Post Game Thread - vs Utah Jazz, Home

[bobheckler]

This was their 3rd game in 4 nights.  A gritty effort by the Jazz.

Gobert with 13 rebounds, but otherwise not as impactful as I thought he would be.  He cannot do anything except dunk, which means if you have good perimeter defense, which we do, and do a halfway decent job of boxing him out, and Amir did, then he can be neutralized on offense.  Embarrassingly, he got an offensive rebound right there at the rim and couldn't get the ball over the rim.  Amir played a very good game last night, including buckets inside against The Stifle Tower.  Amir with 3 blocks while Gobert only had 1.  Great game by Amir.  He has made a return to last year's form the last week or two after a very underwhelming start to the season.

Joe Johnson and Boris Diaw are the only reasons why this game was close.  A couple of veterans coming off the bench and doing what they have been doing forever.  

George Hill was out, going through concussion protocols, but the Jazz back court didn't look good.  3-10 for ex-Butler Bulldog (and former Maine Red Claw) Shelvin Mack and Rodney Hood.  I don't know about Mack, but shutting down Hood was key.  The kid can shoot.

For the Celtics we had 4 starters in double digits, Amir with 6 but doing the non-stat dirty work.  Throw in Jaylen Brown's 10 and that's nice, balanced offense.  He, Brown, made a few dumb mistakes but he was aggressively attacking the basket.

Celtic high rebounder, and second most rebounds after Gobert?  Kelly Olynyk, with 7 in 21 minutes.  He couldn't throw the ball in the ocean from the shore from 3 but he scored inside.  Ran the floor for a dunk.  Played good defense.  Yeah, he played good defense, got credit for 2 blocks.  Just couldn't shoot from outside to save his life.

Smart with a solid albeit unimpressive game.  3 assists and 3 TOs.  3-5 for 9 points, 1-1 from 3.  So, he didn't shoot us out of the game, for which I am grateful.  Some slack is due since he was in the hospital with an intestinal issue until yesterday.  Nobody has ever said he doesn't have ganas.  He was 2-2 from the line, in crunch time.  He is still a perfect 100% from the line in crunch time.  It's only 8-8 or something like that but I like that he settles down and gets it done when we need it most...I like that a lot.

We shot 55% on the game against the league's #1 defense.  We shot 54% from 3 and a whopping 42% of our fgas were 3pt fgas.  Live by the 3, die by the 3 and last night we were living large.  This shows we can do it, which makes it even more frustrating when we are awful.

HOW DOES HE DO THAT!?  IT is something else.  He was shooting 3s over Gobert.  He drove the lane, created contact with him and still laid it in.  Gobert was there, I mean he was perfectly positioned, and IT still scored.  A career high 15 assists and only 1 TO.

Jae has been playing well on offense.  21 points and 5-6 from 3.  Did NOT like the Gahden crowd cheering for Gordon Hayward when he came on the floor.  I think that was like them cheering for Al Horford and KD last year when there was talk they might sign with us, but it disrespected our starting SF by cheering a visiting player who plays his position.  These are the same fools who booed KD when he came to Boston just because he went with the obviously better, more championship-ready team but gave us a fair listen.

The cherries on top this morning is that Toronto lost, putting us only 2.5 games back of 2nd place and Philly won last night, giving Brooklyn sole ownership of the worst record in the NBA.  Trust the Process in Philly.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400899423






bob



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[cowens/oldschool]

What a great game and unbelievable stretch by IT, Sam would be loving this, the little guy going off. In a string of great games, this one was my favorite because of the 15 assists, the offense was great. We had alot of plays with great ball movement and open looks, we know IT can score and if he can get everybody involved like this game, well our offense will be breathtaking. Jaylen Brown looked really good, he shows flashes of plays that he can do that most cannot.

Should we be concerned in a game we went 17-31 from 3 and the offense was so efficient, that the game got tight at the end to a team playing their 3rd game in 4 nights? Diaw and Joe Johnson went off, no individual or the team defense could seem to stop them.