POST GAME BROOKLY - AWAY

Celtics get revenge on Nets, Crowder dominates

CSNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

The Boston Celtics’ two-game slide is a thing of the past following Monday’s 103-94 win over the Brooklyn Nets.

While getting back on a winning track is the preferred path for Boston, the Celtics (19-15) left plenty of room for improvement.

Despite scoring 37 points in the first quarter and leading by as many as 19 points in the first half, the Celtics found themselves needing to make big plays at both ends of the floor as Brooklyn came with five points in the fourth before the Celtics executed effectively at both ends of the floor to get the victory.

Leading the way for Boston was Jae Crowder, who played strong defense against Joe Johnson in addition to lighting Johnson up at the other end of the floor.

Crowder led the Celtics with a career-high 25 points, 14 of which came in the first quarter.

Evan Turner, getting the starting nod for Avery Bradley who was out with a left hip injury, had a double-double of 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez, who torched the Celtics for a season-high 30 points on Saturday, wasn’t nearly as dominant in the fourth and final matchup between these two teams on Monday.

He finished with 19 points and five rebounds with most of his scoring coming well after the Celtics had assumed firm control of the game.

Both teams came into the game missing a key player due to an injury sustained on Saturday.

Bradley missed Monday’s game because of a sore left hip while Brooklyn’s Jarrett Jack suffered a season-ending torn ACL injury.

With Crowder leading the way scoring the ball, Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and Jared Sullinger off the bench (head coach Brad Stevens started Olynyk ahead of Sullinger on Monday) were doing their part defensively to not allow another big game from Lopez who had just four points in the first half.

While the Celtics were able to limit Lopez in the first half, the same was not true for Thaddeus Young, who once again played well against the Celtics.

He finished with a double-double of 23 points and 15 rebounds.
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Crowder's career-high 25 lead Celtics over Nets, 103-94

ESPN

NEW YORK -- Jae Crowder scored a career-high 25 points with a strong start and a clutch finish, and the Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets 103-94 on Monday night to split a home-and-home series.

Crowder had 14 points in the first quarter, then was largely quiet until hitting a 3-pointer and adding a three-point play after Brooklyn got close in the final minutes. He surpassed his previous best of 24 points by making a pair of free throws with 16 seconds remaining.

Isaiah Thomas added 19 points for the Celtics, who rebounded from consecutive losses at home, including the Nets' 100-97 victory on Saturday. Evan Turner, starting for the injured Avery Bradley, had 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Thaddeus Young had 23 points and a season-high 15 rebounds for the Nets, who have lost seven straight at home. Joe Johnson scored 21 points and Brook Lopez, the Eastern Conference player of the week, finished with 19.

The Nets lost starting point guard Jarrett Jack for the season with a torn ACL and small medial meniscus tear in his right knee in Saturday's victory. New starter Shane Larkin managed just four points and two assists.

The Celtics lost at home last week to the Lakers and Nets, two of the NBA's worst teams, but seemed to leave that poor play behind with a 37-point first quarter that gave them a 15-point lead.

They were ahead by as much as 19 but never put away the Nets, who drew within five with 3 minutes left. Crowder then hit a 3 to steady the Celtics.

TIP-INS

Celtics: Coach Brad Stevens inserted Kelly Olynyk into the starting lineup in place of Jared Sullinger, hoping for more perimeter shooting with guard Avery Bradley sidelined by a sore left hip. Olynyk scored nine, while Sullinger had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Nets: The Nets wrapped up their season series with the Celtics before they've even played one game against fellow Atlantic Division rival Toronto, which visits Wednesday. ... Young had double-doubles in all four games against the Celtics. The last Nets player with four double-doubles in a season against one opponent was Deron Williams against the Knicks in 2012-13.

LACKING JACK

End of games could be tougher for the Nets without Jack, who hit shots that beat the Clippers and Warriors with under 2 seconds to play last season.

"We're going to miss that about Jarrett because Jarrett wasn't afraid to take the shot," coach Lionel Hollins said. "He certainly had enough confidence to believe that he could make them and he wanted the shot. Even if the play wasn't called for him in that situation, he believed if he got open he was not going to be afraid to take the shot."

TAKING A TIMEOUT

Sullinger said he didn't join the huddle during a timeout in the second half of Saturday's game because he was "blowing off steam." Asked what upset him, Sullinger said: "A lot of things. It was just a lot of things going on, especially the way the game was going. So I just tried to refrain myself from snapping, regardless of whatever happened."

UP NEXT

Celtics: Host Detroit on Wednesday.
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STUDS AND DUDS: CELTICS CUT UP NETS ON JAE CROWDER’S CAREER NIGHT

WEEI

By Ben Rohrbach

Jae Crowder

In their fourth and final meeting against the lottery-bound team whose first-round pick they own, the Celtics salvaged a 2-2 series record against the Nets this season with a 103-94 victory against Brooklyn.

Jae Crowder scored a career-high 25 points to go along with six rebounds and three steals, helping the C’s improve to 19-15 on the season — good for seventh place in the Eastern Conference. Of course, had they took care of business against the Lakers and Nets at home over the weekend, they’d be sitting pretty as the No. 3 seed, but no dice.

Isaiah Thomas collected 19 points and seven assists, Evan Turner added a double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds) and both Amir Johnson and Jared Sullinger added a dozen points. Thaddeus Young led Brooklyn (10-24) with 23 points and 15 rebounds. More importantly, the Nets gained a game on the victorious 76ers (4-33) for the league’s worst record.

For a complete box score, click here. To go beyond the box, read on.


STUD OF THE NIGHT: Jae Crowder.

In the game’s opening 11 minutes, Crowder scored 14 points on seven shots, propelling the Celtics to a 37-22 lead after the first quarter. Brad Stevens tweaked the starting lineup, starting Evan Tuner for the injured Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk for the struggling Jared Sullinger, in hopes of igniting the offense. And it was mainstay Crowder operating in the space created by Olynyk and the playmaking of Turner and Isaiah Thomas. And when Brooklyn cut the C’s lead to single digits in the fourth quarter, Crowder’s 3-pointer and traditional three-point play kept the Nets at bay.

DUD OF THE NIGHT: David Lee.

As Stevens searched for answers following two terrible losses to the Lakers and Nets, he sat Lee on the bench for the entire evening. Lee arrived in Boston as a two-time former All-Star who seemingly had plenty left in the tank after playing important minutes for the Warriors during their finals victory, but he’s had trouble finding a role on the C’s. His defense has never been considered strong, so when he’s not offering offense, Lee isn’t much help.

WHINE OF THE NIGHT: Distant future?

Can the Celtics improve as a 3-point shooting team? Or is this all they are? They entered Monday’s game shooting 32.7 percent from beyond the arc. Only four teams are worse: The Nets, Grizzlies, 76ers and Lakers. Three of those might be the league’s worst teams, and the Grizzlies rely on tremendous post play. The Celtics rank seventh in 3-point attempts per game (27.6), so if the 3’s ever started falling, the C’s offensive issues could be resolved, but will they ever fall? The Celtics shot sub-30 percent from distance yet again, despite a number of wide-open looks.

STAT OF THE NIGHT: Seven.

Not too many teams can make 24-of-27 free throws, grab 16 offensive boards and still lose by nine. But the Nets aren’t many teams. They shot just 37.6 percent, but the Celtics survived Brooklyn’s second-chance opportunities by limiting their turnovers to seven and holding the Nets to just four points on those giveaways. Conversely, the C’s scored 20 points on Brooklyn’s 14 turnovers, led by Crowder and Marcus Smart’s ball-hawking skills.

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No, in my opinion, this does not make up for the previous loss, much less the previous two.

We were without Bradley, but they were without Jarrett Jack who had a season-ending ACL last game.  I call it even.

I had the Nets feed with Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkle.  I have to say that of all the announcing teams I listen to, and I've probably listened to them all, they are the most objective, most even and fair, least partisan.  

This game should not have been this close, for a number of reasons, but it was because we shot 7-24 in the 4th quarter.

1.  Jae Crowder is the heart of this team.  He has been taking these losses personally and has been playing like it.  He had 14 points in the 1st quarter while guarding Joe Johnson, who lit him up last game.  25 points on 8-13, 3 steals, 6 boards a block and just all-round disruptiveness.  Tommy has always said you need "an instigator", a player that makes things happen.  Jae Crowder has become that for us.  He was in beast mode last night, attacking on offense.  He has a bad habit of holding the ball in one hand over his head when he is going in for a layup.  I think it shows the ball too much, but it is what he does.  He went at the rim a few times and finished well.  He got fouled and still finished through the contact.  I think I'm going to give my "Jae Crowder is a lousy finisher" bitch a rest for a while because he is stepping up and getting it done.  The best way of shutting me up is to prove me wrong.

2.  Another instigator is Mahcus Smaht.  He obviously needs to work on his offense, but he is SO disruptive on defense.  You could see how they were starting to look for him, wanting to know where he was.  Only 7 points on 3-7 but 3 assists and zero TOs point to some progress as a point guard.  His defense, though, mama mia!  Here's the video of where Donald Sloan was doing the "let the ball roll forward without touching it to save seconds" trick.  Smart was just waiting for him on our side of the court.  Finally, when the ball gets close, Smart just lunges forward to the floor, straight, flat-out, and steals the ball KG-like.  The refs called it a jump ball, which we lost, but the replay showed it was not a jump ball at all it was a clean steal (Spanarkle and Eagle both agreed).  

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:14505748

Crowder and Smart.  They feed off each other and that is a very good thing.  The Boston Celtics have a well-deserved reputation for loving defense and these two are absolutely ferocious.  I thoroughly enjoy watching them blow other teams up.

3.  Kelly got the start in front of Sully.  I don't know if this is a one-game thing, because Sully was SO ineffective against Lopez in Boston so Brad decided he needed a change, or if he has just decided that Sully's slump has gone on long enough he's hurting the team.  Bottom line is that Kelly had a so-so game, less than so-so on offense, and Sully had another bad game on offense but rebounded.  That's one thing you can always count on from him, he rebounds.  Some of his 10 rebounds were stat-boards but some were very nice.  He had 3 steals.  Hell, he even hit BOTH of his fritos!  I don't know if this an emotional reaction to him coming off the bench or because he wasn't playing long minutes against Lopez, but he played better.  Our offense was better than Saturday, our defense was better than Saturday and that's all that matters.  Kelly?  Meh.  He couldn't hit his early shots which dragged down his boxscore but then started to get inside and score a bit.  He had a very pretty pocket pass to Amir cutting baseline and did a generally better job on the extremely difficult Thaddeus Young.  Young hit a couple of 3s.  I didn't know he could shoot those.  That takes him up a whole new level and I already really, really liked him.  Billy King showed he wasn't a complete moron by signing Young to a longterm contract this past summer.  23 points on 9-18, 2-4 from 3 and 15 boards (6 offensive) for Young.  You look at those numbers and you think "wow, a career night for him!" but when I was watching the game, and as I said earlier about Kelly doing a better job, you feel like we got lucky with Young.  23 points on 50% shooting from all over the court and a ton of rebounds, a game that Sully on his best days could do, and I still feel like we got lucky and dodged a Thaddeus Young bullet.  Love that guy.  Only 27 years old too.

4.  Thomas punched the ball and started screaming "AND 1!!  AND 1!!" and got T'd up for it.  I don't think he got T'd up for screaming, I think he got T'd up for punching the ball.  Anyway, Ellington hit the T, Thomas shot 1-2 on his fritos and, thanks to his inability to control his emotions it was an empty possession for us with 3:47 left in the game and the lead holding at 10.  Doc used to have a rule that if you get T'd up in the 4th there would be a fine you would have to pay.  Maybe Brad should do something like that.  I like Shane Larkin but he had a tough night guarding IT last night.  I have to say that Thomas, with his 7 assists and only 1 TO last night, 7.0 assists and 2.8 TOs over his last 5 games, is starting to look like a point guard and not just a scoring machine (which he still is).  Just like with Jae Crowder and Steez and others, Brad Stevens has empowered Thomas to expand his game and become a better, more well-rounded player, and he's doing it.

5.  Tyler Zeller was the solution, such as we could offer, for Brook Lopez.  He did about all one can do against Lopez, he forced him to take his shot a foot or so further away, a foot or so out of his comfort zone, out of his sweet spot.  Brooklyn was dumping the ball into Lopez in the low blocks in the 2nd half and letting him go one-on-one and Zeller did a VERY credible job of making it harder for him.  Offensively, Zeller struggled.  He missed his outside shots.  He missed one of his damn flip shots so badly his went clear over the rim to the weak side.  He did a great job of out-running everybody down the floor on the break and then blew the bunny because he tried to lay it in instead of dunking it.  I'm not going to say anymore about that because, at this point, I think everybody knows how I feel about 7'ers not dunking when they have the opportunity.  He did try to dunk once but got challenged and missed.  I'm ok with that, at least he didn't bring his usual "weak sauce".  What I don't understand is why he doesn't use the board more?  If you're not going to dunk, use the board.  Still, he had a good game, shooting notwithstanding, because Lopez was starting to take over in the paint and Zeller derailed him a bit, and that is NOT easy to do.

6.  Get well soon, RJ.  We need to get James Young back on the bench.  14 minutes of nothing.

7.  Barf-nani played 4 minutes.  "El Busto" Thomas Robinson, who had a very good game on Saturday, turned back into a pumpkin.  Same with Willie Reed and Wayne Ellington.  In other words, they turned back into the Nets.

8.  Stat Roundup:  92fgas is VERY good.  We had 20 of our 37 first quarter points in the paint.  By the end of the 3rd quarter those numbers were up to 50 paint points out of a total of 79.  For a team with unimpressive post scorers those numbers are pretty freaking impressive.  What is deceptive is that, other than Amir Johnson, those points were coming on penetrations by IT, Smart, Turner and Crowder, some sneaky moves by Kelly and some bull-shots (as Sam used to call them) by Sully.  Amir and Sully were the only "traditional" paint scorers, everybody else was being crafty in their paint scoring.  This game, statistically, should not have been this close, but that 4th quarter scoring drought of ours made it so.  We ran, we had motion on our half court sets in the first 3 quarters and we were killing them.  We digressed to one-on-one ME-ball by Turner and IT in the 4th and we let them back into the game.  We ended up with 54 points in the paint out of a total of 103.  That's excellent.  We had 16 fast break points while only giving up 8.  We kept our TOs under control with only 7.  We only had 2 TOs at the half.  Evan Turnover had 4 of our 7 total.  10 steals by us and 14 TOs by them indicates an active defense.  Active defense + motion offense and running = winning.  Simple equation.  We just don't have the talent to stand around and let it come to us, we have to instigate.

We are now in 7th place, tied with Indy.  Tomorrow vs Detroit.  It is absurd that we have a better record on the road than at home.  Tomorrow is another chance to fix that anomaly.

With Jack out and Shane Larkin and Donald Sloan running the point for them I think we can look forward to the Brooklyn Nets fullfilling their destiny for us.



bob


.

A few more things:

1.  Kudos to bobc, who is in Newton-Wellesley Hospital with food poisoning symptoms, and was still watching the game and occasionally checking in on the Game On thread. We got some real die-hard Celtic fans on this board, and Bob's one of them. Same with Berlin-T, who stays up quite late to watch the games and join in on the Game On thread. Makes for a long day on the other side of the pond, what with the 6 hour time zone difference, but he's another die-hard Celtic fan and board member...

2.  If you look at the vine showing Smart's mid-court dive for the ball off of Sloan, check out the difference in reactions between the fan in white in the first row midcourt and Brad Stevens' reaction.


bob


.

Brad showed no excitement after the play because he knew that the refs were going to screw up the call.

Another lineup change.

Turner played well but he was also playing well off the bench too.  

Ko looked horrible on defense and struggled on offense in 34 minutes.  Let's see how many games he gets as a starter and I would like to see enough so that we can really get a better feel for where he might be.

Crowder continues his breakout season.  Flat out ballin at both ends.

Other than those comments I am ready for the trading to begin.

dboss