Post Game Thread - Season Opener vs. 76ers at Home

[gyso]

I didn't get to watch the game with both eyes (my Mom just arrived for a visit) so I don't have much to offer here.

Here is a couple comments from the Game On! thread:

Great start to the thread.

league pass is free till nov 3 btw ya'll

That requires a TV, doesn't it?

Not anymore.  My version of the NBA League Pass comes directly from NBA.com and is online only.  I have the Team Pass, which allows for just one team's games.  It is cheaper than buying it from my cable subscriber by almost half ($120 vs $200).  I can watch it on a IPad, Kindle, phone, laptop, etc.  I watched it last night on my TV through a Roku, so it is possible to watch it on a TV.  It sure beats fighting the ads and eventual computer viruses that come with live streaming on sketchy websites.

Kind of tough getting up to turn on my computer tonight.a very emotional game.

On to basketball, good evening everyone. Hope this finds you all well and ready for a new season.

The guys look a little wound up. Okafur looking good early

Rosie, it is good to see you on the board.  I hope you are on the mend!

3 seasons in and I'm enjoying Stevens' approach as much as ever.  10 players hit the floor first half of game one.  May as well really see what we have.  Get them in against an aggressive young 6er lineup.  Good.

I agree.  This is something we can all enjoy!

its time!!!

its time!!

its gino time!!!

Ginooooooooo!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiWvSQzCo0A

It is nice to see the human victory cigar so early in the season.

A pretty good night for the Cs, even with the "Enforcer" Kelly Olynyk out of the lineup.

Our good play without Kelly is very indicative of how the deep rotation can overcome a missing piece or two and keep the W's coming our way.  Very exciting!

WE WIN!!!  WE WIN!!!  CELTICS WIN!!!

81 more wins to go.  Shut the whole damn league out.

Nice posting with everybody.

Anything's Possible!!!!!

[sinus007]

Hi,
I did watch the game.
Sure, win is a win. But if they continue to play the way they played against the worst team I doubt about 30 wins let alone 45-50 wins, as many predict.
Celtics basically played against 2 players - Noels and Okafor. Those 2 are a very impressive pair. Okafor ate Zeller - didn't even chew just swallowed. Brad had to take him out and put back only at the end of the game, aka garbage time. Sully, OTOH, fared much better against him.
I hope it's just a first game jitters, home court excitement, etc. The next game, tomorrow, we'll see...

AK

[dboss]

My Observation from Game 1

Great pace and space in the game as the Celts ran out on the 26ers repeatedly.   IT can really push the ball and we saw so many unselfish plays.  The celts pretty much got whatever shots they wanted.

The bench led by IT makes our stating unit (collectively)  look like the bench.  However the maturation of Marcus Smart at the point, the aggressiveness on both ends by Crowder and the defense by Bradley were evident.

IT and Johnson ran the P & R to perfection.  IT is one crafty ball player that has that special knack for finding space where there is no space.  Amir's veteran leadership and experience is already paying dividends.

The big surprise for some was the play of Sullinger who  reminded us why we liked him in the first place.  While both Zeller and Lee were being exposed as inadequate low post defenders against the 19 year old rookie, Sully came in and put some of that big mama butt on him.  He was our anchor that stabilized the ship.  He scored well and even came up with a steal and a layup at the other end.

Other contributors, were ET and Jonas.  Rookies Rosier and Mickey came in for garbage time minutes and acquitted themselves nicely (Mickey really looks like he is ready to play NOW.

What I did not like about the game was the overall play of both Lee and Zeller.  Has anyone noticed that after the 2 creampuff Euro games, David Lee has not looked that good out there?  The most obvious thing I am seeing is that when he tries to finish at the rim he is getting his shot blocked over and over again.  His athleticism is definitely not what it used to be.  Defensively he is a very weak post defender and pairing him with Zeller may not be a good decision .

So yes this Celtics fan is already wanting to see a lineup change.  The combo of Zeller and Lee looks more like the Misery loves Company dual.  Okay we will give it a few more game but I am seeing that those guys do not compliment each other.

Overall a good start to the season.  

Also the 76ers will not remain as the laughing stock of the NBA.  The kid Okafor is very skilled.

dboss

[bobheckler]

Actual meaningful basketball! Hallelujah brothers and sisters! Welcome to the opening of the 75th Diamond Anniversary season of the Boston Celtics! 75 years, 75 opening games, now 44 wins. Not that it matters how you start, it matters how you finish, but it doesn't hurt to begin on the good foot.

And is there a better way to start off this landmark year than by clubbing a bunch of baby harp seals? I'll give the 26ers credit, they hung around for a while, even got it down to 4 or so, but then we tucked it to them.

Great turnout on the Game On thread last night. I checked the attendance infrequently, but there were about 25 people on the board during the course of the game, maybe 14 of them guests, but there weren't many new page reads of pre-existing threads as the game went on so my assumption is that just about all of us were on the Game On thread. Thanks to all, it's a lot more fun that way. 8 pages of posts is as many, if not more, than we had last year when Sam was a prolific contributor. I'm sure he's smiling somewhere. When I had dinner with him and his wife in San Francisco last year he told me that he was feeling secure that this board has the diversity of opinion and conviviality it needs to survive him. If last night's thread was any indication, he knew his stuff.

They have the makings of a VERY good starting front court. Okafur is an offensive force, and not as bad on defense as advertised, and Nerlens Noel is a defensive eraser, and not as bad on offense as advertised. They could be dangerous for years. Assuming they stay healthy. Assuming they stay together in Philly. Atlanta tried that approach with Smith, Childress, Horford and Bibby, just let them grow up together. It didn't hold together long enough to bear fruit.

Rosalie called it. The 26ers traveled again and again and were only called for it once. Sometimes really blatant too. Is the league head office in Vegas?

We started out icy cold, shooting just 35% in the 1st quarter to their 44%, but warmed up in the 2nd quarter with a 23-2 Celtic run through 4 minutes left in the 2nd. We went from being down 5 after 1 to being up 11 at the half with 42% shooting. Theirs had dropped to 34% as they stopped dumping it in to Okafur and tried to make believe the rest of their roster is NBA quality.

1. Okafur was 5-5 coming out of the gate. Neither of our starting bigs, Zeller and Lee, could contain him. He has a lot of very polished offensive moves and he's BIG. 27 points on 10-16 in 38 minutes is a nice coming out party for the rook. His 8, yes 8, turnovers? He probably needs to work on those. His defense is better than advertised. Not great, but he's not that weak. His effectiveness really dropped after we started throwing double teams at him. Give him time, he'll learn how to deal with them but for now they worked.

2. His front court running mate is who we need. Nerlens Noel had 14 points on 5-13 but had some offensive flashes. He has the baby hook and he showed a 15' free throw jump shot that had as flat a trajectory as you're going to see. That is a very unforgiving shot. If he gets it just right it goes in and if not it will come hard off the rim, front or back. 12 rebounds including 3 offensive. He was very, very active. One of those offensive boards he got because he fought two Celtics for it and another he just ran down into the corner.

3. Okafur got slowed down a bit when Sully came in. I don't know who else Sully will be able to guard this year, with his new body, but he does about as good a job on Okafur as anybody. Okafur went 5-5 for 10 points, and then Sully came in, and then he went cold. Sully played 7 minutes in the 1st quarter and Amir played 2 minutes in the 1st quarter and Okafur ended up the quarter with 10 points on 5-7. Amir had a great, straight up man-to-man block down low, on Okafur. Sully pushed him away, Amir made him shoot over him. Nice change of looks against Okafur by Brad. Make no mistake about it, though, give this kid a few years, like Anthony Davis needed, and he's going to be a monster.

4. I'm a bit irked that our starters were outplayed by their starters. With the exception of their center, we should have been blowtorching them at every other position. David Lee had another bad shooting night, 2-8, with at least one shot being erased by Noel, but he had 5 boards and 5 assists with only 2 TOs. I'm still going to give him time, it's just Game 1, but c'mon David! Zeller was completely dominated by Okafur in the first quarter, playing just 5 minutes, and took a seat. He came back in the 4th quarter and did well, but it was Sully and Amir who did the down-and-dirty work against Oaky (that's Matty's nickname for him. Not bad, huh?). Sully with 12 points on 6-8 and 7 rebounds and a block, Amir with 15 points on 6-11 and 7 rebounds (3 offensive) and 2 blocks. Pretty damn nice for bigs off the bench, I say. Their combined points and minutes pretty much negated Oaky except that they only had 2 TOs between them which is, thankfully, not the equal of Oaky's 8.

5. Our bench creamed theirs. Some of that is not Brett Brown's fault, he was playing with a short bench due to injuries. Tony Wroten is out rehabbing a knee, Kendall Marshall is out rehabbing an ACL too, Covington didn't make the trip, Carl Landry is out nursing a bad wrist, and Embiid is on permanent workman's comp. For some reason Nik Stauskas didn't play but has just recently returned to practice after dinging up a knee, so he might not be in game shape yet. So, Brown only played 9 players and 2 of them, Rashaun Holmes and the unexpectedly undrafted Christian Wood, only played 6 minutes each. 4 of their starters played 35-38 minutes, only Jakarr Sampson played 27. Jakarr Sampson? Covington? TJ McConnell? Rashaun Holmes? Hollis Thompson? Isaiah Canaan? Who are these guys? You begin to see the heart of Brett Brown's problem. He has 4 legit NBA players (Landry, Wroten, Noel) if you include the freshly minted Jahlil Okafur. The average age of the Sixer's roster is 24. Take 32 year old Carl Landry out of the picture, and out of the average, and you're looking at a team not much older than the old school, pre-Dream Team Olympic teams. Back to our bench, we got 67 points out of our 112 total from them. 26-52 shooting equals 50%, which is certainly better than our team's overall 46% on 39-85 and they did it in 111 of the total 240 player minutes (46%). Yeah, that does mean our starters shot a pathetic 13-33. Now do you understand why I'm a little irked at our starters? Brett Brown's bench had an excuse. They only played 67 minutes and scored only 15 points on 5-17, but these are end-of-benchers.

6. Speaking of our bench, our Isaiah started out cold again and I thought "oh shit, what's going on here. The rust is supposed to be gone". At halftime he had played 13 minutes but only had 10 points on 3-9 shooting, 0-3 from 3. Then, in the 2nd half, he took off. The floaters started to drop, his penetrations started to pay off with layups by big men on nice passes. He played 8 minutes in the 3rd quarter and had 13 points on 5-8. He played 29 minutes total with 27 points on 10-19, 7 assists and 3 TOs. Not too shabby after starting off 3-9. He had a couple of nice pnr passes to Amir inside. He also got swallowed up once or twice but that's the yin-yang of a 5'9" point guard in the NBA. He can go pretty much go wherever he wants, even between player's legs, he just can't always get out. Overall though he's back. 27 points off the bench? Works for me. What we need i another assassin. RJ could be him, give him a year or two to get seasoned a bit, but we need someone else who will help keep the defense honest for IT in those "gotta have a bucket" possessions.

7. The game is definitely slowing down for Marcus Smart, now in his sophomore year. That's a nice learning curve for an alleged point guard, because it is the most difficult and complex positions in the league. Thomas did a reach around poke away on Oaky on top which popped into Smart's hands and IT took off. Smart took a couple of dribbles and then threw a picture perfect thread-the-needle bounce pass to the streaking Thomas for a layup. He's learning how to get players on his back with change of pace moves. 13 points on 3-8 and 3-6 from 3. His 5 assists and 1 TO is what I'm really looking at. We know about his wrecking ball defense. We know he'll throw up his shots, hopefully this year they won't make us throw up, it's his floor generalship under scrutiny this year.

8. Jerebko came in and the double-team of Okafur began. He is so versatile and quick for his size. He's not a big offensive threat, he does his 3pt fga or two but his forte is in his ability to use his length against SFs on defense and his speed against PFs on offense.

9. Jordan Mickey came in with a few minutes left in the game and had 2 rebounds and 2 points in :10. He also almost had a block. He has a nose for the ball and where to go to get it.

10. Statistical round up: 46% on 85 fgas is good, not great. I'd like to have more fgas. 17 TOs is not good. Yeah, I know 17 TOs is still better than the 22 TOs they had but they're the equivalent of an AAU team on steroids. What I do love are our 26 fast break points. I like that number a lot. We ran. Even when Sully or Lee got the boards, they trotted it up (assuming there wasn't a ready outlet) and that got us into our sets earlier. Sully had a full court grab-the-rebound-bring-it-up-and-ram-it-down-their-throats sequence that reminded me of a one-hippo stampede, but the ball didn't get walked up like it used to with a former point guard of ours. What was his name again? Telfair? Anderson? Pruitt? (inside joke, you had to be on the Game On thread to get it). We had a truly outstanding 31 assists on 39fgm. Sam would be in ecstasy with that stat. Over 79% of all our fgm were assisted. I know I said we shouldn't compare ourselves to the 26ers but they had 2 assists in the 1st half. 2. They had 12 in the game. What's the NBA record for fewest assists in a half by a team in the post-shot clock era? They had zero assists in the 1st quarter. None. 11 fgm and not one of them assisted. They are the perfect "How Not To" manual for team offense. 52 points in the paint for both teams. So, despite all the hoo-hah about their starting front court, blah-blah-blah, we still had as many points in the paint as them.


Celtics win to begin their season and Brooklyn lost. Dallas won but that's not that big a deal, the draft center of gravity for us is Brooklyn. Milwaukee, a likely team in front of us, also lost to NY, a team that does not yet instill fear in me.

Next game, at home, against the Raptors on Friday.


bob


.

[mulcogiseng]

Great way to start a new season! This team may not surprise many here, and most of the pundits are expecting at least modest improvement, but this team is going to renew Celtics hate around the NBA. Every one of these players will have a bad game from time to time but the energy and hustle will make up for it. Day One is now in the books and the C's are the first day closer to #18 and that's what it's all about.

[bobheckler]

Great way to start a new season! This team may not surprise many here, and most of the pundits are expecting at least modest improvement, but this team is going to renew Celtics hate around the NBA. Every one of these players will have a bad game from time to time but the energy and hustle will make up for it. Day One is now in the books and the C's are the first day closer to #18 and that's what it's all about.

HI MULCOGI!!!

How have you been?


bob



.

[rambone]

The Bucks are not a good team, and they haven't even been an average team since last January or Feb.

Greek Freak isn't ready to be an above average starter, and Jabari is 265ish lbs and gaining fast. He's a 6'8" power forward whose SF days are already behind him, and he's never been a good outside shooter.

And Greg Monroe has been underperforming in advanced stats for his whole career. Expect these Bucks to disappoint like the Pistons have done every single year since Monroe and Drummond have been together.

There's simply not a lot of teams to be afraid of in the East this year, though the Knicks are going to play us tough all year.

[rambone]

David Lee was definitely worrisome, and has been since Europe. Hopefully the fact that most opposing starting PFs are not named Nerlens Noel will solve that problem, but I'm not too confident at this point.

[Berlin-T]

While it was good to get the win, I have to agree with the comments from dboss concerning Zeller and Lee. I can only hope that they will improve as the season wears on.
The next two games (Raptors and Spurs) should give us some idea of what kind of a season we're in for.

Berlin-T

[dboss]

Rambone

I'm not sure I would agree with you about the Bucks not being a good team.

As you know Monroe came over from Detroit and had to share space and opportunities with the center.  He should get more looks with the Bucks and if last night was any indication 22 pts and 14 rebounds, he may be in a better situation than he was in Detroit..

As far as Parker is concerned he is still recovering from the ACL injury from the beginning of last season and has not really had an opportunity to play.  Whether he plays SF or PF I think his upside is tremendous. I think it may be a bit premature to write him off this soon.

I think that advanced stats are interesting to know but they really only scratch the surface of what a player is capable of doing.  

If I recall there were some board members that had Monroe on the short list of free agents and/or possible trade targets and Parker was on the wish list in last year's draft. The Celtics would have probably drafted him if the lottery balls had been favorable to them.


dboss

[dboss]

While it was good to get the win, I have to agree with the comments from dboss concerning Zeller and Lee. I can only hope that they will improve as the season wears on.
The next two games (Raptors and Spurs) should give us some idea of what kind of a season we're in for.

Berlin-T

Berlin

I think it will take a while before things shake out.

The Celtics enter the season again without a rim protector so that is a missing piece.

The team will have to make up for that in other areas like the great on the ball pressure applied upfront and becoming a more efficient scoring team that will force other teams to play catchup.

I do like what we have and with all the possible combinations this should make for a very interesting season.

dboss

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