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Celtics Wrap: Boston Holds Off 76ers 114-112 In Game 5 To Win Series

NESN by Joshua Schrock on Wed, May 9, 2018 at 10:56PM

BOSTON — The Boston Celtics can cancel their flights to Philadelphia. The C’s trailed the 76ers by four with less than a minute to play in Game 5 on Wednesday night at TD Garden, but once again, Boston made all the right plays down the stretch, closing out the Sixers with a 114-112 win. Boston held a double-digit lead early in the third quarter but saw it evaporate in the fourth quarter thanks to strong play from Joel Embiid (27 points) and Dario Saric (27 points). Just when it looked like the Celtics would be headed back to The City of Brotherly Love, Marcus Smart tied the game with a tip-in and fed Jayson Tatum for the go-ahead layup with 20 seconds left. Tatum (25 points), Jaylen Brown (24 points), Terry Rozier (17 points), Al Horford (15 points), Aron Baynes (13 points) and Smart (13 points) all scored in double digits for Boston. The Celtics win the series 4-1. Here’s how Game 5 went down:

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

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU? Brad Stevens inserted Brown into the starting lineup for Marcus Smart and it immediately paid dividends. Brown went 3-for-3 with six points and a block in the first three minutes of the game, helping Boston get out to an early 8-6 lead. The 76ers answered quickly, though, going on a 10-7 run, thanks to a strong start from Ben Simmons, to take a three-point lead with four minutes remaining in the opening frame. The two teams exchanged blows for the remainder of the period with the C’s taking a 25-24 lead into the second quarter. T.J. McConnell led all scorers with seven points, while Tatum and Brown each tallied six to pace Boston.

BACK AND FORTH The 76ers took the lead to on a Marco Belinelli three-point play to open the second quarter, and the teams traded baskets for much of the stanza with neither squad garnering an edge more than four. Philadelphia found itself in foul trouble early in the frame, which helped the Celtics stay close until a late flurry gave Boston its biggest edge. With 56 seconds to play, Horford found Baynes in the corner for a 3-pointer to give the Celtics a 56-52 lead. After Joel Embiid missed a fadeaway jump shot, Tatum grabbed the rebound and sprinted the length of the floor for an easy dunk. Rozier capped the run with a triple at the buzzer, giving the Celtics a 61-52 edge at halftime. Tatum led all scorers with 14 points at the break. Embiid was the high man for Philly with 12.

TO THE BRINK Boston was sloppy coming out of the half, but the Sixers weren’t able to take advantage and a Brown triple grew the lead to 10 just minutes into the third. Philadelphia fought back a touch, cutting the lead to six, but the C’s went on a quick 6-0 run to push it to 75-63 with six minutes left in the third. The 76ers hung around, thanks to living at the free-throw line, and went on a 15-5 run over the final 4:19 of the third to cut the lead to 83-82 heading into the fourth. Embiid led all scorers with 23 points through three, while Brown paced Boston with 19.

WINNING TIME The 76ers took the lead early in the fourth quarter on a Robert Covington triple, but Philadelphia was unable to separate from Boston and the C’s retook the lead at the 6:15 mark on a Baynes layup. A Horford jumper and a Rozier fastbreak bucket followed to swell the Celtics’ lead to 100-94 and force Brett Brown to use a timeout. Philadelphia fought back, though, going on a 15-7 run to grab a 100-107 lead with 1:08 to play. With a minute left, Tatum drove down the lane and missed a layup, but Smart grabbed the rebound and put it back to tie the game. After a 76ers turnover, Smart shot a bullet pass to Tatum down low for two, giving the C’s a two-point lead with 18.8 seconds to play. The Sixers fed the ball to Embiid on the ensuing possession, but he missed the shot and the ball went out of bounds to Boston. The Celtics closed it out at the free-throw line.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT Does Covington have to retire now?

UP NEXT The Celtics will take the court again Sunday when they host the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final. Tip-off is set for 3:30 p.m.
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Celtics finish off 76ers in Game 5, advance to Eastern Conference Finals vs Cavs

NBC SPORTS BOSTON By A. Sherrod Blakely May 09, 2018 11:06 PM


BOSTON – The Boston Celtics don’t do easy, no matter how the basketball gods align things for that to happen.

Boston missed free throws and lay-ups repeatedly, but managed to make all the plays down the stretch required and in doing so, they escaped with a 114-112 win to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year where they will face a well-rested Cleveland Cavaliers team.

Jayson Tatum led Boston with 25 points, Jaylen Brown – back in the starting lineup – had 24 points with Marcus Smart chipping in with 14 points off the bench.

The Sixers were led by Dario Saric and Joel Embiid who each had 27 points. Ben Simmons tallied 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists for Philadelphia which lost the best-of-seven series, four games to one.

Tatum, who tallied 20 or more points for the seventh straight playoff, scored what appeared to be the winning basket with 22 seconds to play that made it a 109-107 game.

But eventually, it was Terry Rozier making a pair of free throws that proved to be the game-winning points.

The fourth quarter featured both teams playing with the kind of urgency you would expect in a closeout game.

Philadelphia, which the latter stages of the second quarter and all of the third playing catch-up, took the lead in the fourth quarter, 90-88, following a 3-pointer by Robert Covington early in the fourth.

Boston battled back, seemingly had the game won until a 3-pointer by J.J. Redick made it a one-point game with 3.8 seconds to play.

Smart was fouled with 2.4 seconds and missed the first free throw resulting in a collective moan from the TD Garden crowd.

He made the second and moments after that, he intercepted a long pass down court and threw it up in the air as time expired on the game and with that, the Sixers season.

Brown didn’t waste any time attacking the Sixers defense and finding success, scoring six of Boston’s first 10 points.

After Boston opened the game with a 10-7 start, Philly went on a 7-0 run to lead 14-10 before Brad Stevens called a time-out.

Boston and Philadelphia continued to wage a tightly contested battle in the first which ended with Boston ahead 25-24.

The second quarter was more of the same with neither team showing any signs of pulling away until an Aron Baynes 3-pointer put Boston ahead 56-52 which was Boston’s largest lead of the game at that point. Baynes tallied 13 points along with nine rebounds.

From there, Boston would close out the quarter with five straight points which included a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Rozier which put the Celtics ahead 61-52 at the half.

The momentum gained by Boston to close out the second quarter carried over into the third, with a Brown 3-pointer giving Boston a 66-56 lead, the first double-digit lead for either team which led to a Sixers time-out with 9:08 to play in the third.

Boston continued to surge ahead with Aron Baynes – yes, Aron Baynes – helping lead the charge.

One of the more critical plays came in the third quarter when Baynes gave Joel Embiid a pump-fake, drove into the lane and was fouled. Baynes let out a demonstrative yell afterward that apparently wasn’t music to Embiid’s ears.

So Embiid pushed him down, resulting in a technical foul.

Al Horford made the technical free throw and Baynes followed up by making both of his free throws on the foul which gave Boston a 12-point lead, its largest in the game.

But the Sixers rallied back to cut Boston’s lead to just four points following a 3-pointer by Saric that led to Brad Stevens calling a time-out with 2:54 to play in the third and the Celtics up 78-74.

The Sixers were able to get a little closer, but Boston managed to go into the fourth clinging to a slim 83-82 lead as Philly closed out the quarter with a 15-5 run.

112288

GO BACK TO PHILLY PUNKS!

GREAT WIN BY THE CELTICS!

TATUM....AND MY MAN TERRY ROZIER!

WORD OF CAUTION! DANNY HAS TO GET A CENTER TO MATCH-UP WITH EMBID......HE'S ONLY GOING TO GET BETTER.

STEVENS ALMOST BLEW THIS GAME..................HOW DO YOU GO SMALL BALL AND NOT BUT BAYNES IN.........FROM A LEAD TO DOWN FOUR IN THE CLOSING MINUTES. PRETTY STUPID I WOULD SAY. EVEN AT SMALL BALL HOW DO YOU NOT GUARD THE 3 BALL!

COMMON SENSE FINALLY SUNK THROUGH STEVENS HEAD!

112288

So are we still the underdogs of this series?

Brad got zero votes for COY. I don't understand that. Now as underdogs we've beaten Milwaukee and Philly.

Great series by Boston, but I do wish Danny would trade Morris during the off season. He was 1-10 tonight. Truly putrid. Half of those shots should have gone to Jaylen. The other half to Tatum - and we could have won by 10.

This is one hell of an accomplishment by the entire Celtics organization - to be back in the ECF returning only 4 players and down three key players - Hayward, Irving, and Theis, and with Jaylen an Smart both injured significantly. Helluva thing.

Now that's what I call a signature win!

The Celtics were the underdog in every game this series. I hope Vegas lost a bundle.

The Celtics are what they were last year. They are playing in the ECF with a better record than Cleveland. . It really is astounding that only 4 players returned from last year's team. Clearly they don't stand a chance against kingjames.

Lots has been said about how poor the talent pool is in Boston at the moment but let's not forget just how much the Celtics suffer without Daniel Theis. He would have made the wins that much easier in the early rounds.

If the Celtics were underdogs vs the Bucks and 76ers imagine what the line is for game 1?

There are a couple of other guys out besides Theis. I forget their names. lol

Nothing has changed in the past couple of years. The Celtics have to get by the Cavs and their Sprite swilling deity.

Sunday is the most important game of the season. A victory kicks off the series with defense of home court and this one could go seven. This is exactly where I thought the Celtics would be. They aren't done yet.

#17goingon18

worcester wrote:Brad got zero votes for COY. I don't understand that. Now as underdogs we've beaten Milwaukee and Philly.

Great series by Boston, but I do wish Danny would trade Morris during the off season. He was 1-10 tonight. Truly putrid. Half of those shots should have gone to Jaylen. The other half to Tatum - and we could have won by 10.

This is one hell of an accomplishment by the entire Celtics organization - to be back in the ECF returning only 4 players and down three key players - Hayward, Irving, and Theis, and with Jaylen an Smart both injured significantly. Helluva thing.

Brad had to go with him because Browns minutes were in play > no more then 20 or so. Besides Morris does bring an edge and physical presence and he as been a reliable score in the play-offs.

112288

Matty wrote:So are we still the underdogs of this series?

+1....ask Barkley

Spreading the wealth is a necessity with a depleted roster.  I don`t think that asking Brown and Tatum to take on more of  the scoring burden than they did is tenable. Their efficiency would suffer , I think. Morris is in a shooting slump. Hopefully , he will break out of it. He`ll be sharing the job of guarding Lebron with Smart and Brown. Tatum is a rookie, and I don`t think he is strong enough to tangle with the big Lebronski. Morris is not part of the long term solution , but I think he`s been a valuable piece this year.

Super exciting game.How good was Baynes?! By the way, let`s trade Rozier while he still has some value 

Philly coverage:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/sixers-celtics-76ers-recap-score-nba-playoffs-game-5-joel-embiid-ben-simmons-brett-brown-20180509.html

MAY 9, 2018 — 11:24 PM EDT


BY KEITH POMPEY, STAFF WRITER  @POMPEYONSIXERS |  KPOMPEY@PHILLYNEWS.COM

The 76ers’ best season since 2000-01 is over .

On this night, the Sixers couldn’t overcome their Achilles’ heels — turnovers and missed opportunities.

They committed 17 turnovers in the game and four in the fourth quarter. Joel Embiid also missed an opportunity to knot the score with 12.5 seconds left. That forced the Sixers to put the Celtics on the foul line and they didn’t panic, making 3 of 4 down the stretch to win the game.

The Celtics scored the go-ahead points after a turnover by Dario Saric with 37.8 seconds left. On the ensuing possession, Jayson Tatum scored a cutting layup with 22.5 points to play.

Philly had a chance to respond following a timeout. Right before the play began, Embiid tossed his face mask.

“The way I thought about it, it was like ‘This could be the last possession of the season,’ ” the all-star center said. “So I need to be on my best. I felt like although it was against the doctors and all those guys, I kind of tossed it to the side.”

Then he went on to miss a driving layup with 12.5 seconds left. He grabbed the offensive rebound and missed the tip-in at the 11 second mark. Embiid grabbed the rebound again, but lost the ball on the baseline with 10.8 seconds left. The Celtics were awarded the ball.

“The refs  had a great game,” Embiid said. “I thought they were great tonight. But I thought there was something on that last play. But you can’t really do anything about it.”

Terry Rozier made a pair of foul shots with 9 seconds left to give Boston a 113-109 lead. JJ Redick came back and drained a three-pointer with 3.8 seconds left to close the  gap to a point. That’s when the Sixers put Marcus Smart on the foul line. He missed the first one before hitting the second with 2.4 seconds left.

Ben Simmons’ desperation heave was intercepted by Smart to seal the victory for Boston.  The reserve guard threw the ball in the air as time expired.

“It [stinks], but we got to learn from it and come back and do better,” Embiid said.

“I feel like we had more [to give],” he added. “We got a lot of talented guys. We didn’t play our best. Some games, some guys were playing well. So games they don’t. … But we committed a lot of mistakes. We got to learn from it.

“But we definitely have more to show.”

After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

Embiid finished with 27 points, 12 rebounds, and four blocks. Dario Saric also had 27 points to go with 10 rebounds and a block. Simmons had 18 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and one block.

Embiid wore his face mask for the eighth consecutive game after returning from suffering an orbital bone fracture near his left eye. On this night, however, he didn’t have to wear the lens that attached to the mask.

The Sixers, however, get the satisfaction of posting a season to build upon.

They advanced to the conference semifinals for the first time since losing to the Celtics in seven games in 2012. That came after the Sixers produced the most regular-season wins since going 56-26 during the 2000-01 campaign. This season, Philly finished  52-30 and secured the conference’s third seed after posting a league-record 16 straight victories to end the season.

Jayson Tatum paced the Celtics with 25 points. Jaylen Brown added 24 points. Brown started at shooting guard after coming off the bench in the previous  three games because of  a strained right hamstring.

The Sixers lived in the paint for the second straight game.

They had an 18-14 lead with 4:33 left in the first quarter. Fourteen of those points came in the paint. Simmons had six of them on 3-for-4 shooting. Saric and T.J McConnell had five points apiece. One of McConnell’s baskets came on a three-pointer.

The Sixers ended up attempting only three three-pointers in the first quarter, making the one by McConnell. They were 9-for-16 on two-point shots and trailed 25-24 at the end of  the quarter.

They went on to play through five lead changes before the Sixers took a 46-42 cushion on Robert Covington’s layup with 5:02 before intermission.

Smart responded with five straight points to give the Celtics a one-point advantage. The lead changed two more times before the Celtics took a 61-52 lead into intermission.

Boston closed with a 19-6 run. It was capped by a three-pointer by Rozier. The point guard caught the ball at the top of the key and juked  Covington, who leaped. Then Rozier drained a wide-open three at the buzzer.

Embiid (12 points),  Saric (10), and Simmons (10) all scored in double digits in the first quarter, while McConnell had nine  points.


http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers-celtics-76ers-analysis-recap-nba-playoffs-elimination-20180509.html



by Bob Ford, STAFF COLUMNIST  @bobfordsports |  bford@phillynews.com
BOSTON – The NBA regular season proved that the Sixers have come a long way in the five seasons of The Process, but the playoff portion of the schedule pointed out just how far they still have to go.

“The thing I remember telling them when the playoffs started was, ‘You will learn more about yourselves in the next few weeks than you ever learned in your career,’ ” coach Brett Brown said. “It’s expedited learning in a high-pressure environment.”

Wednesday’s 114-112 closeout for the Celtics was the tightest and most pressurized of them all. The Sixers came back from 12 points down in the third quarter, but they couldn’t finish off a win that would have extended the series to a sixth game in Philadelphia.

The game seesawed through the fourth quarter, with Boston appearing to take control, and then the Sixers coming back with big shots to hold as much as a four-point lead with two minutes to play. They couldn’t keep it, however, and two late turnovers allowed Boston enough chances to get the win in front of a roaring TD Garden crowd.

“We didn’t go away,” Brown said. “I get what we’ve done this season, but there’s an emptiness you feel when somebody stops you from doing what you like doing with guys you like working with.”

The series was an experience that the Sixers needed for the future. What works during the regular season isn’t necessarily reliable in the postseason. The Sixers lived and usually thrived with their three-point shooting, as they racked up 52 regular-season wins. But the defense gets better in the playoffs, and the best teams respond. Boston’s overall shooting was better that it was during the regular season. The Sixers’ was worse.

If a three-point shooting contest was expected to finally materialize on Wednesday, it never did. The Sixers had been outscoring Boston in the paint all series long, and, despite Brown’s frequent proclamation that “the three is king,” his team looked content to bang the ball inside, hope to get to the line, and win the rebounding wars.

Unfortunately, those tactics tend to work better at home than on the road. The shooting, both from inside and the perimeter, was pretty even on Wednesday night, but the Celtics were not harassed into turnovers as they had been the previous two games in Philadelphia. Boston took slightly more shots from the field because it took better care of the ball and had a significant advantage at the foul line as well.

That was enough to narrowly decide the game. Brown was right  — his team didn’t go away. The players scrapped and tried, but ultimately they were unable to overcome their collective inexperience. The effort was admirable, but it wasn’t enough, not for this game and not for the entire series. Good, but not good enough for the playoffs.

It might be a bit early for too much perspective, because the elimination is so fresh and the end of the first postseason run of The Process Era came to such a sudden end. But this is a team that had a 15-19 record in late December, and its ability to even qualify for the playoffs was doubtful.

To travel from there to the conference semifinals in just over four months was remarkable and indicated how much more went right than wrong in what was always expected to be a pivotal season in the team’s development.

Joel Embiid stayed relatively healthy. Ben Simmons operated well as the primary ballhandler. The role players arrayed around those two performed pretty much as expected, and Brown was able to coach a style that became dependable and effective most nights. The Sixers pushed the pace, spread the floor with shooters, and played defense. Embiid was the X-factor, but, after all, that is what he was drafted to be.

The end is a disappointment, but the season certainly wasn’t.

“You think about the journey they’ve been on,” Brown said. “Initially, you want to make the playoffs, and then you want to finish fourth [in the conference]. Then, you get greedy and want to finish third. Then you win 50 games, then 52. Then you just want to win a game against Miami, two games, and we come out of it 4-1. We win 17 in a row to end the year. We took off, bam, and with that, expectations went with us. It’s human nature.”

To be honest, the expectations didn’t seem outlandish, given the win streak that ended the season and the way the team played against the Heat in the first round of the playoffs. Boston was a higher seed, sure, but most of that was earned with Kyrie Irving on the court and not sidelined with a bad knee.

It turned out that the matchup wasn’t good for the Sixers, though. The Celtics were faster and more athletic, with their bigger players more able to step out and prevent long-range shots. It also turned out that the learning hasn’t ended for the Sixers. In fact, it has just begun.


http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/sixers-celtics-76ers-nba-playoffs-score-recap-offseason-ben-simmons-joel-embiid-20180509.html


Celtics' NBA playoff win teaches Sixers a lot about where they need to go from here | David Murphy
MAY 9, 2018 — 11:20 PM

by David Murphy, STAFF COLUMNIST @ByDavidMurphy | dmurphy@phillynews.com

BOSTON — The most encouraging moment came after it was over: after they’d almost unraveled, and then clawed their way back, and then left a sellout crowd screaming in relief that they don’t make the games a few seconds longer. Ben Simmons climbed atop the podium and looked back on his series and spoke the kind of words that legitimize dreams of the future.

“I’m still learning,” he said. “This is just the start for me. … There’s a lot of things I learned this series that I didn’t learn against Miami, and that makes me a better player.”

If they were going to lose, this was how they needed to do it: unequivocally. They needed it to be an expose, a revelation, a thorough accounting of who it is that they really are. For a week-and-a-half, it was all of that, and on Wednesday night, the Celtics finished it off with an exclamation point that should echo through the Sixers’ offseason.

This wasn’t a series so much as it was a self-inventory, a report card, a 50-point inspection whose conclusions can now be stated with no uncertain terms.

1) This is not yet a championship roster.

2) It is not yet particularly close.

If either one of those statements makes you bristle, consider the point proved, because neither one is the least controversial for a team at the Sixers’ juncture. They are good, damn good, and resilient to boot. You saw it over the course of the series. Each game they improved, adapted, learned on the fly. That says something about the timeline that Simmons and Joel Embiid and Dario Saric are on. It has moved faster to this point, and it could continue to do so.

“They’re special because they just keep coming,” was how Boston coach Brad Stevens put it.

But they haven’t arrived yet, and the best thing about this series is that the conclusion is clear. That’s the victory that occurred in the second playoff series of what should years’ worth of runs. Short of a berth in the NBA Finals, the best thing this postseason could have yielded was a reminder to the Sixers of the reality of their situation. Lurking beneath all that the Sixers accomplished this season was a danger inherent in any preternatural success. Self-delusion is a destructive state of mind and winning 52 games and a playoff series is an easy way to inhabit it.

By the end of a 114-112 loss to the Celtics that sent them home for the summer, the exact nature of that reality was impossible to ignore.

It starts with Simmons, who made things look easy enough throughout the regular season that it was fair to wonder whether he would fool himself into thinking that’s how easy they are. More than anything, his performance this postseason should lay to rest any such notion. This was somewhat true in the first series, but in the second there was no doubt. The Celtics spent all five games walling him off in the transition game, and packing the lane in the half-court. They dared him to shoot, and he didn’t, and the result was one of the game’s most electric rookies looking too much like a bystander in too many possessions.
That’s a good thing. Repeat it again. Because for Simmons to achieve his potential, he was always going to need to expand his offensive game. Maybe he’d already realized that, but there is certainly a chance that he did not realize the extent of it. Throughout the regular season, asking him about his reticence to shoot was one of the few ways to elicit a bristle in his flat-line facade.

Against the Celtics, though, the lack of a jumper was a serious issue, the primary reason they were able to take away his angles and clog his path to the rim. Without their point guard’s ability to penetrate, the rest of the Sixers’ offense looked like a flat tire. Their shooters were blanketed, their big man smothered. All of it starts at the point.

That is the first lesson: that Simmons needs to start his summer early and spend all of it attempting to develop some semblance of a jump shot. That might require a significant mechanical change, rotating the flared elbow on his shooting arm in to remove the tilted spin on the ball that acts like kryptonite on the rim.

The second lesson is for the men in charge of building the roster. Against the Celtics, it was obvious that the Sixers need the player that Markelle Fultz was supposed to be: a two-way combo guard capable of spacing the floor with a jump shot, penetrating to the rim, and playing defense against the big, athletic perimeter players that a team like the Celtics throws at you for 48 minutes.

What the Sixers did not learn is whether Fultz will be that guy, and it’s difficult to envision them doing so before the time comes to make some critical offseason decisions. JJ Redick was everything they hoped he would be this season, but they hoped that they would be able to supplement him with a more athletic guard who could shoot and dribble and matchup on defense. Against the Celtics, the Sixers learned that they need to find a player like that in case Plan A continues to falter.

They also must replace Redick himself, either by re-signing him or by finding another shooter of his caliber. They might need two such players, since Marco Belinelli will also be a free agent.

There are a lot of directions they can turn. You’ll hear plenty of talk about LeBron James this offseason, but there’s a case to be made that Paul George is a better fit, perhaps as an upgrade to Robert Covington that leaves Dario Saric in the lineup.

There will be plenty of time to dissect all of these things. Yet as the Sixers packed up the visitor’s locker room and prepared to head south for the last time, October was just five months away. They did so beneath a significant silver lining: the knowledge of the things they need to do to make next year last a little longer.

Marcus Smart= Dennis Johnson

always comes up big in big games.

PAY THE MAN,,,,he wins games.

kdp59 wrote:Marcus Smart= Dennis Johnson

always comes up big in big games.

PAY THE MAN,,,,he wins games.

Humongous play to put Tatum's almost distastrous point blank miss back in with a minute to go when he snuck in between 6'10" Saric and 7' Embiid to tie the game at 109. Unbelievable effort. Just incredible.

Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

worcester wrote:Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

I heard he added, "Not five, not six, not seven..."

Hi,
Great win! Now Lebronistas coming to den of underdogs.
As for the game itself - it was fought tooth and nail.
@112288 about allowing 3pt. There was a split second view of Brad (he took a TO) - he was livid after they allowed open 3. But in the last minute or so of the game our defense became airtight.

AK

steve3344 wrote:

worcester wrote:Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

I heard he added, "Not five, not six, not seven..."

First, he has to learn to shoot - not five, not six, not seven... feet from the basket, but 12, 15, 20.

AK

worcester wrote:How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

He should have a conversation with Barkley about how hard it actually is to win a championship. The Celtics teams of the future may have a say in that, as do injuries and well, shit happens.

gyso

Making it back to the ECF is a tremendous accomplishment.

worcester wrote:Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

So he figures he’s getting traded here?

beat

worcester wrote:Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

Simmons and Embiid are excellent players, and both should only improve. However, they are over-hyped, and worse, they seem to believe the hype. Simmons has to learn to shoot, otherwise he will be a tall Rondo, i.e. a good but not great player who never realizes his potential. The Celtics might have just shown the rest of the league how to mitigate Simmons' impact. Developing a shot at this point in his career is by no means trivial. If he can't shoot by now, after living on basketball courts for most of his life, he may never develop a reliable jumper. Plus, he has the weirdness of shooting with his off-hand. Seems like trouble. Thus, although he will improve as a player, its not like JB and JT - those guys don't have any fundamental problems with their games that may be impossible to overcome.

Embiid seems like one of those big men who wants to be a small forward or even a guard. I don't get it. Maybe he feels that smaller players get more accolades for athleticism and skill, whereas the success of big guys is often attributed largely to their size. Embiid shouldn't be playing outside and trying to take people off the dribble. He is cordinated for a big guy, but he looks really slow to me. He needs to accept who he is as a player, but I worry his ego will get in the way.

What an incredible entertaining game, down to the wire, so proud of our guys that all made key plays....everyone played big, Jaylen was so great, as was Jayson, 25 and 24 points in a close out game!! Smart and Al and TR all making key key plays. Typed key twice, because we’re more key plays on both sides than one.

Total truth in Bob Cousy’s statement about the cream rising to the top in the stress of playoff basketball, and my eye test and stats and everyone’s comments show me Morris can’t handle this stage. I’m sure he’s trying, he just sucks so bad. There’s a reason Antoine Walker got traded, time to give his minutes to Nader, at least he can run and defend, Morris too slow to defend on perimeter and like a turnstile anywhere else.

Anyway so proud of the poise and grit of 2 J’s, Smart, Al, Rozier making great clutch key defensive plays, epic theater, these guys/kids all came thru, can’t gush enough how hig 2 J’s we’re carrying us on their young backs....and these kids can only get better, ballers and Celtics growing into future Celtic legends, no Jeff Greens here!!!

Credit to Philly, I thought they were going to crack and they didn't.  However, it took that insane 28' 3ptr with just 4.8 seconds left to make this the cliffhanger it ended up being.  98% of the players in the NBA don't hit that shot.  No shot, no last second drama, a 5 point win.

On the other hand, there is nothing to be gained by living in a fantasy world...



Ben Rohrbach @brohrbach
yesterday
Joel Embiid said his and Ben Simmons’ first season together exceeded that of Durant and Westbrook. Simmons showed him his hands after the game and said, “There’s going to be a lot of rings on these.”

Maybe you should win more than 1 game in the conference semi-finals before you start measuring yourself for jewelry, Ben.

Here's Boston's response to Joel Embiid and the Sixers:
Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
There is a "Process of Elimination" sign over the tunnel where the Sixers are walking back to the locker room.


How weird was this series that Drew Bledsoe had a post-game podium call?

Another injury, another opportunity for these Celtics to turn the page, adapt and overcome.  

A solid first half, but a lousy 3rd quarter gave them life.  We gave up 30 points and only scored 22.  If Kyrie was playing we might have given up 34 points but we would have scored 30.  Our problem has been, and will continue to be for the rest of these playoffs, sustained offense.

In our 31 point 4th quarter we had Tatum with 10 points, Jaylen with 5, Smart with 4, Horford with 6.  There's 25 out of 31, spread out across 4 players.  Philly's 30 points came mostly from big production by Saric (9), .  Ilyasova, Simmons, Embiid and Covington kicked in a few each, but not as many as our contributors.  We had better ball movement, better team play.  Do they have better talent?  Only if you discount the fact that half our 4th quarter points came from our two Jays, and I don't.  Did they get big dunks like Embiid?  No, but they were able to score on the

Rozier for Saric, straight up (unless Danny can convince Brian Colangelo to throw in another draft pick.   ).  Saric was unreal.

Rozier had an awful shooting night, 4-15, but at least he didn't let McConnell run wild on him.  His slap-down on Embiid with 10.8 seconds left that got us the ball and the eventual win was huge.  

The Legend of Jayson Tatum grows:

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 8 hours ago
20-year-olds (or younger) in NBA history to have multiple playoff games with 20+ points and 10+ FTAs in the same postseason (via @Basketball-Reference going back to '64): 1. Magic Johnson 2. Jayson Tatum


Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 9 hours ago
Jayson Tatum on having plays called for him in crunch time. "It’s a great feeling. You work all season to earn the trust of your teammates and coaching staff for moments like this."




Smart committed a couple of really dumb turnovers but, when it was winning time, he got a monstrous follow up tip in on a blown Tatum layup, hit a frito, then hit his 2nd frito when he obviously tried to brick it to start the clock and Philly with no timeouts, and then atones for  it by playing better free safety than a lot of NFL players and making the win-preserving steal.  The Ultimate Yin-Yang Man.

Chris Forsberg @ESPNForsberg
about 8 hours ago
Jaylen Brown on Marcus Smart’s game-sealing interception: "That’s a Marcus Smart sequence. … He didn’t care if he got hurt, he was coming down with the ball. If anybody is going to come up with it, everybody’s got their money on Smart."

Jay King @ByJayKing
9 hours ago
After Saric ducked in on Smart for a late bucket, Smart demanded no double team on the next possession. "(Brad Stevens) wanted to bring a double team and I just told him: ‘Just let me guard him.’" You know by now, but the Celtics got a stop.


Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
8 hours ago
Marcus Smart on defending Saric late with no help: "Brad knows when it comes down in the clutch like that, and it’s somebody versus me to guard, i’m probably going to win that battle 9 times out of 10. Brad trusts me."

Marc D'Amico @celtics
yesterday
Brad Stevens on Marcus Smart's clutch plays during crunch time: "He's made for these moments."




I'm ready to trade Morris for a 3-legged, one-eyed dog named 'Lucky'.  1-10.  This game wouldn't have been close if he hit even 30%, which is his freaking fg% this series vs Philly (.305).  And it's not just this series, he's only shooting 35.4% for the entire post-season.  His numbers are down across the board despite playing over 3mpg more this series than in the regular season.  He couldn't stay in front of Saric, couldn't stop Saric from bullying him underneath and now he's going to be one of our primary defenders on LeBron?  Oy.  Hello Guerschon Yabusele, hope you're ready for your closeup.

Jaylen played 31 minutes but didn't look like he was dragging his leg like he did in earlier games.  Oh to be 21 again and heal quickly like that.  Veteran Morris stunk the joint up and veteran Monroe never got off the bench but two players with a combined 3 years NBA experience scored 49 points on 18-28 (64%).  And, with the loss of Hayward and Kyrie, we weren't thinking we were going anywhere.  Boy, were we ever wrong.




A great game by Baynes.  He battled Embiid as good as anybody can and, his defense on him in the last 11 seconds made Embiid miss which gave Rozier a chance to swipe at it.  Australia Forever!

Chris Forsberg @ESPNForsberg
about 8 hours ago
Aron Baynes on Brad Stevens when the Celtics went down 4 late: "No panic. He’s as cool as a cucumber that guy."


http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401031675


Ben Rohrbach @brohrbach
11 hours ago
Jayson Tatum: “Nobody expected us to go to the Eastern Conference finals, so we’re going to keep proving people wrong and have fun doing it.”

8 down, 8 to go...










bob



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beat wrote:

worcester wrote:Marcus comes up big when the chips are down. He is a MONEY player.

How's this for arrogance?

"After the game, Simmons walked up to Embiid, showed him his hands, and said ‘There’s going to be a lot of rings on these fingers.”

So he figures he’s getting traded here?

beat

I know I’ve ripped his bad shooting, but this was the perfect Marcus Smart type game, huge gritty hustle plays, limiting his shot attempts, what a great menace to have on our side.

I know I'm not the biggest Smart fan here but he will do anything to win a game. If he didn't foul out, we don't win in Philly.

Drew Bledsoe and Terry Rozier before the game last night.  Notice that TRo's Scary Terry shirt now has him dropping confetti.  Better hope Danny doesn't trade you to Philly for Saric, Terry, not if the fans see this new shirt.  LOL.  This kid's a legend.




bob


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