Post-Game Thread - Preseason vs 26ers, Away

[bobheckler]

We showed we could play the beautiful game and win pretty in Europe, in Brooklyn and against the Knicks at home.  Last night we showed we could win ugly, and brother, was it ever ugly.  It raced past ugly, blew by hideous and did a 4-wheel drift as we accelerated through coyote ugly and on to double coyote ugly.

1.  Finally!  We are finally seeing the Sully I love and want back.  The bruiser.  The Two-legged Mastodon.  The dinosaur.  He fought Jahlil Okafur tooth and nail last night and did himself proud.  This is the 2nd game in a row where he pulled his "look at me!" head out of his "how can you miss me!" ass and got down in the block and used his God (and Mama's) given gift to keep opponents off the boards.  He was only 3-9 but he worked like a beast let out of a cage.  I'll take his effort over the last two games and trust the shots to start dropping again, no problem.  He took no 3pt fgas.  None.  Zero. Nil.  Bupkiss.  You have no idea how much joy it brings me to be able to say that.  He had 14 rebounds in 20 minutes.  I pooh-poohed his rebounding a game or two ago because a bunch of them were uncontested stat boards but last night he had a ton of rugged, wrestle-the-ball-away boards.  It was beautiful.  If there was a beautiful part of this game is was watching Sully go back to his roots and bang.  While David Lee started off the game defending against Jahlil Okafur it was Sully who spent most of his game against him and I thought he fought the guy who is Vegas' odds-on favorite for ROY to a standstill.  I know the game is evolving into a league of greyhounds but God Help Me I do so love watching big men battling in an old school phone booth for supremacy.  Okafur played 30 minutes and had 12 points on 6-16 but my eyeballs saw Sully fighting him to a draw.  Anytime we can call the Bloodbath in the Blocks a draw, we won because that is one of our biggest glaring weaknesses.  Sully's back!

2.  Everybody was talking about how Isaiah Thomas had some rust on him last night.  I've seen less rust on a ship lying on the floor of the Caribbean.  Everything about his game was choppy, not smooth.  His dribbling, which is usually exceptional, was somewhat hestitant.  He was 3-17 (2-12 at the half) and 0-5 from 3.  During the game, watching him throw up brick after brick, I was thinking "live by the IT, die by the IT".  He was pulling what I used to call a "KoME" and shooting his team out of the game.  Then GYSO reminded me on the Game On thread that this is the pre-season, so let IT shoot himself back into shape last night, when the game doesn't count.  I calmed down a bit after that, thanks gyso.

3.  David Lee has struggled during this off season and last night didn't redeem him.  I'm still liking what he brings to the team; veteran leadership, savvy, rebounding, very good passing for a big and scoring but his scoring has not made an appearance yet.  I'm not worried, the balloon hasn't gone up yet and unless he really has lost his legs his offense will come.  According to him one of the pluses of not playing much last year is that his body didn't get beat up, and he's only 32, so I'm going to cut him some slack and stick with him for now.  1-5 though?  Ugh.  His nemesis last night was

4.  Nerlens Noel is the other side of the Jahlil Okafur coin.  Okafur is a brute on offense down low but is a mediocre defender.  Noel, on the other hand, has quite rudimentary offensive skills but is an eraser on defense.  Lee struggled to get shots up against Noel.  In fact, everybody had trouble getting shots up inside against Noel last night.  He had 3 blocks but it seemed like more.  He also had 4 steals.  The problem the 26ers had was that's the same stats he had at halftime.  He went from 1-5 at the half to 4-10 for the game (3-5 in the 2nd half), so that's nice and he rebounded well but his defensive intimidation faded a bit.  There has been some bloggers speculating over whether Danny should trade Hinkie for Embiid.  Embiid's foot, and the rumors that he needed additional surgery because he wasn't diligent in his rehab, scares me but Noel?  Yeah, I'd consider trading for him.  Offensively challenged and thin as a rail but he's a human flyswatter on defense.

5.  Then again, maybe we already have our Nerlens Noel.  Jordan Mickey has a nose for where to go, a nice fundamental sense of the game.  Maybe that explains why he and RJ Hunter have such a good 2-man chemistry.  RJ is a smart player, a coach's son, and Mickey knows the game.  In a game where we shot 35% (and the 26ers shot a Death Valley low 29%) Mickey was 5-7 for 10 points in just 12 minutes.  He also had 4 rebounds, 2 of them offensive, a steal and 2 blocks.  One of the blocks stand out as a complete erasure.  One second the ball was out of the shooter's hands and on its way and the next second it was going backwards twice as fast as it came.  He struggled down low on defense a bit against Okafur, but when you consider Jahlil outweighs him by a Buick-and-a-half it's understandable.  At least one of RJ's 2 assists were to his favorite target ,Jordan Mickey.  Brad is looking for combinations that work?  There's one right there.  Everytime the two of them are out on the court together good things have happened.

6.  Another bad shooting game by RJ but he had a number of very good defensive sequences.  He didn't come into the league with a rep as a defender but his defense has impressed me more than his post-summer league shooting.  Like with Lee, I'm inclined to cut RJ slack on his shooting.  I know it will come to him because that's his specialty.

7.  James Young actually played good defense last night, as Brad gave him a long look with 21 minutes.  Shot like shit, but he defended and that is a HUGE plus for him.  I think it was bobc, on the Game On thread, who noted that he doesn't have that deer in the headlights look about him anymore.  On the other hand, he was 1-12 from last night. For a guy who is still on the bubble he could have shown a bit more prudence in his shot selection.  Ah, to be 20 years old and still not entirely sentient again.  Ok, maybe I don't really miss that.  The other Bubble Boy, Perry Jones III, played 12 minutes and did nothing to improve his position on the bubble vis-a-vis Young other than that he shot a merely distasteful 1-5 vs Young's projectile vomiting worthy 1-12.

8.  You have to admire Amir's game.  He works HARD.  He sets pin down picks that open up driving lanes you could drive a Peterbilt through.  19 minutes, 8 points on an efficient 4-7 and 13 rebounds, 5 of them offensive.  No flash about the man, none, he just goes out there and does all the little non-boxscore things that make your team better.

9.  So, I've come up with 3 high points for this game.  One I mentioned already and that was Sully's game.  The second has to be the win itself.  Winning when you're shooting 36% is a valuable lesson too, just not one I want to have to relearn regularly.  The 3rd high point was our defense in the 1st quarter.  They scored 17 points, which is not as impressive as holding them to the "Thank God I'm not a Sixer fan" 13 3rd quarter and 12 4th quarter points, but they have themselves to blame for a lot of their 2nd half offensive woes (25 points?  In a half?) while the 17 we held them to in the 1st quarter was us.  Specifically, it was Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley blowing up every offensive set they tried to get themselves into.  If they didn't dump the ball into the low post to Okafur quickly a turnover was a distinct possibility.  Bradley alone had 4 steals in the first quarter.  He was unbelievable.  He was also 3-4 for 6 points as we shot a very respectable 45% in the 1st quarter on a slightly anemic 20fgas.  Smart was blowing people up too and he had 5 points on 2-2 and had a steal too.  5 steals by our back court in the first quarter.  We are averaging 10.4 steals/game through the pre-season and our back court had 5 after 1.  Crowder had a steal too for a total of 6 steals in the 1st quarter.  Our defense, in the 1st quarter was a highlight.  Tommy was gushing.  Ok, he always gushes over all things green, but they deserved it.

10.  Game stat roundup:  67 rebounds was a combination of players like Sully and Amir working like plow horses and them shooting so badly there were lots of boards to be grabbed.  100 fgas is very, very nice.  It was, in fact, our saving grace to offset our awful fg%.  17 TOs is not good.  Their 23 TOs were worse, but they're the 26ers.  

It's hard to believe that, as ugly we were last night, there is a team that is even uglier. Welcome to Sam Hinkie's vision of Paradise. It's easy to recognize him, he's the guy greeting people at the door with the fire-and-brimstone breath, wearing a bright red suit and horns.

Pre-season play is now over and through pre-season we are the 4th highest scoring in the NBA through pre-season at 104.3 ppg.  Obviously, scoring only 81 this game took us down a peg but still I'll take 104.  We are 6th in 3pt fg% at 36.8% with an international team, Istanbul Febernace, being #1.  So, against other NBA teams we are 5th.  Believe it or not (and I suspect Cowens won't) we are 9th in blocked shots with two international teams (Olimpia Milano, the team we thoroughly thrashed, and Maccabi Haifa) ahead of us.  So, that makes us 7th in the NBA in blocked shots.  Not bad for no shot blocker that is a starter or even close to one. We are 2nd in assists at 25.6apg.  We are 8th in fg% with Olimpia Milano ahead of us, making us 7th in the NBA.  4th in fgas at 88pg.  Surprisingly, we are way down on the list of 3pt fgas.  All those fears we had about Brad turning us into 3pt bombers...?  We are 3rd in rebounding.  6th in steals, 5th in the NBA.  We are 20th in TOs/game, with 5 international teams ahead of us, so we're in the middle of the pack at 15.  All in all, things are looking good.

I don't know about anybody else but this team is fun to watch.  Brad has them playing a very pretty style of play (not last night, but otherwise).

Abby Chin predicted 44 wins last night pointing out, while we have gotten better the EC is better this year too.  Mike Gorman said 47.  Tommy went large with 52 win.  Someday, when I grow up, I wannabe a homer like Tommy.

Starting next Wednesday the curtain goes up and the real games begin.  I, for one, am very ready.

Go Celtics!


bob

[bobc33]

Thanks as always Bob!

I, and I'm sure many others, can't wait for Wednesday also! Hooray for Brad Stevens and bring on the regular season.

[bobheckler]

It sure likes like team spirit to me.  Looks like they're having fun.





bob


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[rambone]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one noticing Young's solid defense. I wasn't going to say anything because I thought it was just my biased eyes.

His lateral quickness is way better than I thought, even as a Young optimist. I guess he just had to know what to do and develop a sense of urgency to show his quickness. I didn't think he had the quick twitch muscles to do it.

Also, he's credible when forced to defend PFs for a few seconds on occasion. His standing reach of 8'8" is just 2" shorter than the average NBA PF (8'10").

I would imagine he can even guard at least a few bigger point guards in spurts, which makes him pretty darn versatile defensively if nothing else.

Being able to feel good about his defense is going to be huge for his offense. Most shooters that flop in the NBA are guys who don't have another skill/ability to keep their confidence up through their cold shooting stretches.

Defense is how 2nd rounders like Danny Green and Wes Matthews rode out the bumpy ride of being an easily disposable 2nd rounder fighting for a roster spot.

Not saying Young can turn into that level of defender or overall player, but if he can keep playing focused defense, he's already an NBA player as far as I can see.

I even liked that he didn't get shy when his shot was off. Pierce had tons of shooting nights like that, as did Kobe and most other great scorers. Especially for a bench scorer, you want guys who don't turn into Jeff Green when they miss their first few shots. Like Nick Young and Jamal Crawford.

[cowens/oldschool]

Jeff Green is a key figure in the worst trade in Celtic history.

bobby h thanks for the great thread, your post game report is always the best in the business, better than any publication out there....and I had to miss the game.

Glad Sully is getting back to pounding foes in the paint, if Sully can avg 10 boards a game we could have a 50 plus winning record. Our point guard and perimeter defense should be among the best in the league with this trio that I love AB, Smart and Rozier. If we can just defend a little better elsewhere and REBOUND, not get abused on the boards like last year most of the time.....yeah we could win 50. The key is Sully staying in the block and pattern his game after Paul Silas, and the contributions of Lee and Amir Johnson and the development of the Mouse. If those 4 can just hold their own defensively and on the boards, that should make a big difference. You can't SCORE without the ball.

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