Post Game Thread - @ Cleveland

[bobheckler]

This was the best I've ever seen Colin Sexton.  Wasn't enough, but he showed some pride from the way TRo embarrassed the shit out of him in Boston.

Rozier started in his hometown of Cleveland (he's from Shaker Heights, a suburb) and did ok.  Not great, not bad.

Jaylen was 6-19.  That is unbelievably bad.  A lot of his misses were at the rim.  He had 4 offensive rebounds, all off his own misses I think.  He struggles to finish around the rim.  What I'm thinking about Jaylen now is that his athleticism is seen when he has forward momentum.  When he's running the floor, open court and such.  From a standing jump, however, I'm not seeing it.  I'm not saying that he cannot defend or anything like that, this is something else.  What I'm saying is that while we always talk about his uber-athleticism I am starting to think it's is seen in fewer circumstances than we think.  If he was a better athlete from a standing start I think he'd finish better around the rim.  His fgm  0-3 feet are the lowest in his career.  He's shooting 61.5% from 0-3 feet this year.  Tatum is 69.7% from 0-3.  I don't know, my eyeballs are just telling me Jaylen doesn't finish well around the rim unless he's in motion towards it.

Tatum with 12 ftas, and he hit every one.  That is how you become an All-Star, young man.  Everybody loves the 3s and the stepbacks and all that but the way you get the numbers that make it impossible to keep you off the team is by going to the line, a lot, and hitting them.  Tatum with 25 points and 12 of those points, about half, were from the line.  It's not Sportcenter worthy, but 25 points is All-Star worthy.  Keep attacking the rim, Jayson.  Keep forcing the refs to blow their whistles for you.

Horford with 8 assists.  Kyrie's out and we need a distributor, Big Al steps up.

Smart was 6-10, 4-5 from 3, for 17 points.  Who are you, and what have you done with Marcus Smart?  Take it easy, guy.  At this rate NOP will demand you be included in the AD trade and I don't want to lose you, now that you're a legit offensive player.

We got an OG game last night.  A very nice game by Hayward.  Now, do it again.  18 points on 9-14.  He was 0-3 from 3, not good, but if you extend the math that means he was 9-11 from 2 and that's excellent.  6 rebounds and 5 assists.  Him and Theis had a really, really nice 2-man pnr game going.  Some good chemistry there, in part because Theis is SO fundamentally sound.  He sets picks for as long as he should and then releases and goes straight to the front of the rim.  When, if ever, can you remember Theis getting called for a moving pick?  

We had 10 blocks last night.  3 by Al, 3 by Tatum, 2 by Theis and 1 by Semi and Hayward.  I never thought of this team as being particularly good in the shot blocking department but we're 3rd in the league in blocks/game!  5.9 blocks/game puts in 3rd place right behind Milwaukee with 6.0.  Isn't that surprising?  Imagine if Williams actually got on the court for more than dribs-and-drabs!  He might be quite raw in other aspects of the game but Time Lord knows he's good at that.  The Celtics are in the top 10 in many categories.  We do a lot of things really well.

I am really feeling Brad Wanamaker.  Nothing spectacular, he isn't going to do something that will make Sportcenter, but he does everything well.  He defends well, he shoots well, he distributes well and, very importantly from Brad Stevens' perspective, he doesn't generate a lot of turnovers.  If you're inserting a 3rd string point guard into the game the last thing you want him to do is create empty possessions with bad passes.  Wanamaker doesn't do that.  He won't get minutes, except for when we have a back court injury, but I am totally cool if he does.  He's showing me veteran steadiness in an NBA rookie.  I guess hoop is just hoop wherever you've been playing it (except for China, where defense is not only optional, it's rare).

But last night's "feel good" story goes to David Nwaba.  He paid to get a G-league workout.  That's how he got into the league, he went to Reno for a workout for the Los Angeles D-Fenders and paid $350 for the chance.  He didn't go to a big-name school, he went to Hawaii Pacific (who?), College of Santa Monica (a community college) and then graduated from Cal Poly (not a big athletic school but extremely competitive scholastically.  Their acceptance rate is 31%.  The average GPA to get accepted to Cal Poly is 3.92.  Straight As is 4.0, so there isn't much slack there) with a degree in Sociology.  Now he's an NBA starter.  Is he a great player?  No.  Would he start on any other team besides the terrible Cleveland Cadavers or the even more terrible NY Knicks?  Unlikely, but still...if this doesn't make your heart sing even a little bit then you're Scrooge.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071470






bob



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[cowens/oldschool]

Jaylen was off, seems he lost rythmn after coming out blazing last game....

Good to see Tatum getting to line, we need both J’s to attack and get to line more. Tatum usually gets fucked by refs, hopefully it’s a young guns thing and the tide will turn. Love Smarts improvement!!! Wish I could say the same for Rozier who got outplayed by their rook....

[bobheckler]

Oh, another thing I forgot to mention:

Last night Theis got called for punching a rebound out. Apparently, under the rules, you are not allowed to punch a ball. No closed fists, not even against a ball. After all, we wouldn't want a fight to break out between Theis and Wilson, gotta keep the peace.

I hate this NBA. I love our Celtics but I hate what has become to their sport. You can't look hard at another player, you can't punch a freaking ball, but you can shimmysham and do little dances when you hit a shot everybody knows you can hit.

NBA = Nothing But Attitude

Sorry, I'm in a pissy mood. T me up.


bob


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[dboss]

This was not an easy win.

It was great to see the Celtics buckle down and pull this one out.

My game ball goes to GH. The less distance he puts between good and bad games the closer he is to finding his old form.

[cowens/oldschool]

Like to see GH have a game like this against an elite team.

[Berlin-T]

What I think is overlooked here, is that Hayward had a very good game in the very arena where he was injured.

That's got to be a big psychological boost for him.

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