POST GAME - INDY - AWAY

Rapid Reaction: Pacers 106, Celtics 79

By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com

Rapid reaction after the Indiana Pacers defeated the Boston Celtics 106-79 on Sunday evening at Bankers Life Fieldhouse:

THE NITTY GRITTY
There was a two-minute stretch midway through the first quarter in which the Celtics briefly owned a five-point lead. The Pacers dominated much of the other 46. Paul George scored 18 of his team-high 24 points in the third quarter, while Roy Hibbert (15 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks) governed around the basket. Lance Stephenson hung around long enough in the fourth quarter to polish off a triple-double (10 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists over 35 minutes) for the Pacers. Avery Bradley scored a team-high 13 points for Boston, but cooled after a fast start. Both him and Brandon Bass were a team-worst minus-19 in plus/minus (not that any of Boston's players were much better in that category). The Celtics didn't score their first points in the paint until 19:15 into the game, which tells you about Hibbert's influence there.

TURNING POINT
Hard to believe, but it was still a one-possession game with just over eight minutes to play in the first half, but the Pacers embarked on a 15-1 run that culminated with a Danny Granger 3-pointer for a 38-24 lead with 5:06 to play in the second quarter. Boston got no closer than 15 in the second half while the lead ballooned as high as 27.

A CHANCE FOR BROOKS
MarShon Brooks, stuck in the land of DNPs lately, got 10 minutes of fourth-quarter playing time. He made one of his two attempts, scoring six points and grabbing five rebounds in a rare opportunity to state his case for playing time. He was Boston's only player not in the negative for plus-minus, but he wasn't in positive. He was even over his floor time.

LOOSE BALLS
The Pacers owned a 50-22 advantage in points in the paint and outrebounded Boston 53-41. Boston had no answers for Indiana's size and the Pacers just bullied Boston's undersized frontcourt early on. ... The Celtics shot 38.1 percent from the floor (32 of 84), but the Pacers finished at 49.4 percent (41 of 83). ... Keith Bogans was a healthy DNP.

WHAT IT MEANS
The Celtics (12-17) head into a five-day holiday break on a three-game losing streak. They knew Sunday's game in Indy would be tough, but that's only going to leave them kicking themselves about giving away big leads in recent losses to Detroit and Washington. Boston will take the next three days completely off before reconvening at practice on Dec. 26. The Celtics host the Cleveland Cavaliers next Saturday afternoon at TD Garden. 
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BRAD STEVENS’ HOMECOMING SPOILED BY PACERS ROUT OF CELTICS

By WEEI 


This was not the homecoming Brad Stevens had hoped for.

The Celtics head coach returned to the state he thrived as a college coach with Butler University only to watch Indiana roll over Stevens’ club, 106-79, Sunday night in Indianapolis.

The Pacers, who improved to an Eastern Conference-best 22-5 with the commanding performance, held a 15-point halftime lead that the Celtics’ were never able to recover from.

Indiana did nothing to hurt its reputation as the conference’s best defensive team, especially at home, limiting the Celtics to 38 percent shooting from the floor. The C’s only managed three players in double-figures, with Avery Bradley netting a team-high 13 points.

Indiana’s Paul George led all scorers with 24 points, while Roy Hibbert scored 15 on 7-of-11 shooting from the field. It was the Pacers’ second win over the Celtics this season in as many games.

112288

Just some post game comments.

What's up with the Indy fans singing Hey.......Hey Goodbye.....When their team was up 20+ against....WHAT A REBUILDING CELTIC TEAM...........HOW SOPHMORIC!!!!!!!!!  Where were they when they had to face our BIG 3............NO WHERE!

Kelly O. Got really toasted on a number of plays offensively.  Very surprised he has not developed a better offensive game (SHOOTING & MOVES) then what he showed in Florida. 

Vidor Fav...........not showing much and god please lift some weights so you can build some upper strength to play an inside game.

Tommy made some good observations at half time. He noted that the coaching staff may have been feeding new techniques into the teams play and they are losing their rhythm that they showed at the beginning of the year.  He suggested that they go back and work on refining their original play before advancing to more complicated play.

112288

I am going to say something that I may later regret - but the Pacers just lost me as a fan tonight.

For a team full of guys that haven't won a big game in their careers, they sure are full of themselves.  Whooping it up, acting like a bunch of punks who have the title in the bag (here is a hint - that road still goes through Miami.)

You expect it from Stephenson and West - but watching Paul George prance and dance around the court, was pretty distasteful.

They are a great team, but clearly dont know much about class and respecting the game.  Winning in December is one thing....lets see them in June.

MK

AMEN!

112288

Well, well, an ugly loss.

The wheels came off and Boston spent the entire night looking for a wrench.

A few observations...

1. Not enough offense and not enough defense

After a (relatively) respectable showing in the 1st quarter, the game got away from Boston in a hurry in the 2nd quarter. Indiana put up 32 points to Boston's 20. Boston only managed to score 41 points in the second half to Indiana's 54.

Indiana's defense certainly played a significant role, as Boston was never able to find any decent rhythm. The Celtics finished 32-89 (38.1% FG) compared to 41-83 (49.4% FG) for the Pacers. Boston's usually staunch defense was overwhelmed tonight.

Bradley led all Boston's scorers with 13. Green went for 11 and Lee scored 11 also. Crawford finished with 9. Bass had an uncharacteristically bad night shooting 2-9.

2. Lack of execution

Boston committed 16 TOs, which makes it even more difficult to beat a tough team. Some of these were mental mistakes. They need to be much more sure handed with the ball.

The C's only managed 16 assists. They need to be in the mid 20's in this area.

3. Where's the pace?

Indiana's defense is very difficult to break down without efficient ball movement and a fast tempo. They have to run hard and outhustle other teams to make up for their size and talent deficiencies.

4. In the end...

-They really need Rondo, a true floor general. Despite Steven's calming influence, they need a leader with experience to guide them. I'm not saying Rondo will magically fix all of the problems, but he will most certainly make a big difference.

-Jeff Green had a rather forgettable night. He's not a superstar and I don't think anyone should be expecting him to be in that category. He's really just another role player that can occasionally have a huge impact on the game.

-Jordan Crawford is a fighter, I'll give him that. He's willing to take any shot, and sometimes seems to be the only one willing to (other than say Bradley). Unfortunately, I think he's reached his ceiling in the PG role. Like Green, he is a role player but he seems to have more of a desire to take games over.

-Bradley's offense is still looking good. He's stepped it up quite a bit and is looking like a dangerous player practically every night.

-Just another night of growing pains. They'll have to look into what was done wrong and improve on it.



KJ

A tough one to swallow. This seemed to be a game in which all the warts of all the players were exposed. I'm just grateful they'll have an opportunity to relax and clear their heads for a couple of days. KJ, I couldn't agree more with Tommy's remarks about recapturing what they had learned earlier.

If tonight was an illustration of a lean and react, perhaps it's far too early to attempt something at that high a level of complexity. It may well be that, in their current stage as a team (which I put on the human growth scale at about toddler level), they need to be fed simpler stuff so they can experience a better feel of what it's like to operate primarily on instinct.

At least there's an excuse that they played an extremely good team. On the other hand, I believe this game was a continuation of virtually all recent games in which opponents figured out the Celtics' vulnerabilities, made adjustments, and squashed the Celtics increasingly as the game progressed. The scary thing is that it doesn't seem to matter how good or poor the opponent is; they all have had answers. It just happened a little sooner tonight because of the caliber of team they played.

I bet Larry would have loved to play on this Pacers' team.

Sam

This was just a good old-fashioned ass-whuppin' by the team whose core have been together for years on the young'uns.

If there's a small glimmer of joy in this it is that if you saw the Pacers last game, against Dwight Howard and Harden and Houston, this didn't look so bad (yes, I know I'm really hunting for the silver lining here).  That was a truly staggering display of basketball.  PJ Carlesimo said they looked "scary good" in that game and I'd call that an understatement.  They looked great last night, but against a playoff-bound team in the far better WC, they looked invincible.

1.  We need height and beef, in one player (Asik would have fit that role perfectly).  Hibbert scored 15 points on 7-11, destroying us in the first half and only had to jump to shoot over his defender once on those shots.  This is the first time in a long time that Sully was the one left without a chair when the Mastodon Mamba stopped.  They had 50 points in the paint vs 22 for us.

2.  Paul George with 19 points in the 2nd half.  That has been his modus operandi and is why they are such good closers.  West and Hibbert and Hill can do the damage in the first half and then George turns the lights out on the opponent.

3.  They have Luis Scola, Danny Grainger coming off the bench.  Wow.  We see Hump and Wallace and Lee, all former starters, coming off our bench and think we're good.  

4.  Avery Bradley (finally, a Celtic worth talking about!) came out and made the first quarter competitive.  Not as good a first quarter as we've seen recently, but solid.  He played both sides of the ball, having to cover man-child Lance Stephenson.  Then, it started to unravel.  Sully couldn't get the ball over Hibbert, who would just stand like a municipal court house and dare you to shoot over the rooftop antennae of his arms.  Bass was having an uncharacteristically disjointed game.

5.  And our two main scorers, the ones who are expected to carry the offensive water for the team until Rondo comes back?  Green and Crawford were a combined 8-20 (4-11 for Crawford) for 20 points, 3-6 from 3 (1-4 for Crawford, that makes him 3-16 for this week from 3), 6 rebounds (all Green), 3 assists and 4 TOs (all by Green).  It seems to me that both of these two players have hit their ceilings.  Jeff Green is inconsistent.  He is what he is.  He has games where he can go hammer-and-tong with LBJ and other games where Paul George and Danny Grainger take turns turning the screw on the rack Green is tied to.  Crawford, too, has hit his ceiling.  He isn't afraid of taking shots, he isn't afraid of missing, he also has brain farts regularly and forgets he's a point guard when the offense struggles, reverting to a shooting guard.  That is both good and bad.  It's good to have someone being willing to take the shot.  He is also an excellent mid-range jump shooter.  There are, honestly, very few players on this team I would rather see take a 14'-16' jumpshot than Jordan Crawford.  His shooting percentage is suffering because of his lack of conscience.  He's not hitting his 3s, ok it happens to everyone, but in true KoME-like fashion, he won't adapt, he won't give them a rest and do something else to help the team.  I realize that's the way of shooters, shooters shoot, but he's also the point guard.  The good news is that both of these players now have high trade value.  I'm not saying we should trade them, but their value is high and Danny's job is to answer the phone.  Crawford has shown that Randy Wittman exiling him to the end of the bench was, perhaps, an overreaction to his immaturity.   We are also seeing that Crawford is not a starting point guard.  My key point of focus, once Rondo returns, is whether Crawford understands and accepts that.

6.  I don't usually talk about the refs, but they sucked really bad last night.  All night they were calling minor contact fouls on us but not giving us the same calls on the other end of the court.  When we were down 21, and the game was in garbage time, they started to call them but by then it was too late.  Would it have made a difference last night?  Probably not, Indy is just too good, but it's frustrating not being able to get a fair shake.  For those who care, here are the 3 officials for last night's lynching.  Statistically, they don't look bad.  Can't judge a book by its grey and black cover, apparently.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/referees/phillja99r.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/referees/fitzgka99r.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/referees/laneka99r.html

7.  The good news is that Kelly took more than the 2-4 fgas he usually does.  The bad news is that he didn't hit any more of them than usual.  He's 7'0" going on 6'3".  I've never seen a player play this much smaller than he actually is.  He had an absolutely stellar summer league, jaw dropping really.  He was given the key to the city and did a lot of community relations work for the Celtics over the summer before the season started.  Next summer, he has to move in with Strength and Conditioning Coach Brian Doo.  He, like Jeff Green, also has to find his inner asshole.  He needs to figure out how to play with bad intent, like Sully does.  Someone needs to kill his puppy (just a figure of speech!  Please do not hurt his pet and then say some jerk on an online board told you to do it).  

8.  Marshon Brooks came in during garbage time and stuffed the boxscore nicely.  Considering how bad our offense gets in the 2nd half, he might have to play more minutes.

I just threw up into my mouth a little bit.

9.  They shot 49% from the floor and 47% from 3.  I don't care if you're the 2013-2014 Indiana Pacers or the 2012-2013 New York Knicks (with Novak and JR Smith and Melo) or the 2011-2012 Orlando Magic (with JJ Redick and Turk and Ryan Anderson), when you're shooting 3s like that you're going to have a good night.


Finally, I'd just like to chime in on a point that was addressed by MrKleen and 112288, and that is the behavior of the Pacer players and their fans.  I just went back and re-read Sam's "HERE COME THE WORLD CHAMPIONS...THE FINAL CHAPTER IN BASKETBALL
CAMELOT": SlipperySam's account of his trip and stay in L.A. with the
Celtics as they won the 1969 championship, which is story #3.  

https://samcelt.forumotion.net/t510-archives-of-sam-s-writings

Truth be told, I didn't re-read the whole thing, I went straight to what I was looking for.  I re-read the part about the after-victory party, in 1969.  I re-read how John Havlicek just sat on a couch, politely accepting everybody's congratulations and, with clear intent, set his goal and focused on being the last man standing at the end of the evening.

When I was growing up, my father always used to tell me to "act like you've been there before".  Don't do the touchdown dance, don't bay at the moon when you hit the game-winner at the buzzer, act as if NOT doing it would be wrong.  In other words, act as if being in the Winners' Circle is just another day at the office and not Christmas.

Hyenas will still exhibit fear when approaching a dead lion.  That is because the lion is the epitome of a threat to them.  I was irked by their behavior last night too, but then I thought "this living lion shouldn't care what a bunch of laughing hyenas think".  We're rebuilding/transition/changing.  They are not rebuilding, they are built, and yet they still fear us and consider a victory over us to be cause for celebration.  We're too young, have an unbalanced and shifting roster, new coaches with new strategies and yet beating us is Christmas for them.  Not only am I not angry for their taunts, I thank them and revel in them.  The Boston Celtics ARE the lion they fear and should fear.  That is because we have broken their hearts so many times over the decades.  We didn't sing and dance when we beat them, we expected to do it.  Just another day at the office.  We are the Gold Standard of Winning and their behavior after beating us last night despite the obvious difference in our teams only proves it.

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Merry Christmas, Indiana.  Laugh it up while you can but understand this lion isn't dead and you will fear us again.  


bob


.

Great post and nice sentiments Bob.

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2013/12/jeff_green_not_a_fan_of_lance.html?




Print Jay King, MassLive.com By Jay King, MassLive.com
Follow on Twitter
on December 22, 2013 at 10:27 PM, updated December 22, 2013 at 10:29 PM





INDIANAPOLIS – The game was already out of hand, a most one-sided affair.

Because it’s Christmas time, I’ll say the Boston Celtics were getting slapped with a stocking full of coal. One could also say they were strapped to a Christmas tree and beaten with the Xbox Ones they all received in their lockers Saturday.

Or maybe Santa Claus, looking quite a bit like Paul George, came sliding down the chimney to repeatedly bash the Celtics with his bag of toys. The point: during a 106-79 thrashing, the Celtics were thoroughly outclassed by the Indiana Pacers.

Still, Pacers guard Lance Stephenson stayed in the game to complete a triple-double. That’s no sin, at least by my reckoning. Earlier in the season, the Celtics did the same with Jordan Crawford. Triple-doubles are rare achievements, so coaches sometimes let their players chase after them. The Celtics would have been hypocrites to complain much about Stephenson taking eight shots in the fourth quarter just to hit two, finally reaching double-figures in scoring with 4:44 left.

But Jeff Green did not like Stephenson’s reactions to nice shots. After dropping Courtney Lee with a crossover and hitting a long jumper, Stephenson (12 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists) looked like he was practicing the air hula-hoop, or maybe he was just experimenting with the lower-body Walker Wiggle:




Stephenson, who was great throughout the game, especially as a playmaker, celebrated in a similar fashion after reaching his triple-double.

“Of course,” Green replied when asked if that upset him. “That’s not basketball. He made great plays, but at the end of the day, make a great play and get back at the other end. But it is what it is. We’ll see them again.”

Stephenson said he figured he will hear from head coach Frank Vogel about the celebrations.

“It just came with the flow of the game,” Stephenson said. “I was trying to entertain the crowd. I was so much into the game, it just came out naturally. I didn't mean to do it, it just came with the flow of the game.”

He added: “If it comes out in the flow of the game, it happens. I don't go into the game saying, ‘When I make this shot I'm going to do this dance.’ It just comes out. I'm surprised when it happens. When I make a shot, sometimes I'm surprised. I'm like, ‘Wow.’ So I'm like congratulating myself.”

Gerald Wallace was asked about the dance, too.

“That’s between him,” Wallace said. “I ain’t got nothing to do with that.”



bob
MY NOTE:  Some superfluous player, who never gets on the court anyway, should drop Stephenson like a bad habit onto the floor the next sequence after he does that.  Or, even better, do a dance when you dunk on him.  When the refs T you up, point out that you're just doing what he's doing.


.

Bob,

Just as the Lakers have always represented the Gold Standard among Celtics opponents. The greater the derision for the Lakers expressed by Celtics fans, the greater the proof of how much the Lakers really matter.

The greater the exhilaration (even in juvenile form) teams may receive from beating the Celtics, the greater the REAL esteem in which the Celts are obviously held—the kind of esteem that endures throughout the ages, not just for a one-season "dynasty" of a team 200 miles to Boston's south, and not just for a very nice little run of the Pacers that is reinforced by the Law of Averages since they've never won the NBA championship. I noticed last night that, in the spot equivalent to where the Celtics hang 17 championship banners and 22 retired numbers, the Pacers hang banners for three retired players. I reflected at the time on how pitiful the tiny cluster of banners looked, but I figured there was no sense in mentioning it in the Game-on Thread. It doesn't make sense to give recognition to such an unimportant species.

Sam