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Celtics Wrap: James Harden Erupts, 76ers Steal Game 1 From Boston
The 76ers strike first

NESN by Gio Rivera

BOSTON — The Celtics began their second-round matchup in gut-wrenching fashion, falling to the 76ers, 119-115, in Game 1 on Monday night at TD Garden.

With the loss, Philadelphia takes a 1-0 series lead over Boston.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The 76ers had no Joel Embiid to rely on, but that didn’t matter.

With an NBA MVP candidate sidelined, Philadelphia turned to a former league MVP, James Harden, to keep Game 1 as competitive as possible while the 76ers weather the storm of Embiid’s absence. Harden went toe-to-toe with Jayson Tatum, making for an electric series-opening battle.

While the score wasn’t indicative of it, it seemed as though the Celtics had control for the better part of three quarters considering how easily they were able to generate offense and exploit some holes in Philadelphia’s defense. But the 76ers stuck around and refused to go down easy, fighting until the very end.

Marcus Smart came through with some timely heroics, drawing two crucial fouls while also scoring to complete a pair of crunch-time 3-point plays to help build some much-needed separation from Philadelphia. However, it proved to not matter as the Celtics committed a bone-headed turnover, which the 76ers made Boston pay for.

Harden delivered the game-deciding blow, netting a highly-contested 3-pointer with Al Horford right in front of him to send the game into a final score.

With the loss, the C’s extend Boston’s losing streak — combined with the Bruins — to five straight games at TD Garden.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Harden was elite, scoring a game-leading 45 points, which tied a new career-high playoff mark (45 points). He shot 16-of-28 from the field while knocking down seven 3-point attempts and dished out six assists.

— Tatum led Boston’s charge, finishing with 38 points on 14-of-25 shooting, 11 rebounds and five assists. The elite performance gave Tatum his 25th career playoff double-double.

— Malcolm Brogdon provided starter-level production coming off the bench, delivering 20 points while going 9-of-16 from the field with three rebounds and three assists.

WAGER WATCH
Tatum was red-hot to begin the night from beyond the arc. FanDuel Sportsbook set the over/under of Tatum’s 3-point total at 3.5 with +114 odds on the Over. In dropping 26 points in the first half, Tatum went 4-for-4 from 3-point territory, clearing those odds easily. A $100 wager placed on Tatum would’ve netted a $214 total payout.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will look to continue defending their home floor, returning to action for Game 2 against the 76ers on Wednesday night at TD Garden. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET.

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That performance made me sick, we gave the game away, the zone started our downfall. Every time they went to the zone, we hesitated and had bad possessions. I never saw Jaylen play like that, he was unstoppable, going nuclear then just stopped playing. I don’t understand it or understand this team….Doc actually had a game plan and knew when to call stuff to slow us down and confuse us. When Doc coached the Magic he had them playing way over their head and got a CoY award, that team was clever, hustled and overachieved.

Having said all that we still could have pulled this game out, but got screwed to 2 key calls. The Tatum getting whacked, how is that not a flagrant? Doesn’t matter if it was unintentional, was still extreme contact and has to be a flagrant. Then the Smart call, he was straight and above the circle, that’s got to be a charge. These refs suck. Doc had over a week off and had his team ready.

One concern of mine tonight was D White looked lacking in confidence, and his stat line was unimpressive. We need him to get back to his regular season play.

bobc33 wrote:One concern of mine tonight was D White looked lacking in confidence, and his stat line was unimpressive.  We need him to get back to his regular season play.

BobC, that is because have just gone away from ball movement and getting everyone involved. White is not a catch and shoot player.

We have a good team and we have won a lot. However, I can’t shake this feeling about Joe Mazzulla’s game and team prep.

Or it is not Mazzulla. The Celts did have some inexplicable losses last year in the playoffs. I was hoping that we had learnt a lesson.

My problem was. Where was Rob? We have been told, they will not win without him, is there something going on there that they are not telling us???? 11 minutes in the first half, not overwhelming in the second half. He is wearing Al to the bone. I am not one to place blame, but there is something going on here that they are not revealing? Big puzzle. No Grant hardly? Jaylen disappeared in second half. What a loss, disappointing

I think that the main difference between this years team and last year’s team is that last year they could turn on some pretty impressive lockdown defense. They just aren’t as committed to defense this year. It’s hard work, defending-but their lack of commitment all season long is going to cost them in the playoffs.

Doc saying their goal was just to stay in the game and be there in the 4th, that they could get over the hump if they could keep it close. We still had the lead and couldn’t even get a shot off on the last turnover by Brogdon, we literally threw the ball away into Maxey’s hands and gave it away.

Joe saying they were confused, didn’t know how to read man to man and zone, thru off their spacing. No sh!t Joe, you just got outcoached and your team collapsed again.

Well I was supposed to be way wrong.  But any of the 7 or so reasons as to why we would lose G1 on the other thread will do.  But I went with my son's prediction.  He was right.    

Harden came out of his shell or went back to Old Harden where he's the focus.  Not sure why our defense kept letting him come down and score with relative ease, especially near the end.

Didn't learn our lesson from ATL G5.  Hard heads make sore asses.  

Possibly returning the gifts recently sent to us.  We'll have to see on that.  Jury's still out.  We can't stand prosperity unless we earn it ourselves.  

All I can hope for at this point is remembering the 2008 first 2 rounds for us.  Each went 7 games but if I remember correctly, we won all the home games.  Losing the first game at home makes G2 a real, unnecessary nail-biter.  But this team loves the melodramatic.  Merry Christmas.  Our gift to ourselves.  

Oh, BTW.  My son's prediction going forward?  We win the next two.        

DEN knows how to take care of business.  CP3 don't look good.

We were expecting brain farts. There's #1. Only get two more if we choose to use them.    

db

Why we lost last night is simple. We have no floor general .............we have no focus!

The last floor general was KG and he called the defense on the floor. If you did not respond, he took care of business during a time out. He was crazy but effective in his method of getting results defensively!

The mistake was to have Horford come out to the arc to guard Harden instead of a wing or a guard. That created space for Philly players as per Doc. We have no one out on the floor to take charge.

Do you think a collapse just comes out of thin air?????? This is part of the Celtics DNA for the last 3-4 years.

We played poorly in the Atlanta series to allow them to even take it to a 6th game.

So if we are in the blame game and finding an excuse...............here is my blame........I blame the Boston Bruins for loosing in OT in game 7 the night before. That created a negative vibe within TD Garden and a curse on the Celtics! How about that!

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Post Game Pouting:

It was a very Celtic type evening here in the great southwest and sorry to say I took on our teams personality.

Back stabbing Embiid ain’t playing. We had our messiness against the Hawks  so i’m thinking that they got it out of  their system. Thats what I get for thinking.

So tonight I just knew we were going to take game 1.
So confident was I that off to water  aerobics I went thinking okay I’ll miss the first half be back at
the crib for the second half, watch us win then replay the first half.
But …noooope!
They did it again. Dicking around and lost a game they should have won by 10 or more.

A few noticeable’s :

-Joey had Grant and Hauser split 8 and some change.
“Fo for u and fo for you, now make the best of it”.
I get it. He was trying to be fair. Even Steven.(no relation to Brad) Very players coach like. Yay that!!

-Rob played all of 19:46.  Gotta make sure he doesn’t fall down and hurt himself right?  Besides we are going to need him in the finals. Prudent Joey. Always thinking ahead. Yay that!!

-Joey later said “ Al was the best one to guard Harden on that 3 and then said “ I didn’t put them in a position to win. I got to be better at play calling” or something like that.
At least he’s honest.

-Speaking of Al, he said that the Backstabber in street clothes was a factor in our losing.
At least he’s honest.

-Can somebody tell me how a team shoots 70 percent in the first half with the backstabber in street cloths and only lead by 3?

-PJ Tucker was auditioning for the The Nutcracker and got the part. The part of Tatum that sent him to the floor.  
On purpose or by accident. Doesn’t make a difference . Should have been Flagrant and nightly night for you PJ.

What do we have replay for? Use it ot lose it- for good. Just plain senseless.

-That Scalabrine person
says that PJ Tucker will be suspended next game for the Nutcracker so count on PJ to be in the starting lineup come Wednesday evening.

-Oh! Harden played like it was game 1 of a 7 game series like he always does and then regresses from there. So if this thing goes 7 don’t look for Harden at the Garden.

-Can’t put all of this on Joey. Me thinks we lost because we didn’t defend and transitioned into our game 5 Hawk mode. ‘Relax we got this’!   No.u.don’t.

-And those last 2 possessions was our impersonation of the Milwaukee Bucks in crunch time.
Those are the reasons why we lost to Glenn Rivers and the projects.

-Let’s hope on Wednesday our beloveds come out of the tunnel chanting the NBA playoff promo ditty by Hip Hopper A$ap Ferg:

“I’m on a new level. I’m on a new level”


Post Game Pettiness:

-Kevin Harlan, Hype Master extraordinaire!!

Maxey drives to the hoop and scoops a layup off the glass and Harlan gets out of sorts, raises his voice  and goes into a frenzy as if it was the second coming of the assassination of John F Kennedy.
Can you relax just a lil bit Kev?

-Reggie Miller:

Please find something else to do.

On  Paul Reed’s free throw attempt-
“Wow.  Oh man nothing but net”

On Marcus Smarts diving for that loose ball.
“ Look at the Hustle by Marcus Smart. What a play.
But there was no way he was going to get that ball but he’s got his team fired up”.

And finally-
“ Al Horford and Marcus Smart do all of the little things that don’t show up in the box score”.
Reggie was conducting a cliche clinic the entire game.

Reg, please do what your sis Cheryl has done. Make like a tree and leave…

Tatum echoed comments made by Horford after the game about the Celtics’ defensive effort:

“They were just in a rhythm throughout the whole game. I don’t think our pressure and intensity was necessarily as high as it should have been over the game.”

DUH!

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My thought during the game was, "Okay, we're not playing defense?  Fine, that means we just have to outscore them."

That may have worked, except they may have to have an immaculate game in order to pull it off.  As it turned out, they didn't.

My only question late in the game was, "Why isn't our regular starting team out there closing this game up?  Where's White?"

That was way before Brogdon threw it away.

Not-so-much-fun fact:

That was the fifth loss in a row at the Garden this past week.  (Us and Bruins  )  Lets hope the streak ends at five.

Go Celtics!!!

Hi,
As others pointed out, the main reason for the loss was poor defense (most of the time).
On top of that '76rs' drive, desire to win, was through the roof.
Another possibility, more on emotional side, is that Doc came prepared, knew exactly what's to be done. On our side, Joe came prepared to fight Embiid but didn't prepare plan to fight the highly motivate and driven team without JE. Kind of - no plan B.
I hope that, whatever the underlying problems were, they will be addressed and corrected in the next 4 games.

AK

Winning G1 and losing G2 is some much more comfortable than what we have to do now.  Now we have to speculate that we may be down 0-2, blah, blah, blah.  

Having to "bounce back" the next game gets old and eventually you get caught with your pants down.  But (un)fortunately that's our MO and we're very good at it.  Just like living and dying by the 3.

Yeah, ktron, you caught the same thing I was thinking.  Getting James Harden to go back to his Houston days is like flipping a switch.  He will implode here shortly when the heat gets turned up and Embiid is back.

As far as why we lost the game, check out our old friend Mr. TO.  

db

cowens/oldschool wrote:That performance made me sick, we gave the game away, the zone started our downfall. Every time they went to the zone, we hesitated and had bad possessions. I never saw Jaylen play like that, he was unstoppable, going nuclear then just stopped playing. I don’t understand it or understand this team….Doc actually had a game plan and knew when to call stuff to slow us down and confuse us. When Doc coached the Magic he had them playing way over their head and got a CoY award, that team was clever, hustled and overachieved.

Having said all that we still could have pulled this game out, but got screwed to 2 key calls. The Tatum getting whacked, how is that not a flagrant? Doesn’t matter if it was unintentional, was still extreme contact and has to be a flagrant. Then the Smart call, he was straight and above the circle, that’s got to be a charge. These refs suck. Doc had over a week off and had his team ready.

I love Jaylen’s game this year but I wonder if he is afraid to get to the line with the game on the line. Even if that’s the case then they should go back to putting him in the corner three position (like early in his career under Brad) just for the last six minutes so he can at least hit open threes. There has to be some explanation.

BingBang

I like your suggestion on putting Tatum in the corner. Could take the pressure off him.

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I still heard no reason WHY Rob Williams only played 19 minutes. Every player on that starting team loves having him out there. How many times have we heard "without Rob we are not going anywhere"? DWhite had a game he would love to forget, why not get him out of there ? Jaylen Jaylen Jaylen, for the last month you have been the best player on the team, if every other superstar in the league can figure out how to beat the double teams, why can't we???? Just some questions I have slept on (or not slept). The other thing is, how long is it going to take to totally wear out Al Horford??He is not 26, he is 36 or whatever. Burn out is possible if they are not careful with him, break down the glass house you have put Rob in and let him loose, or is there more to this than we are being told.

Can someone tell me Joe's plan was for beating Philly without Embiid? Bueller? Bueller? Without Embiid they had no inside presence, no rim protection, so why didn't our focus on defense move to the perimeter where their threat did still exist? Our strategy when Embiid plays is to double him and force him to give the ball up and make someone else beat us. We couldn't do that with Harden? We can't trap him and force someone else beat us? Did we do anything to try and get Harden out of his rhythm?

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Malcolm Brogdon said they doubled Harden too much tonight, which is on Joe & the players: "It's all the above. Some of them are reads, some of them Joe's calling. I think everybody, we're all at fault because that's something that the players do as well. It's no fingers at all."

I disagree, Malcolm. It's not that you doubled him too much, it's that you doubled him ineffectively. That not only means forcing him to pass it means anticipating who he's passing to and close the distance so you can shoot the passing lane. We had 3 steals all night. If you're doubling a player above the arc and you're playing aggressive defense you should have more steals than that. That's what Philly did, they doubled Tatum and shot the lanes, and they had 10 steals.


This is Al Horford admitting our immaturity.



Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Tatum said on that Maxey steal off the Brogdon pass in the final quarter that they didn't try to defend it because they thought it was a shot clock violation.

This is immaturity and lack of focus. You don't stop until you hear the whistle, the bell, the buzzer, the light goes on, whatever. They teach that in AAU, Pop Warner, PeeWee and Little League. I don't blame Brogdon for the turnover. It was a bad one, for sure, but it was his only one of the game. Our problems began way before the point where a single turnover could kill us. The blame belongs on the other 4 players who just stood there because they assumed there'd be a whistle.


They shot almost 51% on the game and almost 45% from 3. Defense, anyone? The Time Lord with only 20 minutes. Why, Joe, why? What were you seeing about our defense that was so stellar that you limited one of our best defenders?

Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 5 hours ago
The Celtics were the NBA's #2 defense this year. They're 12th out of 16 in the playoffs. Boston gave up 1.23 points per possession 7 times in the 82-game season. In the last five, The Hawks/Sixers are AVERAGING 1.23. (The Spurs set the NBA record this year allowing 1.196)

The players know how to play defense, and they have the players to do it, but they're not doing it and that's on the coaches.

We shot 58.7% on the game, so we scored easily, HOWEVER, we only took 75 fgas and took 26 3pt fgas out of those 75. The hallmark of this team through the season has been how many 3s we take and now, in the playoffs, we stop taking them.

Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
yesterday
The layups were nice, but they did get the Celtics away from what they do best. They took 26 3-pointers, their second-lowest total over the last two years. “I don’t think 26 3s is a recipe for our success as a team," Mazzulla said.


The Sixers took 14 more fgas than us. 89 is an alright number, but not really big. The problem is our lack of shots.

Late in the game Jaylen had the ball on a break. A Sixer, or two, were back but their defense was far from set. Instead of taking it to the rim like he normally does Jaylen pulled it out and we ran down the clock as the rest of our players came over half court. They'd been walking the ball up, killing clock, for a while and that killed us. We stopped running.

Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
about 6 hours ago
The #Celtics played poor defense for most of G1 vs #76ers, but scored enough to lead late. One play embodied the loss, Jaylen running for a clincher in transition only to pull the ball out, slow down & allow a key Philly stop.. "I was running by myself"

We were up 4 points with 1:38 left. We were outscored 12-4 in that minute-and-a-half-plus because we were playing "prevent defense", which is like saying "playing not to lose instead of playing to win".

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401545111


Bob


.

Not for anything, Maxey played with 5 fouls for how long???? why were they not going right at him everytime?

I think everyone is overlooking what Melton did in the first half. He hit 5-5 from three and scored 17 points. Some of it was our lackluster defense. However, at least 2 or 3 of those were tough long and contested. When a role player steps up like that it is tough to overcome. If he hits 3-5 we likely win the game. We shot 74% in the first half, shredded their defense and were up 3 at half time. I knew then we were in trouble.

Then in 3rd quarter Harden puts up a corner fade away hits the rim, the announcers are saying he misses and the ball bounces high and right in the hoop, a la Don Nelson. I don't think I've a shot from the side do that in 57 years of watching basketball. Kawhi's was different it bounced around the rim. Nellie's was from the lane. Sometimes it may not be your night.

That being said, we still had control of the game late. I totally agree that Jaylen got too passive in the fourth quarter. With about 2 minutes left up 4 we got a rebound passed it to Jaylen who only had Harden to beat (Harris was also in the play, but Jaylen had an angle on Harden). Instead of driving it, he backed it out and we didn't convert a key chance to go up 6 or 7.

The last guy I would expect to miss open shots and make bad plays is Malcolm Brogdon. Yet up 4 (may have been the same possession Jaylen backed it out) he missed an open 15 footer that could have put us up 6. I know you can't make them all, but not converting there led to the 3 point play by Maxey and you know the rest. Then of course the errant pass to Maxey after that.

I agree our defense wasn't stellar, but it was good enough to win the game if we didn't turn the ball over 16 times to their 6!!! That's where the game was lost!!! Too many turnovers, and Philly capitalized. Anytime we turned it over they made us pay.

Rosalie, I think the reason Rob is not playing more minutes is because he can't shoot the three ball and the two big lineup with no Embiid just doesn't work as well against their small lineup.

Give them credit, they played smart, hard and hit key shots, but we gave this game away. I hope we can recover, but now we are in a hole.

cowens/oldschool wrote:That performance made me sick, we gave the game away, the zone started our downfall. Every time they went to the zone, we hesitated and had bad possessions. I never saw Jaylen play like that, he was unstoppable, going nuclear then just stopped playing. I don’t understand it or understand this team….Doc actually had a game plan and knew when to call stuff to slow us down and confuse us. When Doc coached the Magic he had them playing way over their head and got a CoY award, that team was clever, hustled and overachieved.

Having said all that we still could have pulled this game out, but got screwed to 2 key calls. The Tatum getting whacked, how is that not a flagrant? Doesn’t matter if it was unintentional, was still extreme contact and has to be a flagrant. Then the Smart call, he was straight and above the circle, that’s got to be a charge. These refs suck. Doc had over a week off and had his team ready.

I love Jaylen’s game this year but I wonder if he is afraid to get to the line with the game on the line. Even if that’s the case then they should go back to putting him in the corner three position (like early in his career under Brad) just for the last six minutes so he can at least hit open threes. There has to be some explanation.

Bob


.

DBoss,

We were scoring well in the first half as you can see by the box score per quarter. My take, our first problem was simple, we quit playing defense and just tried to out score them in Q 1 & 2 which did not work. Second problem, we had no offensive strategy to break their zone defense on the fly by coach Joe in the second half while we continued to not play defense.

Bottom line, we were not focused and not as hungrey as Philly. Give them credit.

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