PLAYOFFS 2023 - POST GAME ATLANTA HAWKS - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Atlanta’s Stellar Shooting Shocks Boston In Game 3 Loss
The Hawks were too much for the Celtics to handle


NESN by Gio Rivera

The Boston Celtics weren’t able to apply some hefty pressure on the Atlanta Hawks, falling in Game 3, 130-122, Friday night at State Farm Arena.

The Celtics now lead the series, 2-1, over the Hawks.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
After Game 2, the Celtics acknowledged that their ultimate challenge was yet to come: Winning playoff games on the road. But Atlanta pulled the carpet underneath Boston, and the C’s weren’t ready.

This time, the Hawks were far from the pushover they previously were in Game 1. In the first half, Atlanta picked apart Boston’s defense, which was horrific to get started. Whether it was exploiting the switch of Al Horford on Trae Young or surprisingly netting baskets from the outside on a shot-for-shot exchange, the Hawks were noticeably energized by their home crowd, unlike anything we’ve seen from them this series.

The C’s allowed 74 points to the Hawks by halftime, the most scored by any opponent all season long and the most scored by anyone thus far in the playoffs. Atlanta’s bench was stellar, totaling 44 points of contribution while shooting a combined 16-of-22 shooting. That helped apply the pressure, giving the Hawks their first fourth-quarter lead of the series.

Despite a final resilient push to the finish line, Boston failed to put Atlanta in an improbable 0-3 deficit, given plenty of opportunities to out the Hawks.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Jayson Tatum, while strong, couldn’t find the big moment baskets to propel Boston ahead. Tatum recorded a double-double, scoring a team-leading 29 points with 10 rebounds and five assists.

— Young assured he’d be better in Game 3 and that he was. The All-Star guard was key in relieving the pressure from Atlanta’s frontcourt, finishing with 32 points on 12-of-22 shooting along with six rebounds and nine assists.

— Marcus Smart was inspiring, delivering a strong outside shooting performance (5-of-12) coupled with some timely clutch baskets in the fourth quarter. He supplied the Celtics with 24 points, eight rebounds and three assists.

WAGER WATCH
Smart hadn’t shot particularly well from 3-point range in the first two games of the series, but the hot hand from the outside was contagious for Boston. FanDuel Sportsbook the over/under on Smart’s total 3-pointers at 1.5 with -158 odds on the Over. He cleared those odds easily, connecting on 4-of-6 attempts in the first half alone. A $100 wager placed on the 29-year-old would’ve netted a $163.29 total payout.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will seek a bounce-back victory in Game 4 on Sunday. Tipoff from State Farm Arena is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET.

112288

Hawks played as hard as they could behind the home crowd and great game plan by their coach. Their bench and starting backcourt played extraordinary, Murray is much better and tougher than I thought. Jaylen is not as nuclear Jaylen as can be on his power drives, he’s a bit hesitant. He still hit some good shots, but can see subtly his hand/grip is slightly off. We still had this game as our defense tightened up just as bobc33 said it would in 3rd going into 4th, but down the stretch Trae and Murray hit incredible 3’s with our guys hands right on their shooting hand. Great offense beating good defense, as Tatum missed a wide open 3 after a Jaylen steal where he would normally take it end to end; but was slightly hesitant with his hand/grip and decided to make the right play/pass. Nuclear Jaylen would have powered that steal into an and 1, but wasn’t meant to be.

Well championship runs are never easy, give Hawks credit, they were fighting for their basketball lives and their top players and bench all showed up. If just one of their bench players was off, we’re up 3-0 IMHO and the series is over. They earned it. Coach Joe has to get 48 minutes of high level defense and hopefully we can pull out game 4.

Post Game Pouting:

I knew it. I’m lying, no I didn’t.
I actually thought that the team would fly to Atlanta, take in a Braves game, maybe take a tour of the former Olympic Park. The same place the bomb went off during the 1996 Olympics while I was on the air and spinning Top 40 oldies only to have to stop and transition to all news all night.
Or maybe the entire team would go to lunch at Magic City, eat some chicken Wangs, (No thighs, legs or breasts. They’re out of bounds), take a nap, head to State Farm and further humiliate the Hawks in their own back yard.

Didn’t happen. So instead of gobbling down some Wangs, our boys gobbled down and swallowed a.big.fat. L!
Still in all, I predicted that we would win in 5 in we will do just that. Now-

Jaylen? Give him a hand. He tried. Problem is he needed both hands. It was obvious , he’s hurting.

White picked up 2 quick ones so Joey had to summon Grant from witness protection and Grant showed us what Grant can do.
Please stop messing with this man. It’s obvious that there is Hateraide flowing in the locker room punch bowl. I know, we are doing fine without him. But still, Please stop messing with this man. Please!
Who wants to bet Grant takes another DNP on Sunday? Hope not.

Our offense scored 122 but we gave up 130. I would say our D gave up 130 but it was a no show.

Speaking of show, and maybe I should be saving this for my Post game pettiness but I ain’t.
On Sunday let’s please show that show boat Murray what happens when you try to show us up. Let’s make sure he knows what playoff basketball is really about-winning the series and not A game where you play above your head and show out.

Let’s show Daddy long legs Dejounte and his shallow running podnah Supper Trae and the rest of these imposters what they have coming to them. Let’s get rid of these clowns with a quickness. We got unfinished business ahead.

Anywaysssss as for last nights “game”-no biggie. Gotta lose 1 to win in 5.

Post Game Pettiness:

NBCBoston gave us Scal for our lead PBP. I like Eddie but being paired with a Scalabrine diminishes any positives that Eddie can bring to the scorers table.

First quarter, they talked and they talked and they talked. It’s because Scalabrine has yet to get a grasp on being an analyst. PBP is the Peter Principle dealing with Scal.
So they talked and talked and talked. Scal even said “Rebound Hawks”! Huh?

I peeped the Game On thread and saw where Cowens said turn to ESPN. Duh..what was I thinking?
I turned to ESPN and instead of Scal and Eddie talking my ear off, the Atlanta PA announcer screamed throughout the game while music remixes constantly played throughout. MORE NOISE!
I never thought the day would come where I would be begging to hear Analyst Hubie Brown’s voice. But I couldn’t. The damn arena noise was drowning both of em out!
Okay, I give.
Finally took Bob H’s advice and turned the damn sound down fired up my top 40 oldies playlist and watched us lose.

Agree with Cowens’ take on this.

Hawks have a strong guard combo that showed up.

No crisis here, the Hawks have just improved the past several weeks.

Sticking with my original vague call of Celtics in 5 or 6.

…although after reading Ktron’s post I now want to go get an order of wings.

Hi,
Our team didn't get that memo that states that defense wins championships. And they decided to skip this part of the game yesterday.
On top of that, Young and friends played the best game of their lives.
I hope it was just a fluke.

AK

Rebounding continues to be a problem. We gave them too many second chance shots again, and this time they made us pay. Young and Murray got into the paint all night. We just didn't play consistent D. Some possessions our D was good others it was not. Bodon and Bey were incredible in the second quarter. They shot 10-10 and their bench 13-14 in the second quarter. Some of that was our poor D, but other times they were just making shots. Got to give them some credit. They rebounded the ball, shot it well and played good interior defense.

All that being said. Both Brogdon and JT had open looks to tie the game late. It took two highly contested 3's by Young and Murray to hold us off. Marcus played a helleva game. Jaylen is still a little off his game. I thought Grant was tremendous. Give him credit he didn't whine about not playing the first two games, and stepped up when called upon. We have to step up our defense tomorrow night and get tougher on the boards. We kinda let our guard down a little last night. I expect a more focused team tomorrow.

NYCelt wrote:Agree with Cowens’ take on this.

Hawks have a strong guard combo that showed up.

No crisis here, the Hawks have just improved the past several weeks.

Sticking with my original vague call of Celtics in 5 or 6.

…although after reading Ktron’s post I now want to go get an order of wings.

I hate to make excuses, but we’re not seeing the fearless bully ball Jaylen of the last month that Barkley called nuclear. That Jaylen would be going right thru and over Murray, who is a very good player no problem. Five stitches in between fingers would make anyone uncomfortable.

cowens/oldschool wrote:

NYCelt wrote:Agree with Cowens’ take on this.

Hawks have a strong guard combo that showed up.

No crisis here, the Hawks have just improved the past several weeks.

Sticking with my original vague call of Celtics in 5 or 6.

…although after reading Ktron’s post I now want to go get an order of wings.

I hate to make excuses, but we’re not seeing the fearless bully ball Jaylen of the last month that Barkley called nuclear. That Jaylen would be going right thru and over Murray, who is a very good player no problem. Five stitches in between fingers would make anyone uncomfortable.

Has there been an update on Jaylen's hand? We are all assuming the stitches are still there. It's been two weeks, is it healing? Certainly he's not playing at the level he was at the end of the season. Is this the hand or a couple of off games? We all want to see nuclear Jaylen tomorrow.

By late first qtr. I had started worrying that the Celts will lose this game. They were ahead and shooting lights out from 3. But that is a script that I have seen a few times this season. The loss to Nets at home and at Chicago pop into my head right away.

There is more to the pattern but somethings are consistent: Primarily generating open 3s on offense, shooting well, but most of all a strange disconnection with defense and what the other team is doing. It is just weird that the whole team is that way and not just that a person is having a bad game. I wonder if there is something about the game prep once in a while that leads to this.

Any way, on to the next game. Hopefully the fully focused Celts show up.

The Celtics fixed one of two issues (Turnovers) however the rebounding disparity has not been addressed.  The  Hawks won the all important metric 48-29.  That a +19.  The Hawks had 11 offensive rebounds to 6 for us and that helped them to win the second chance points battle 23-9.

The Hawks shot the ball exceptionally well.  I loss count of the number of shots that they made even though our guys were in their grill.  

Our offense wasn't exactly dogs--t. We shot 48.9% from the field and 43.8% from deep while launching 48 attempts.  Well, they shot even better.  56% from the field and 44.1% from deep.

Defensively I have one observation where the Hawks took advantage of our coverage.  We played too much drop coverage off of those high screen plays.  Maybe CJ was concerned about rebounding but the drop coverage opened up lanes for way too many floaters and uncontested midrange looks for the Hawks.  In the end, they shot 63.1% on 2 point attempts.

CJ will need to figure out how to stay out of drop coverage and still maintain a low post presence on the defensive glass.

There is only one way to accomplish that, IMO.  You have to play more double big lineups with Al and Rob together.  One big needs to defend at the point of attack and the other big can defend the rim and secure the defensive rebound.

Let me dig a bit deeper on what I am see happening.  AH is not rebounding the ball well.  Through 3 games he is only averaging 5.7 rebounds per game while logging 33 minutes.  Last night he only played 29 minutes.  Rob only played 19 minutes last night.  In 3 games Rob has averaged only 21.3 MPG and 6 rebounds.  On a per minute basis Rob will give us more rebounds than Al.

Last night the Celtics played more small ball.   That is great for the offense but it hurt us on the defensive glass.

I think CJ should tweak things a bit by playing Rob more minutes.  We have to close that rebounding gap.

Welcome back, our old POTO "friend".  God, we missed you!!!  We thought you had left the building but we welcome you back with open arms.

Add Rebounds.  How in Hell's Bathroom does that happen for RWIII?!!  5 Rebounds in 19 minutes?!  Might want to check the expiration date on RWIII if this kind of performance continues.  We did have 11-5 in steals.  But it didn't add up in POTO.  

Good news is we usually come roaring back after a display like this.  And what's sad is we made 18 more points on the 3-ball and shot those very well.  Missed some free throws.  

We were also in a position to win.  Doesn't guarantee a win.  Just has us in position to win.  I'll take that.

Marcus with 24 points and 8 assists.  He showed up along with Tatum.  Brogden as well.  Everybody contributed.  Head scratcher again.  Can't have too many of these but this should stamp it in our brains this will not be the last time this happens in this run.  Just who we are.    

Not much else to say.  One game.  Put the brooms back.
2-1.  Do this again today and we have a problem.  Crush them like a grape, come back to Boston and wrap things up in 5 and all is forgotten, but we must live with our old "friends" and keep this in the backs of our minds until then and beyond when it happens again.  PHI licking their chops.  Duly noted as they swept sans Embiid and we're still playing...

This hiccup is our destiny with this team.  It ain't going away in the playoffs.  Let's just hope we don't do it when our competition has already won 3 games against us.   

db

There were a few games that the Celtics lost this year because the other team shot the ball exceptionally well.

I am not going to try to put a spin on our game 3 loss.  The Celtics played very well and came to within one possession of winning the game.

That's great but I do not believe in good losses or bad wins.  

The bottom line is that our defense has to be much better.  It makes no difference what round or game or opponent that you are facing.   Defense wins championships.

Marcus is questionable after taking a hard fall in game 3.    If he can play he will but this is no desperation game for the Celtics and other injuries often occur when a player is favoring some other injury.  The Celtics should proceed with caution.

Teams are going to lose quite often when their opponent has a significant rebounding advantage.  

It should take all of us back to the fundamentals of this game.  With all the emphasis on highlight offensive activity and how well a team shoots and from where...rebounding remains one of the 3 pillars that supports winning basketball games.

So let's hope that Boston got the message after allowing Atlanta to own the glass (+19)