POST GAME UTAH JAZZ - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston’s Comeback Falls Short In 123-115 Loss Vs. Jazz

NESN by Joshua Schrock on Sat, Nov 10, 2018

If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned eventually. The Boston Celtics learned that Friday night at Vivint Smart Home Arena, as they once again fell into a double-digit deficit and tried to pull a rabbit out of their hat with a second-consecutive fourth-quarter comeback. But where the Phoenix Suns folded when the Celtics applied pressure Thursday night, the Utah Jazz did not. After roaring out to a 20-point lead in the third quarter, the Jazz allowed Boston to trim it to four in the fourth, but the Celtics would get no closer as Utah held on to grab a 123-115 win. Joe Ingles was the high man in the game with 27 points. Donovan Mitchell added 21 points and Rudy Gobert (17 points and 15 rebounds) notched a double-double. Terry Rozier led the C’s with 22 points, while Jayson Tatum scored 21 and Gordon Hayward tallied 13 points and seven assists in his first game back in Utah. With the loss, the Celtics fall to 7-5, while the Jazz improve to 6-6. Here’s how it all went down:

STARTING FIVE PG: Terry Rozier SG: Jaylen Brown F: Jayson Tatum F: Gordon Hayward C: Al Horford Kyrie Irving was absent from the game in order to attend his grandfather’s memorial service.

WELCOME HOME Jazz fans gave Hayward the welcome you’d expect in his first game back as a member of the Celtics.

QUARTER OF RUNS Unlike Thursday night in Phoenix, the Celtics came out of the gate with a sense of purpose in Salt Lake City. After Ingles opened the game with a layup, Boston went on a run. Rozier and Tatum drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to get the C’s on the board, then Brown found Hayward in transition for a layup. Following another Jazz missed shot, Hayward found Horford for a dunk to give Boston a 10-2 lead and force a Utah timeout. The timeout settled the Jazz down, as Utah came out of the stoppage with a renewed intensity on both ends, reeling off 12 straight points to take a 14-10 lead. After the Celtics tied the game at 18, Utah went on a 6-0 run that was followed by a 7-0 Boston spurt to make it 25-24 Celtics. Boston wouldn’t hold the lead after one, though, as Mitchell splashed a triple to give Utah a two-point lead heading into the second.

INGLES EXPLOSION Ingles and Gobert tormented the Celtics on the offensive end in the second, but Utah’s turnovers allowed Boston to stay within striking distance and tie the game on a Brown jumper with 3:37 to play in the half. The Celtics couldn’t cool down Ingles, though, as the veteran forward scored 13 of Utah’s last 16 points in the second to help the Jazz end the half on a 12-3 run and take a 58-51 lead. Utah shot 60.5 percent from the field in the half, led by Ingles’ (8-for-9) 20 points and Gobert’s 11 points and six boards. Tatum was the only Celtic to score in double figures in the half, pouring in 12 points.

SMOOTH JAZZ Utah’s hot shooting continued to start the third quarter. After Horford opened the second half with a midrange jumper, the Jazz went on a 15-4 run, capped by two Ingles 3-pointers and a Ricky Rubio layup, to open up a 73-57 lead and force Brad Stevens to take a timeout. The Jazz extended their lead to 20 midway through the period before the C’s went on an 8-0 run to trim it back to 12 with 3:13 to go in the stanza. Both sides traded buckets for the remainder of the period with the Jazz taking a 93-80 lead into the final quarter.

DEJA VU Boston tried to find its comeback magic for the second straight night, but the C’s were couldn’t quite pull off the escape act. Entering the fourth trailing by 13, the C’s opened the frame on a 16-7 run, capped by a Rozier 3-pointer, to cut the lead to four with under eight to play. Utah’s lead bounced between four and seven for the next six minutes before the Jazz put the game away. With 2:30 left, Brown had a chance to cut the lead to two, but Gobert blocked his layup and fired an outlet pass to Crowder for an easy layup to push the lead to six. The Jazz put the game away down the stretch with clutch buckets from Crowder, Gobert and Mitchell.

PLAY OF THE GAME Silence.

UP NEXT Boston will finish its road trip Sunday when they battle the Portland Trail Blazers. Tip-off from Moda Center is set for 9 p.m. ET.

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PREDICTABLE AND BORING!

The Celtics are as flat as a 5 day open bottle of Pepsi.

Let's look at their offense.......Irving or no Irving......they are predictable and boring. Either they are running iso plays often under pressure and taking difficult shots, or they stand back heaving 3 point shots.  

TOO OFTEN THERE IS NO BALL MOVEMENT TOUCHING  MANY HANDS TO FIND A GUY WITH A HIGH PERCENTAGE  OPEN SHOT AND NO PLAYER MOVEMENT AND ROTATION THAT CAN CREATE BACK DOOR LAYUPS OR AT LEAST AN EASY SHOT COMING OFF OF A PICK AND ROLL.

It is the same boring offense we have seen last year and OTHER TEAMS KNOW IT!

I do not know about everyone else....but Stevens and the coaching staff have not prepared this team for the season.......there is no chemistry ..........no jump.

Tatem looks like a rookie year one.........and Brown.......well Brown........hot and cold defensively and offensively.

Say, where is the defense????????

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Utah held a huge advantage in rebounds 45-28 and shot better from the field at 55% despite fewer shots. It seems like this team is more concerned with expectations than just playing basketball.

KJ

k_j_88 wrote:Utah held a huge advantage in rebounds 45-28 and shot better from the field at 55% despite fewer shots. It seems like this team is more concerned with expectations than just playing basketball.

KJ

Horford is only averaging 6 rebounds per game this season.
He's only the 3rd best rebounder on the Celtics.
Tatum and Morris average more rebounds than Horford.

Against Utah, Horford only had 4 rebounds.
For a big man getting 28m per year, it's disappointing.

KJ has pointed out the rebounding issues and I should point out that Utah outscored Boston in the Paint 50-38.  

Despite the final 8 point spread, this was a very winnable game.

The game started off pretty even but Boston could not figure how to stop the 2 man action between Gobert and Ingles.  They killed the Celtics.

In the second half Boston put in a zone defense and was able to take away that action.  

Boston took 88 shots to only 77 for Utah,  Utah had more turnovers as well.  Boston continues their 3 point assault going 17-43 or 39.5%.  But once again almost half of your shoots are deep.  The Celtics had 31 assists so it was not like the ball was sticking.

Seems the big issue was a big issue.  We got killed on the glass.  We only had 5 offensive rebounds and we do not have a rim protector.  

I still think Boston took too many 3 pointers but those were the shots that were open and Gobert was lurching to challenge shots at the rim.

The Celtics were not able to absorb a horrendous shooting night from Jaylen Brown 4-17 and 1-7 from deep.

The Celtics got this to a 4 point game but could not make shots when that needed to.

Funny, even though we were only missing Kyrie, it seemed like we were missing more.  Rozier filled in and dropped 22 and shot 5-8 from deep and was the Celtics high scorer.

The Celtics are 1-3 on this trip with one more to go in Portland.  Any road trip this early in the season is a struggle as Boston continues to search for their identity.  Right now they are not a very good team and have a lot of work to do in a lot of areas.

Last night the Utah faithful did not let up on Gordon Hayward.  Unfortunately he could not shut them up by playing well.  He struggled again at both ends of the court.  

It's on to Portland

Horford consistently covers the back end, his defense has been very good generally, I wish he grabbed more or we had a board eater avging 10+ would be nice. But that’s not necessary in today’s game, as GS doesn’t have one board eating monster either.

Here's the Game Flow chart:

You want to know the Celtics problem..............Here it is Plain and Simple!

The Celtics have only 1 legit Superstar and go to player in the starting 5.........that is it!  Irving. And, he is a 1X superstar meaning he is great at what he does, but I feel he does not make his surrounding teammates better.  Le Bron is a 2X Superstar if you want to make a comparison to my definition of a superstar.  No argument at what he does for his teammates.

Horford is a great player but not at super star and he is being hampered by the fact that he is not playing his real strength position, that being power forward and suffers against bigger, stronger centers.

Haywood is a good player....boarding on being a great player but not a super star. He is also playing below his abilities as he is trying to reclaim his touch and feel for the game after sitting out a year.  Go to guy...........maybe?

Tatum and Brown are ok players boarding on being good but far from being consistent and making them great.    That being said, We are weak on the wings because of their inconsistencies, and cannot be counted on night in and night out as a go to player.  Paul Pierce was a go to player.

Morris at power forward is showing an uptick in his contribution and is a good player...not great. Is he a go to player.....not every night.

Bayles...........Do not make me laugh!  


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I feel that Hayward is just not as comfortable out there as he could be. He had 7 assists last night, giving up the ball a few times when he should have shot. He is trying too hard not to screw up and it is affecting his game alot. Time to take a page out of Kyrie's book, play your game, and let the team adjust to just how good you can be. It will happen, I am sure.

Jaylen is also having trouble working his way through the season. Maybe one of them belongs on the second team helping them and jumpvstarting their year to the level they can play

Let's face it, Rudy Gobert was an intimiator last night, those jumpshots kept being taken because they were afraid he would block more shots. He is a force in there, what a great weapon. But the Celtics have played against great centers before and come away winning. What is different this year? I don't know but we sure as hell better find out before the home court advantage is unattainable.

bobheckler wrote:

fierce wrote:

k_j_88 wrote:Utah held a huge advantage in rebounds 45-28 and shot better from the field at 55% despite fewer shots. It seems like this team is more concerned with expectations than just playing basketball.

KJ

Horford is only averaging 6 rebounds per game this season.
He's only the 3rd best rebounder on the Celtics.
Tatum and Morris average more rebounds than Horford.

Against Utah, Horford only had 4 rebounds.
For a big man getting 28m per year, it's disappointing.

Fierce,

Personally I don't care who gets the rebounds as long as there are rebounds and we garner a good percentage of them.  If Horford puts a body on Embiid and Drummond and others and boxes them out so that Tatum, Morris and others can go get the ball that's all fine by me.

The Celtics are 6th in opponent fg%.  Opponents shoot poorly against us.  That should generate a lot of rebounds.  Assuming we take care of our defensive/their offensive boards we should be good.  We are 7th in defensive rebounds, but 19th in offensive rebounds.  So, we're like Doc Rivers' teams.  Take your shot and get back and set up on defense instead of attacking the offensive glass.  Being 7th in defensive rebounds means we are taking advantage of our good defense and are grabbing their misses.

Overall, the Celtics are 10th in the league in rebounding.  So, we're NOT a bad rebounding team.

23rd in opponents rebounds/game.  That means that our opponents aren't getting a lot of ours.

Horford has never had gaudy stats, but he's a 5X All-Star.  Must be more to it.


bob



.

Coach Stevens expects everyone to rebound.  What I see is poor positioning. It is always about fundamentals.

It is another area that needs work.

Al Horford is definitely declining.  I knew that when we got him but he is still one hellava players.  That decline happens to all players that are on the backend of their prime.  He is a hybrid center who night after night is often banging with bigger and stronger guys.  He has made a great transition to becoming a stretch 5. That should lessen the wear and tear on his body by playing in the post and lengthen his career.  

Danny drafted a 20 year old kid that has some intangibles that should help Boston sure up their rebounding and lack of rim protection.  No one is afraid to drive to the rim on Boston.  Williams will get an opportunity.  Al is 22nd in the league among centers in rebounding the basketball so we can't completely ignore this reality.  A lot of it has been masked by the  rebounding of guys like Rozier, Smart, Kyrie, Hayward, Morris  and Tatum.  We are living in an upside down world with the bigs stretching and the smalls posting.

Boston is a minus 0.9 overall in rebounding or 18th in the league.  The teams in the top 10 include Milwaukee, Denver, GSW, Philly and Toronto.  How much this deficiency impacts the team only time will tell. One this is clear, the Celtics are not a good rebounding team as compared to 3 teams in the east, all of whom will be in the mix (Raptors, Bucks and Sixers)

There are three ways to add stars.  You trade for them or use FA or you draft them.

Boston has used all three methods to put the current roster together. You cannot draft an allstar you can only draft a potential allstar.

Our potential allstars down the road are Brown and Tatum.

Tatum has been struggling (he had a solid game last night) but I see a 20+ PPG scorer in him.  

Jaylen looks like a mid to high teens scorer (horrible last night, great the night before)

youth = inconsistency

Can the Celtics afford to wait for these guys to develop?  That has been an ongoing theme about how to build a championship.

The answer for me is yes because they fit Danny's timeline.  Remember what his vision is.

Hayward was a plus 20 pp scorer before the injury.  He is less than 100% but I expect him to get better.

So we can all find things wrong here but I am convinced that we will get better and that we have developing stars on the team already.

And more than enough assets in the bank.  

This seems good to me but then again I am not focusing on wins and losses.

Bob on Jaylen, I think he’s our best defender and a lot of times he is out on perimeter doing a great job contesting perimeter shots....leaving him in not the best positions to rebound.

All is well. Patience.

mrkleen09 wrote:All is well.  Patience.  

Just 3 words and you have summarized the fake conundrum.

I agree.

I think many of us (including myself) came into this season with unreasonable expectations. Perhaps we were spoiled by the instant success of 2017-2018. Maybe we thought that our injured guys may take a bit to get to 100%, but certainly not this.

The results so far have been a reset, for sure. For any of us to set some kind of deadline for the play of this team to be the true barometer of team success would be premature.

Once again, Sam spoke truth: See me in April.

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Bob on Jaylen, I think he’s our best defender and a lot of times he is out on perimeter doing a great job contesting perimeter shots....leaving him in not the best positions to rebound.

Cow,

Whoa, wait a second.  Did you just say that being out on the perimeter is an acceptable explanation for not rebounding your size/weight?  Isn't that the argument I used for Kelly Olynyk and you didn't buy it?

Love truly is blind.  LOL.


bob



.

KO couldn’t defend anywhere on the court, you know that....

mrkleen09 wrote:All is well.  Patience.  

Totally agree

Nothing so far that isn't fixable. Maybe Williams will get some minutes soon, he can board and that's a big need.

The Celtics have an abundance of talent on both ends. Right now it's a matter of sorting out rotations, who the alpha dogs need to be, better shot selection, and getting boards. I'm certain they will get there.

It'll be a battle this year. Toronto is under-rated, if anything, and the team Boston needs to get past. Philly may have just gotten tougher, and will be right on The Celtics' heels. The East, especially The Atlantic, is going to be getting much more competitive.

So buckle up. Once Boston, Toronto, Philly and Milwaukee all get into gear together, it's going to be fun.

bobheckler wrote:

fierce wrote:

k_j_88 wrote:Utah held a huge advantage in rebounds 45-28 and shot better from the field at 55% despite fewer shots. It seems like this team is more concerned with expectations than just playing basketball.

KJ

Horford is only averaging 6 rebounds per game this season.
He's only the 3rd best rebounder on the Celtics.
Tatum and Morris average more rebounds than Horford.

Against Utah, Horford only had 4 rebounds.
For a big man getting 28m per year, it's disappointing.

Fierce,

Personally I don't care who gets the rebounds as long as there are rebounds and we garner a good percentage of them.  If Horford puts a body on Embiid and Drummond and others and boxes them out so that Tatum, Morris and others can go get the ball that's all fine by me.

The Celtics are 6th in opponent fg%.  Opponents shoot poorly against us.  That should generate a lot of rebounds.  Assuming we take care of our defensive/their offensive boards we should be good.  We are 7th in defensive rebounds, but 19th in offensive rebounds.  So, we're like Doc Rivers' teams.  Take your shot and get back and set up on defense instead of attacking the offensive glass.  Being 7th in defensive rebounds means we are taking advantage of our good defense and are grabbing their misses.

Overall, the Celtics are 10th in the league in rebounding.  So, we're NOT a bad rebounding team.

23rd in opponents rebounds/game.  That means that our opponents aren't getting a lot of ours.

Horford has never had gaudy stats, but he's a 5X All-Star.  Must be more to it.


bob



.

bob

When Horford was with Atlanta, his lowest rebounding average was 7.2 rpg.

gyso wrote:I think many of us (including myself) came into this season with unreasonable expectations.  Perhaps we were spoiled by the instant success of 2017-2018.  Maybe we thought that our injured guys may take a bit to get to 100%, but certainly not this.

The results so far have been a reset, for sure.  For any of us to set some kind of deadline for the play of this team to be the true  barometer of team success would be premature.

Once again, Sam spoke truth:  See me in April.

Hopefully by April the roster is tweaked.

BUTLER TO 76'ERS

ADVANTAGE PHILLY

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cowens/oldschool wrote:Bob on Jaylen, I think he’s our best defender and a lot of times he is out on perimeter doing a great job contesting perimeter shots....leaving him in not the best positions to rebound.

For the record. Jaylen Brown is ranked #7 among SG's in rebounds per game.