POST GAME - PHILLY - HOME

C's rally in 4th quarter, escape with 84-80 win over Sixers

CSNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

BOSTON – Getting off a losing skid isn’t supposed to be easy, not even if the woeful Philadelphia 76ers are on the schedule.

The Boston Celtics know this all too well after putting together a furious fourth quarter rally to escape with an 84-80 win.

Jae Crowder, who missed a pair of critical free throws earlier in the fourth, drained a 3-pointer that proved to be the go-ahead basket after the Celtics had trailed by as many as 11 points in the fourth.

Philadelphia had a chance to tie the game up, but former Celtic Phil Pressey missed a short jumper in the lane that Boston rebounded.

Isaiah Thomas, who led all scorers with 30 points, calmly sank both free throws with 1.4 seconds to play.

Evan Turner lit his former Sixers teammates up for 16 points off the Celtics bench, with Avery Bradley (10 points) being the only other double-digit scorer for Boston.

The Sixers continue to be led by Jahlil Okafor who had 19 points and nine rebounds. Hollis Thompson gave them a nice lift off the bench with 15 points. Other double-digit scorers for Philadelphia were Isaiah Cannan (12 points) and Robert Covington (11 points, 14 rebounds, six steals and two blocked shots).

It was a thrilling finish in a game that truth be told, Boston had no business allowing to come down to the wire.

The Sixers had lost each of their previous 15 games this season, and had lost 13 straight on the road dating back to last season with a 1-29 road record since March of 2015.

Brad Stevens often says what you do one night doesn’t necessarily translates to the next.

Unfortunately for him and the Celtics, that was not the case for most of Tuesday night because so many of the issues that factored in Boston dropping its previous two games were present for long stretches.

There were missed shots, missed assignments defensively and blocking out, and for most of the game they added up to one lost opportunity after another to get back on a track in what was shaping up to be a season that was steadily progressing in a downward spiral.

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Celtics rally, Sixers turnover drops Philly to 0-16 for second straight year

ESPNBOSTON

BOSTON -- Isaiah Thomas scored 30 points, Jae Crowder hit a go-ahead 3-pointer and the Boston Celtics rallied to beat Philadelphia 84-80 on Wednesday night, handing the 76ers their 16th straight loss of the season -- for the season consecutive season -- and 26th in a row overall.

Philadelphia tied the major U.S. professional sports futility mark set by the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1976-77 and matched by the 76ers in 2013-14. They are two losses away from tying the then-New Jersey Nets' NBA-worst mark of 18 losses to open a season. Their 26 straight losses dating back to last season ties the NBA record for longest losing streak.

Evan Turner added 16 points for Boston, which trailed by five with just under 3 minutes left. The 76ers scored three points in the final 6:13.

Jahlil Okafor led the 76ers with 19 points and nine rebounds. Hollis Thompson scored 15 points.

The 76ers opened an 11-point lead early in the final quarter and held that same advantage after Thompson's basket in the lane with just over 6 minutes to play. For the Sixers, its was their third straight game leading at half and second time in the last three games they led entering the fourth quarter. Boston then scored the next nine points, closing it to 77-75 on Jared Sullinger's jumper from the left corner with 3:13 left.

After Okafor's 3-point play gave the 76ers an 80-75 lead with just under 3 minutes left, the Celtics scored the next seven points. Crowder's 3 from the top of the key capped the spree.

Phil Pressey back-rimmed a jumper in the lane and Thomas grabbed the rebound with 2.1 seconds left. He was fouled and hit both free throws to seal it.

Thomas' driving basket closed it to 80-79 with 1:10 left.

There were many stretches in the third quarter where the crowd was eerily quiet -- probably because they were surprised that the Celtics were trailing against a winless team.

They went from quiet to a spattering of boos after Thompson's 3-pointer from the left wing made it 68-59 with 9:40 to play in the game.

The 76ers opened the second quarter with a 10-0 run over the first 5 minutes, turning a 26-26 deficit into an eight-point edge. Covington had seven points in the spree.

TIP-INS

76ers: F Nik Stauskas was out with a bruised left knee. ... They blocked seven shots in the first quarter. ... Coach Brett Brown agreed that the losing is very wearing. ``It affects me. There's no doubt about it,'' he said. ``I just try every day to hold that locker room together.''

Celtics: G Marcus Smart missed his third straight with a lower left leg injury. ... Coach Brad Stevens was still irked about a 24-point loss in Atlanta on Tuesday night. ``I didn't even mention last night's game. I told them what we need to do on a consistent level and said, `That's all I have to say,''' he said. "I just think we need to defend with greater urgency.''

UP NEXT:

Celtics: Host Washington on Friday night.

112288

They almost got trapped. But I'll take it.

The team however remains in a funk.

Brad is still exploring different rotations. Right now it looks like a mess. I don't know what to make of this team. Need 25 games to see what we really have.

Dboss

Crowder is a horrible shooter but he seems to have a knack for making big shots.

Dboss

They look to me like a collection of players whose talent level adds up to average at best with an excellent chance of finishing in the middle, or worse, of the pack for the 4th straight year. Very reminiscent to the bummer years leading up to the championship in 2007-08. Maybe this summer much needed help will arrive via the Draft and/or free agency or trades. Going through a rebuild is never pretty.

swish

swish wrote:They look to me like a collection of players whose talent level adds up to average at best with an excellent chance of finishing in the middle, or worse, of the pack for the 4th straight year. Very reminiscent to the bummer years leading up to the championship in 2007-08. Maybe this summer much needed help will arrive via the Draft and/or free agency or trades. Going through a rebuild is never pretty.

swish

That's why I was shocked so many people on here picked them for 50 wins (or more) this year.  Especially with how improved many other teams in the East are (Charlotte, New York, Miami, Detroit, Indiana, Orlando).  In tonight's game, if just Boston and Philly's players were put in a draft, the top two players picked by GM's would be Okafor and Noel before any Celtics were picked.  And I'm not even mentioning Embiid, who, even while recovering from injury would probably make that the top three players picked.  When the best two players out of five are virtually always going to be on the other team, it's going to be mighty hard to win.  And we won tonight because Noel had a stinker (1 for 7, 3 points).  If he has his normal game, Boston loses.  Celtics have to outcoach, outhustle, outdefend (hard to do with our frontline) and outteamwork the opposition or they struggle.

dboss wrote:Crowder is a horrible shooter but he seems to have a knack for making big shots.

Dboss

I've noticed that also. He and Smart are similar in that regard. Even when Smart has a quiet or bad game offensively, he often comes through in the clutch.

funny how we play much worst without Smart.

I'm telling you, this guy makes others around him better by being on the court with his hustle and defense.

50 wins is possible with this team still, a few games of being in a funk not withstanding.
When Smart returns the defense will be back and at some point the overall team shooting with get back to the norm. Also Stevens will eventually settle on a regular lineup and rotation, which will allow players to settle into their roles on this team (well, until Ainge starts his trades).

I think the best starter/rotation right now is:


Zeller
Sully
Turner
Bradley
Smart

6. Thomas
7. Amir
8. Crowder
9. Kelly
10. Hunter

Zeller is playing the same game he did last year when we were winning. I think Stevens has moved him down to #10-11 in the rotation, due to the new players (Amir. Lee), but in the end Zeller will be back getting at least Lee's minutes.


Lee is doing some good things, but to be honest he isn't part of the future here and doesn't bring enough over all to play over Sully, Zeller, Amir and Kelly to me.

Jerebko has been playing badly and needs to be out of the rotation with Hunter in his place.

The rest ( Rozier, Young, Mickey) will only get spot minutes or be injury replacements, frankly.

If Smart is indeed the "glue guy", then we will see more of this in the next month or so, rather than less.  Whenever Smart does return, he won't be 100% and he may come off the bench for a while.  We may be closer to the All-Star break than New Years Day before Smart is running smoothly on all cylinders.  That is how much faith I have on the "two weeks" claim by the team.

I do not believe that Brad will ever pare this team down to a more traditional 7-8 man rotation.  Not this year, not this team.  Barring a trade, this team is designed to run out 10 or more players in the rotation in order to take advantage of our averageness in skill across the roster.

As Steve points out, even the lamest (and still winless!!) team in the league has better players than us.  We are still somewhat early in the rebuild process and our best hopes of contention await us in future drafts, free agency and trades.

gyso

I think it is obvious that we need a BIG MAN. Perhaps with Houston imploding Howard will be on the block!

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steve I don't know if Noel is better than Smart or Sully.

kdp Zeller, really? I'm so sick of seeing him and KO attempt to defend, futility watching those guys play, well I guess Z is the slightly better defender. Amir much better defender than Z, need him on floor.

112288 wrote:I think it is obvious that we need a BIG MAN.   Perhaps with Houston imploding Howard will be on the block!

112288

No thank you.

For openers we need at least 1 elite player to build around. Any size will do.

swish

These son of a bitches are going to give me a heart attack.

A W is a W is a W but I can't remember ever feeling less happy about a W than this one.

Have I mentioned we are a team of terrible finishers?  Well, we are, W notwithstanding.  If this was against the Sixers we would not have won.  Why?  Because we shot 34%, that's why.

1.  IT came to play.  Yeah, we had our obligatory "why did he try to dribble through there?" turnovers, but he played hard and hit shots.  He is the only player other than Amir (3-4) who shot 50% or better.  His 30 points on 11-21 saved our butts.  6 assists and 3 TOs is pretty good too.  I rarely can fault Thomas for his effort, when I do it's usually for his defense and for his ME-balling but without him last night being Isaiah Thomas we would have been on the wrong side of the score.  Shamrock is right about how losing might have helped Philly in their chase of Brooklyn but the beauty of this season is that we can win and still get a high draft pick.  Therefore it is a bit counter-productive to lose.  Thomas had 11 points in the 4th quarter.  I'll talk about that more later.

2.  The Philly announcer referred to the battle between Okafur and Sully as "a couple of heavenly bodies".  Yeah, like Jupiter and Neptune are heavenly bodies.  Sully has the weight to hold off Okie, but Okie has 2 inches on him and so that makes it tough when he's near the rim.  Nevertheless, Sully got his block on Okie in the low blocks.  Another horrendous shooting night for Sully, 4-12 for 10 points, but he grabbed 15 rebounds.  He fought really well against the next Dwight Howard (except with more skills, I think).  4 blocks, 9 rebounds and 19 points on 7-17 by "Jah" Okafur.  Will he grow some natty dreads?  He's halfway there now.  Then "Jah" would make complete sense.

3.  Bradley started out sizzling again and then turned to ice for the rest of the game.  Isaiah Canaan cooled off too when Bradley was defending him.  When IT was on him Canaan felt comfortable taking 3s from anywhere.  With the score 82-80 Celtics, and we're trying to dribble down the clock a bit, Bradley turns the ball over and gives them that last chance to score the tying bucket without us even getting a fga off.  The usual "WHY IS BRADLEY DRIBBLING!!?"

4.  Crowder is a terrible finisher.  Yeah, he hit that 3 with :38 left and us down 1 and the 3 he hit with us down 7 with 3:50 left, but you cannot overlook the 1-9 he was shooting before those 3s.  We could have breathed our sighs of relief sooner if he hadn't bricked those two fritos with 4:40 left.  The 3 at 3:50 made up for those two missed gimmes.  He was 1-6 from the paint last night.  1-6.  I wish I knew how many of those were blocked.  He's built like a linebacker, and he jumps like one too.  8 rebounds, so there's that.

5.  Everybody else sucked.  Let's just sum it up like that.  Even RJ airballed a mid-range shot that was so short it barely tickled the bottom of the net as it passed below the rim.  Our front court bench was a combined 0-7.  Our entire bench scored 21 points.  Kelly had 3 on fritos, Zeller had 2 on fritos and Turner had the rest, 16, on 6-18.  It's hard for me to get excited about 16 points off the bench by a player when he needed to take 20% of the teams' fgas to get them.  3 assists and 3 TOs, including a completely unnecessary travel on an excellent fast break opportunity, doesn't make me feel warm on this cold day neither.  The 9 rebounds, ok, he got those.  Somehow, Rozier only got tagged for 2 TOs in his 2 minutes.  I could have sworn there were more.  Oh, yeah, now I remember, one of the TOs I'm thinking were credited as a steal by ex-Celtic Phil Pressey, who played a helluva game.  Phil did a good job of slowing down IT for most of the game and made Rozier look really, really bad.  So bad, in fact, Brad had to pull him after only 2 minutes.  The steal, then another steal on an inbounds pass by Rozier that Pressey was able to jump and deflect and then outraced everybody to the loose ball.  I'm glad Phil took that last shot for Philly.  Of all the people...We got lucky with that.  There was another play where Phil was able to just lose Rozier for an open shot.  Fortunately, once again, it was Phil Pressey taking the shot and so we escaped that possession unscathed.  I'm happy for Phil, I think Brett Brown appreciates his pass-first, penetrator qualities.  He still can't shoot for shit though.  Fortunately.

6.  Time for a gut check, a ganas roll call.  WHO WANTS IT?!  When we were down 7 and only a few minutes left, who wanted the ball and took the shots and who just passed it to those people?  Let's set aside for the moment whether those players hit their shots, who had the huevos to take the shot when we needed points?  Thomas, obviously.  He had 11 4th quarter points and drove to the hoop with absolute reckless abandon.  Whatever IT's faults are, and he has plenty, lacking stones isn't one of them.  Another?  Jared Sullinger.  He took a 3 (an ATO?  Really, Brad?  You called for a Sully 3 out of a timeout?) which he missed, took a baseline 2 that he missed and then finally hit a baseline 2 that went in.  Other than I would really rather NOT have Sully taking 3s in the first place, he took them.  He wasn't afraid to fail.  The third player I'd cite is Turner.  Yeah, 6-18 and all that, but he took the shots in crunch time, he wanted the ball in his hands for when they were fouling us (and hit 2 clutch fritos).  Not afraid of the moment.  Moving forward you want to know who is unafraid.  Last night, these 3 players had the ganas to demand the ball, and that's something worth taking away from this game.

7.  For someone with a rep for being phlegmatic Brad Stevens sure was spitting fire last night.  At the refs, at his players, he was quite agitato.  He has a, usually, almost serene relentlessness about him but you can see from watching his eyes he's like a duck on a pond.  Above water it looks like it's doing nothing but pick it up and you see those little feet going a mile a minute.  That's our Brad.  Looks calm, NOT calm.  I'm guessing there wasn't a lot of high-fiving in the locker room last night after the game.  If there was they better hope Brad  didn't see them doing it.  You can see the steam is starting to escape from his ears.  My father always told me to "watch out for the quiet ones".  Like Brad Stevens.

Ok, time to take a deep breath and take a step back from the ledge.  We won.  It was butt ugly, but we won and now we have 8 wins.  That's 2, if not 3, more wins than I thought we'd get this month.  We play tomorrow, at home, against the surprisingly staggering 6-6 Washington Wizards.  If we play like we did last night, we will lose.  Brad's job is to pull everybody's head out of their asses by then.  After that it's the road for us @ 7-8 Orlando Magic (they play the 6-9 Bucks before then, so they could be 8-8 when we arrive) and then @ the 9-5 Miami Heat (they play the Knicks in NY before then.  Who knows about that?) in Miami.  Miami's schedule, to date, has been pretty easy, so I'm not as impressed with their 9-5 as I might otherwise be.  

8 wins.  Focus on the 8 wins.  Remember that 8 wins is more than I thought we'd get and we still have 3 opportunities to pick up more.  I'd be ok with 8-10 by the end of Hell Month.  9-9, which is what we'll have if we just win 1 out of the next 3, if we just don't go on a 3 game losing streak, would be truly awesome.  Considering the number of miles we will have traveled by 12/1, the number of back-to-backs and the general quality of our competition through November, .500 would be impressive even if how we got there is a head scratcher. After last night though, confidence is not high.


bob


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bob I like IT's effort too, but hes a constant defensive liability, did you ever think that if we didn't acquire IT last year, we might have Porzingis right now?

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob I like IT's effort too, but hes a constant defensive liability, did you ever think that if we didn't acquire IT last year, we might have Porzingis right now?

cow,

1.  We didn't, and post-coital what ifs aren't worth jack shit.  If I wanted to have a hypothetical past-life experience I'd go for when I was freaking Genghis Khan and was conquering most of my known world and not waste it wondering about how a bunch of pingpong balls may or may not bounce and their potential effect on a sport, depending upon how our position in that draft might change how other teams draft.  Has it occurred to you that, if we did have a high lottery pick like that, that teams like LAL, Philly and NYK might change how they drafted in order to deny us a big we would obviously have coveted?  Has it occurred to you that maybe LAL would have taken Okafur if they thought we might take him at #4?  Or that the Sixers would have taken Porzingis with #3 because Okafur was gone?  They traded for Dario Saric, so it's not like they are averse to Euro players.  After all that, all that losing eating away at our players' souls, all of our lack of progress actually rebuilding and instead going down like a submarine with screen doors while merely talking about rebuilding, and we could have ended up with D'Angelo Russell for our "prize".  

2.  No, I don't think so, I don't think we could have gotten Porzingis and you know how big a fan of his I was and still am.  I don't think we would have ended up with less than the 25 wins we had the year before, even without IT, and to get the Knicks' pick @ #4 we would have had to at least match their 17 wins and then hope we lose the tie-breaker against a team that couldn't win a tie-breaker if they were told the results in advance.  And, suppose we did have close to the Knicks' 17 wins, has it occurred to you that might have just made them tank harder?  Melo was out for the season, so losing was very, very easy for them.


bob



.

bob,

I agree that the Cs month of November has been pretty rough and also that 8 wins is far from terrible, but I am very concerned with some of the games of late due to their less than top level efforts for most of these games.

Their depth and numerous young guys should not allow them to have games that are less than 100% effort even if some of those games do turn out to be losses for a wide variety of possible reasons (missed shots, spotty defense, officials or whatever).

To me the total team effort on a nightly basis in the last half of last season (and seen in many early games this season) is what this season is about. Less than their best total team effort for any series of games both concerns and bothers me.

A team that is going 100 miles per hour on both ends of the floor is not always guaranteed a win on any night, but a team operating with less than the 100% that is trying to regain NBA prominence is very worrisome.

wide clyde wrote:bob,

I agree that the Cs month of November has been pretty rough and also that 8 wins is far from terrible, but I am very concerned with some of the games of late due to their less than top level efforts for most of these games.

Their depth and numerous young guys should not allow them to have games that are less than 100% effort even if some of those games do turn out to be losses for a wide variety of possible reasons (missed shots, spotty defense, officials or whatever).

To me the total team effort on a nightly basis in the last half of last season (and seen in many early games this season) is what this season is about.  Less than their best total team effort for any series of games both concerns and bothers me.

A team that is going 100 miles per hour on both ends of the floor is not always guaranteed a win on any night, but a team operating with less than the 100% that is trying to regain NBA prominence is very worrisome.

clyde,

Yeah, I'd feel better about things if we looked like we were in some kind of rhythm too, but a win is a win is a win. Obviously, we cannot continue to careen forward like this and expect to do well in the standings. We have to start playing well to continue to win but 8 wins at this time, however we got them, are still 8 wins and a few more than I honestly expected.


bob


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Okafor shoves heckler to the ground outside club in Boston last night:

http://nba.nbcsports.com/2015/11/26/jahlil-okafor-fights-man-in-boston-video/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs

Bob, Great roundup, gives a sense of where the team is without Smart. He's the glue IMO, wants to win badly and when he's not hurt, he's a monster. Will he avoid injuries? I worry about that because he's a built like a tank on roller skates. If the Celtics could trade rosters with Philly, would you do it? We got Smart, but they got Okafur, who seems as good as advertised. I'm with Cowens on Porzingas - going to the Knicks, of all places and IT did kick us into a new gear last year. This year, not as much although he is gutsy. Do you think last year's playoffs run helps the team now in any tangible way? I may see it in the players you mention, not being afraid at crunch time. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Go Celtics! Hawk

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob I like IT's effort too, but hes a constant defensive liability, did you ever think that if we didn't acquire IT last year, we might have Porzingis right now?

For 3 or 4 years I've been rooting for the Celtics to be lousy to the point that they would be drafting in the top 5. Being mediocre sure than hell eliminates the opportunity to draft where the cream of the crop is most likely to be available. Having those high picks is yet another vital asset, along with really significant cap space this coming year, that could hasten the return to being a serious contender. Again this year while I am rooting for the team as a whole to fail, I will, with an eye to the future, be rooting for 1 or 2 of the younger players to have banner seasons with the hope that they will be major players in the relatively near future.

swish

hey bobby heckler

That playoff run did Jack shit for this teams development and talent level right now, the extra money the franchise got for 2 home playoff games and acquiring IT only kept us from getting a potential elite big and I think Danny is smart enough to not draft a DAngelo Russel or I sincerely hope so. Besides Porzingis, there was also Okafor, Towns and Myles Turner all who are better than the pathetic white stiffs Z and KO that are still on this roster. This team is at least 3 or 4 years away from contention, acquiring IT not only cost us a legit shot at a franchise big, by the time we are ready to really contend IT will be a beaten up 30 year old that has lost a step. You think hes a bad defender now, wait until 4 years from now....

cow

By the way last night was really impressed with size and skill of Okafor, he really has Tim Duncan written all over him and Duncan came out polished after 4 years. This is really Okafors sophmore season and was impressed with the way Sully giving up 4 inches battled him in the paint, leading us with 15 hard earned boards, you could give Z and KO the same minutes as Sully and combined they couldn't come up with 15 rebounds. So sorry Sully isn't at his natural position, I appreciate him fighting his heart out.