Post Game Thread - vs Minnesota TimberPups, Home

[bobheckler]

http://espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400828298



Olynyk leads Boston over Minnesota 113-99
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Minnesota
Timberwolves
11-17
99Final113
Boston
Celtics
15-13
1 2 3 4 T
MIN 26 27 19 27 99
BOS 34 26 32 21 113
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1:37 AM ET
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BOSTON -- The fans showered former Celtic Kevin Garnett with chants, and Boston rained key 3-pointers on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Kelly Olynyk scored 19 points, Jae Crowder had 18 and the Celtics beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 113-99 on Monday night while the crowd begged to see Garnett.

"Three-point shooting is probably the next most contagious thing to the flu," forward Olynyk joked. "When one person knocks them down, they usually come in waves, so it's good to get people going that way."

Boston was 12 of 25 from behind the arc, two off its season high.

Tyler Zeller scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds before fouling out. David Lee had 13 points and eight boards to help Boston snap a three-game losing streak.

EDITOR'S PICKS

Garnett (rest) misses Wolves' loss at Celtics
Timberwolves forward Kevin Garnett was out of Monday's lineup for a 113-99 loss to the team he led to the 2007-08 NBA championship, the Boston Celtics.

Celtics fans salute Kevin Garnett, maybe for the final time
On a night the up-and-coming Celtics snapped a three-game losing streak, the home crowd saved its loudest cheers for one of the visitors -- KG.
Minnesota coach Sam Mitchell said before the game that the 39-year-old Garnett would rest because it was the second of back-to-backs after the Timberwolves beat Brooklyn. The crowd loudly chanted "We want KG!" close to a dozen times.

"I definitely heard all the chants," Garnett said. "It meant a lot to me. I would like to say Minnesota made me a young man and I grew up when I came to Boston."

Garnett signed a two-year deal with Minnesota over the summer, but this could have been his last game in Boston.

Garnett was a member of Boston's 2007-08 NBA championship team after he was traded from Minnesota in the summer of `07. He played for the Celtics for six seasons, helping them to the finals again in 2010 when they dropped a seven-game series to the Los Angeles Lakers.

"I watched KG growing up and I've played against him for seven years, and I know he's one of the toughest competitors there is," Boston forward Jonas Jerebko said. "I played against him here in Boston and I know how much he was loved here and brought a championship here with this team. It was fun to see."

The 15-time All-Star was traded to Brooklyn after the 2012-13 season. The Nets then dealt him back to the Timberwolves, his original franchise.

Andrew Wiggins led the Timberwolves with 26 points. Karl-Anthony Towns had 25 and 16 rebounds.

Minnesota has lost its last 10 games in Boston, dating back to a 99-97 victory on March 6, 2005.

The Celtics led by 18 points with 7 minutes to play and the fans changed the chant to "K-G! K-G!"

Finally, giving up hope of seeing him, they serenaded him with "Thank you, KG!" He stood up and waved to a standing ovation as they played "Gino" -- a song that became famous during Boston's championship run.

"That was like the cherry on top for me," Garnett said. "My teammates were asking, `What is this?' I said, `I'll explain it later."

FAST START

The Celtics hit six of their first seven from 3-point range, pulling to a 44-30 lead on James Young's shot from beyond the arc 3 minutes into the second quarter. They led 60-53 at halftime.

R.J. Hunter nailed a half-court shot at the buzzer at the end of the first, giving Boston a 34-26 edge.

BIG RUN

Boston scored 10 straight points to push a seven-point halftime edge to 84-68 late in the third quarter.

Isaiah Thomas thrilled the crowd during the spree by bouncing a pass between his legs to Crowder on the right wing. Crowder nailed a jumper, making it 82-68 before the Timberwolves called timeout. Lee capped the run with a baseline drive.

NOT CHANGING MY MIND

Mitchell wasn't going to be swayed by the fans, explaining Garnett doesn't play consecutive games.

"Come on, now," the coach said. "I'm not going to throw him out there because the fans are chanting. If you start listening to the fans, you're going to be sitting up there with them."

FINAL QUESTION

Garnett wasn't about to bite when asked if this was his final season.

"I just wanted to say thank you all for all the appreciation," he said, ending the press conference as he walked off, smiling.

He hugged and shook hands with a number of Celtics' employees after the game.

TIP-INS

Timberwolves: They were whistled for two technical fouls in the opening 4 minutes. Mitchell had one and G Andre Miller got the other from the bench.

Celtics: Forwards Amir Johnson (plantar fasciitis) and Jared Sullinger (back spasms) were sidelined. Coach Brad Stevens started Olynyk and Lee. He had C Zeller come off the bench because he liked him "better with the second unit." Zeller picked up three fouls in 2 minutes.



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http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/zeller-answers-call-sullinger-johnson-out



Zeller answers the call with Sullinger, Johnson out
December 22, 2015, 1:00 am
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BOSTON – If there’s one thing Tyler Zeller has learned during his time under Brad Stevens, it’s that playing time is not promised to anyone.

But with Amir Johnson (plantar fasciitis, left foot) and Jared Sullinger (back spasms) both out for Monday’s game against Minnesota, he knew he was going to play.

And did he ever.

Zeller had a season-high 14 points off the bench for Boston which was among the many things that went the Celtics’ way in a 113-99 win over Minnesota.

The 14 points scored topped his previous season high of 12 points, which he tallied at Detroit only five days ago.

“I try to work every day,” Zeller said. “Try to be as ready as possible. With Sully and Amir out I knew I was gonna play. It wasn’t a surprise today. I really just tried to be as mentally and physically ready as I could, and went out to play as hard as I could.”

Zeller will be the first to tell you that this season has not been easy.

He started 59 games last season and began this season with the first unit for the first three games. After being replaced in the starting lineup, his minutes went from being cut to non-existent with some games in which he did not play at all (coaches decision).

But even when he wasn’t playing, Zeller made sure he was ready to help whenever he got his number called.

Before games he would work with assistant coach Walter McCarty on an array of skills, whether it’s playing with his back to the basket or showing a more confident face-up game.

Zeller had it all on display Monday, which was a big help for Boston (15-13) as it snapped a three-game losing streak.

Celtics head coach Brad Stevens has been pleased with how Zeller has handled his fluctuating role.

“I can’t imagine anybody handling it better,” Stevens said. “Surely it’s tough; he’s disappointed when he doesn’t play, but he doesn’t show it. He’s been a complete and total professional, and we already know that he’s a really good player but I can speak for myself and all of his teammates and our whole organization when I say we’re all even more endeared to him because of how he’s handled everything.”




bob



.

[dboss]

A lot of guys in double figures last night.

Very strong games form Kelly, Jonas and Zeller.  

But I thought that Crowder lead the way with his double double 18 pts, 10 rebounds and 2 block shots

When the Celtics were still up big with 4-5 ,minutes left I was hoping to see Mickey get some run but unfortunately he scrapped the barrel with a minute left in the game playing out his brief garbage time appearance.

Zeller made another strong bid to be included in the Celtics's rotation but this numbers game is killing opportunities for guys to play.  Hoping to see us move 2 bigs and promote Mickey.  

The Celtics are not a championship level team.  let's really see what we have in some of these young guys that are not getting playing time.  Zeller is our only true center.  He probably runs the court faster than any of our other bigs.  

The biggest problem for Stevens is the level of parity among his 4/5 players.  Ko has the biggest offensive potential and is a really good shooter so he has to play.  The rest of the bunch are up and down more than KO is.  Even Sully who reestablished himself has fallen off on the offensive end.  Johnson has never been a great offensive player and will continue to be something of an anchor on defense.  Lee is good and bad at times.  He misses more bunnies at the rim than anyone on the team.  I see him as a short timer on this team.  Jeremko also is an up and down player.

dboss

[bobheckler]

It all worked out almost exactly the way I wanted it to.  We won and we won big enough for KG to get his Gino time.  I only wished he could have been put on the court but Sam Mitchell was resting him.  They're 11-17.  I have NO idea what he is saving him for, but...The crowd was chanting "WE WANT KG!!  WE WANT KG!!" all night.  All we got was this particularly poignant moment when KG enjoyed what might be his final Gino and acknowledged the love and support showered down on him by the Celtic faithful on a member of the family.



Speaking of "Celtic family", Kyle Draper didn't know that Red Auerbach was famous for eating Chinese food after games.  How did he get his job?


The referreeing sucked last night.  Absolutely sucked, and I'm saying that even though we won so it isn't 'sour grapes'.  Horrible, horrible calls, both ways.  In the first quarter Sam Mitchell almost had a stroke at mid-court when Wiggins was hacked across both arms on a fast break and no call.  Later, there were phantom calls the other way.  I thought "ok, some makeup calls, that's how basketball is" but they continued throughout the game.  

It's funny how much better we are when we hit our shots, isn't it?  It really is that simple.  


1.  After an outstanding road trip earlier this month, Kelly went into a little slump.  Ok, he completely freaking disappeared, but like the groundhog he emerged last night.  The question now is "will we get another couple of weeks of Olynyk winter or is spring here?"  He started as Sully's replacement, and scored a Celtic high 19 points on 7-10 and 3-3 from 3.  He put the ball on the floor and drove too.  In fact, he had Karl-Anthony Towns so convinced that Kelly was going to attack the rim, he broke Towns' ankles on one play.  Towns had no idea what to expect from Kelly.  He was blown backwards by the sheer emotional force of Kelly's domination (that's a joke).



His rotation defense was pretty good too.  There was one play, though, that left a bad taste in your mouth if you weren't watching the rest of the game.  Gorgui Dieng (pronounced like "Jeng") had Kelly in the low blocks.  He had hit a fallaway (that I quite honestly didn't know he had in him) from the other side a few minutes earlier, so Kelly was up on him.  Dieng put a beautiful drop step on Kelly and got a McHale-like layup.  Kelly looked awful on that play but he did ok on defense the rest of the game.  That play, though, Jeez!  Kelly's arms are so short he doesn't have the ability to compensate for being faked out of position.  When he is in position, and he usually is, his defense is ok because he is still 7'.  When he's out of position he is in trouble.  Last night, Brad had Kelly defending both Tayshaun Prince and Andrew Wiggins at one time or another.  I don't understand that.  If Kelly is "Dirk-like", you wouldn't put Dirk on those players, would you?  Brad's calls have left me a little baffled the last week or two.

His inconsistency is consistent with a young offensively-oriented player trying to figure out exactly how demanding he should be.  On a team with IT and Turner, how much should he call for the ball?  Is this game the beginning of another surge, like we had on that road trip, or is Kelly going to go back underground for another few weeks of winter?  I certainly don't know the answer to that but this game, along with the others on the road trip, show that he can do it.  Can he do it night-in-and-night-out like a starter does?  Not yet, but Sully has been struggling with that lately too.  The curse of youth.  What do you call young players with only a couple of years of experience (Kelly's NBA experience spans exactly 161 games to-date) who are solid NBA starters who put up impressive numbers consistently almost right from Game 1?  You call them "potential future HOFers".  Kelly is not one of those, but he is still only 24 years old and only has the equivalence of 2 full seasons under his belt.  Everybody seems to be on the "who should go in a trade?  Sully or Kelly?".  They are very different players with different skill sets.  Sully has played 204 games to-date.  That's 25% more games (and 40% more minutes).  I'm hoping neither of them have to go, but Danny lost my number.




2.  David Lee got the other vacant starting slot and played pretty solidly.  13 points on 5-11 and 8 boards.  It's amazing that, with a starting front court of Lee and Olynyk, we only gave up 99 points total and only 25 to Towns.  This kid Towns is going to be something special and he's getting the same mentoring from KG that Sully got.  That is absolutely priceless.  He had a 14 point 4-6 first quarter in 10 minutes.  Considering he ended up with 25 points on 8-14 in 35 minutes that makes for a relatively quiet rest of the game offensively (4-8.  Nice fg% but only 2 more fgas than he took in the 1st quarter alone).  16 rebounds though.  The kids a horse and only 19 years old.  Imagine when his frame fills out some...




3.  Minny's other #1 pick, Andrew Wiggins was 8-17 and 9-10 from the line for a game high 26 points.  I have to say, though, I was not as impressed with him as I thought I would be.  The athleticism that everybody oohed and ahhed about when he was drafted?  Doesn't look that amazing when he is playing against NBA athletes.  He got to the line a lot but some of that was the officiating.  I know his scoring average is up this year (21.3ppg) and he scored above that this game but I didn't see the skill level I thought I would.  Just me, maybe.  When Brad put James Young on Wiggins we saw James Young's defensive deficiencies on display once again.  Wiggins just worked him

4.  Bradley with another underwhelming offensive game, 13 points on a forgettable 5-14, 2-6 from 3, but he played good defense on Wiggins in the 1st quarter while at the same time having one of his typical hot offensive starts (and having his also typical later quarter cool downs).  Wiggins only had 2 points in the 1st quarter.  He had one fantastic block on, I think, LaVine.  LaVine thought he was in and then the ball was going backwards.  LaVine is going to be really good too.  Quick, quick, quick with the ball and a good shooter.  I'd love to trade for him.  I'd love to trade for Towns or Wiggins too, but I'm not that crazy as to think Glen Taylor would go for that, especially not with Danny being the recipient.

5.  Thomas had a very, very different game, for him.  Only 8 points on 3-9, but 12 assists and only 1 TO.  He was in full-blown facilitator mode last night.  4 steals including a super athletic one on Zack LaVine at halfcourt.  He just jumped and caught the pass with 2 hands and then out-raced LaVine down court for a layup.  7 rebounds, 12 assists, 8 points is a very strange boxscore for Mighty Mite, indeed.




6.  For a shooter RJ Hunter is a really good defender.  He had 3 blocks last night in 19 minutes.  One was a quick-double jump to block the very dangerous Kevin Martin in mid-paint, another was a catch-up-from-the side one.  He also had a nice strip on Wiggins who was almost at the rim on the run.  He is a boney-maroney, but very long and has quick hands.  His shot selection is questionable at times, but he's a rook.

I am really liking his demeanor.  He blocks a shot and he's already thinking about where his man is and where he has to be on the in-bounds.  He strips #1 pick Wiggins and just takes off up court after another Celtic grabs the ball and starts running it up.  Watch is reaction, how he walks off the court, after hitting this 50' buzzer beater at halftime.  Just another shot.



Other than that shot, Hunter's offense came on back door cuts.  He moves well.  Give him a couple of years and people will be oohing and ahhing over him too. I'm really, really liking the fact that he has figured out that defense is how he's going to stay in this league and he worked his butt off on that this past summer. It is really obvious.

7.  Has Jonas broken out of his season-long slump?  It's looking like he's getting his rhythm back.  4-7 and 3-3 last night for 12 points suggests that maybe the lid on the basket has been removed for him.  He deserves it, he works so hard.  He also had 7 rebounds in 25 minutes.  It would be HUGE if he started hitting again.

8.  Evan Turner had 10 assists and 3 TOs and contributed to my continuing hair loss.  His high, loose dribble makes every possession where he's running the offense into a murder mystery.  Who dies this time?  Our offensive rhythm or their defense?  He drives me crazy.  I wanted Danny to draft "Slo-Mo" Kyle Anderson of UCLA (the Spurs took him instead), a 6'9" "point forward".  Considering how much on edge 6'7" Evan Turner gets me on edge maybe it's just as well Danny has lost my number.  Bottom line though, heart in my throat every step of the way, he and Thomas did a good job of running the offense last night.

9.  Jae Crowder was hitting his shots last night.  He even finished a tough shot once.  18 points on 8-13 and 10 rebounds.  When he's on, man, he is on.  He is the passion leader of this team.  Between him and Smart they are our drill instructors who will not let people slack off.

10.  Tyler Zeller fouled out in 17 minutes.  In those 17 minutes he had 14 points on 7-10 and 8 boards.  He actually dunked once instead of his usual flip shot!  Halle-freaking-lujah because, the next 2 possessions after the dunk, he did flip shots that missed.  Dunk the ball, Tyler, and you would have had 18 points on 9-10.  One of his flip shots that did go in happened because Dieng backed off him.  I would NOT have expected that.  I would have thought Dieng would have relished the opportunity to block the 7' landlocked Tyler Zeller.  Nevertheless, he played well, offensively.  Defensively he was getting eaten up by Towns and Dieng, who fouled him out.  That's ok.  He's a back up, we all know that now.  If he can just hold his own, and 14 points in 17 minutes is definitely that, then he is an asset worth keeping (for the right price).

11.  I don't understand why Brad played Thomas 35 minutes and Crowder 30.  We were up by 20 in the 4th.  Why didn't he play Mickey and Rozier more than the 1 minute they got?  What if Thomas got hurt throwing himself around like he does?  Brad has been in a bit of a coaching slump the past few weeks too.  Maybe that's a good thing.  It might be a good thing if the players have to figure things out for themselves instead of counting on the coach to tell them what to do.

12.  Stat Roundup:  52% shooting for us is pretty flippin' good.  59% after 1, 52% at the half, 56% after 3.  In other words, pretty consistent offensive effort for us all the way through.  48%, 12-25 from 3.  89fgas is very nice, much better than we've been seeing the past week.  9-16 from the line.  Towns and Wiggins had more ftas, 19, than the entire Celtics squad.  50 rebounds vs 36 for them.  The only Timberpup to rebound was Towns, nobody else had more than 5.  We had Crowder with 10, Lee with 8, Zeller with 8, Jonas with 7 and Thomas, of all people, with 7.

We beat a shitty, young team.  They were, however, 7-6 on the road coming into last night (making them 4-10 at home?  Yuck).  Wednesday, we're down in Charlotte.  Didn't we play them IN CHARLOTTE just a week and a half ago?  This will be a very tough game, I predict, because we beat them there, in Charlotte, and they'll want to send a message back to us.  For extra motivation they are only 1/2 game ahead of us in the standings too.  Fortunately, we'll have our own GYSO in the stands to tilt everything back in our direction.

15-13.  Not great, not bad.  Obviously our 3 game losing streak took some of the starch out of us.


bob


.

[beat]

Bob

Again a nice summation.

We are good enough to beat anyone, and on the flip side, not good enough to beat everyone cept perhaps the lakers and the 76'ers (but don't I remember quite vividly they had us on the ropes for about 46 minutes)

Shoot well does seem to make things run better. We didn't force many turnovers and had a few too many ourselves. Once we get the carbonator Smart back, the engine that forces turnovers will be running again.

Also wonder why we didn't see a bit more of the "far" end of the bench. Would have been nice to see Mickey come in when Zeller got his 4th or even his 5th foul......actually they weren't that far apart bur neither were his first 3 either. Just have to wonder what really is going thru his mind. Certainly had every reason to be as rusty as my 07 Caravan with 190,000 miles on it but he looked pretty darn impressive. Got a couple breakaways just by running the court.

Has to be difficult for Stevens to dole out the playing time with players that are very similar talent wise, perhaps Ainge will make a move or two soon to change this.

Was an enjoyable game to watch. Of course any win is enjoyable.

December 22 and only a trace of snow on my part of the Tug Hill and that melted away yesterday. Looks like no snow in the foreseeable future either.


beat

[Berlin-T]

What was most interesting for me was the play of IT and Turner. Both spent most of their time distributing the ball rather than shooting. This resulted in an extremely fluid offensive game as our bigs were getting and hitting wide open shots. Instead of IT driving into a crowd in the lane and getting stuffed he was looking to pass earlier. Thus everyone handled the ball and everyone got open shots. That's my idea of how the game should be played. That was and is Celtics basketball.

Berlin-T

[dboss]

Berlin

Great observation.

dboss

[wideclyde]

Even though they do not quite play the same position, Zeller's play of late should make David Lee even more available in a trade.

Zeller had a poor start to his season, but he is now showing that he can still play like he did last year. In fact, he even looks better in the last couple of games than he did last year. I know that a couple of games is a very small sample size, but he is moving much better, looks much stronger and is certainly rested at this time.

And, congrats to Zeller for staying ready and positive while mostly sitting on the bench for the last 20+ games. I think that he will turn out to be a contact extension player for the Cs by the end of the season.

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