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Celtics Wrap: Marcus Smart Seals Deal On Defensive Battle Vs. Knicks
Boston is back at .500


NESN by Alexandra Francisco

The Boston Celtics found scoring where they could, but battled defensively to pull off a late comeback win against the New York Knicks, 101-99.

Boston did a great job on the glass, out-rebounding the Knicks by 14, but shot 41.9% from the field and turned the ball over 14 times.

But Jaylen Brown was fantastic all game (32 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, two steals, one block) and Jayson Tatum (25 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, one steal)

Tristan Thompson didn’t look like he’d missed almost a month in his return, where his 19 minutes off the bench showed off why the Celtics could have used him around the rim all that time. He had seven points, seven rebounds, a steal and three blocks.

R.J. Barrett had a team-high 29 points for the Knicks, combing with Julius Randle’s balanced performance to keep it close. But Marcus Smart called game to cap-off a 17-point, nine-assist offensive showing (that included the game-winner) for Boston.

Here’s how it all went down

STARTING FIVE
PG: Marcus Smart
SG: Romeo Langford
PF: Jayson Tatum
SF: Jaylen Brown
C: Robert Williams

START ON THE DEFENSE
The first quarter was a defensive battle, as the Celtics benefited from a switchable, athletic lineup that helped keep the score down. Unfortunately, their own offense also contributed to that.

The frame belonged to Brown, who led Boston with 12 points in the quarter. But Smart and Tatum were active facilitators in the absence of Kemba Walker.


Julius Randle and R.J. Barrett were active for New York to keep things close, but the Celtics led the Knicks 21-19 at the first intermission.

SECOND CHANCE SCORING
The story of the stanza was Tristan Thompson, Robert Williams, Romeo Langford on the offensive boards, pulling down 13.


Langford was engaged and active on defense all half. That’s what made this triple so much better:


Semi Ojeleye hit two 3-pointers in the quarter, and with his shots not falling, Tatum started driving hard to the hoop.


Boston shot 38.3 percent at the break, and led by a narrow 47-46.

TATUM TAKEOVER
New York dragged a run into the new half, and led by as many as seven points in the third quarter thanks to Romeo Langford. But after a slow start, Tatum had seven points in the third quarter to keep things close.


But thanks to Randle and Barrett, the Knicks managed a 73-70 lead entering the fourth.


FRIGID FROM THE FIELD
The Celtics didn’t shoot the ball well in general, but points were hard to come by to start the final quarter.

That went for both sides, though, with Thompson finishing out a great first day back.


A small run saw Boston take a two-point lead, and it went back and fourth through the final two minutes. The situation seemed dire after a Tatum turnover late, but Smart and Brown made up for it.

Smart assisted Brown to give the Celtics a 3-point lead, Barret instantly tied it up on the other side.

But Marcus Smart saved the day.


PLAY OF THE GAME
Right before halftime, it looked like Tatum wanted to send a message to sports talk radio for their comments Wednesday morning.


UP NEXT
The Celtics home stand ends Friday, as Boston hosts the Minnesota Timberwolves at 7:30 p.m. ET.

112288

I haven't comment in a while, because I found the team's effort dispiriting, but tonight's game was a battle of wills and ferocity, or as Brad Stevens likes to put it " purpose." Tristan Thompson went to war and R. Will got thrown around a little bit. Minus 23 or some ungodly number while he was on the court. Growing pains. PP had a lousy game, the only real stinker I can recall. I think Jaylen and Marcus did a great job on Randle, and the overall defense and board work were what carried us to the win. All the bench guys had their moments, but we were carried home on the backs of the usual suspects. Romeo looks like he can contribute, despite one boneheaded failure to force a shooter off the 3 point line, which coulld have been disastrous.Fornier was missed.I hope he is not out long. When I looked at the box score, I was surprised that we had so few turnovers. I could have sworn Tatum had 25 or so on his own. As that most hated of color announcer says, good things happen when you drive the ball. It's nice to win a slugfest in the last round!

To me Brown is the most well rounded polished of the two J's. He can score in or outside, play D, rebound and he controls the ball well in traffic.

To me he would be a keeper. Tatum possess all the talent in the world, but if you cannot put it together properly, what good is it.   Last nigh, I have never seen such bonehead play by him.  Making wild passes, taking almost impossible shots, and poor ball control.  

Count them 8 turnovers!

And oh by the way, if it was not for Smart getting hot and making key 3 point shots, we lose!

112288

The Celtics have won 3/4 games.  Last night they won a grind it out game.

If you do not value the impact of defense then you are missing 1/2 of every game.

The Knicks stopped multiple run out opportunities by the Celtics.  They did it by fouling 4 times.  It was planned.

It seems impossible that this team can find any measure of continuity because they cannot play a game with a full deck of cards.  So you have the continuity issue that has been present throughout the entire season and you also have the bad habits conundrum on top of that.

What Celtics fans want and what they expect cannot always be realized.

Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics remains the headline for all games and yet he is far from being the type of player that should carry the torch to victory.  We want him and Jaylen to make their teammates better and they have both put forth an effort to become better playmakers.

The problem is that they are not playmakers.  They are not floor generals.  They are in fact very talented offensive players capable of averaging 25 points a game, playing some defense and rebounding the basketball.  

Marcus Smart is the closest thing we have to a floor general.  Kemba Walker is in fact a shooting guard trapped in an undersized point guard body.  So Boston is missing a top of the line floor general.  When you have multiple high end scorers on the team all you really need is to find a guy who can pass out the cookies.

Conceptually, this will never happen on this team with this coach no matter who you bring in.

The Sixers loss exposed the team greatly although a play here or there and maybe 10 less turnovers could have turned the game in our favor.  We lack size and length in our front line.  A long athletic defensive minded PF is not on this team.  

The most frustrating thing to watch is how a team can play so well in moving the ball and rotating on defense for a few plays and then revert back to ISO basketball, minimal movement, brain fart turnovers and negligent defense within a blink of an eye.

I cannot help but be redundant.  No one has a better remedy for what ails this team than the next person.  Yes we need a true floor general and more size along our front line and we need health and game to game continuity in our lineups but there remains a single distinguishable factor on why this team bobs up and down between .500.

This team lacks discipline and accountability.

Surprised to see Romeo in the starting line up, but showed he belongs, he plays well with the starters making our defense even better. His defense is really good. Jaylen came to play and we needed his A game with young emerging wing RJ Barrett also strutting his stuff. Obviously huge shots by Marcus and Jaylen last night down stretch. On second night of b2b Jaylen looked healthy and energetic. We rebounded great last night too. TT also looked really good, Tatum in a fog with mistake and mistake, then he finally got going. Imagine how great he could be if he could put 2 good halves together. Encouraging win against a young up and coming team without Frenchy who is obviously needed.

dboss wrote:The Celtics have won 3/4 games.  Last night they won a grind it out game.

If you do not value the impact of defense then you are missing 1/2 of every game.

The Knicks stopped multiple run out opportunities by the Celtics.  They did it by fouling 4 times.  It was planned.

It seems impossible that this team can find any measure of continuity because they cannot play a game with a full deck of cards.  So you have the continuity issue that has been present throughout the entire season and you also have the bad habits conundrum on top of that.

What Celtics fans want and what they expect cannot always be realized.

Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics remains the headline for all games and yet he is far from being the type of player that should carry the torch to victory.  We want him and Jaylen to make their teammates better and they have both put forth an effort to become better playmakers.

The problem is that they are not playmakers.  They are not floor generals.  They are in fact very talented offensive players capable of averaging 25 points a game, playing some defense and rebounding the basketball.  

Marcus Smart is the closest thing we have to a floor general.  Kemba Walker is in fact a shooting guard trapped in an undersized point guard body.  So Boston is missing a top of the line floor general.  When you have multiple high end scorers on the team all you really need is to find a guy who can pass out the cookies.

Conceptually, this will never happen on this team with this coach no matter who you bring in.

The Sixers loss exposed the team greatly although a play here or there and maybe 10 less turnovers could have turned the game in our favor.  We lack size and length in our front line.  A long athletic defensive minded PF is not on this team.  

The most frustrating thing to watch is how a team can play so well in moving the ball and rotating on defense for a few plays and then revert back to ISO basketball, minimal movement, brain fart turnovers and negligent defense within a blink of an eye.

I cannot help but be redundant.  No one has a better remedy for what ails this team than the next person.  Yes we need a true floor general and more size along our front line and we need health and game to game continuity in our lineups but there remains a single distinguishable factor on why this team bobs up and down between .500.

This team lacks discipline and accountability.

Tatum is our long athletic PF

I like Romeo 's play last year defensively. He may surprise people with his offense. I think he can easily be a 15 -20+ point scorer.

112288

This was a nice battle between peers (if "you are your record").  They are without center Mitchell Robinson but we were without Kemba and Score-nier.  If everybody was healthy and playing, depending upon which Kemba would have showed up, we might have blown them out.  Robinson would have aided their inside game while Kemba would help (or hurt) and Evan would have opened up the middle for us with his scoring.  In general, the team that loses more of its rotation players, suffers more.  Kemba and Fournier are rotation players, 2-1, we should have suffered more but we won anyway.  That's my logic for why we're a better team and I'm sticking with it.

It was a battle in a phone booth (remember what those looked like?).  The largest lead by both teams was 7.  So at no time was either team more than 3 scores away from retaking a lead, a mini-run would do it and that's what we saw all night.

4 minutes into the 4th quarter and we had only scored 3 points, total.  We ended up with a 31 point quarter.  So we can score, in bunches, we just don't sometimes.  I think this is important to remember because as frustrating as it is to watch us chuck up brick after brick after brick we can't give up hope because, once we see the ball go through the net, the floodgates can open, wide-open.

Smart saved our bacon with some dagger 3s to close it out.  I had the NY feed last night and listened to Walt "Clyde" Frazier expound and astound.  He was very complimentary of Smart as a competitor, no shock there, but he repeatedly hammered home the point that "Folks, the Celtics have no point guard, nobody who can break down the defense.  That's why they have forwards (i.e. Tatum) bringing up the ball, that's why they are a perimeter offense team".  This is what I've been saying for months now.  I think that Smart is a better floor general than Clyde is giving him credit for, he had 9 assists and only 2 turnovers last night, but there's nobody else.  You'd think a player who played point, like Danny did, would know the value and importance of having depth at point guard?  Speaking of the flood-gates opening up Marcus Smart had 3 points after 3, shooting 1-7, but had a 14 point 4th quarter.  He still ended up an atrocious 4-11 but man, those 14 points saved us.  Two killa 3s and 6-6 from the line, ALL his fritos were in the 4th.  He makes some bad decisions, especially in shot discipline, but Smart is the closest thing to a "Born Green" Celtic we've had since, I don't know, maybe KG.  Not Pierce, as much as I love him and not either J, as much as I like them.  Marcus Smart is pure, distilled Bill Russell Celtic.  Like them he hates to lose more than he loves to win.

Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
yesterday
Marcus Smart: “I make winning plays for my team. I'm going to give us extra possessions. My threes, I’ve always believed in myself, like I said. I (couldn’t) care less what anybody says, I’m going to continue to shoot it. My teammates continue to believe in me.” #Celtics




Jaylen was a monster.  It wasn't just his 32 points, sure, but he took 26 fgas and hit 12.  Large volume and good efficiency.  He had 2 steals, at least one of which he took full court (should have gotten an +1 too) and a block.  This is how a true All-Star responds to a beat down.  They show up and take it out on the next guys, the very next guys.

Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
yesterday
Brown said he pulled aside Jayson Tatum before the game and they talked. Brown said they needed to get back to being themselves and just play ball and not worry about the "outside noise." #Celtics

This is leadership.  It's setting the tone, communicating and then going out and showing how doing your job translates into positive results.

Sean Grande
@SeanGrandePBP
Bad night for Avery Bradley on the Celtics’ all-time lists.  Jaylen Brown just passed him for 7th on the 3-pointer list.



Which one of you thought Marcus Smart would be passing Larry Bird for 4th place Celtic All-Time, and that he'd do it when he was only 27 years old?  Don't lie, none of us did.




Tatum ended up with 25 on 10-21 and 10 rebounds but, man, those 8 turnovers.  We had 17 total, as a team, and Tatum was responsible for half of them.  A couple of really, really bad passes.

Thompson was a one-man wrecking ball underneath all night.  If only he could hit fritos.  He pounded them inside.  He had 3 blocks, which is something I expect from RWill, and maybe Kornet, but not Thompson.  And yes, he had COVID.

Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
TT on his battle with COVID: "That shoot's no joke. That was a battle. I had all the symptoms except losing my taste and smell, so at least I could enjoy my food."

I know I'm one of the few voices on this board speaking up for Grant but I thought he played a really good game.  Don't waste your time looking at the boxscore there's nothing there to see if you look at what's after his name.  If you want to see his contributions you have to look at what's after Julius Randle's name.  Randle, who outweighs Grant by at least 15# and has at least 2" on him, shot 9-23.  Randle is having an outstanding season.  He is a great inside scorer, in my opinion, you have to look at Zion to find anybody in his class that is as good or better (and Zion's a freak).  Grant bodied Randle up all night and made his life as tough as could be.  Semi too, but Grant got to get beat up by Randle for 25 minutes while Semi only had to do it for 13.  Solid defense by both those Celtics but Grant took the beating for twice as long.

Romeo had himself a nice night.  Shooting is his obvious foible but I think my opinion on that skill is well-documented by now.  I think it is one of the easiest skills to learn.  It just takes some coaching to make sure your technique is good and then it's just reps until it's pure muscle memory.  Jaylen wasn't a good shooter at all when he came into the league, and now look at him.  Grant couldn't hit a 3 to save his life and now he's shooting 39% from 3 this year.  Same with Semi, he's shooting 39.5% from 3 this season when he couldn't shoot for shite for his first few years.  Romeo will get there.  His defense is already there, it's already NBA quality.  Last night he had 6 rebounds, 4 of them offensive.  If you get an extra 4 possessions thanks to Romeo and you are shooting 42% on the game, how many buckets do those 4 offensive rebounds translate into?  My calculator says 1.68 buckets.  I know, I know, we could turn the ball over or we could get fouled and miss the fritos but in simplistic terms we're looking at over 1 1/2 buckets.  That's 3.36 - 5.04 more points, depending on whether they are 2 point buckets or 3pt buckets.  We won by only 2 points.  Even if you take Barrett's meaningless final 3 off the board we still only won by 5.  That means that Romeo's work on the offensive boards was game changing.  We only took 86 fgas last night.  An extra 4 possessions, opportunities to take an extra 4 fgas out of that total few, is a big deal.  Some people are pointing out that he didn't contest the penultimate 3pter that was taken and hit by Elfriid Payton with 6.3 seconds left.  We were up 6 at that point, a 3ptr and a foul would be very bad and you never know how NBA refs will respond if you are anywhere near a jump shooter when he comes down.  Furthermore, Elfriid Payton was shooting 24.4% from 3 this year heading into last night's game.  He's only taken 80 total this year, averaging under 2/game (going 2-2 last night raised his average to 26.3%, which tells you just how infrequently he takes them).  Letting him take a pressure 29'er is a better decision than contesting it and maybe putting him on the line for 3.  He's shooting 71% from there.  So in the cool, calm light of the next day I have no problem with Romeo's defense of that shot.


Words of Wisdom for all of us nervous fans, from Tristan Thompson.  Let's keep our eyes on the prize.  We're Celtic fans, it is and has always been about The Second Season, so let's stay calm and carry on.

Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Tristan Thompson said winning games in the regular season matters, “but I really think it’s a bunch of horseshit.” Hes running down all the times the Cavaliers made the finals without being the top seed. Said what matters is being healthy when it matters. And matchups.


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401307570

Bob great post, just wanted to add Clyde Frazier compared Jaylen to Dr J a few times on his driving/hanging ability, Clyde doesn’t give out praise like that lightly.

Knicks finally building the right way thru the draft, RJ Barrett is going to be a monster wing. Randle only 26 an all star and in the discussion for MIP and media crediting Thibs for teaching Knicks how to defend.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Bob great post, just wanted to add Clyde Frazier compared Jaylen to Dr J a few times on his driving/hanging ability, Clyde doesn’t give out praise like that lightly.

Knicks finally building the right way thru the draft, RJ Barrett is going to be a monster wing. Randle only 26 an all star and in the discussion for MIP and media crediting Thibs for teaching Knicks how to defend.

Cow,

I'm not sure Clyde comparing our J to Dr. J is doing him any favors.  Remember when Danny left the Toronto Blue Jays and signed with us and he was being described as "the next Jerry West"?  How'd setting those expectations work out for him?  Jaylen is a worker, he has gotten better every single year he has been in the league and has come SO far.  I say let Jaylen be Jaylen and we're going to be happy in the future because of who he is and his natural ambitions.

And as far as Thibs goes it better happen sooner rather than later.  He's been an NBA coach forever, but most of it is still as an assistant coach.  He was an assistant coach in NY, for the Knicks, for 7 years.  That is the longest he has been anywhere.  He has been a head coach for 9 years, is with his 3rd team already and his longest stint was in Minny, and that was for 5 years.  The press, and fans, are MUCH more forgiving in The Twin Cities than they are in The Big Apple.  His grinding style wears on players.  He gets the most out of them but after a while they don't want to play for him anymore because he's such an obsessive control freak.


Bob

.

Cow

My PF comment was related to defense as a rotation guy.

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Bob great post, just wanted to add Clyde Frazier compared Jaylen to Dr J a few times on his driving/hanging ability, Clyde doesn’t give out praise like that lightly.

Knicks finally building the right way thru the draft, RJ Barrett is going to be a monster wing. Randle only 26 an all star and in the discussion for MIP and media crediting Thibs for teaching Knicks how to defend.

Cow,

I'm not sure Clyde comparing our J to Dr. J is doing him any favors.  Remember when Danny left the Toronto Blue Jays and signed with us and he was being described as "the next Jerry West"?  How'd setting those expectations work out for him?  Jaylen is a worker, he has gotten better every single year he has been in the league and has come SO far.  I say let Jaylen be Jaylen and we're going to be happy in the future because of who he is and his natural ambitions.

And as far as Thibs goes it better happen sooner rather than later.  He's been an NBA coach forever, but most of it is still as an assistant coach.  He was an assistant coach in NY, for the Knicks, for 7 years.  That is the longest he has been anywhere.  He has been a head coach for 9 years, is with his 3rd team already and his longest stint was in Minny, and that was for 5 years.  The press, and fans, are MUCH more forgiving in The Twin Cities than they are in The Big Apple.  His grinding style wears on players.  He gets the most out of them but after a while they don't want to play for him anymore because he's such an obsessive control freak.


Bob

.

I believe Thibs was in Chi for 5 and only did Minny for 3. I tried to make a rhyme but failed this time

112288 wrote:I like Romeo 's play last year defensively.  He may surprise people with his offense.  I think he can easily be a 15 -20+ point scorer.

112288

+1 Mr. Kleen

112288 wrote:To me Brown is the most well rounded polished of the two J's. He can score in or outside, play D, rebound and he controls the ball well in traffic.

To me he would be a keeper. Tatum possess all the talent in the world, but if you cannot put it together properly, what good is it.   Last nigh, I have never seen such bonehead play by him.  Making wild passes, taking almost impossible shots, and poor ball control.  

Count them 8 turnovers!

And oh by the way, if it was not for Smart getting hot and making key 3 point shots, we lose!

112288

                      +1

There is no single factor that has impacted the performance of this team.

I am not for throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I am definitely not trading Jayson or Jaylen.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with many of the critiques about how they play but these two young and STILL developing players represent cornerstones for this franchise.  Every player in the NBA has flaws.

The team is clearly not ready to compete because there are too many young draftees on the team.  We need more veterans and we could use a big man off the bench that can serve as our bulk guy.  

We still do not know what the long term health will be for Kemba.  Danny Ainge has a lot on his plate to figure out.

Brad has allowed the team to develop really bad habits and it seems to me that while they listen they do not hear what he is saying.  There remains a lot of untapped potential for this team to get better.  Brad however has not had a full roster to coach as many key players have missed a lot of games.    I am not giving him a pass but in all fairness he does not have all the tools to work with.

Players, coaches and GM's along with all the support staff are all part of the franchise, win or lose.

Do Not trade: Marcus, J&J, RWill, PP, Romeo, Aaron - give them a good year to develop and grow together.