POST GAME DENVER - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Pulls Off Epic Comeback Win Vs. Red-Hot Nuggets
Denver entered the game with an eight-game win streak


NESN by Abigail Adams

This one seemed out of reach for a while, but the Celtics made this one interesting down the stretch.

A 22-3 run in the fourth quarter gave Boston the boost it needed to top the mighty Denver Nuggets 105-87 at Pepsi Center.

The Nuggets entered Sunday’s contest as winners of eight straight games, but the C’s wound up extending their own win streak to three while snapping Denver its first loss since March 24 loss to the Toronto Raptors.

Jayson Tatum led all scorers with 28 points. Tatum led the team with 10 rebounds, followed by Robert Williams and Jaylen Brown with eight apiece.

Despite the loss, Nikola Jokic (17 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists) recorded a triple-double for the Nuggets.


The Celtics improved to 28-26 while the Nuggets fell to 34-19.

Here’s how it all went down.

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

YUCKY STUFF
Once again, it took the Celtics a little while to wake up.

Brown, Tatum and Williams were a combined 0-for-9 from the field in the first 12 minutes, though Williams did have four rebounds. Smart and Walker were the only two starters to record points, and they only had four apiece on 3-of-8 shooting.

Tristan Thompson (five points, three rebounds) and Romeo Langford (three points, three rebounds) offered a little help off the bench, but not much. Boston completed a measly 24% of its shots in the first.

Naturally, Denver capitalized on this and built itself an 11-point lead. The Nuggets were much more accurate, collecting 27 points on 11-of-23 (47.8%) shots.

THAT’S BETTER (FOR NOW)
The second wasn’t perfect, but it certainly was better than the first.

Tatum finally found some rhythm and collected 11 points, four rebounds and an assist. Tatum and Smart had a team-high 11 points apiece at the end of the frame.

Smart sank Boston’s only two 3-pointers of the half despite 17 attempts.


Michael Porter Jr. led all scorers with 13.

Celtics starters combined for 27 of Boston’s 29 second-quarter points and, interestingly enough, scored all but 10 of the team’s 45 first-half points. Boston’s shooting improved somewhat as a whole to 34.9%, and the C’s closed the gap to six points before halftime.

Denver took a 51-45 lead into the second half.

NO QUIT IN BOSTON
The Nuggets remained in the driver’s seat for most of the third.

Jokic finally found his footing after scoring just three points on 1-of-5 shooting in the first half. He finished the third with 14 additional points on 5-of-7 shooting (71.4%) and was one rebound shy of a triple-double.

Denver’s lead hovered around 12 for most of the quarter, but Boston trimmed it to five thanks to some quick work by Brown and Walker in the final two minutes.


And just like that, it was a 79-74 game.

The Celtics entered the final frame on a 9-0 run.

DOWN TO THE WIRE
It was all downhill from there for Denver.

Boston went on a 22-3 run in the first half of the final frame, courtesy of some stellar stuff from Tatum and Brown. That’s a 31-3 run since the 1:31 mark of the third quarter.

That’s really all the Celtics needed to extend their win streak to three games and snap the Nuggets’ at eight. Boston finished shooting 44.8% from the field, though only 21.3% of their attempted triples were successful.

Denver’s shooting, meanwhile, dipped to 36.4% by the end of the game.

And with that, the Celtics beat the Nuggets 105-87.

PLAY OF THE GAME
More of this, please.


UP NEXT
The Celtics are off to Portland, where they will play the Trail Blazers on Tuesday. Tip-off is slated for 10 p.m. ET.

112288

http://www.tankathon.com/remaining_schedule_strength

During our Zoom session there was a general consensus that the Celtics could finish 4th. The one team that may keep us from getting there is the Atlanta Hawks. They have a ton of home games and an easier schedule remaining.

It should be fun.

21.3% from 3 and we still won, outrebounding a team with a massive center!

We outscored Denver by 26 in the second half. If consistent, this Celtics team could be scary.

Total tale of 2 halves, in first Jokic was feeding cutters with basic give and goes and we looked powerless to stop it and had no energy on offense as we were bricking everything. I hated our body language. Cut it down to around 6 by halftime, no idea how we did it, then they built it back to 14 in 3rd. Last 2 minutes of 3rd started the most amazing run, something like 31-6!!! Amazing, I have to look at the game again, somehow our defense had to make adjustments, just have no idea what we did to shut them down like that? Was shocked behind by 12 with 4 minutes left in the game they threw in the towel and took Jokic out...??? Unbelievable turnaround, as bad and lackadaisical throwing up bricks as we were in the first half, once our defense adjusted, pretty amazing considering we have Kemba the turnstile out there, we ran off our defense and Kemba, Brown and Tatum all had some great fast break finishes that broke their spirit. As of now, has to be the comeback game of the year.

Whenever Jokic was on the bench we chipped away, he obviously gave us problems, but even with the recent trade they have no elite wings and no elite rim protection. Our 2 centers also played their games, contributing and after a slow start, both J’s came alive in 2nd half. Just a half of their A game, with our defense, we totally finished them off. Their wings need Jokic to facilitate them, our wings once they get going can carry us on our back and play like legit 2 way all stars which they are. Shout out to GWill who had some big hustling plays and got in Jokic’s grill on defense, frustrating the hell out of him on a big stop. My favorite plays were the 3 by Tatum in Jokic’s face, the steal by Tatum on Jokic leading to a defining monster slam by Timelord and the driving rocking slam by Jaylen, blowing by Porter!! This team can be scary good if healthy. Romeos defense was also first rate and Smart had a great calming effect today too.

We get down on them, but 2 J’s are such dynamic athletes/finishers....just sayin

What I noticed with this game was the wide range of players who got involved in the offense. The scoring was well balanced among the majority of the team.

A good sign!

112288

Cow, we missed you on the Zoom.

I have to disagree with the "Kemba the turnstile" comments I have been seeing lately. Kemba is a short, skinny guard. People are going to shoot over him as they did IT and the vast majority of undersized guards not named Gary Payton. From what I've seen , he works hard on the defensive end, and stats show that he draws a lot of charges. He is far from a perfect player. He isn't as explosive as he used to be. I get all that. He's more of a guy that can get you baskets when needed, but can't be the focal point of the offense, now, but, defensively, he isn't a "turnstile." IMO, a turnstile is a guy who doesn't give effort on the defensive end. That's not Kemba.Yall must be thinking of Ja Morant.

WOW!  On the game we were least likely to win on paper we literally demoralized the competition.  From that, it looked like the Nuggets had a pre-game conversation with some preconceived notions about the game that was about to go down and if Denver just showed up, they should blow us out of the gym on their way to 9 wins in a row.  

The first two quarters pretty much cemented those ideas in their heads.  We were as advertised.  Now, I've seen some total collapses before, but I've never seen this year's Celtic team just say eff it we quit like Denver and their coach did. (Any Celtic team or game for that matter)  That is a serious flaw that once the playoffs roll around will bring up the same old Denver comments that have been temporarily suppressed with their recent surge.  Denver will be gone by the end of the 2nd round at the latest.  You can't fix what we saw with Denver by the playoffs.    

However we were moving the ball...a little erratically at times but we were moving it consistently.  Now the two homer Denver announcers on NBATV were fun to listen to knowing the outcome as I watched it on delay.  At least Boston follows and plays like winning is an all the time thing whether we are winning or not.  You have to handle success the same way you handle failure and disappointments...on an even keel.

I wish I could record and bottle up the sound of what a brick shot sounds like from last night's game.  Either they have the rims too tight or they pulled two basket apparatuses out of the closet for this game because if I could ever imagine what a brick should sound like, it's off of those rims!  Even when teams miss shots in all the other arenas, I never hear it clank off the rim like the shots did last night!  And we gave it every opportunity on our end in the first 2+ quarters.  

Both teams were awful from deep so 3's didn't matter.  We did start driving to the basket and got several And 1's, the coveted, long forgotten NBA prize.  We just hung in there like we have been all season.  Always competitive and lurking.

The Little Engine That Could finally won 3 games in a row after a very long, strange odyssey.

Langford looked really good on defense as promised.  RWIII was even showing some needed emotion for the team with some of his ferocious dunks.  Having those two in there plus MS makes us look like the defensive team from last year.  They were reeking a lot of havoc all night long.  Our bench still needs Fournier for points alone but if we can win these remaining two road games vs. Portland and LAL, adding him back in will be a true bonus.

I'll go out on a limb and say 3rd place may be within our grasp now that the Bucks have received the wake up call that the ECF now does not include them, barring last night's Buster Douglas game vs. ORL.

Finally over that 2-0 win streak hump!  Dang it felt like forever but this team does not give up.  Denver?  That's a different story.  Pathetic.  

db

worcester wrote:Cow, we missed you on the Zoom.

Wifey things....lol

jrleftfoot wrote:I have to disagree with the "Kemba the turnstile" comments I have been seeing lately. Kemba is a short, skinny guard. People are going to shoot over him as they did IT and the vast majority of undersized guards not named Gary Payton. From what I've seen , he works hard on the defensive end, and stats show that he draws a lot of charges. He is far from a perfect player. He isn't as explosive as he used to be. I get all that. He's more of a guy that can get you baskets when needed, but can't be the focal point of the offense, now, but, defensively, he isn't a "turnstile." IMO, a turnstile is a guy who doesn't give effort on the defensive end. That's not Kemba.Yall must be thinking of Ja Morant.

Really go look at the Wolves game when they were building up that 17 point lead in 2nd quarter and see how many times the ball finds the man on Kemba making a play right by him or him trailing on a finish. That’s not a coincidence, if your a coach you going after Smart, 2 J’s, RWill....I don’t think so?

I will give Stevens credit for having our team play hard through the adversity and injuries. Kemba has hit a couple big shots or drives recently later in the game, but all the mistakes both ends and missed shots, bad passes help put us in the hole.

Our D is so much better now with Marcus back in the lineup, and Romeo is an added bonus defensively. We are once again playin Celtics defense (except against the T-Wolves) and it is showing up in the win column.

A great win against a high quality opponent riding an 8 game winning streak, on the road.  This is how teams advance in the playoffs and win championships.  You beat high quality teams (which is to say most every team in the playoffs) wherever you play them.

They were without Jamal Murray.  We were without Fournier.  Murray plays more minutes than Fournier, but Fournier adds something to us too.  And we won by 8-freaking-teen.  I don't know what Murray might have changed, would he have stemmed their hemorrhaging or fed into it but he'd have to make up an 18 point hole.  If Fournier did anything positive that would have been tough to do.  Besides, I'm not inclined to cut other teams some slack because they're short players.  Nobody has felt sorry for us.


Sean Grande
@SeanGrandePBP
·
14h
The Celtics have won three straight, trailing in the 4th quarter in all three.

They arrived in Oklahoma City March 25th ranked 28th in the NBA in the 4th quarter (-6.5 net rating).

They're easily the NBA's best 4th quarter team since, winning it in all 9 games they've played.


Quarter 1, awful.  We shot 25% as a team, 6-25 and 1-9 from 3.  Tatum was 0-5.  Brown was 0-3.  Denver shot 50%, 11-23, 5-12 from 3.  They had phenomenal ball movement.  10 assists on 11 fgm, Jokic with 5 of those assists.  We were double teaming him and he was hitting the open men at the arc and/or cutters.  Just slicing us up.  We ended the quarter down 11, scoring only 16 points, but were down by 14 at one point.  Things looked grim.

Quarter 2 was better.  We shot 9-18, but only 1-8 from 3.  We were 2-17 from 3 at the half.  That's 11.8-freaking percent.  Tatum was still only 3-10 at the half and Jaylen was 1-6.
That's a combined 4-16 from the Js.  In Jayson's defense he was 5-5 from the line.  He has been attacking the basket more and has been earning fritos for it.  Take it to the defense, force them to make good plays, earn easy points when they don't.  Go figure.  They, on the other hand, cooled down a bit.  They dropped from 50% down to 41.3%, 8-24 on the quarter, 2-7 from 3 on the quarter.  The only Celtics in double digits at the half were Tatum (11 points on 3-10, but those 5 fritos) and Marcus Smart (11 points on 3-6, 2-4 from 3).  Somehow, only down 6 at the half despite still only at 34.9% at the half.

In the 2nd half, though, we killed them.  It was amazing watching them implode.  We completely frustrated Jokic, who turned into Tatum with his protestations with the refs, and not getting back on defense.  What turned this around, what frustrated Jokic?  

Shoutouts to Marcus Smart and Grant Williams.  Because of their defense on Jokic Brad didn't feel he needed to throw double teams at him.  They manned up on him and it worked.  Marcus Smart is just freaking unbelievable.  Those who were on the Zoom heard me effusively express my undying admiration for him.  Jokic has, what, 8" and 60# on Smart?  And yet he couldn't just get Smart off him.  Game changing defense.  Literally, game changing.  Grant also did a good job defending Jokic when Smart wasn't on him.  Another crappy boxscore for Grant Williams.  Expect it.  Count on it.  Bank on it.  If you don't watch the game and see all the little things he does that don't make the boxscore you'll never understand why he's an NBA player.  Getting the crap beat out of you by Jokic and other players that are much bigger than you won't get you a lot of stats, but taking them out of their game by forcing them to take a shot a foot or two further away from their spot is impactful defense.  Playing man-to-man defense on a player whose play normally demands a double team is game changing defense because it allows our other 4 defenders to stay with their men and not have to leave them open to help out.

One more thing to mention about Grant's game.  Romeo was going in for a layup on a fast break and JaMychal Green fouled him.  It wasn't particularly dirty, but it was very physical and put Romeo on his ass but good.  Grant made sure Romeo was ok and then got right up into Green's face and let him know that shite wasn't going to be tolerated.  I liked that.  Every team needs an enforcer.  I wouldn't have expected happy-go-lucky goofball Grant Williams would be that player, but he stepped up and assumed that role last night.

Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
yesterday
#Nuggets coach Mike Malone: “They turned up the heat, got into us and we allowed that to kill our offensive flow, then we started complaining, whining, not getting back, not competing." #Celtics

Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
yesterday
Jokic with one of the more honest answers of the season when asked about the Nuggets complaining to the refs too much lol. "I think the whole 30 teams are complaining and whining. We are just one of them."

He's right.  NBA refs are clueless.

We've been spoiled by RWill.  He ended up with 10 points on 5-6 and 8 boards, 2 blocks in 27 minutes and we wonder what's happened to him.  We'd love those numbers from Theis or Thompson or any other big on our roster.

We outscored them in the paint, a stat pointed out by DBoss on the Zoom call.  Here's our 4th quarter.


John Karalis
@RedsArmy_John
·
16h
Most of Boston's shots in the 4th quarter came at the rim. 7 of 8 from there to close the game



We had a 31-8 4th quarter.  Our run, if you include the last few minutes of the 3rd quarter, was 40-8.  You'll win a lot of games with offense and defense like that.  Duh.  We went 12-20 in the 4th quarter, but was only 2-6 from 3.  That means 14 of our 20 4th quarter fgas, 70%, were 2s.  And we scored well.  Once again, go figure.  The Nuggets?  3-23.  13%.  We ended up winning by 18 points but if the game went on for another 2 minutes we would have won by 23.  We were up 11 with 3:23 left in the 4th, and ended up winning by 18.  That's how you close games, and opponents, out.  You go +7 in crunch time.  For a change it was their heads that were completely twisted up and not ours.  And, once again, let me point out they had an 8 game winning streak coming into yesterday's matinee and are in 4th place in the west, so they are NOT a struggling team we were able to pick off at an opportune time.



Aaron Gordon has been playing very well since he got traded to Denver, they went on a nice winning streak after he arrived.  Didn't even slow down either J in the 2nd half.

I don't want to take the time to write all this out, but compare specific Celtic's boxscores to specific Nugget's boxscores.

Tatum vs Michael Porter Jr.   Both 9-23 but...
Brown vs Aaron Gordon OR Will Barton, both of whom defended him.
Kemba vs "the guy with the pizza franchise name" Campazzo (credit to ktron for that).  Both with 14 points in 33 minutes, but...

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401307600




Bob


.

bobh,

I felt the same way with the injuries. No sympathy here. He wouldn't have made that much of a difference vs. Fournier being out.

I am starting to like what I am seeing with this long awaited for 3-game win streak! Defense and passing is up noticeably! Brad is also more visible and active on the sidelines...now get this...COACHING!!

db

Bob


.

I think Jokic like a lot of stars, not our guys, gets a lot of calls and then when he didn’t get them had to whine and whine like a whiny bit.h that he is. On his last play before he got taken out, GWill was just playing physical Perk/Rick Mahorn type post defense, he wasn’t hit on his shot or anything from my eye test. Be glad your in this era, guys from the old days could be way more physical.

cowens/oldschool wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:I have to disagree with the "Kemba the turnstile" comments I have been seeing lately. Kemba is a short, skinny guard. People are going to shoot over him as they did IT and the vast majority of undersized guards not named Gary Payton. From what I've seen , he works hard on the defensive end, and stats show that he draws a lot of charges. He is far from a perfect player. He isn't as explosive as he used to be. I get all that. He's more of a guy that can get you baskets when needed, but can't be the focal point of the offense, now, but, defensively, he isn't a "turnstile." IMO, a turnstile is a guy who doesn't give effort on the defensive end. That's not Kemba.Yall must be thinking of Ja Morant.

Really go look at the Wolves game when they were building up that 17 point lead in 2nd quarter and see how many times the ball finds the man on Kemba making a play right by him or him trailing on a finish. That’s not a coincidence, if your a coach you going after Smart, 2 J’s, RWill....I don’t think so?

I will give Stevens credit for having our team play hard through the adversity and injuries. Kemba has hit a couple big shots or drives recently later in the game, but all the mistakes both ends and missed shots, bad passes help put us in the hole.

             you have your opinion and I have mine.I seriously doubt that anecdotal evidence from one game is going to convince me, and I don't expect to convince you. For what iit's worth, the Celtics are surrendering 112.4 points per game and Kemba's defensive rating is 113.8. not great, but hardly as bad as you seem to believe.I'm not sure what opposing starters are averaging against us, but the expectation is that  starters are more generally better scorers than reserves and Kemba plays mostly against starters. The team was +10 while he was on the court inthe Wolves game.

I may start calling Romeo - "Johnny Yuma." Johnny Cash sang that he was "Panther quick and leather tough." That pretty much describes Romeo. "The Rebel" part we can do without.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjW0ORlIFS8

jrleftfoot wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:I have to disagree with the "Kemba the turnstile" comments I have been seeing lately. Kemba is a short, skinny guard. People are going to shoot over him as they did IT and the vast majority of undersized guards not named Gary Payton. From what I've seen , he works hard on the defensive end, and stats show that he draws a lot of charges. He is far from a perfect player. He isn't as explosive as he used to be. I get all that. He's more of a guy that can get you baskets when needed, but can't be the focal point of the offense, now, but, defensively, he isn't a "turnstile." IMO, a turnstile is a guy who doesn't give effort on the defensive end. That's not Kemba.Yall must be thinking of Ja Morant.

Really go look at the Wolves game when they were building up that 17 point lead in 2nd quarter and see how many times the ball finds the man on Kemba making a play right by him or him trailing on a finish. That’s not a coincidence, if your a coach you going after Smart, 2 J’s, RWill....I don’t think so?

I will give Stevens credit for having our team play hard through the adversity and injuries. Kemba has hit a couple big shots or drives recently later in the game, but all the mistakes both ends and missed shots, bad passes help put us in the hole.

             you have your opinion and I have mine.I seriously doubt that anecdotal evidence from one game is going to convince me, and I don't expect to convince you. For what iit's worth, the Celtics are surrendering 112.4 points per game and Kemba's defensive rating is 113.8. not great, but hardly as bad as you seem to believe.I'm not sure what opposing starters are averaging against us, but the expectation is that  starters are more generally better scorers than reserves and Kemba plays mostly against starters. The team was +10 while he was on the court inthe Wolves game.

I only mentioned the 2 most recent games because they were the most recent games. If you check any of the the Game On’s you will see a lot of examples of Kemba’s weak inefficient play in real time, mentioned by most of us. Look I root for him and all our guys, we want them to succeed. Kemba is shooting under 40% and his 3 point shooting % is pretty low too, hopefully he’ll turn it around.

It is Kemba's head. He is shooting well over 90% for fritos and only .339 from 3 and .460 from 2. He shot .381 from 3 last year. He's taken 8.0. 3 point shots per game which has dropped his overall efficiency to less than .400. He is an accurate shooter, but he is in a mental funk. Bob H, send him a fan letter to cheer him up. If he can he even 3 of 8 from 3 for the rest of the year he will be shooting at a. .375 clip, a couple extra points per game which would brinh him closer to his 19.8 ppg lifetime average.

Actually 46% from 2 is not bad, didn’t realize his 3 point % brings the overall % down so much....I just love what I’m seeing from RL at such an early early stage. He could be a foundational piece going forward.

Yes, I love what I see with Romeo so far. Very quick, long and aggressive on D with a nose for the basket on O and good rebounding. Panther quick and leather tough.

worcester wrote:Yes, I love what I see with Romeo so far. Very quick, long and aggressive on D with a nose for the basket on O and good rebounding. Panther quick and leather tough.

The making of a lockdown defender

Can't have enough of those in this league!!

db

dbrown4 wrote:Can't have enough of those in this league!!

db

Part of this teams future identity

Smart Romeo Brown Tatum RWill

Can anyone name a better future defensive 5 on a team? 4 of the 5 are under 25.