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Celtics Wrap: Boston Erases 26-Point Deficit But Fall To Pacers 97-91

NESN by Logan Mullen on Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 9:56PM

A valiant comeback effort ended in disappointment at TD Garden on Friday night. Down by as many as 26 at one point, the Boston Celtics erased the deficit but fell to the Indiana Pacers 97-91 in an eventful game. Boston visibly was sluggish in their second game of a back-to-back as they put themselves in the early hole. But as they’ve done regularly this season, however, they still put themselves in a position to win. Kyrie Irving paced all Celtics with 21 points, and was one of five C’s in double figures.. Victor Oladipo led the Pacers with 35-points. The Celtics fall to 40-17 with the loss, while the Pacers climb to 31-25. Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE PG: Kyrie Irving SG: Jaylen Brown SF: Jayson Tatum PF: Al Horford C: Aron Baynes

JET LAGGED The Pacers are among the best at shooting from the field in the NBA this season, and they clearly proved that in the first period. Indiana shot 61.1-percent (4-for-6 from 3-point territory) and led 30-16 after one. Oladipo and Myles Turner heated up quickly, scoring a combined 19 points. Meanwhile, the Celtics struggled to shoot with consistency, posting a horrid 23.1 field goal percentage on 6-for-26 shooting. Though the Celtics had kept in striking distance most of the quarter, Indiana put together a 12-2 run over 2:51 and led by 16 with under two minutes to play.

UGLY, STILL Things did not get any better for the Celtics into the second, getting outscored 29-22 in the quarter and heading into the break down 59-38. Indiana led by as many as 26 in the quarter, and it was appalling how careless the Celtics were with the ball, turning it over five times, which resulted in eight additional points for the Pacers. The Celtics finished the half having never led, shooting 29.2 percent (14-for-48) from the field and 9.1 percent (1-for-11) from beyond the arc. Tatum led Celtics scorers with 11 points after 24 minutes, while Oladipo dropped 17 points for the Pacers.

CHANGE OF PACE The Celtics came out of the half flying, putting together a 12-2 run over 2:09 to pull within 14 with under nine minutes to play in the third. From there the Celtics kept chipping away on offense, and once they reciprocated with quality defense on the other end it allowed them to cut deep into the deficit. Brown went on an absolute tear midway through the quarter, dropping 12 points as the Celtics pulled within as few as eight by the final minute. The exciting third quarter — in which the Celtics outscored the Pacers 34-17 — was capitalized with a stunning buzzer beater from Terry Rozier, who knocked down a trey from 35 feet to put the Celtics down just 76-72 entering the final quarter.

BIG EFFORT ENDS IN DISSAPOINTMENT The deficit officially was wiped away at 5;24 in the fourth with a Horford put-back to tie things at 80. After Oladipo hit a jumper to retake the lead, the next trip down Horford knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Celtics their first lead of the game with 4:45 to play. With Boston down by a pair at the time, both teams went scoreless for 3:25 in the middle of the period. The Celtics clearly were trying to hit the go-ahead 3-pointer, while Indiana’s offense simply went cold. But as time drew thin, both sides continued to trade chances. The Pacers opened up a six-point advantage with 1:37 on the clock, and though the Celtics would chip it down to four, they never put themselves in a good enough position to equalize or take the lead.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT Terry William Rozier III from North Station.

UP NEXT The Celtics have a big matchup Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and they also will honor Paul Pierce, retiring his number before the game. Tip from TD Garden is set for 3:30 p.m. ET.

112288

FORGET THE NUMBER RETIREMENT ON SUNDAY

WE BETTER DRESS PIERCE!

112288

The C's are now in 2nd place in the East, a few % pts. behind Toronto. Their quality of play has been on a downslide for several weeks now. I wish they would go to the hoop more and attack the rim instead of settling for 3 pt. shots. They need more ball and player movement to create situations where they force their opponents to play defense or commit fouls.

They have been very careless with the ball, causing unforced turnovers.

Hopefully, they'll start to improve their overall play on Sunday against the Cavs. There will be a lot of distractions, it being Paul Pierce Day.

They need to put Monroe on the fast track and get him into the team's rotation.

There's still plenty of games remaining to make adjustments and get their A-game back.

The ebb and flow of the season can be trying on us fans though.

The comeback as usual was exhilarating.  It has also become too common place.

This team plays without a measure of discipline and percision.  They still lack a host of fundamentals.  

Just not enough player and ball movement, crisp cuts followed by crisp passing and a addict like devotion to shooting the three point shot.

The Celtics are not a very good offensive team and it has less to do with shot making and more to do with the quality of those shots.  Quality shots cannot become the norm for this team until they can run a more precise offense.  They really need a return to fundamentals.  How to set a pick and how to use the pick.  How to pass the ball ahead and how to do a simple handoff.  How to feed the post and how and where to make your cuts.

dboss wrote:The comeback as usual was exhilarating.  It has also become too common place.

This team plays without a measure of discipline and percision.  They still lack a host of fundamentals.  

Just not enough player and ball movement, crisp cuts followed by crisp passing and a addict like devotion to shooting the three point shot.

The Celtics are not a very good offensive team and it has less to do with shot making and more to do with the quality of those shots.  Quality shots cannot become the norm for this team until they can run a more precise offense.  They really need a return to fundamentals.  How to set a pick and how to use the pick.  How to pass the ball ahead and how to do a simple handoff.  How to feed the post and how and where to make your cuts.

Agree with everything, my question is that on Brad Stevens or the players?

We lost, not the end of the world, Kyrie tried to do too much iso/hero ball, sometimes dribbling into a defense that was doubling him and geared to stop him....and for the most part in the 1st half their defense was working. Rozier with a very off night, Tatum is talented, but he’s not able to carry us yet, can’t wait till he gets there.

Olidipo should be most improved and it isn’t close. He was best player on the floor, can’t believe how good he got. I remember seeing a game last year, Avery covered him and completely shut him down, now suddenly Olidipo is doing it both ends like a 6’3” MJ. He can’t improve that much just because he’s not playing with Westbrook....he’s really good and can play either guard position.

The Cs continue to fall behind by 20+ points in so many games is very alarming to me. This happens about 2 of every 3 games it seems.

The comebacks are great to watch, but coming back from such large deficits should not happen any where near as often as it has this season especially to a first place team. A team so talented to being able to make such large comebacks does not seem to have a "skills" issue to me because poorly skilled guys cannot just all of a sudden become skilled players at any one point in any one particular game.

So, saying that, this early game unreadiness (if that is even a word) has to be be tagged to Coach Stevens more than the players, but since these players are professionals and not eighth graders they are also to be blamed.

I think that Stevens needs to change out players much sooner when this happens and the team starts to fall behind whether it throws off his usual rotation of players or not. If Irving is hogging the ball, just take him out for a few minutes to let him watch for a while. If other guys are holding onto the ball or not moving do the same thing. It is not like any guy taken out is going to be hung or shot. Our team depth would certainly allow for still pretty good play while whomever is sitting down figuring things out.

This is a huge problem for the Cs even though they have been able to overcome many of these large early game woes. I will bet that most all playoff games that basically begin with a 25 point deficit will be losses when the final horn sounds.

I'm blaming this one on Brad and Smart.  I'm blaming Brad because:

1.  His players did not step on the court ready to play.  We've seen this many times this year.  Getting players up for the game from tip off is part of a coaching staff's job.  Yeah, I know they're grown men and professionals but it's the coaches job to keep their fingers on the pulse and if the players aren't acting engaged and focused it is up to them to call them to duty.

2.  Victor Oladipo had a field day from the middle of the court.  Of his 29 fgas only 4 or so were from the obvious wings.  ALL of the rest of his shots were from within a few feet on either side of the paint.  They might have been 3s, they may have been floaters in the paint or layups but except for going 1-2 from the left wing and a miss from 3 out near the break and another that was a little wide they were all from 10-12' on either side of the rim, at most, and straight out towards the arc.  Brad should have recognized that, and made adjustments that didn't let Oly come off a pick that gave him a shot from the middle of the court like he wanted.  He knew every one of those shots were going in even before the ball left his hands and that is something you cannot let a scorer feel.  If he feels it you have to break that feeling.

3.  Indy's front court is not impressive.  I like Miles Turner a lot, Thaddeus Young has always been one of my favorite players and Sabonis is a banger but Brad has Horford, Baynes, Theis and Monroe.  Despite that Brad still had us shooting 3s.  If Brad is all about matchups then why didn't he drop the ball into our bigs?  3 fgas by Monroe in 11 minutes?  

4.  Our legs looked very tired in the 1st half, all our shots were hitting the front of the rim because our legs weren't getting us up.  So, why did we keep taking them?  Because Brad tells them to.  We were 7-27 for 26%, and we kept taking them.  Rozier was 1-6, missed two straight WIDE open 3s, and it doesn't occur to anybody to take it inside because Brad is in love with the extra point.  It has to be 3s or layups for him.  The problem is that if we're tired the 3s won't drop, which leaves only the layups and they will know that and collapse.  Think they were unaware we played an OT game the night before?  Of course they knew and worked that, as they should have.  Indy was 5-20 from 3, so they were even worse than us, but they took more 2s and hit them.  Try telling that to Brad though.

4.  Bill Doyle @BillDoyle15
yesterday
Jaylen Brown played the entire third quarter and scored 12 points, but played only 3:36 in fourth and didn't score, missing his only shot. Celtics outscored Indiana, 34-17, in third, but were outscored, 21-19, in fourth.

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I blame Smart because he's an idiot with anger management issues.  He was the perfect defender for Oladipo.  No way Oly gets into, and stays in, that happy zone if Smart is guarding him.

Brown's two early fouls changed the game.  He was engaged and hot as a pistol right from tip off, one of the very few Celtics who were, and then he had to sit and we went to shit.

The Yin-Yang of Marcus Morris.  A clutch shooter in the Washington game, 3-12 the next night.  ZERO assists.  

Think Morris shooting 3-12 is bad?  Terry Rozier, 1-11, 1-6 from 3.  REALLY poor shooting discipline by us, in general, and especially these two.  I mean, Smart-ian bad.

Brad with his usual deadpan understatement:

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Brad Stevens with one of his most resonating self-critiques of the year: “The biggest issue with our team is we aren’t crisp. We don’t do things crisply on offense. We are probably more a shortcut taking team than we need to be to be the best versions of ourselves.”

Yeah, no shit Sherlock...


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
Celtics bench shot 6-of-32 from the field tonight (18.8 percent).


http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975566









bob




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Great post bob, now that we have a legit post up big threat, we should feed the post more, that can also open up better 3 point opportunities and ball movement opportunities and Jaylen has a legit size advantage over most 2’s and Tatum can post too....too many 3’s bricking in our bad stretches. Let’s at least post and make them adjust to something different, a diversified offense would be good and good going into playoffs.

"Live by the three, and die by the three" is not a terrible philosophy. If a good percentage of the early game threes were going in the Cs would not have been behind by 25, and no one would have an issue with how many threes were taken last night.

BUT, when the three is not effective there needs to be another avenue of attack used because it makes no sense to fall behind by so much so early in a game.

I am not too sure that I really want Baynes to get too many post up opportunities, but Monroe only getting three shots certainly makes me wonder why we even signed him. And, even if he is not hot from the post, I would rather see him missing from 4 feet than the other guys missing over and over again from 23 feet. By the way, Monroe has been a 55+ percent shooter for his entire career.

This is where I place some blame on Stevens because this happens in games that are not back to back games overtime or not.

I read on NESN site that the reason for poor shooting by Jason Tatum is largely due to the hand (Pinky) severe dislocation at Miami in December. If you look at the injury date and his decline as a shooter, they are identical.

I buy that and I bet he has it operated on in the off season.

112288

112288 wrote:I read on NESN site that the reason for poor shooting by Jason Tatum is largely due to the hand (Pinky) severe dislocation at Miami in December.  If you look at the injury date and his decline as a shooter, they are identical.

I buy that and I bet he has it operated on in the off season.

112288

112288,

If so then Tatum needs to miss a few games to heal.  I like the kid but this isn't the Celtics team of the early-2000s that lost Pierce to an injury and went on a 18 game losing streak because he was their only baller.  We not only have other ballers on this team besides Jayson Tatum, we have better ballers on this team than Jayson Tatum.

I'm thinking Brad's competitiveness is clouding his thinking a bit here.


bob


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