Post Game Thread - vs Miami Heat, Away

[bobheckler]

http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/stars-studs-and-duds-perimeter-shooting-paves-way-celtics-win



STARS, STUDS AND DUDS: PERIMETER SHOOTING PAVES WAY FOR CELTICS WIN


By A. Sherrod Blakely


November 28, 2016 10:55 PM



Miami’s Hassan Whiteside is an imposing figure in the paint, so much so that teams have to often generate offense from the perimeter.

The Boston Celtics were more than OK with that as their perimeter shooting paved the way for a 112-104 win over the Miami Heat.

Boston (10-7) has now won four in a row on the road, and five of their last seven games overall.

And they did it the way the usually do it: they made lots of jumpers.

On Monday, Boston shot 48.2 percent from the field while connecting on 40.7 percent (11-for-27) of their 3s and were outscored 54-40 on points in the paint.

“With Whiteside in there, it’s not easy to get to the rim and score,” said Celtics head coach Brad Stevens. “We had our issues scoring at the rim, as everybody does against them. This is a game where you know you have to make jump shots to win.”

Here are the Stars, Studs and Duds from Monday night’s game.



STARS

Isaiah Thomas

It was a much better showing for Isaiah Thomas in the second half which is when he scored 21 of his team-high 25 points. He also had a team-high eight assists.

Goran Dragic

He carried the Heat most of the game, either scoring the ball or finding teammates for scoring opportunities. He finished with a double-double of 27 points and a game-high 17 assists.

Avery Bradley

It was a steady performance by Bradley who had 18 points on 8-for-16 shooting in addition to grabbing six rebounds.



STUDS

Hassan Whiteside

The numbers – 25 points, 17 rebounds – look impressive, but most of Whiteside’s production came when the Heat were essentially exchanging baskets with the Celtics who by that point had built a double-digit lead.

Jae Crowder

He’s looking healthier with each passing game. Against the Heat he had 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting with four rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Kelly Olynyk

He came off the bench and did his job – stretch the floor – at a high level in the first half. He was one of six Celtics in double figures scoring with 14 points to go with six rebounds and four assists.  



DUDS

Miami’s first half offense

The Heat were horrible offensively in the first half, scoring just 31 points while shooting a woeful 37.8 percent (14-for-37) from the field which included them missing all 12 of their 3-point attempts. In addition to missed shots, they also committed a bunch of turnovers (11) that led to 15 points for the Celtics.  



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http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2016/11/boston_celtics_miami_heat_2.html#incart_river_index



Isaiah Thomas, Boston Celtics overcome Goran Dragic, Miami Heat, 112-104





Miami Heat guard Goran Dragic (7) drives to the basket against Boston Celtics guard Terry Rozier (12) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, Nov. 28, 2016, in Miami. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)


Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com


on November 28, 2016 at 10:15 PM, updated November 29, 2016 at 1:06 AM




When Rodney McGruder spent preseason with the Boston Celtics a couple of years ago, he and Gerald Wallace would sometimes sit at the end of the bench and chat about whatever two dudes who don't expect playing time discuss.

Occasionally I would wonder whether Wallace knew McGruder's name and liked him or just wanted to pass the time until he could go back home and play video games. I suspected the former, but you can never be sure. Anyway, one time McGruder slammed home a garbage-time alley-oop while wearing Ray Borque's number. I never suspected McGruder would start a real game against the Celtics, but the Miami Heat are decimated by injuries so it happened Monday night. Maybe Wallace watched from wherever he is enjoying life after basketball.

If he did, he saw the Celtics handle their business for a half, let up a bit in the third quarter, and still accomplish plenty enough to dispatch a shorthanded, talent-dry club. With Al Horford away to celebrate the birth of his second child, Boston started its 112-104 win with a cool, focused demeanor, then never stopped scoring when the Heat offense rose up in the second half.

The final five minutes took about a week or two to finish, by my estimation, because of a flagrant foul, multiple technical fouls, and the Heat's decision to pull out the rare strategy of intentionally hacking Marcus Smart. Double-digit games aren't supposed to take that long, but alas, the Celtics won, thanks to strong nights from Jae Crowder (17 points, 6-for-11 shooting), Avery Bradley (18 points, 8-for-16 shooting) and most of the bench. Isaiah Thomas (25 points, eight assists) missed a heap of shots early, but emerged, as usual, with a relentless stream of offense late in the third quarter. One in-and-out dribble left Goran Dragic in a daze, and, sure enough, Thomas broke the 20-point barrier as he almost always does. He finished just 7 for 23 from the field.


The big second quarter

After a close first quarter, the Celtics pushed ahead in the second thanks partially to their bench. Terry Rozier punished switches with a couple of jumpers, Jonas Jerebko continued a strong week, and Kelly Olynyk, despite passing up a few open shots in frustrating fashion, served as a difference-maker at both ends. For the game, those three players combined to shoot 10 for 14 from the field.

Boston felt comfortable double-teaming Hassan Whiteside (25 points, 17 rebounds) when he put the ball to the floor, and the big man was quiet early, going scoreless until within two minutes of the halftime buzzer. More evidence the shot-blocker made little early impact: the Celtics sunk eight of nine shots in the restricted area during the second quarter. For that quarter, they outscored the Heat 27-12, while Whiteside spent too much time relaxing on defense like this:

https://vine.co/v/5Ua7QL9D7Mz

He did start to control the interior later, but only with the Heat down by a lot. They missed all 12 of their 3-pointer in the first half while committing 11 turnovers. Yikes.


Things got a little closer

Out of nowhere, the game turned into a shootout in the third, when the Celtics allowed 42 points, with Whiteside, Goran Dragic and Josh Richardson all reaching double figures for the quarter. About five minutes into the period, the Heat made their first 3-pointer of the night after 14 straight misses. They never really stopped scoring until the fourth, and Dragic kept getting to the paint, but it didn't kill the Celtics because they had a 35-point third quarter of their own.


Some notes

-- It appears Crowder's minutes restriction has lifted. The forward finished with 31 minutes, comfortably more than the 25 he had been allotted since suffering a sprained ankle.

-- Bad Marcus Smart: the guard had seven points early in the fourth quarter, which was cool, but still needs to learn he's not a good 3-point shooter. On one attempt, he pulled up from almost 30 feet with a world of time left on the shot clock.

-- Good Marcus Smart: when he snatched the ball straight out of Dragic's hands in transition, like the biggest bully on the block.

https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video_thumb/CyZag5NW8AANkZj.jpg

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Tom Westerholm ✔ @Tom_NBA
So I know my account has just become the Marcus Smart Defensive Highlight Show, but LOOK at this.
6:43 PM - 28 Nov 2016
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-- A couple of minutes later, Smart (12 points, four assists) received a flagrant-1 for a high foul on Whiteside. The play looked bad in real time, but Smart didn't really do anything too egregious. His reputation might have contributed to the referee's decision to label it a flagrant.

-- Down the stretch, the Heat fouled Smart intentionally on a couple of possessions. After one such occasion, he did not like the excitement Dragic used while delivering the foul, and picked up a technical by shoving the guard in return.

--- Dragic (27 points, 17 assists) had a monster game. It didn't hurt him when the Celtics let him go baseline with nobody defending:


-- The choice to foul Smart wasn't crazy considering his percentage from the free throw line this year (55 percent), but the far bigger sample of his entire career paints him as a 71-percent free throw shooter. The Heat almost certainly would not have fouled him except that they were desperate, down by double digits.

They spent most of the night that way.


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



bob



.

[bobheckler]

It wasn't necessary for this game to get this close, but I guess that's just who we are right now.

IT was 7-23 and yet ended up with 25 points.  He gets to the line.  The rest of the team should try.  Of course, it would help if they didn't have to get bulldozed to get a call.  Freaking refs.  The reffing the last two games have been ridiculously unfair, and I'm saying that after a victory so it isn't sour grapes.  If it wasn't ridiculously obvious we didn't get a call and even then we didn't.  At the end of the game they were playing Hack-a-Smart (he shoots an awful 55% from the line), Dragic was draped all over Marcus (literally.  He had his arms around him and was leaning on him, moving him backwards) and Smart pushed him off and the ref called a T on Smart and no PF on Dragic even though they had fouled him intentionally a couple times in a row already.  Just a flat-out lack of respect from the refs.  I don't think it is just no respect for Smart (because of his flopping?) but for the entire team because it seems that nobody except Thomas ever gets calls.  Some of that is Thomas' aggressiveness and attempts at creating contact and some of that is the refs swallowing their whistles.

Great game by Bradley.  Did it all, again.  I saw an advanced metric last night that said that whomever Bradley was guarding that night (no doubt multiple players) shot a combined horrible-for-alot.  His defense might not get him on the All-Star team, unless the coaches have half a brain, but he deserves to be.  

As one of the real scribes said in the first post of this thread, Kelly was a big contributor.  Not only with his scoring, he was 2-3 from 3 but also posted players up inside for a couple, but also for his defense.  He played some very good positional defense.  He is credited with two blocks, but he disrupted a lot more than that.  We only had 3 blocks total (Zeller had the other), so that should tell you something.  No blocks by Amir, Jae, Jerebko, Smart, Bradley or Rozier; the players you would expect to get them.  He also had 6 boards.  14 points on 5-7, 6 boards, 2 blocks, 4 assists and 3 TOs and he hit both his fritos.  That's a good night.  The catch with him, as we all know, is "when will we see this again?".  If he does this on a regular basis, we'll have something.  Whether he will is anybody's guess.

Dragic is something else.  I don't know why Spoelstra didn't just run pnrs with Dragic and Whiteside all night until we proved we could stop them.  I was amazed at how much Dragic wheeled-and-dealed in the paint.  He tortured Terry Rozier like that.  He'd go in the paint, Rozier would stay with him, and then he'd just do a little shake-and-bake, a little twist-and-twirl and put up a baby hook or something.  Unreal.  SO fast in the open court.  Remember Bernard King?  Remember how hard it was to get and stay in front of him when he had a head of steam and the ball coming down the left wing on a break?  Dragic is like that.

Hassan Whiteside is DeAndre Jordan.  Rebounds, blocks/intimidates shots but has no offense outside of 6'.  None.  With players like that you need point guards like Dragic and CP3 who can come off a pick so fast that you either switch immediately to prevent a layup (and then give up a dunk) or you don't switch and they go all the way to the rim.  Defensively, he doesn't like to be out of the restricted area and when he is he is at a disadvantage.  Kelly's shooting pulled him out and made him look very uncomfortable.  IT hit shots, Kelly hit shots with Whiteside guarding them and they did it because he didn't want to come out.  Beating Miami can be easy IF you hit your shots because their center isn't very mobile and doesn't want to leave the rim.  Hopefully, the same will be seen to be true on Wednesday with Detroit and Drummond.  He's another one that is great in the restricted area but in this new NBA that is moving to the perimeter is out-of-step.

A great game by Marcus Smart.  For one thing, he shot 3-8.  37.5% isn't very good, but it was only 8 fgas and I'll take that.  One of those shots was a ridiculous heat check 30' shot with 18 seconds on the shot clock.  NOT good judgment on that, but everything else about his game was, well, Smart.  The kid has ganas like no tomorrow.  KG had it, Dave Cowens had it, Marcus Smart has it.  Jae is a physical player, and is built like one too, but Smart has the 'tude.  If only he could shoot...he'd be a perennial lock for the All-Star team but there are two sides of the ball as Avery Bradley, another player whose entree into the NBA was via defense, has figured out.  Bradley has touch, though, the game was just too fast for him the first year or two.  I'm not convinced Smart has any shooting touch to develop.  So, just keep the fgas down to 6-8 and play the rest of your game.

It's a good thing they were 6-30 from 3.  It would be embarrassing to lose to Miami without Justise Winslow and Tyler Johnson.  Despite that, they shot 47%.  That means they shot 32-50 from 2.  That's 64%.  That gives something for Brad to talk about today, especially since they are playing Andre Drummond and the Pistons tomorrow.

We are in 4th place, tied with Charlotte and only .5 games back from Chicago in 3rd and 1 game back from Toronto in 2nd.  And that was with us missing two starters for 8-9 games.


In a final comical note, Felger said that Al Horford (who missed the game because his wife just gave birth to their 2nd child) should have taken a private jet down to Miami and suited up.  Setting aside his callousness it is abundantly obvious he understands nothing about who Danny and Brad are if he thought they would counsel Al to do anything other than what he did do, and that was to be with his family.



bob


.

[bobheckler]

Anna Horford ‏@AnnaHorford  21h21 hours ago
For any new followers or just people who are late to the game: Al is my BROTHER. I did not have a child this weekend, I was getting drunk.
0 replies 151 retweets 492 likes
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Anna Horford ‏@AnnaHorford  2h2 hours ago
Apparently a lot of you guys dislike Mike Felger

[bobheckler]

bob



.

[dboss]

Zeller, KO and Jerebko all played well.

Too bad we can't put that in a bottle.

IT takes too many 3 point shots.  I really like his overall game but he is now taking 6.9 three point shots per game and shooting only .325

Crowder and Bradley both shot the ball well.  Bradley has now made it a habit of going to the basket mulitple times during the game.

As usual Marcus Smart brought his lunch pail to work.  The kid just plays hard every game.

dboss

[bobheckler]

Zeller, KO and Jerebko all played well.

Too bad we can't put that in a bottle.

IT takes too many 3 point shots.  I really like his overall game but he is now taking 6.9 three point shots per game and shooting only .325

Crowder and Bradley both shot the ball well.  Bradley has now made it a habit of going to the basket mulitple times during the game.

As usual Marcus Smart brought his lunch pail to work.  The kid just plays hard every game.

dboss

dboss,

I fault Smart for his shooting which, unfortunately, has spread to his frito shooting but I have nothing but good things to say about his ganas. He's got it by the bucket loads. I have yet to see him take a play off. In 3 years.


bob


.

[sinus007]

Hi,
A few observations from the game (watched 3.5 quarters).
Dragic did torched Crowder in in the open court. Not so much AB.
Dragic is something. In the first half he single handedly kept Mia in the game. At times he was going to the hoop seemingly at will. I couldn't understand why Celtics didn't put a couple of hard fouls to make him think about a price of going to the hoop.
Before they decided to hang on Smart he did frustrate some Heat players and the coach.
I thought that Felger is mostly into football. Apparently I was wrong - he shares his wisdom about any sport...
Poor IT, couldn't hit even totally open 3s. I hope he'll improve tomorrow against Pistons.
The game was on NBATV, the announcers were from Miami, probably. Kind of amateur hour, but they did try to stay unbiased.

AK

[cowens/oldschool]

bob after seeing you bash Smart alot this year glad your seeing how his game still helps winning in many ways. I think hes the best 6'4" defender in the league, guys like Russell Westbrook and Zack Levine are better athletes, but Smart has a constant in your face grinders mentality and intangibles that you can't teach. Ganas, heart whatever you want to call it, its the same instigators intensity that Cowens and KG and Paul Silas all had. He will challenge any player on the floor, loved the clean physical leap in Whiteside's face challenging his shot attempt....if somebody gets knocked on their backside, thats part of the game.

[bobheckler]

bob after seeing you bash Smart alot this year glad your seeing how his game still helps winning in many ways. I think hes the best 6'4" defender in the league, guys like Russell Westbrook and Zack Levine are better athletes, but Smart has a constant in your face grinders mentality and intangibles that you can't teach. Ganas, heart whatever you want to call it, its the same instigators intensity that Cowens and KG and Paul Silas all had. He will challenge any player on the floor, loved the clean physical leap in Whiteside's face challenging his shot attempt....if somebody gets knocked on their backside, thats part of the game.

Cow,

I agree. The problem we have, that Danny is trying to fix and is the reason why Smart lost his starting job, is that we don't have enough go to scorers to afford the luxury of going 4-on-5 on offense. Until we do Marcus Smart as a 10+ fga/game shooter is hard to justify.


bob


.

[cowens/oldschool]

bob

Hes not that inept on offense where hes a 4 on 5 liability, he has am improving driving and post up game where he overpowers players his size. Hes a good ball handler and as you noted his passing is getting better and better, he has ugly stretches with his shooting, but then he'll surprise you and hit a few....I still believe at some point his shooting can get better, but he still does enough ball handling and other things to help on offense.

cow

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