Post Game Thread - vs Toronto Raptors, Away

[bobheckler]

They played in their "Husky Blues". ??? They even had a Husky logo at mid-court. They went from a voracious primeval predator to a working dog. I don't understand where the husky came from. We were playing in our gray pajamas. We can lose to anybody anywhere in those.

DeMar DeRozan Did an IT on us, and scored 19 in the 3rd.  Brad put the entire squad on him.  What I don't understand is why, when it became clear that no one defender could stop him, he didn't double team him to force the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat us?  I'll try to find Brad's post-game interview and hope someone asks him that.  I doubt it.  That sounds too much like second-guessing the coach and reporters don't like to get on the bad side of someone they interview regularly.

Valanciunas had 23 rebounds, 10 in the first quarter.  That's because we were shooting our usual shitty 33.3% from the field after 1.  We took 24 shots (very nice pace) but only hit 9.  That means there are lots of defensive rebounds to be had by them, so I wouldn't put as much weight on his rebounding as I would on our crappy shooting.  Crowder was 0-3 and Horford was 1-3.  That 1-6 isn't helpful.

We were up to 52% at the half.  Shot 15-22 in the 2nd quarter.  Nice turnaround.  In the 3rd we were 8-17.  A nice shooting percentage but way too few fgas.  And in the 4th we were 9-24.  That's 37.5% and that won't win you many games against an elite team because they will be scoring.

Smart played great on both ends, other than not being able to stop DeRozan, but nobody could.  IT got his usual points and Al did ok.  Green and Olynyk both played inspired ball on the sides of the ball.  That's right, Gerald Green, who couldn't even spell defense when he came into the league played good defense and Kelly was rotating and challenging penetrators and had a great block at the rim on a layup.

Crowder did not have a good game.  4-10, 1-5 from 3 and didn't stop anybody.  Not DeMarre Carroll, not DeMar DeRozan, nobody.  He had a nice steal and an offensive rebound and put back but other than that, not good.

In order for us to compete against elite teams we need to be completely healthy and playing our best.  We have no wiggle room, no extra padding.  When our starting 5 is healthy we are 15-5, with one or more starters out we are 8-10.  

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400899993









Gerald Green's alley oop at about the 1:20 mark is pretty nice.





bob


.

[sinus007]

Bobh,
Good summary. Thanks. And a good question about not double-teaming Derozan.
Speaking of which, I'd put somebody who can get under the skin on Derozan right after he got a T to push him over the edge, to pull a little bit of Auerbach so to speak. Have to give a lot of credit to Derozan - he channel his anger in the right direction.
One of the reasons we lost is that at the crunch time Celtics reverted to iso IT ball. In many cases it works but sometimes it fails...

AK

[mulcogiseng]

15-5 when healthy, 8-10 when not and a big 0fer when playing the best the NBA has to offer. This team as constituted needs to play out of their minds if they are going to win a playoff series against a good team. I think they could possibly do that if everything worked in their favor. I don't know how many of those 0fers are coming when we are short handed but injuries are a part of the game and we struggle when short handed. It was a shame but hardly surprising that we couldn't stop DeRozan. We were missing our first team all NBA defensive star. But he proved he was an all star last night and outplayed IT when it counted most. This is a better Celtics team than how it often plays. When that is the case I blame the coach. He should have come up with a better strategy. Next year, when our stash players are on board, we will win games like this. At this point I'm not sure if the team will be improved at the trade deadline unless we get someone like Noel without disrupting our young core. I thought the team would play better than this. I'm disappointed that Brown isn't getting the playing time he needs to develop his game. I think he needs a stint in the Dleague between games so he can play and improve. He needs at least 15min a game and if Brad won't play him like that then let him start to commute to Portland to get real game experience and an added plus of playing with Jackson and Nader. At this point we are not looking at a homerun kind of season. But we knew that anyway. So let's play for singles and doubles and keep getting better. A tweak here and there and we can still get to the EC finals if we are healthy and play out of our minds.

[dboss]

The team played well until under 2 minutes remaining in the 3rd.

Things fall apart.

We got hammered on the glass again 50-33 and had no defensive scheme to slow down DeRozan

Brad may a a great x and o guy on offense but the lack of creative defensive schemes is disturbing.  They have 2 really good offensive player and while you cannot stop both of them you could probably frustrate one with double teaming.  The Celtics should have double teamed DeRozan everytime he touched the ball.  They should have turned him into a passer.

The Celtics have not figured out how to beat the Raptors because they have not figured out how to defend the Raptors.  That is all about coaching.  In the past 3 years the Celts are 3-6 against them.

Some other observations

KO played well particularly in the 1st half but did nothing of significance down the stretch when he was in the game

Crowder is still in a funk since he mouthed off about Haywood.  Actually we began to lose our composure when he had a wide open look after excellent ball movement but he could not make the shot.  He also took a horrible 3 pointer and missed that.

IT, Smart and AH played well and off the bench GG and KO contributed. IT did however try to do too much one on one but they were ready for him at the rim. AH really looks small when you see him on the court with a 7 footer.

The GG alleyopp was a highlight and proves that GG still has big time hops.

I thought Amir should have been in the game down the stretch instead of KO.  

dboss

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