Celtics put on a show in 118-98 win

This was the team we saw in rampaging through Europe like grim death and bouncing the Nets and Sixers on their laps like they were toddlers.

Almost everything about this game was beautiful, except maybe the 4th quarter, but by then it was too late for them.  A 40 point first quarter followed up by a 32 point second quarter.  Unless you play complete matador defense all game you are going to win a lot of games with offense like that.  Wizards coach Randy Wittman alternated between looking like a raging homicidal psychopath to a death row inmate awaiting the final walk.  He's pretty intense and competitive to begin with (his old time running mate on the Atlanta Hawks, Doc Rivers, once said that Wittman was one of the most competitive people he has ever met) and in the first quarter last night he looked like he was ready to go viking and lay about the bench with a battleaxe.  In the 4th quarter, he just sat in his chair, looking down and staring at nothing.  Man, when you can break the spirit of Randy Wittman, you've put in a nice day's work and can sleep well that night.

1.  Sully was damn near perfect last night.  He blew his defense on the first play the Wiz ran against him but after that he did just about everything right.  He drew a charge against the hyper-quick John Wall, taking it right in the chest and going down like a felled elephant.  As bobc said on the Game On thread Sully needed some serious ganas to take that charge, because that one hurt (for those of you unfamiliar with the term 'ganas', it's Latino Spanish (as opposed to the Spanish of Spain) slang for "fire in the belly".  "What do I have to do to get this?  Tell me and I'll pay the price."  Ganar means "to earn" in spanish, so tengo ganas roughly translates in the barrios of California to "I gotta have this!").  He was also hitting his shots from everywhere and worked his slightly less fat ass off down low.  An 11 point first quarter for Sully on 5-6, 1-2 from 3 and 3 rebounds.  He got beat a bit by Marcin Gortat but Gortat is a really nice, very fundamentally sound center who moves well without the ball and showed some slick spin moves down low against both Sully and, later, Kelly.  Interestingly, Gortat is averaging 1.8 blocks/36mpg this season while Kelly is averaging 2.1/36mpg.  Getting back to Sully, HELLUVA game by our pet dinosaur.  Only 1 fgm out of 5 in the first quarter from inside the lane.  He ended up 9-13, 3-4 from 3 (PLEASE don't fall in love with the 3, Sully!  You had a good game, that's great, now put it on the shelf and admire it for a while and get your gigantic gluteus back down in the blocks).  8 rebounds, 3 offensive.  3 assists and 2 TOs.  He even had 2 blocks.  It was all working for Sully last night and he only played 22 minutes.  21 ppoints, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks in 22 minutes.  What's not to like?

2.  Might as well finish up on Kelly since I already mentioned him.  A great night for him too.  He played more minutes than Sully, 27, and he did pretty damn well too.  7-11 for 19 points, 7 rebounds 2 offensive, 4 assists and 3 TOs (I don't really remember the TOs) and 4 steals.  Aside from raising his /36mpg block average up to 2.1/36 from the 1.0/36 last year, he is also averaging 3.8 steals/36.  Yeah, that will happen when you have 7 steals in 68 minutes of play.  I expect him to be in the top 2 or 3 in the league/36mpg when last night's boxscores are added (currently, Sefelosha leads the league with 4.1/36mpg in 79 minutes and our own  Jae Crowder is 2nd with 3.6/36mpg in 149 minutes, so Kelly's 3.8 will put him up in that stratosphere albeit in limited minutes).  Kelly was hitting his shots last night.  3-5 from 3.  A finger roll on a drive down the lane.  A put back +1 on an O-board.  One of his Dirk-LIKE wrong-foot-fadeaways.  He had a fairly quiet first quarter, 2 points on 1-1 and 2 boards and up to 9 points on 4-4 by halftime.  He turned it on in the 2nd half.  I've made no bones about it, I like my bigs down low doing damage.  It makes me cringe when Sully takes 3s, even when he makes them.  Same with Kelly but, unlike Sully, Kelly can put the ball on the floor and wheel-and-deal a bit.  Not a bull like Sully, not even remotely close, but more versatile.  He hit Jonas with a great entry pass.  This is where Kelly's height and former play as a PG in High School comes in.  He can see over most of his defenders and is a very good passer.  He even played well on defense.  He got a block on a help defense rotation on someone else's man and forced Nene into an off-balance left-hander in the low paint which missed.  Really, Kelly played good defense last night.  However, it was cited by Mike Gorman that Kelly has the 4th best defensive rating in the league.  I find that hard to believe, so I tried to look it up.  Here is the link to basketball-reference.com's page that lists those stats.  Defensive Rating is down near the bottom of the page and Kelly's name is NOT even in the Top 20.  I have NO idea where Mike got that from.  

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_leaders.html

Kelly's biggest fan, Rambone, on the Game On thread exclaimed that "Kelly is pissing excellence tonight, like the rest of the team".  For what it's worth, so was I last night.  I was drinking Guinness Blond (when I first heard of Guinness BLOND I thought "THAT'S BLASPHEMY!!" but then I tried it and changed my mind.  They really nailed it.  I'd love to know what famous Guinness lover Bill Walton thinks of it).  But I have to agree with that sentiment.  Kelly looked very good last night.  Now, he just has to do it again.

3.  Isaiah Thomas drove them crazy.  At one point I heard Randy Wittman yell in the first quarter ""Somebody has got to stop him!"  Between Sullinger hitting from outside or rebounding inside and Thomas dribbling through the defense and spinning them in at the rim I can well understand Wittman's rage and sudden desire to check into his eBay account to see what the going price was for a flame thrower.  IT had 12 points in the 1st quarter to go with Sully's 11.  That's 23 of our total 40 from those two guys.  IT's shooting has been QUITE inefficient this season to-date, but he was 4-7 in the 1st.  Only 26 minutes for IT.  Why not?  We were up by 30 at one point.  Why tire him out, it's a long season, and have to deal with his weak defense when we didn't need his offense?  He could not stay in front of John Wall.  Wall was having an off night anyway, but it sure wasn't because of Thomas' defense.  Ramon Sessions was probably cursing a blue streak in Spanish all night because Thomas was doing unto him exactly what the other Wizard starting guard was doing to our other starting guard.

4.  The Battle of the Bradleys went to Beal.  Bradley had a miserable night against him, perhaps the worst of the season so far.  He has played outstanding defense against the 4 previous teams we have played but Beal made him look bad.  24 points on 9-15 for Beal in 31 minutes.  Here's one reason why I don't like the +/- stat:  Bradley was +6, when anybody with eyes could see Beal was eating him alive, while Jordan Mickey was only a +1 and he made an immediate impact when he came in with an old-fashioned 3 point play and a block in 3 minutes.  Another reason?

5.  Terry Rozier was a +4 in 19 minutes of play and his play was underwhelming.  He was 2-8 in those minutes (Bradley had 6 on 2-6 in 26) and a 30 point lead was cut on to 17 on a 13-0 Wiz run when Rozier was running point, in part, because he walked the ball up court every possession like Rondo used to.  I don't know how many fast break points we had when Rozier was in but I'll bet there weren't many.  In fact, I don't think we had many fast breaks when he was in, period.  He was running the clock down with 7 minutes left and throttling the offense in the process.  How does Bradley get a +6 when Beal is scoring almost at will on him and Rozier get almost the same +/- when they run off 13 straight?  The answer is that basketball is a team sport, with players being shuttled in and out and matched in various and numerous combinations (especially when Brad Stevens is the coach) and who you are on the floor against and on the floor with makes all the difference in the world.  And, in the boxscore.  Rozier needs some minutes and handing him the ball when we are up big isn't a problem even if the lead does almost get cut in half, I just hope he doesn't get into the habit of walking it up.  I hope one of the coaches put a bug in his ear today.  One nice thing about Rozier I have to give him credit for, he is not intimidated about being a rookie in the NBA.  Nope, not even a little bit.  Just remember to use what brought you there, kid, defense and speed.  You can walk all you want after you retire.

6.  Jae was 4-12, another bad shooting night, but 5 steals.  He missed one or two easy ones, again.  I don't get it, he's right at the rim, he's past the defense and he doesn't jam it.  Who does he think he is?  Tyler Zeller?  Nevertheless, he played his general role of disruptor and grabbed 10 rebounds.  I'd still like to see him come off the bench with IT when Smart comes back though.  He's a catch-and-shoot player, so playing with an elusive little waterbug like Thomas will set him up better than with Smart.

7.  Zeller with 7 minutes and that was in the final frame when the game was pretty much out of reach.  Talk about falling off the table.  7 points in those 5 minutes, but against lesser talent.  This is why depth is a good thing.  Still, 7 points on 3-4 in 5 minutes is pretty good.  So, how come he tied RJ for worst +/- with a -4?  Could it be that the +/- stat isn't about the player but is about everybody who is on the floor, both with and against him?

8.   Turner is very good at getting to his spot and hitting the shot off the dribble.  His spot is the elbow.  Anywhere else?  Meh.  He was 2-4 from 3 last night but I don't like him taking those shots.  He is not a good catch-and-shooter, in general, which is why I would rather not have him on the floor with IT.  There's only one ball and a green wrestling match sounds unattractive.  He played 30 minutes off the bench last night, scoring 16 points on 7-12 and 6 boards.  He played well, I have to give him that, I'm just not sure where he belongs.

9.  If David Lee was excited about coming to Boston so he could get more playing time he has to be unhappy right now.  A blow out and he still only plays 13 minutes.  His contract, though, will make him hard to move.  Maybe, maybe maybe, around trade deadline time and there's only half a year left on it.  Throw in a nice TPE and maybe maybe.

10.  Statistical roundup:  40% shooting for them with 88 fgas vs 45% and 97 fgas for us.  Tommy was very happy with that and so am I.  Another reason for Wittman's near aneurysm is the 24 TOs by them, making their offense even worse by the 18 steals by us.  Although, when you think about it, they still managed 88 fgas despite losing the ball on TOs and steals like that.  Hmm.

72 points in the first half.  The last time we scored 70 points in a half was in 2010 when those other guys were here.  61% first half shooting.  SO much to like about this game, but most of all the W.

I watched the end of the other game of importance last night, Lakers at Brooklyn.  Hibbert tried to give the game to Brooklyn but the Nets couldn't figure that out.  A sloppy inbounds pass turnover by Hibbert almost gave the Nets the chance they needed.  An unnecessary charge by Jordan Clarkson gave them another chance.  All in the last minute.  Byron Scott should have just said "I don't care what else, forget everything else I have ever told you, just get the FREAKING BALL INTO KOBE'S HANDS!!"  Didn't happen, so Kobe had to step up and force his ancient, breaking down body to chase down a few balls on his own and seal the deal with fritos.  Just to put our best first round draft pick next June into a bit of early perspective, the Brooklyn Nets suck SO bad, they can't beat the LA Lakers at home for their first win of the season.  Not a slap at TJ, but that's pretty damn bad, not being able to beat the Lakers at home to earn your first win of the season is pretty damn bad.  The Nets have the worst team differential in the league with a -13.2, #29 being the Pelicans, who have a front court of Anthony and Ryan Anderson (Perk and Asik, together, have played a total of 38 minutes).  Slightly, very slightly, above NOP are the 26ers.  That should give you some idea of just how bad Brooklyn is, they are TWO teams below Philly.  There are two teams that are 0-5 on the season but only one that is 0-6 and that team is the Brooklyn Nets.  To make things even worse (or better, depending on where you're coming from) Brooklyn has to play Milwaukee on the road tonight on the 2nd game of a back-to-back.  Sam Hinkie's eyes are narrowing and flashing, his nostrils are flaring, his jaw becoming set.  He now knows he has serious competition for the most execrable record this year and will have to take proactive steps to make sure nobody, NOBODY, are bigger losers than him and his team.  If you see Jahlil Okafur walking with a limp you know Hinkie is Tonya Harding to Oaky's Nancy Kerrigan.

In other words, it's all good for us Boston Celtic fans.

We have off until Tuesday, when we're in Milwaukee.


bob


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Sully's latest BIG Tommy Point.  A 60' outlet pass off a steal from his ass. And this was with us up 20 in the 3rd.


https://cdn.streamable.com/video/mp4/2uhg.mp4



bob



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