in a cocoon, inside of a hive.  Would this be a Russian Matroshka caterpillar?


Bob


.

You two are operating way over my head today.

Anyway... let's give W an early win for Quote of the Day.

Thanks NY Celt. Matroshka are those little female Russian dolls that fit one after another after another into bigger dolls. Something for Russkies to carve and paint on long winter nights, I guess.

I've heard of someone being allergic to a Bee, but in the first half this team seems to be allergic to D. Is that a medical condition?

worcester wrote:I've heard of someone being allergic to a Bee, but in the first half this team seems to be allergic to D. Is that a medical condition?

Worcester,

We need to wait and C, OG.


Bob


.

LOL

While I was getting my hair cut this morning, Steven A. Smith was again discussing the job status of Brad Stevens. I didn't hear anything different from the last time they debated this topic.

With the recent additions of the new team members and things still getting worse, the hot seat has to be getting even hotter. Everyone is playing hot potato with who's to blame and who should take responsibility. We've been down this news cycle before. I'm not expecting any different result than last time. Well, the players are off the hook for the blame now as the roster isn't changing anytime soon. It's business as usual. So that leaves Brad and Danny to pick on. Duck and cover!!

Just FYI.

db

And the medical staff.

True.  They've been on sabbatical all season!!

db

P.S. Without looking it up and deriving, I just realized "sabbatical" is almost sabbath. "Rest". I'm an idiot!! You wouldn't think it the way it is spoken because the emphasis on on the wrong syllable. When you write it out, though...

Happy Passover.

dbrown4 wrote:While I was getting my hair cut this morning, Steven A. Smith was again discussing the job status of Brad Stevens.  I didn't hear anything different from the last time they debated this topic.  

With the recent additions of the new team members and things still getting worse, the hot seat has to be getting even hotter.  Everyone is playing hot potato with who's to blame and who should take responsibility.  We've been down this news cycle before.  I'm not expecting any different result than last time.  Well, the players are off the hook for the blame now as the roster isn't changing anytime soon.  It's business as usual.  So that leaves Brad and Danny to pick on.  Duck and cover!!

Just FYI.

db  

Just curious, why do you think our poor starts are due to anything but lack of continuation, team chemistry, our injuries, etc.. as has been discussed here earlier today.  Mo Wagner was our starting center last night.  Do you believe that was Brad's preference?

Think of this as a stew.  We just threw some ingredients away and added some totally new ones.  Are you going to take a taste immediately, spit it our and call it crap?  Try that with your wife's cooking and let me know how that works out for you.     LOL.  IMO, the importance you gave to the ten games after the trading deadline was ill advised.  I suggest that we let this pot simmer a bit before casting the cooks under the bus.

Lets take a look at how we are doing at the end of April and early May.  There's plenty of time to panic then.    

SAS is a bloviating blowhard.  What he has to say on almost any topic shouldn't enter into anyone's argument, IMO.

Continuity. Availability. Both lacking. I still think this team will be a great one. Pp. RW, JB, JT. MS, KW are all under contract for at least 2 years. Add more games under their belt as a group playing together and get a few morecomplementary players...then you will see old time Celtics winning basketball.

worcester wrote:Continuity. Availability. Both lacking. I still think this team will be a great one. Pp. RW, JB, JT. MS, KW are all under contract for at least 2 years. Add more games under their belt as a group playing together and get a few more complementary players...then you will see old time Celtics winning basketball.

W,

I don't see us getting a few more complementary players this season. Ownership will avoid the luxury tax. Next season they may not have a choice.

I'd like to see us back at full strength with Mo and Luke coming off the bench. We finally have some length off the bench, so I am intrigued as to how this season this plays out.

There are a lot of factors that have impacted the Celtics this year.

The most obvious one has been lost games due to injury and the covid 19 protocols requiring players to miss games.

That impacts continuity and has made it damn difficult to find any consistent starting lineups and rotation units that have a chance to actually play together a lot and get better together.

The lack of solid veteran depth is simply not there to offset a team with a lot of young and inexperienced players that are not quite yet ready for bigger roles.  The injury factor hurts more because of that.

Of the 3 new guys I do not expect either Wagner or Kornet to be much of a factor.  The key guy is Fournier and getting him fully acclimated and integrated into the team is the biggest challenge right now.

This will happen quicker if Brad inserts Evan into the lineup as a 3rd wing player and lets him run some offense as well as shoot.

The other starters should be the J's, RW and KW.

If and when we get to the playoffs Brad needs to use a shortened rotation of maybe 9 players.  Smart Thompson and  Pritchard are part of our top 8.

This is the time to spend getting things set up and figured out who fits best with who.

Sure. No complementary players this year while we are still struggling to stay under the tax line. That's why I am pinning my hopes on next season, but I am quite willing to be surprised/amazed this year too - if Romeo comes flying back in wearing a Superman cape and starts draining shots from the logo.