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Celtics Wrap: Derrick White’s Career Night Fuels Boston’s 3-Point Party
White had a couple heat checks in the win


NESN by Greg Dudek

The Boston Celtics easily dispatched the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night by cruising to a 125-113 win at TD Garden.

The Celtics improved their NBA-best record to 40-16 while the lowly Hornets dropped to 15-42.

Check out the full box score here.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
After the Celtics hit back-to-back 3-pointers just 46 seconds into the contest, the game felt over. That’s how big of a disparity there is at the moment between the Hornets and Celtics.

The Hornets never really stood a chance, and that’s before the Celtics went on a 3-point barrage spearheaded by Derrick White to bury Charlotte.

With the Hornets barely testing the Celtics — Charlotte never led but did go on a 14-0 run in the third quarter that still didn’t get the deficit under double digits — Boston seemed to challenge itself by seeing how many trifectas it could hit. The Celtics drained 16 of them in the first half, a franchise record, and finished the contest hitting 25-for-55 (45.5%) from deep. The only two players on Boston who didn’t hit a three were Robert Williams and Luke Kornet.

Not much was learned from this win for the Celtics as they are far superior than the Hornets. But, at least they didn’t drop down to Charlotte’s level and made it entertaining with their 3-point party.


STARS OF THE GAME
— White erupted to lead the Celtics as he scored 26 of his career-high 33 points in the first half. White was on fire, especially from beyond the arc, as he hit his first eight shots. He also found time to record nine assists, three rebounds and three blocks.


— Jayson Tatum made everything look routine as he feasted on the Hornets. The MVP candidate tallied a game-high 41 points on 13-for-20 shooting to go along with four rebounds and four assists.


— Mike Muscala made his Celtics debut after Boston acquired him in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. Muscala showcased his strong long-range shooting by hitting four 3-pointers en route to 12 points.


WAGER WATCH
White might be taken more seriously as a 3-point shooter after this performance. DraftKings Sportsbook set White’s over/under for 3-point makes at 2.5 with +145 odds. He cleared that mark by the second quarter and hit a career-best eight triples on 14 attempts. A $100 wager on this prop bet would have netted a total of $245.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will serve as an appetizer to the Super Bowl on Sunday as they take on the Memphis Grizzlies. Tipoff from TD Garden is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET.

112288

I think Brad Stevens deserves a LOT of credit for his moves. Big moves, small moves they all seem to pay off and our talent level and morale is sky high.

Well done Brad!!!

Sighted in the Garden, There's a Moose on the loose!!!

This was an unsatisfying win for me.  There's no way that Jayson Tatum should have had to play 37 minutes against MJ's Charlotte Do-nots.  A W is a W is a W, but we can't play him that many minutes the rest of the way and expect him to be fresh deep into the playoffs when he'll be playing even heavier minutes.  I know Jaylen's out, and that puts more pressure on the J who played, but Brad needs to find some reliable, veteran depth off the waiver wire for Tatum.  Just my opinion, of course.

He did have a 41 point game.  He was averaging 30.6ppg before today, so his average will go up a bit.  No Celtic has ever averaged 30ppg for a season.  Not Bird, not Hondo, not Pierce nor Allen.  That's remarkable, both of them.  It's remarkable that nobody has done that before and that Tatum's doing it and he isn't even 25 years old yet.  

One historic milestone achieved today is that Jayson Tatum is now the youngest player in NBA history to have 1000 3pt fgm.



Another historic milestone today is that, with his 8th 40 point game this season, Jayson Tatum ties Paul Pierce for 3rd place in 40 point games in a season.  Only Larry Bird has had more.  He had 9 in '84-'85 and 11 in '87-88'.

And Tatum still has 26 games to go.  He's averaging one 40 point game every 7 games.  If he keeps that up, at that rate he'll have 3-4 more by the end of the regular season, which would either tie him with Larry Legend with 11 or pass him with 12.  Wow.  Jayson will be 25 on March 3rd, 21 days from now.  When Larry had 11 in '87-'88 he was 31 years old.  Damn.

Tatum's 13-21, 5-10 from 3, 10-12 from the line notwithstanding I still have to give the Game Ball to Derrick White.  Career regular season high 33 points and a career regular season high in 3pt fgm with 8.  Derrick took 19 fgas, 14 of them were 3s.  No wonder he played 37 minutes, Joe was in a basketball version of an Ecstasy high and forgot to sit him.  I'm joking, of course, White earned every single one of those minutes.  He also had 10 assists and only 1 turnover.  He also had, and marvel at this, 3 blocks.  Mark this day down.  Derrick White with 3 blocks and The Time Lord with none.  After the Philly game Blake said that Derrick was the best shot blocker on the team after RWill.  Good eye, Blake, good eye.  Derrick is on a hot streak, for sure.  The injury to Marcus has really unleashed his game.  Over the past 10 games Derrick has averaged 3.8apg and only .9TOpg.  Over the last 5 games he has averaged 5.2apg and only 1TOpg.  Both of those pairs of stats are unbelievable.  Think he was worth Romeo, JRich and a couple of picks?  I sure as Hell do.  I liked Josh, but he's not as versatile as Derrick, and Romeo?  He's not a bust anymore but he's not close to being Derrick.  His 3pt fg%, which started off the season weak, is now up to 39.8% including this game.

Grant is in a vicious shooting slump.  He'll work his way out of it, he's proven to be a good 3pt shooter, but he's struggling now.  In this game he had 6 assists and only 1 turnover.  That's why I love smart players.  They know how to impact the game even when their forte isn't on point for them.  Hopefully the passage of the trade deadline will improve things for him from here on out.

Same with Payton.  3-8, but one of those was a blown layup.  Focus on the now, kid, focus on #18.  Next year is a basketball eternity away.

Sam got another start and shot 4-9 from 3.  He shot 4-11 overall.  Never seen such a lousy finisher from 2.  There's nothing wrong with being a hot catch-and-shoot-from-3 player in today's NBA, but it'd be nice if you could learn to do what Grant learned and that is that when they run at you to drive you off the arc you don't just sidestep and shoot the 3 anyway, you put the ball on the floor and drive to the rim and finish or get fouled on the defensive rotation.  Despite Sam's extremely well-documented shooting slump he's still shooting 41% from 3 including this game and that's still excellent.

Welcome to Boston, Moose.  It'd be funny if Joe plays Muscala and Pritchard together a lot, I'll start calling them "Moose and Squirrel" with the prerequisite fake Russian accent (just call me "Bob Badenov").  Great introduction to TD Garden fans by scoring 12 points in 16 minutes on 4-8, all from 3.  I said we were getting a good 3pt shooter with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio, who wasn't a great rim protector or rebounder.  Well...2 assists and zero turnovers and only 1 rebound.  He had a block.  Ok, so he surprised me there.  Regardless, a great first game with the team for Mike "Moose" Muscala, and against an easy team to settle in with.  If he had been traded before the Philly game he might not have played or wouldn't have played as well without any time to learn the system etc.  His 3pt fg%, including this game, is now an even 40%.  We got rid of a totally useless Justin Jackson and got a 40% 3pt shooter in return.  I'll say it again, "Good job, Brad.  Now find us a wing shooter for depth behind the Js".  

Brogdon with an awful 1-6, 1-4 from 3, night.  4 assists and 3 turnovers isn't awful, but he's a point guard.  So not good either.  I'm not in the slightest bit worried about The Big Smooth.  He's coming off a great game against Philly and everybody else was killing it tonight, so he's gets a well-deserved pass.

Other than the fact that this game should have been over after 3 this was a good example of our depth.  We were up 16 after 3, but were up 28 with 4 1/2 left in the 3rd.  So we lost 12 points off our lead in 4 1/2 minutes, and that's not good.  Our players on the court at the 4 1/2 minute mark were Grant, Payton, Malcolm, Jayson and Luke.  At the 3:32 mark the score was 94-72, still a 22 point lead.  RWill and Moose came in for Grant and Luke.  In those last 3 1/2 minutes or so we had 2 Brogdon turnovers, 1 RWill turnover, we went 1-5 (Moose with the 3 with 8.1 left, 2 Brogdon misses).  4 fgas in 3 1/2 minutes.  That's bad, a lot of that was caused by the turnovers.  Can't shoot if you give the ball to them.  The Hornets only shot 2-6 during that period, that's why they're the Hornets, but they did score on 5-7 from the line.

Some good news, we had 34 assists on 44 fgm.

Some bad news, we gave up 11 offensive rebounds.  There's no way Mark Williams should have been able to get 5 of them with RWill on the court.

26 ftas for Charlotte vs 17 for us.  Can't complain about the reffing, Hornet fans.

We are now just 1 game ahead of Milwaukee.  That beautiful pad we had before evaporated with our losing streak.  Still, I'd rather be #1 in the league and be looking over my shoulder at me than not being in first and having to stare ahead at the teams in front of me.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401468993





Bob


.

Boston Celtics @celtics
yesterday
Derrick White after scoring a career-high 33 points on the one-year anniversary of being traded to the Celtics: “I love being here and it’s just been fun playing for this team.”

MY NOTE: Happy One Year Anniversary, Derrick.


Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Derrick White said Marcus Smart was worried White might break his Celtics single game 3-point make record lol.


John Karalis @John_Karalis
yesterday
Mike Muscala says he picked number 57 in honor of his mother, who passed before the season. She was born in 1957.

MY NOTE: Damn. She was younger than me.



Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Believe it or not, Mike Muscala is the first #57 in #Celtics history.


Bob


.

When asked what went wrong in the 3rd, Coach Joe Mazzulla said something like . . .

"We missed open shots and kept passing it to guys in white jerseys".

What did you tell your players in the huddle?

"Only pass it to guys in black jerseys".

Maybe not an exact quote, but close enough. It got me laughing, that's for sure.

Well shut me up.
I find some humor in Muscala being acquired and he comes in and hits some 3s for 12 points in 19 minutes.

It’s not unusual for a bench player to come in and make a big splash only to never be heard from again. Even if that were to happen, last night’s output made it worth sending Jackson out. A few more performances like that and maybe he will cover the cost of the second rounders swapped away as well.

His value certainly isn’t as a big or a defender, but Muscala can make the trade good with just a few games like last night.

NYCelt,

We've had many players come in and light it up (exceed expectations?) in their first game or two and then disappear. Connor Henry, Brad Lohaus, etc. The difference here may be that all those guys were young and Muscala has been around for 10 years or so.

While I do not expect this result every game going forward, my guess is that we will see more games like this, depending on matchups. His biggest role is to allow Horford to reduce minutes and not be worn out at the end of the regular season.

Now we gotta find the guy that allows Tatum to sit more.

Boy do we look great when our 3’s are dropping. Was almost like a scrimmage, glad we didn’t play down to opponents level. Jordan has created the worst team in basketball again. Mascala fit in perfect, an experienced vet made it easy. D White has taken his game to a new level. This DWhite and Brogdon are gonna be huge in the playoffs.

gyso,

Do you think SIASJ is honing his craft to be Pop, Jr. on the interview circuit? Pop was/is the best all time for answering a stupid question with the obvious stupid answer. No one in 2nd until now. And it's coming form the youngest coach in the league!! This could be YEARS of entertainment especially if a dynasty emerges!!

db

dbrown4 wrote:gyso,

Do you think SIASJ is honing his craft to be Pop, Jr. on the interview circuit?  Pop was/is the best all time for answering a stupid question with the obvious stupid answer.  No one in 2nd until now.  And it's coming form the youngest coach in the league!!  This could be YEARS of entertainment especially if a dynasty emerges!!

db  

The other difference is that Pop honors and recognizes good and well thought out questions.
Our Step Coach, Joe on the other hand, Gives smart ass or I’m smarter than you answers to questions that in my opinion are great questions.

I understand some intolerance of stupid questions, but not to good well thought out ones.
These folks are journalists trying to earn a living. I wish some of the interviewees would honor that by answering a good question. The dumb ones? I get it.

Joe’ll get away with that until one (or more) of the disrespected reporters decides he/she is going to go after him or until he starts losing important games that he shouldn’t.
In either case, Joe won’t win. some of these reporters can be vicious. Vicious enough and credible enough to help turn the fan base against you and assist or hasten with your dismissal from employment.

Ktron wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:gyso,

Do you think SIASJ is honing his craft to be Pop, Jr. on the interview circuit?  Pop was/is the best all time for answering a stupid question with the obvious stupid answer.  No one in 2nd until now.  And it's coming form the youngest coach in the league!!  This could be YEARS of entertainment especially if a dynasty emerges!!

db  

The other difference is that Pop honors and recognizes good and well thought out questions.
Our Step Coach, Joe on the other hand, Gives smart ass or I’m smarter than you answers to questions that in my opinion are great questions.

I understand some intolerance of stupid questions, but not to good well thought out ones.
These folks are journalists trying to earn a living. I wish some of the interviewees would honor that by answering a good question. The dumb ones? I get it.

Joe’ll get away with that until one (or more) of the disrespected reporters decides he/she is going to go after him or until he starts losing important games that he shouldn’t.
In either case, Joe won’t win. some of these reporters can be vicious. Vicious enough and credible enough to help turn the fan base against you and assist or hasten with your dismissal from employment.

Good points ktron I agree, Coach Joe is playing with fire.

bobc33 wrote:

Ktron wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:gyso,

Do you think SIASJ is honing his craft to be Pop, Jr. on the interview circuit?  Pop was/is the best all time for answering a stupid question with the obvious stupid answer.  No one in 2nd until now.  And it's coming form the youngest coach in the league!!  This could be YEARS of entertainment especially if a dynasty emerges!!

db  

The other difference is that Pop honors and recognizes good and well thought out questions.
Our Step Coach, Joe on the other hand, Gives smart ass or I’m smarter than you answers to questions that in my opinion are great questions.

I understand some intolerance of stupid questions, but not to good well thought out ones.
These folks are journalists trying to earn a living. I wish some of the interviewees would honor that by answering a good question. The dumb ones? I get it.

Joe’ll get away with that until one (or more) of the disrespected reporters decides he/she is going to go after him or until he starts losing important games that he shouldn’t.
In either case, Joe won’t win. some of these reporters can be vicious. Vicious enough and credible enough to help turn the fan base against you and assist or hasten with your dismissal from employment.

Good points ktron I agree, Coach Joe is playing with fire.

I also think that Joe does not care for Gary Washburn. I could be imagining things here. Give it some attention and tell me what you think.
I notice a disdain look on Joe’s face almost every time Washburn poses a question. And its usually followed up with a smart ass answer.

I’ll be on the lookout for his interactions with Washburn, though I don’t watch the post game that often. I’ve definitely noticed his curt responses to Abby Chin who certainly deserves better.

bobc33 wrote:I’ll be on the lookout for his interactions with Washburn, though I don’t watch the post game that often.  I’ve definitely noticed his curt responses to Abby Chin who certainly deserves better.

I’ve noticed that as well. What a surly little Step Coach we have here…

Asking a dumb question here, what does "SIASJ" stand for?


And, regarding Ktron's point about being careful how you treat reporters, let me remind you of a quote by Mark Twain.

"Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel".

This is even more true today given the vendor-imposed cost of that ink has been replaced with the sunk cost of delivering electrons.


Bob

.

bobheckler wrote:Asking a dumb question here, what does "SIASJ" stand for?


And, regarding Ktron's point about being careful how you treat reporters, let me remind you of a quote by Mark Twain.

"Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel".

This is even more true today given the vendor-imposed cost of that ink has been replaced with the sunk cost of delivering electrons.


Bob

.

SIASJ= “say it ain’t so joe”. Thank dboss for that bit of creativity.

Mark Twain knows the deal!

Kind words for Joe Mazzula are few and far between around here. If the consensus of the board coached the team we'd probably 56-0 instead of 40-16. Brad Stevens must be some kind of idiot to elevate him to head coach. Now we are criticizing his media relations, as well as his starting lineups, substitution patterns, offensive philosophy and use of timeouts? Mannaggia----

jrleftfoot wrote:Kind words for Joe Mazzula are few and far between around here. If the consensus of the board coached the team we'd probably 56-0 instead of 40-16. Brad Stevens must be some kind of idiot to elevate him to head coach. Now we are criticizing his media relations, as well as his starting lineups, substitution patterns, offensive philosophy and use of timeouts? Mannaggia----

Yeah, It sucks being a Step Coach. Honestly though, for his sake, Coach Joe could use a media coach.

Then maybe, once the tag is removed everyone will fall deeply in love with him. Maybe….:>)

Ktron wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:Kind words for Joe Mazzula are few and far between around here. If the consensus of the board coached the team we'd probably 56-0 instead of 40-16. Brad Stevens must be some kind of idiot to elevate him to head coach. Now we are criticizing his media relations, as well as his starting lineups, substitution patterns, offensive philosophy and use of timeouts? Mannaggia----

Yeah, It sucks being a Step Coach. Honestly though, for his sake, Coach Joe could use a media coach.

Then maybe, once the tag is removed everyone will fall deeply in love with him. Maybe….:>)

        TBH, I probably overreacted to the surly little stepcoach appellation. On reflection it is pretty damn funny. Joe could probably use a media coach. He doesn't project warmth. I just feel that he is underappreciated around here. He walked into a tough situation on short notice. The only objective standard for coaching performance is wins and losses. So far, JM's results have been pretty darn good. We'll see what happens from here.

jrleftfoot wrote:

Ktron wrote:

jrleftfoot wrote:Kind words for Joe Mazzula are few and far between around here. If the consensus of the board coached the team we'd probably 56-0 instead of 40-16. Brad Stevens must be some kind of idiot to elevate him to head coach. Now we are criticizing his media relations, as well as his starting lineups, substitution patterns, offensive philosophy and use of timeouts? Mannaggia----

Yeah, It sucks being a Step Coach. Honestly though, for his sake, Coach Joe could use a media coach.

Then maybe, once the tag is removed everyone will fall deeply in love with him. Maybe….:>)

        TBH, I probably overreacted to the surly little stepcoach appellation. On reflection it is pretty damn funny. Joe could probably use a media coach. He doesn't project warmth. I just feel that he is underappreciated around here. He walked into a tough situation on short notice. The only objective standard for coaching performance is wins and losses. So far, JM's results have been pretty darn good. We'll see what happens from here.

Overall I think Joe is doing a good job. Like any other coach he has his shortcomings.
Some people, including myself are viewing him through a narrower lens because of his age and experience. If we sucked it wouldn't be a big deal but we are on the cusp of #18 so of course his every move is going to be magnified.
You are not wrong when pointing out the heightened criticism of our coach but it kind of comes with the territory especially when you have a team whose expectations are higher than high.

Off the court, Joe really does need to be cautious in dealing with the media. The Belichicks, and Pop’s have earned their right to be testy and surly. Joe has not and again, as long as he’s winning he’ll get away with it. He needs to know how to play the media game because he’s always going to be second guessed and it appears that he doesn't believe that he should be.
I’ve heard numerous people say that they don't like the way he treats Abby. i don’t think he’s treated her any differently than anyone else but he comes off as not wanting to be bothered and at times and is very dismissive.
Like I implied earlier, it’s in his best interest to at least appear that he wants to answer questions.
Doc Rivers was and is a master at press relations. Talk about catching grief, Doc has been pummeled from all sides for years and handles it very well.
If Joe doesn’t have a media coach he needs to get one and also study as to how some of the other coaches handle it.
Media will eventually murder him if he doesn't.

Ktron, you can address this best but do you think the surliness and curtness of coaches and players in general with the press in sports are the way they are because they are first "forced" to go in front of a crowd of people who for the most part are there to constantly criticize your body of work?  Like anyone, I would be on the defensive from the utterance of the first word of the first question.  And as soon as anything negative against me came out of their mouths be loaded for bear, especially if I had just lost or blown the game.

I know that's the media's job, but what exactly do teams owe them except being forced to show up for a grilling every night?  I'm probably going to answer part of my own question via following the money but the media provides the huge, almost infinite platform.  The least the teams can do is show up for a torching/grilling and take a little heat.  Is it possible to turn the tables and only have teams show up for press conferences when they want to or hey, have something they want to report or is that sacrilege?

What exactly are the rules of engagement regarding the players/coaches/teams and the media, including during the game as well?  And why are they that way?  

Thank you and anyone in advance!

db

Db,
I’ll answer your last question first.

Yes. All are required to be available for media post game interviews.
If players don’t abide they can be fined. This is part of the collective bargaining agreement.
This also includes the coaches sideline interviews during before and after the game.

Why? Because the networks pay $millions to have access to not only the game but the participants as well. I understand why some participants piss and moan but its also a major reason why they're getting paid stupid money.

I don’t know for a fact how players and coaches feel about this agreement.
But IMHBAO, I’m pretty sure they’d rather not have to make themselves available.
It has to be a distraction for the coaches especially during a game.

As for the players, I would venture to say that if it wasn't a part of the CBA, many of them wouldn't make themselves available.
They do it because they have to make themselves “available”.

There are many negative aspects regarding this agreement and I cannot blame some of the athletes and coaches for not wanting to share certain things.

1. Lots of reporters ask dumb and repetitive questions. I can understand why a player would not want to talk with some of them.
I’ve covered events where a reporter asked a question. The player throughly answered the question and then was asked the same question again by a different reporter immediately following the initial question. Ive witnessed this on many occasions. It’s almost a guarantee that it’s going to get repeated at least once at a presser. That would eventually unnerve anyone on the receiving end of the question.

2. Most athletes know which journalists/reporters are going to be fair and accurate and which ones to be cautious of.
Unfortunately the players and coaches are not allowed to pick and choose who they will respond to so if some appear defensive it probably stems from the relationship they may or may not have with that specific reporter. TRUST is a major factor here.
And of course, some players and coaches just may not feel like being bothered and react accordingly.

3. The CBA states that they have to make themselves available but it doesn't state that they have to answer their questions. They can “no comment” or “next question” and won’t get fined by the league but it’s certainly not in their best interests to do that.
Sure it can be a nuisance but it’s better to be in the good graces of the folks that control the narrative as opposed to being uncooperative or putting up a brick wall. One thing that works in their favor now as opposed to back in the day is Players today at least have social media to engage the fans and to an extent control the narrative.

As I said in a previous post, some coaches and athletes are very good at handling the media.
The best I have seen is the late Tom Landry, Doc Rivers, Tom Brady, KC Jones and Brad Stevens.
I admire them because it’s much harder to be them then it is to be a Belichick a Popovich or a …Kyrie Irving.

Finally we cannot leave out the fact that reporters and journalists have a job to do. They need to be respected ..until they reveal that they are undeserving of it.

Thank you, Ktron! Excellent insight. Yeah, I've noticed that the questions during the game typically center around things that can be answered relatively quickly and with not much deep thought, i.e. things that are right on the coaches mind at the time. After the game they can ask more thoughtful questions. The press respects the fact that there is indeed a game going on and the fact that you're not going to get the full attention of the coach you are interviewing, who like you say, is not really thinking about the interview.

While fast forwarding through the commercials, I always stop for a SIASJ interview!! You can always count on him to by quick and to the point, but sometimes offensive.

db