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Celtics Wrap: Boston Exorcises NBA Finals Demons, Defeat Warriors In OT
Al Horford was the star of the show for Boston

NESN by Keagan Stiefel

BOSTON — The Celtics exacted revenge for their 2022 NBA Finals loss Thursday night, securing a 121-118 victory over the Golden State Warriors at TD Garden.

The Celtics improved their NBA-best record to 34-12 while the Warriors dropped to 22-23.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The Celtics rolled out their double-big lineup for the first time this season, starting the game with both Robert Williams III and Al Horford on the floor with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart. The Warriors countered by heading in the opposite direction, starting Draymond Green at center with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins.

As both teams frontloaded their lineups, depth seemed to become less of a factor — feeding into Golden State’s hands through the first 40 minutes of the ballgame.

Then Boston fought back.

After watching Tatum and Brown combine to go 6-for-27 through three quarters, the Celtics started to move things around in the fourth and got big contributions out of the rest of their lineup. Smart was his usual self on the defensive end, Brown and Tatum each made a pair of huge shots and Horford was the best player on the court in the final two minutes.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Horford was the only reason the Celtics were in the game, finishing with 20 points, 10 rebounds and three mammoth blocks.

— Curry’s impact on the Warriors overall success is hard to quantify. The two-time NBA MVP finished with 29 points, seven assists, three steals and two blocks.

— Tatum was far from his normal self, but found ways to contribute despite turning the ball over seven times. He finished with 34 points, 19 rebounds, six assists and three steals. His short-term memory being what it was helped the Celtics rise to the occasion in a number of big spots.

WAGER WATCH
Horford easily surpassed the 17.5 PRA number set for him by DraftKings Sportsbook pregame. His 20 points led the way and helped $100 bettors cash out at $190.91 at -110 odds.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will head up north to face the Toronto Raptors on Saturday. Tipoff from Scotiabank Arena is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET.

112288

Relieved but not celebrating this one!

Sloppy passing almost cost us the game, but I' ll take it. We are starting to win games when we don't shoot well. Driving the paint and cutting to the basket are working. The picknroll is so much better when RW is on the court. Kornet continues to make the mist of his minutes. Horfird was our MVP, but Brown's aggression ( and his out of bounds save) made the difference diwn the stretch. JT had too many turnovers, but he influenced the fame with his rebounding and ability to draw fouls.

What a GREAT comeback win.  We looked like crap in the 3rd but pulled up to force OT and then win.  We were down 11 with 1:47 left in the 3rd, knocked 3 points off that to trail by 8 after 3.  Picking up 8 points in 12 minutes against a team that is the NBA's reigning dynasty is pretty impressive.

Our usual top 3 scorers (Jayson, Malcolm in the middle, Jaylen) were a combined 20-60, 8-25 from 3.  

Tatum finished with 34 points, 19 rebounds and 6 assists but was 9-27, 4-13 from 3 and 7 turnovers.  Those 3 in a row with 3 minutes left in regulation almost croaked us.  On the other hand he only had 13 points at halftime and ended up with 34.  He played 48 minutes out of a total possible 53.  

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
58 minutes ago
Joe Mazzulla takes us inside the riveting conversation with Jayson Tatum deciding he would play almost the entire game: "I looked at him, he looked at me, and we just kinda said yeah. So that was it."

Jaylen's shooting was as bad or worse but his 3ptr, the only one of the game for him, to tie it at 106 and get us to OT and his save of that ball going out of bounds in OT pretty much won the game for us.  Clutch, gritty high-energy plays by Jaylen when we absolutely needed them.  

Brogdon just struggled to finish all game.  He was 3-8 from 3 but only 2-7 from 2.

I agree with Prakash and BobC, Al was great.  20 points on 8-13, 10 boards and 3 blocks.  It's like he knows he's running out of chances and he took coming that close last year and coming up short personally.  Good.  They all should, and I think they do.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 12 minutes ago
Al Horford: “The reality is it was a big game. I wanted to win. I wanted to win really bad.”

Let's remember that Al didn't play in the game in Oakland.  That motivated him, according to post-game remarks.

Our bench, which has been good all year, wasn't today.  A combined 7-26.  White was 0-6.  Luke with a decent 8 minutes.  Sam never got off the bench.  A big game, we need scoring and Sam the Show doesn't pull off his warmups.  More evidence he'll be gone by 2/9?

Having said that about our bench Steve Kerr only went 8 deep today and they scored a total of 10 points.  When your working 2nd unit is Kevon Looney, Donte DiVincenzo and Anthony Lamb that's a pretty weak bench.  Looney with 12 boards in 20 minutes but is completely inept offensively.

Both teams shot about 40%.  Both teams had roughly the same number of turnovers.  Both teams had almost the same number of ftm, although we had 30 ftas vs 23 for them.  Both teams had 10 steals.  

Where was the differences, in my opinion?  108 fgas vs 100.  Even @ 40% 8 more fgas means 3 more fgm.  Another difference:  52 of their 100 fgas were 3s while 41 of our 108 were.  They shot 34% vs our 31% but their 11 more 3pt fgas almost sank us.  It's weird to think that another team almost beat us playing Joe's game (i.e. there's no such thing as "too many 3s").  41 3pt fgas out of 108 total fgas might be our lowest % in a very long time, but we needed it because we were shooting like shite from 3.  A 3rd difference was that we flat-out beat the crap out of them on the boards 63-47, a 16 rebound edge.  TEN of those 16 boards were offensive.  We grabbed 18 vs 10 for them.  RWill with 7 offensive rebounds.  He had 14 points, 11 rebounds AND 7 OF THEM WERE OFFENSIVE.  That's HUGE.  Putbacks, kick outs for shots, extra possessions.  We had 8 more fgas from them, how many were from RWill's success on the O-boards?

I really liked out up tempo.  We ran on almost everything until the end of the game when everybody was wearing down.  We got 11 fast break points vs 6 for them.  On the other hand we gave up 24 points off of turnovers vs 17 for them.  We had WAY too many live turnovers.  If you're going to turn it over throw it out of bounds and not into someone's hands, for Pete's Sake.

GSW with 4 players with 20+ points on 33-84, 39%.  What stuns me is that just 4 players took 84% of their total fgas.

Curry is unreal.  Watching him warm up before home games is a real treat.

Draymond Green with 11 points, 13 rebounds and 9 assists.  He's annoying as f--k but he is definitely the glue guy on that team.


Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
57 minutes ago
Joe Mazzulla: "We’re a great, balanced basketball team and we show that more times than not."


Bobby Manning
Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
58 minutes ago
Mazzulla: "What it means is our guys have shown we have the mindset, the capability ... to compete at a high, high level and we're growing in those habits too."


Jay King @ByJayKing
about 1 hour ago
Joe Mazzulla said the Celtics showed "tremendous growth" with some of their late-game execution. He thought that was "a really, really fun game." He wants the Celtics to be able to play through chaos. Clearly, they needed to do that tonight.

Yeah, well, I could do with a little less chaos, Coach.  It wrecks my nerves.





https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401468834




Bob


.

Tatum was 9-27 not 9-17

Jayson's 3 late turnovers almost killed us, and what was Marcus doing almost throwing the ball away in the last minute? Thank you Jaylen for being our savior (small "s") tonight with that great out of bounds save and pass back on court to a Celtic. Heady play, sir. An exciting game, but not one a cardiologist would recommend to the faint-hearted.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Tatum was 9-27 not 9-17

Cow,

Thanks.  I corrected my original post.  Nice to see you actually pay attention to what I write.  


Bob


.

Steve Bulpett @SteveBHoop
about 2 hours ago
(Corrected) From Sultan of Stat, Dick Lipe: Tatum (34 pts, 19 rebs, 6 ast, 3 steals). Only other Celtic to ever reach all those marks? Larry Bird at Lakers Feb 1981 (36, 21, 6, 5, 3 blk) JT only 2nd Celt to make at least 10 FT in consec games w/o miss (Isaiah Thomas Dec 2016)


Bob


.

I'll go the ol' "Good News/Bad News routine with what I saw.  

1.  Let's start at the top.  Good News?  We won against the champions, both teams pretty much at full strength.  A "W" is a "W".  Bad News?  We can't play the GSW's like that again in another 7-game Finals series and expect to hang Banner 18.  Just ain't gonna happen.  That's like playing Russian Roulette or Pass The Unpinned Hand Grenade.  Someone's going to lose a head.  More than likely us.

2.  Good News?  We broke through something last night.  We got a potential mental monkey off our backs.  We can beat the coveted Golden State Warriors anytime we want.  Bad News?  If we had lost that game, our season series would have been 0-2 against them.  That coupled with the sting of losing the Finals would start to look like the mental trauma and subsequent unwinding of what the Jerry West Lakers started experiencing in the early 60's.  They'd have us as we had those Lakers.  We got in their heads then and stayed there.  Jerry West has the infinite trips to the psychologist/psychiatrist to prove it.  Fortunately, the 80's and 60's will probably never be seen again with repeated appearances of two dominant teams playing each other in the Finals.  You could even suffice to say that the 80's were a paltry attempt to mimic the 60's, again with the same two dominant teams yet only meeting 3 times.  Then the 90's, it was just the Bulls.  One dominant team.  Times change.  The league changes.  Parity becomes important to somebody for some reason.  Everybody gets a trophy.  

3.  Good News?  Check out our box score.  Everybody chipped in.  Lots of rebounds.  Basically 4 of our guys with DD Rebounds?  When was the last time THAT happened?  6 guys in Double Figures scoring?  More normal but nice to see.  Yes we were up for this game, make no mistake.  Bad News?  We brain-farted near the end but again, the team did not panic.  Just played stupid briefly.  We had a big enough lead so it didn't kill us.  dboss is right.  Fear/Respect the Warriors.  Bad News?  We as fans DID panic!!

4.  Good News?  When you're margin of victory is positive at the end of the game, you win!  Bad News?  I was expecting and demanding MOV of +20!  The Warriors leave an imprint in your head, worse than the game itself.  "To be the best, you have to beat the best."  That phrase is not only obvious the physical side but mental side.  Our guys are still fighting off the stench and sting of the Finals and we will eventually overcome their Jedi mind tricks.  We took a relatively large step forward in conquering that, but the Warriors showed we still have a ways to go.  We're about halfway there.  Thank goodness we have the rest of this season and early playoff rounds to get everything straight if the stars were to align and we play them again in this year's Finals.  CJ better keep the pedal to the metal.  Losing last night's game would have blown us back to Stone Age, IMHBAO.  But we don't have to worry about that.  Move along, please.  Nothing to see here.    

5.  Good News?  Given the "high stakes" with this game, the refs were good enough to foul Thompson out late with no regrets, even in a key "playoff-like atmosphere" game as this was.  That was a potential, big weapon not to have on the floor at the end of the game. Bad News?  Al's "foul" on the 3-point attempt and subsequent unsuccessful challenge by CJ was pretty bogus.  I must be blind.  The Warriors got some "championship" calls ala 90's Bulls.  We did not.  We're not champions yet.  There were just some times late in the game and in OT where I was scratching my head thinking it's true about the calls champions get until proven otherwise and they are  dethroned.  Just a little minutia there.  

OK.  Despite this being just another regular season game, this will be one game to file away and keep in the back of your mind as a possible inflection point in the minds of our players.  I'm just sayin'!

OK, that's enough.  That's what I saw.  

db

TO SUM IT UP THE CELTICS PLAIN SUCKED!

> POROUS DEFENSE
>WHITE DISAPPEARS AGAIN
>TATUM CANNOT HIT A 3 BALL LET ALONE AN OCEAN - REGRESSING EVERY YEAR FOR 3 YEARS STRAIGHT

WHAT IS UP WITH GSW THEIR PLAYERS ACT AS IF THE HAVE 8 ARMS LIKE AN OCTOPUS, ALWAYS TRYING TO STRIP THE BALL AWAY FROM US.  THIS BEGS THE QUESTION, WHY AREN'T OUR PLAYERS DOING THE SAME. OUR PLAYERS ACT AS THOUGH THEY ARE TRYING TO IMITATE EDWARD SCISSORHANDS!

NEEDS - A TRUE 7.0' + BACK UP CENTER OFF THE BENCH, A LOCK DOWN 3 POINT SNIPPER, AND A BETTER ALTERNATIVE THEN WHITE!

112288

Well we won, never saw a game we won and played so bad, but somehow we played hard thru all the misses and mistakes. We are in first place, guess our D was just good enough to pull it out. Obvious big 3 by Jaylen to tie it, then big baskets by Jaylen and 3’s by Al and Jayson in OT….then we tried to give it away again.

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Tatum was 9-27 not 9-17

Cow,

Thanks.  I corrected my original post.  Nice to see you actually pay attention to what I write.  


Bob


.

I always read your posts, they are accurate and informative

To win a game when you play poorly is saying something. They hung in there and somehow came out with a W. That being said it was an ugly performance.

JT's 3 key turnovers (he had 7 in total!) were the worst you can have, turning potential scoring plays into buckets on the other end. He has to be aware of the opposing players. He threw a lot of lazy passes last night. Andrew Wiggins is the one guy that guards JT tough. JT definitely has a hard time getting a good shot off when Wiggins is the primary defender. On the other hand JT worked his tail off to score and keep us in the game. I'm sure he will make better decisions in the playoffs (hopefully).

Jaylen was obviously rusty, but he also hung in there and made huge plays down the stretch and in OT. The save he made on Marcus's bad pass was extraordinary.

It's very hard for me to say anything negative about Marcus. He gives everything he has every minute, but what was he thinking on those two plays at the end of OT? It's just not like him. He actually was one of the few that had a decent game up till that point.

Al and Rob were great. Their rebounding and scoring kept us in the game.

I see some negative comment about D White. Yes, he played poorly last night, but you have to give him a mulligan for this game. He has played well all season. He's shot the ball better and plays great defense. He always hustles and is a team guy.

It's a little concerning that the Warriors give us such a hard time. Their constant motion on offense and swarming D is a little different from what we usually see. I think we will play them better if we face them in the finals.

Past transgressions become more distant memories when you glance at the rear view mirror and everything behind you starts to disappear.  

Neither team shot the ball well and neither team avoided untimely turnovers.

Bobh mentioned the 108-100 FGA advantage by the Celtics.  That was the difference in who won this game.  That happened because the Celtics dominated the glass.

I mentioned rebounding in the pregame write up.

Last night we killed them on the glass.  We had 18 offensive rebounds to only 8 for them.  We also beat them 45-39 on the defensive glass.

Having Al and Rob made the difference. We got 34 points and 21 rebounds from that pair and also 10 offensive rebounds.  Tatum with 19 rebounds and Brown with 9, Brogdon with 7 and Smart with 5 made the rebounding dominance a reality.

In the end we shot poorly, turned the ball over too much but still came away with a win.  Winning the 50/50 possession is dominated by the rebounding statistics.

Having the capacity to win 'Ugly' is what separates elite teams from the pack.

On January 19, 2022 the Celtics were a .500 ball club with a 23-23 record.  The big win against GS was our 8th straight and part of an 12-2 win sample.  At 34-12 we are 22 games over .500

Ugly or not, it is a W in the win column, and we won the hard way. Why they make things hard on themselves is puzzling at times. It took three quarters for Jaylen to finally get his legs under him, but he did it when it counted. Tatum took so much flak during the game, myself included at times, but ended up with 34/19/6. If this kid is ready to put on a run like last year, watch out NBA. Face one fact, we are spoiled. We have come to expect so much of these two young men that when they fail, it is like the sky is falling. As far as White is concerned, I consider it one bad game. He has been playing so great for us, I will not use this game against him. The king of the night was the Old Man of the team. Al was spectacular, it is so much fun watching him play like he did last night. Sit down for Saturday if you have to big guy, you deserve it. Turnovers turnovers turnovers, they drive me almost as crazy as missed free throws. If we hit those free throws we would not have been losing the game. As far as I am concerned, a win is a win is a win. Could care less about GSW

Yes. A win is a win and this one affirmed the team's mental toughness. Brad made a brilliant move trading Kemba for Al.

worcester wrote:Yes. A win is a win and this one affirmed the team's mental toughness. Brad made a brilliant move trading Kemba for Al.

I’m shocked how good he is still playing at and glad we have him 2 more years, he’s aging like Kareem and all his contemporaries are out of the league.

Big Al's earned a championship or two.  Time to go claim them.

db