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Celtics Wrap: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown Lead Way Past Hornets, 120-111
Brown and Tatum combined for 73 points


NESN by Alexandra Francisco

Entering Wednesday night’s game against the Charlotte Hornets, one of the storylines surrounding the Boston Celtics was speculation as to whether or not Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can lead this team to glory.

In a 120-111 win over Charlotte, and without Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart in the lineup, the All-Star wing duo showed they could.

The pair led the charge early and late in the game, with Brown finishing with a game-high 38 points, seven rebounds three assists and a block and Tatum recording 35 points, eight assists, eight rebounds and a steal.

But when things could have gone either way in the third quarter, Rookie Aaron Nesmith enjoyed the best game to his young NBA career to this point to help sway it to Boston’s side. He finished with 15 points, nine rebounds, four blocks and three steals, but it was his defense that was most impressive.

With the win, the Celtics snap a three-game losing streak and improved to 22-30 on the season.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Evan Fournier
C: Tristan Thompson
PG: Tremont Waters
SG: Jaylen Brown

SO FAR SO GOOD
Remember how Brown was going off about the Celtics’ lack of urgency after last game?

Well that wasn’t a thing in the first quarter against the Hornets. Especially not from him, as he dropped 20 points (!!!) in the first quarter alone. With five boards and two assists, might we add.



He and Jayson Tatum played a great two-man game early, with the former adding nine points and four assists in support.


The first quarter ended with Boston up 39-19 after this triple from Brown to close it out.


BREAK THROUGH THE ZONE
The second quarter was a much different story, with a zone defense from Charlotte holding them to just 19 points in the quarter.

While Brown sat much of the quarter, though, Tatum and Tristan Thompson picked up some of the slack scoring.


Off the bench, Aaron Nesmith showed some of his best minutes as a Celtic and Robert Williams brought the energy on blocks in his first game back.

The Celtics led Charlotte 58-47 at the break.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Well a 20-point lead withered away in the blink of an eye out of halftime.

The defensive effort faltered, allowing Devonte Graham to get hot for Charlotte and snap Boston’s advantage to just three points.


But Nesmith kept earning his time with hustle, and he and Pritchard had seven points each off the bench by the end of the third, giving Boston the momentum to get some separation back.


The Celtics led 88-80 entering the final quarter.

BUILDING BACK A LEAD
Jaylen Brown hit a 3-pointer to get the Celtics off on the right foot in the fourth.


But other than that, Nesmith continued his most memorable game to date with a number of plays, including back-to-back blocks and a triple that put Boston up six points.


Brown improved to 7-of-10 from beyond the arc later in the frame, helping Boston close out the game with around 10 points of seperation.


Back in the win column they go.

PLAY OF THE GAME
We missed you, Rob.


UP NEXT
The Celtics remain at home in Boston through the weekend. They’ll take on the San Antonio Spurs on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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I think Jaylen Brown is officially a superstar, called out the team, but not really using as many bad words as I would have; and more important he responded big time, scoring in a variety of ways and making sure we punched first. That’s real leadership and he did it on a b2b in a game we needed to wash away the stench from the collapse the night before. Tatum played and was huge doing Tatum like drives and shots, but the real breakout player tonite was Nesmith, all over the floor making hustle plays, big rebounds and big baskets.

I would so welcome him being the 3rd wheel, as Scal said he’s amazed how much athleticism Nesmith has, as the team didn’t expect that. He was like Marcus Smart, who’s in my personal dog house, in that he was in the thick of so many plays. He was also 2-5 from 3 and got and earned 31 minutes tonite. Smart move by Brad benching Semi and GWill, they obviously earned it. Tough gritty win as 2nd half got close and was an adventure with PP being the only 1, and being forced to give Tremont minutes, with Smart and Kemba out.

I think Nesmith is faster and more athletic than Joe Harris, who can also finish and drive; was wishing we had an efficient player like that over Smart. I was thinking one of Romeo or Nesmith has to emerge, looks like right now Nesmith just had a coming out party, hope we see more and more of him going forward....

Allexandra - Celts are 33-30. Also, thanks for correcting ESPN's erroneous reporting that Aaron only had 3 blocks. Yes, he did have 4.

We now have 4 really good players both ways: Tatum, Brown, PP, and Nesmith. Smart is super on D, undisciplined on O. RWill is ok on D, ok on O. Fournier sucks on D and so far really sucks wind on O. TT is ok on the boards, meh on O and D. Kemba is ok on O, meh on D. Romeo is good on D, non-existent on O. A cipher. Luke is meh on O and D.
Everyone else pretty much sucks, although Grant and Semi both have flashes of being good on D. Jabari is the reverse, flashes of good on O.
Forget Carsen, Tremont, and Tacko. Forget them.

So really we have a good four man team plus Kemba half the time on O when he plays, a great D player in Smart, a fair to good player in RWill in his limited minutes, and everyone else I would trade of release yesterday, yes even Romeo and TT.

TT can still board, until we get a real center, RWill is sadly only good for flashes, might as well keep him. Other teams can find a good center, we can’t. Romeo better get his sh.t, his game together otherwise he can be gone by training camp next year, if he still has no shot, we don’t need another Smart. Really glad Nesmith stepped up, we needed him at this level.

gyso wrote:The wheels on the bus go "Thump, thump, thump", all through this site!!

Is that good or bad?

Hi,
I was amazed by the difference between the attitude in the last night's game and the attitude in the previous 2 games. Day and night.
I wonder what precludes the team to keep it in at least 80% of the games?

AK

A much needed win, not just because they aren't a .500 team but because we have the easiest schedule in the league left and winning games like this give us a chance to move up in the standings vs teams like Atlanta and NYK and their more difficult remaining games.

Jaylen with 20 first quarter points.  Then none in the 2nd quarter, in fact he only took 1 shot in 5 minutes.  6 in the 3rd and then a rockin' 12 point 4th.  He played every minute in the 4th.  He called out the team after the OKC game.  He said that they needed to "play with more of a sense of urgency".  He lead by example.  Tatum is not a leader.  He's a player, a really good player, but he's not a leader.  Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart are leaders and good teams need good player leaders.  The coaches alone cannot give that because they're not players.  7-13 from 3.  Remember when Jaylen couldn't shoot?  He's shooting 40.5% from 3 this year.  His overall fg% is 49.5%.  That pretty frippin' good for a wing who takes 36.6% of his fgas from 3.  When Jaylen is playing like this he is an absolute assassin.



Tatum had a night.  Only 3 turnovers, one of which was completely dumb.  He tried a cross court behind the back pass that flew out of bounds.  He didn't need to throw that pass, he was just being "too cool for school".  Otherwise he played like we all know he can.  



Bottom line:  our two studs played like studs in the same game.  We haven't seen them go off together in a while.  It's been Tatum's night, and Jaylen would struggle; and then Jaylen would go off and Tatum would be the one who can't find has own butt with both hands.  What we saw last night is what we need to see in the playoffs.

The next question becomes "what about their supporting cast?"

Thompson was in full-blown beast mode last night.  12 and 13, with 7 offensive boards.  2 blocks.  This is the Tristan Thompson we'll need in the playoffs, the double-double machine.  Let RWill get his rhythm back and this front court can compete.



Tremont Waters got the start.  There was a lot of angst about him on the Game On! thread, and on the DBoss' Zoom meeting afterwards, but I'm not that down on his performance.  Yeah, he had a few untimely mistakes and got abused on defense a bit but overall he had 6 points, 6 assists and 3 turnovers and 2 steals.  We've been complaining about how our offense is too iso and not enough ball movement, right?  Well, we had a healthy 26 assists last night as a team and Running Waters was responsible for almost 1/4 of them.  You all wanted the ball out of Tatum's hands and into the hands of a point guard?  Here ya go...

But the game ball has to go to Aaron Nesmith.  His best pro game by far.  15 points on 6-12, 2-5 from 3 and 9 boards.  9.  3 of them offensive.  I mentioned this on the Game On! thread last night, but Thompson while had 7 offensive boards there was often a 2nd Celtic in the frame, in the picture, in the paint hoping to scoop up an offensive board and that Celtic was usually Nesmith.  At about :42 of Thompson's highlight film you see him get an offensive rebound, and who else was there?  Nesmith.  At about :55 of Thompson's highlight film he gets another offensive rebound, and who else was there?  Nesmith.  He really loves to board.  And he's MUCH more athletic than I was led to believe coming out of Vandy.

Finally, 3Smith earns a highlight film.  The first of many, I predict.  I only count 3 blocks, but he makes a bunch of great defensive plays that won't show up in the boxscore but are on this film.  He crashes the boards, coming in from the corner.  He doesn't just stand in the corner, hoping someone else will get the board and pass it to him, he goes get the ball.  Romeo fights for boards too but there's a lot to like about Nesmith.  484 total NBA minutes.  No summer league, virtually no pre-season.  He's coming along nicely, even ahead of schedule.  Let's remember that Romeo and Nesmith are the same age, 21 1/2 (10/16/99 for Nesmith and 10/25/99 for Romeo).  So, Nesmith is actually 9 days older than Romeo.  Let's not be too quick to throw out the babies with the bath water, we did that with Joe Johnson and Chauncey Billups.  Johnson was almost 20 1/2 when he started his rookie year and Billups was 21.  About Aaron and Romeo's age now and it took years before those other two blossomed.  You should watch this highlight film, it's only 2-3 minutes long, and you'll see Nesmith doing a lot of good stuff the boxscore won't show.





Romeo didn't play.  I don't know if it's because he's in Brad's doghouse because of the OKC debacle (Parker, Kornet and Semi didn't play either, Grant only played 1 minute) or if it was matchup driven last night but I have to believe Brad's substitution patterns have to be disconcerting to the players.  Romeo is the better position defender, but Nesmith recovers very well with that surprising athleticism I mentioned.  Nesmith is clearly the better offensive weapon, just on reputation alone.  To put a little perspective in this:  Nesmith has played a total of 484 NBA minutes in his career, Romeo has played 572.  So, despite having an extra year in the league, Romeo's injury history has him only 88 minutes further along than Nesmith.  We should cut him a little more slack, although it's up to him to stay healthy and on the court.

Welcome back Rob.  9 rebounds, 5 offensive in 17 minutes.  2 blocks, 2 steals.  Rust?  What rust?  He had a beautiful chase down block on Graham.  RWill, TT and Kornet as our 3rd stringer?  I'm ok with that.

Fournier with another 1-7 wtf?! outing.  He's shooting 30%, 32.5% from3, since coming to Boston.  He shot 46% and 38.8% from 3 in Orlando just earlier this same year.  This is why Danny doesn't like to make trades mid-season.  Assimilation, or lack thereof, is an issue.  Add to that all the games Frenchy lost from COVID and it's not helping us.  Danny wants to keep him long-term (although Danny's a liar when it comes to this stuff).  Since I think Danny is probably telling the truth about this this time I'm going to say "good, maybe this will knock down his contract demands when it comes time to negotiate in a few months".  Either way I think we have his Bird Rights.

We outrebounded them 54-33.  Wow.  That's crushing them.  TT with 13, but Nesmith and RWill with 9 each, Tatum with 8, Brown with 7.  Everybody boarded, and that's a very, very good thing.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401307739


Bob


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Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 10 hours ago
Jayson Tatum is now up to 4.4 apg on the season. The only non-point guards under the age of 24 in NBA history to average at least 25 ppg and 4.5 apg are, per @Stathead: 1. LeBron 4x 2. T-Mac 3x 3. MJ 2x 4. Kobe 2x 5. Oscar 2x 6. Luka 2x (will be 4x) 7. Giannis 8. David Thompson



Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Jayson Tatum said his body felt a lot better and he had more energy after a game off.




John Karalis
@RedsArmy_John
·
12h
I asked Aaron Nesmith about playing like he doesn't care about getting hurt. Here's his answer:



Bob
MY NOTE:  It's cut off a bit, Nesmith says "but 50/50 balls, if there's a ball on the ground, I'm gonna get it a hundred times out of a hundred times".

.

He has balls on the ground. 100%.

This was a must win that was a win and not another loss.

One thing seems to be a recurring theme with this team in terms of lineups and rotation.  The starting lineups have been impacted by injuries and health related protocols all year long. Sometimes just one guy out but more times than we would like to see, multiple guys not able to play.

As this team heads down the final path to the end of the regular season, coach Stevens has been switching so many guys in and out that it is impossible to get a real take on who is part of our core 9-10 guys.  He is like a drunk in the bar throwing darts at anything and everything while trying to nail the target right in the middle.  There appears to be no rhyme or reason but the fact of the matter is that Brad is still in the experimental stage with 4 or 5 guys on this team.  

With both kemba out due to an injury and Smart out due to his own stupidity, last night was a game of musical chairs among our backup point guards.  In the process we did not see any of our backup power forward play (GW got 1 minute)  as Parker, Semi and Williams were not part of the game plan.

Parker is new to the team as is Fournier and you would expect that those guys need a lot of reps over the next 10 games.  

Bobh overstates our angst expressed on the post game zoom session about Waters.  Comments about him were more related to PP who was coming off a career game the night before and some of us believed he should have been in the starting lineup.  Of course we did mention the fact that Tremont's diminutive profile presents a big defensive problem. We saw a lot of point wing with the J's bringing the ball up.

Some things should be clear to everyone at this point.  Next to Smart, PP is our best on the ball defender a the point.  He is our best ball handler and he is our best shot maker and it is not even close.

Evan Fournier is moving at a pace reflective of a Sloth.  Everything he does is in slow motion.  It has to be his bout with Covid because I have seen him play enough that I know he cannot possibly be that slow.  Brad has to play him to get him ready for the playoffs.  The team needs him to be who he was in Orlando.

Sometimes a revelation happens in games and last night was no different.  Aaron Nesmith officially arrived as an NBA quality player.  I wish that Brad never went away from him early in the year.  I wish that COACH Stevens gave him the required opportunity to play through all the mistakes.  Is Brad smart enough not to pile more DNP's on him for the remainder of the year.  Or will Brad experience an epiphany and come to the realization that you will likely need Nesmith in the rotation come playoff time and therefore get him more reps from this point forward.

Romeo Langford got a DNP last night because he is not a very good playmaker and he is not a very good shooter.  Or maybe Brad was just switching out a pair of shoes to match up with his suit and tie. One thing is unremarkably evident.  That kid cannot be relied on to knock down a wide open catch and shoot.

Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum should not have to put up 73 freakin points to prove that they can in fact play together.

TT had an above average game last night and Robert Williams returned to the fold and provided us with energy that resulted in rebound, blocks and steals.

Last comment is for Marcus Smart.  You cannot be a leader if you get suspended by the NBA.  You have done a great job maintaining your composure all year long so don't mess up now because you will hurt your team.

Marcus Smart should be called out, he’s supposed to be a veteran, yet he makes as many mistakes as anyone; like constantly jacking up shots when he’s ice cold. He’s our best trading chip, 2 J’s are untouchable. If he can help us acquire the next under the radar Jared Allen type, I’d do it in a second.