POST GAME PORTLAND - HOME

worcester wrote:What the hell are you talking about? I saw in the box score that RW played zero minutes. How can you use that as a basis to judge his play? When he played 19 minutes against the Raptors he had 8 points though with some D miscues.  Meanwhile Gordon scored 3 points in 27 minutes. I think the results of that experiment are in.

worcester,

Williams actually played :29. The reason why he only played 29 seconds is because he came in to guard Nurkic on an out-of-bounds play under our basket and completely, totally lost him. Not only did Nurkic get a dunk, Williams was barely turning around from at least 8' away when he did it. Pass in being made from the right of our basket, Nurkic dunks it and Williams was 8' out with his back completely turned to the baseline where the pass was coming from and where his man was. It's bad enough if you let your man dive to the rim and you let him beat you there even though you're starting off in between him and the rim, it's a whole other level when he doesn't have to dive anywhere, he's already at the rim and there is nobody there. Including you.


bob



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Most of the time me and Mrs. dboss replicate the excitement of being at the game. We cheer, we complain, we exchange high fives we do the best that can be done 1,000 miles away from the action. Last night we sat there pretty much immune from the goings on. Before I knew it she left the room and went to bed. She blogs throughout the game on her Celtics Forever FB site occasionally sharing all the funny comments she sees. But last night there was few comments, there was no laughter there was just only acknowledgement that the 2018-19 edition of the Boston Celtics have turned into any other team. I stayed up and finished watching the game as I always do.

Well, at least we fought. We lost, but we fought. That's an improvement over the previous 3 debacles.

We lost this game on unbelievably poor 3pt fg shooting and not loving the ball. We shot 18% from 3, had 16 turnovers (Tatum and Kyrie with 4 each) and Portland had 11 steals (Harkless had 3 and a few Blazers had 2. Man, when human iceberg Enes Kanter has 2 steals you know you're sloppy with your passes).

Kyrie was 3-5 from 3. The rest of the team was 2-23, 8.6%. NOBODY is going to win a game like that, but we still made it close, so there were some other things going on that were working, just not enough to offset that!

Theis was 0-5, which was very unusual for him. All his shots were short, which often indicates tired legs. Is that the case? I don't think so, he isn't playing particularly heavy minutes nor is he playing a lot more minutes than usual. I think, just my opinion, he's tight. I think all of them (and us!) are feeling tight with the losses. We're trying to steer the shots in instead of shooting them.

Morris 3-10. After one missed open 3 he threw his arms up as if to say "WTF do I have to do for these to go in!". He's struggling, as are we all, and his frustrations are starting to affect his performance.

Tatum with a solid 14 point on 6-11 night, but 4 TOs. I know I'm going to take some heat from this board, especially from tardust who thinks I never say nice things about Tatum, but I'm falling a little out of love with him. He has regressed this year. Maybe some of it is that he's being heavily scouted now, maybe it's the Curse of Kobe, I don't know but he isn't the same player this year. He disappears for long periods of time. Last year he'd start off slow, but he was a rookie, so letting the game show itself to him made sense. He's not a rookie now. I'm certainly not saying he's El Busto, far from it, but Pierce 2.0? I'm backing off my assertion of that a bit. I want to see what happens next.

Marcus Smart almost single-handedly willed us over the finish line in the 4th. There was that awful shot towards the end but that shot would have been completely unimpactful if it wasn't for all the good he did before that.

Jaylen also played hard. 10 points and 10 rebounds. Going up against a big team that has Nurkic and Kanter we needed to really focus on not getting pounded into paste under the boards. Jaylen did a good job here. He has gotten some shit from me, and I believe he has deserved it, but I'm very happy to give him credit when I think he deserves it. He has been putting in the effort in this recent losing streak. To be honest and blunt, I see him working harder than Tatum, and that's part of my current disappointment with Tatum.

Hayward was, is and, I'm starting to fear, will be useless. Nowhere for him to hide anymore.

They took 10 more ftas than us. I'm the first one to call ourselves out for taking too many jumpshots and not taking it to the rim and create contact, but not last night. We just weren't getting whistles and Portland was. 6 of their 20 ftas were by Nurkic. #GotBaynes?

As bad as Rozier has been we sure could have used his speed on defense vs Lillard, who scored 33 on 13-28.

We have one fast defender in the back court, Rozier, who can't shoot. We have another, big, back court defender who isn't much of a shooter in Jaylen Brown. We have Gordon Hayward, who can't figure who he is. What we don't have, and need, is a Gerald Green. A Vinny "the Microwave", a Lou Williams. A "break glass in case of offensive emergency" player. We have defensive-oriented players off the bench but no offensive-oriented ones.

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071586





bob


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Yes. Desperate for a win.






bob



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The Celtics shot below average from deep in all of their 4 straight losses. They went 5-28 last night for 17.9 %. They shot 20% in the Raptors game. They average 36.6% for the season.

Since the Celtics are a 3 point oriented team they will struggled when they shoot poorly.

The Celtics turned the ball over 17 times last night.

When are we going to stop blaming Kyrie Irving for the chemistry issues? He has been the most consistent player on this team all year long as supported by the numbers.

dboss wrote:The Celtics shot below average from deep in all of their 4 straight losses.  They went 5-28 last night for 17.9 %.  They shot 20% in the Raptors game.  They average 36.6% for the season.  

Since the Celtics are a 3 point oriented team they will struggled when they shoot poorly.

The Celtics turned the ball over 17 times last night.  

When are we going to stop blaming Kyrie Irving for the chemistry issues?  He has been the most consistent player on this team all year long as supported by the numbers.

dboss I agree Kyrie has been playing well on the court, maybe his best season ever stats wise. However, to me I think he has definitely contributed to poor chemistry on the team. His attempts to be a leader have backfired and I’m guessing the younger players have completely tuned him out. There is more to it than just Kyrie but I feel he is the biggest contributor to our dysfunction.

Personally I cringe when he is interviewed and am at the point now I mute the sound and look away from the TV as I can’t stand listening to his pouting, passive aggressive nonsense. I’ll be a Celtics fanatic even if they go 0-82, but the thought of having him on the team for years to come is disheartening. I wouldn’t let him walk on July 1st, I’d escort him to the door.