Preseason Celtics vs Magic 10/11

Only preseason, but we all gotta love the attacking, the defense leading to running.

I remember Larry Birds rookie year, he had a 36 point game in the preseason and all the NY papers were calling it a coming out party. Well kind of like a coming out party, 2 J’s looked great attacking and defending, GH, G Will, Theis all looked good, Smart’s shot was on....Defense was constant, also loved the way Jaylen was rebounding, and had some scintillating drives as did Jayson. Don’t know if it’s best to start all 3 wings together, but against a bigger team it sure worked to perfection last night....2 J’s looked really comfortable attacking and initiating, sign of greater things to come. Waters really showed me something too, what a clever pest, he keeps making plays both ends like last night, gonna make Danny and BS make some hard decisions.

Thanks for firing this up, Cowens.

We won by 25, and it wasn't that close.  Are we that good or did they have a bad night, or both?  I think it was just something we used to do all the time last year, they got off to an awful start, and it killed the game for them.  It was a 35-11 first quarter.  After that we won quarter 2 by 4, tied the 3rd quarter and lost the 4th quarter by 3.  So, other than that first quarter it was a close game.  Shouldn't read too much into this, it's only the 2nd preseason game and Vucevic and Kemba didn't play, but it's nice to see we can blowtorch someone in their own building.

Theis was our best big.  He's our best all-round big.  He rebounded (9 in 14 minutes, 4 offensive) and blocked a shot.  He moved his feet on defense.  He even had 3 assists.  One offensive rebound he ripped right out of Mo Bamba's hands.  I don't know if he can start because he's undersized, but he had a good game last night.  Brad's going to give Theis a lot of minutes this season if he plays like this.

Hayward 3-10, yet somehow managed to look good anyway.  He missed shots, he didn't take bad ones and he always made the ball move.  That's Brad's offense, that's why he wanted Danny to sign Gordon.  3-10 or 3-15 we're going to see Brad put Hayward out there because he makes the offense, and defense, move.  I'm just hoping his shot is consistent.

15 points in 21 minutes for Tatum on 6-15.  3 steals, 5 rebounds.  That's efficient.  He'll be an All-Star if he produces at that level for 30+mpg.  He only had 2 ftas last night.  He needs to maintain his focus on creating contact.

Smart was 4-6 from 3.  I don't expect him to shoot like that every game but in the games he does we become very, very difficult to beat because his offense was one of our weak links.  If it's not a weak link anymore...

Jaylen with some beautiful drives and left-hand finishes.  Electra-Glide in green.  7 rebounds.  He is just SO much more effective when he attacks and I think he's finally getting it and, with Kyrie gone and Kemba out, he didn't feel he had to play 2nd fiddle.  He can't just let the game come to him, he has to go get it.  If he does, we are very, very difficult to beat because this is a wings/perimeter-oriented league now and our back court is Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown.  It doesn't matter who starts or comes off the bench there is no joy for whomever is playing against either of them and, between the two of them, that's pretty much all 48.

GWill with a quieter game than the last one but he makes winning plays.  He seems to be around the ball a lot.

Another 'meh' game for Semi.  He's not separating himself from GWill, and that's who I see his biggest rival is for minutes, despite having a lot more NBA experience.

Not a good game for Robert Williams.  I'm betting he wishes he really was The Time Lord and could get those 9 minutes back.  He looked a little lost again.

Poirier with only 5 minutes (why isn't Brad giving him more?) but I liked what I saw from him.  He puts a body on everybody, he moves his feet well on defense.  He had a bad turnover, where he got the rebound, starting dribbling up court and then tried to pass back to a guard and it got intercepted.  Look up court, Vincent, it makes no sense to dribble up court, which is the slowest option, and then pass backwards.  Either look and pass up court or give it up quickly to the faster guard and run.  

Speaking of putting a body on everybody I made a point of isolating on Carsen Edwards' defense last night.  We know he can score, although he didn't have a great shooting game last night, it will be his defense that earns him big minutes.  I really like the kid's defense.  He is sticky, he fights over screens and, when he gets rubbed off that screen, he doesn't forget there's a man moving into his space behind him.  He let's the screen defender's man pick up his and he stays put in his zone on top.  He puts a body on everybody coming through too, like Poirier.    One time, Mo Bamba was trying to curl around over the top of the stack to the front of the rim without the ball and Edwards put a shoulder into him and stopped him from getting a free run and a possible alley oop.  If I wasn't focused on him I might not have caught that, but it was a defensive possession saving move.  He was also giving full court pressure, like Avery used to, that really sucked seconds off their shot clock.  Watching Carsen Edwards, a player whose NBA invitations reads "Shooter" play physical, full court and half court defense made me happy.

Tremont Waters is a 2019 Shane Larkin.  WAY undersized, but a pest and ball hawker on defense and a waterbug on offense.  In 11 minutes he had 6 points on 3-5, all at the rim, he had 3 assists and 2 steals.  I don't think we need another dwarf in our back court, but next year?  A fine showing by Waters that only boosted his stock.  

The reason why we don't need another short guard is because we have Brad Wanamaker.  Once again, first point guard off the bench.  9 points in 16 minutes.  5 assists and 3 TOs.  Not a great ratio, have to monitor that over the season, but 5 assists for a 16-minute back up PG isn't too shabby.  I saw nothing to change my opinion of him as a solid choice for Kemba's back up (assuming Smart starts).

Enes Kanter came off the bench and had 8 rebounds, 4 offensive, in 18 minutes.  He was 1-7 from the field, but I'm not worried about that from him.  What I want from him is solid rebounding, shots at the rim (I'm willing to trust him to hit a lot of them even if he didn't this game) and no gag-inducing defense.  I got the rebounding last night.  My stomach gets a knot when he's in and we're defending.  Any one of our other 3 bigs are much better than him on defense.  MUCH.

Javonte Green had 4 points in 7 minutes and still hasn't missed a shot in his 2 game NBA career.  He also had 2 steals.  He's making it tough for Danny and Brad.

Tacko finally got into the game with about 5 1/2 minutes left.  I did not think he had a good game.  He was slow on penetrations, he got double-teamed and missed a wide-open GWill underneath (he hit, I think, Waters on top and Waters got it to GWill).  VERY raw.

We finally got a look at Romeo Langford.  I liked what I saw.  Brad talks about how the game comes to Romeo easily.  In less than a minute he saw an opening to the rim, kicked it into a higher gear and took it all the way.  A quick, instinctive decision by a player who hasn't played a minute since college that paid off and bodes well for us moving forward.  

Max Strus was given a 2-way contract (he got the first one, in fact) because he's a shooter.  He better start shooting soon.

BATTLE FOR THE BUBBLE

As far as getting the 15th spot Semi is still the odd man out, in my opinion.  If Tacko (and his agent) can be convinced to accept a 2-way contract then he gets that one and Strus is gone (I'm assuming you can cut him and free up the spot).  Javonte Green gets the 15th spot and Waters stays on his two-way.

We shot 41.9% from the field, so we shouldn't feel TOO good about ourselves.  We also only took 12 ftas.  22 TOs.  Our defense was pretty impressive but we need work on our offense.  We're not going to be able to shoot 42% and turn the ball over 22 times and expect to win during the regular season.  One nice stat is our 27 fast break points.  We ran out of every made basket of theirs too, someone took the ball out and got it in right away and they brought it over half court quickly.  You know Brad likes that.

As far as the Magic goes, other than Terrence Ross, I'd like Jonathon Isaac.  I wonder who they'd be willing to accept for him?

Adam Himmelsbach @AdamHimmelsbach
yesterday
Marcus Smart: "Everybody’s grown up this past summer. Every last one of us. We can see it within each other. So on the court we try to make sure we keep it that way."

reply retweet like


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401163151





bob



.

Strong performance from almost everyone.

Tatum quickly establishing he is the go to guy.

Edwards may prove he was a steal in the draft.

Scal was right on the broadcast, the center by committee rotation will resemble hockey shifts. Smart play by Brad; I think it could work.

Wannamaker and Semi weren't great, conceivably playing themselves to 14th and 15th man with the possible rapid emergence of Edwards and G Williams.

Fall, with a contract change, and Langford, could be getting some seasoning in Maine. Red Claws tickets will sell out if so.

This really is going to be a fun team to watch. Going to totally make us forget about last season.

I really like to see 2 J’s initiating and not just standing in the corner waiting and watching someone dribble. Kyrie hogged the ball too much last year, his entitlement complex really stunted growth of 2 J’s. With 2 J’s expanding their games, we can have 4 main guys to initiate offense and attacking along with Kemba and GH, which in turn will keep the opposing defense off balance. Sooner 2 J’s are perennial all stars, sooner we will be ready to contend. And thanks Pop, I can really see where they know how and where to get their shots off in the offense....

Preseason does not tell you much.

Brad will play his vets a lot.  Theis will not get many starts at center but he will be our top center when the team goes small.

Brad has started his 3 headed wing lineup in both games. Now he just needs to decide who starts at center.  

I am anxious to see VP play extended minutes.

To me the bubble guy looks like Max Strus.

If Brad sticks with his 3 wing lineup look for Carsen to be a primary rotation guy.  We need scoring off the bench.

By game 4 we should see a simulated game with the starters getting extended minutes and key rotation guys filling in.  The lineup could change when they tip off against Philly.  Does anyone want to take a crack at the starting lineup for that particular game?

cowens/oldschool wrote:I really like to see 2 J’s initiating and not just standing in the corner waiting and watching someone dribble. Kyrie hogged the ball too much last year, his entitlement complex really stunted growth of 2 J’s. With 2 J’s expanding their games, we can have 4 main guys to initiate offense and attacking along with Kemba and GH, which in turn will keep the opposing defense off balance. Sooner 2 J’s are perennial all stars, sooner we will be ready to contend. And thanks Pop, I can really see where they know how and where to get their shots off in the offense....

I really liked that about them as well, but I have a hidden worry that it only showed because Kemba was not in the lineup. By all accounts he should be a vast improvement over Kyrie in the locker room but their game is quite similar.

Would Kemba take a role off the ball, would he be effective in it, would that even be Brad's plan or he will just go with Kemba with the ball most of the time? I hope we get positive answers to those questions by season end.

When the league all-stars start to play 30-35 minutes per game - that's when I'll start to pay attention to the box scores.

swish

cowens/oldschool wrote:I really like to see 2 J’s initiating and not just standing in the corner waiting and watching someone dribble. Kyrie hogged the ball too much last year, his entitlement complex really stunted growth of 2 J’s. With 2 J’s expanding their games, we can have 4 main guys to initiate offense and attacking along with Kemba and GH, which in turn will keep the opposing defense off balance. Sooner 2 J’s are perennial all stars, sooner we will be ready to contend. And thanks Pop, I can really see where they know how and where to get their shots off in the offense....

Thats pretty much what I was saying all year last year. What bothers me is Kemba (ball handler like Kyrie) sits out and you remember how we played without Kyrie last year, first game without Kemba and team looks really good. I hope Kemba concentrates on defense and ASSISTS. We have plenty of scorers but most of our players aren't known for other things such as rebounding, assisting, and defense. Gordon could be a good glue guy but he can score too. Our future relies on the youngsters stepping up though, not Kemba and Gordon. I think we have seen the best from Gordon and Kemba, They just need to be solid and give us what we need when we need it.

Kemba launched almost 21 shots per game last year.

As I mentioned before he could be more effective by reducing his FGA to around 15-16 per game.

He is surrounded by guys that can make shots. He had to work hard for his points last year. It will be very interesting to see how he adjusts to an offense that demands ball movement to search for the better shot.

As fans we need to give this team a chance to figure things out. Along the way I am certain we will critique what is working or not working.

dboss wrote:
By game 4 we should see a simulated game with the starters getting extended minutes and key rotation guys filling in.  The lineup could change when they tip off against Philly.  Does anyone want to take a crack at the starting lineup for that particular game?

Tatum
Hayward
R Williams
Smart
Walker

NYCelt

That looks like a lineup that could work. JB has really improved as a ball handler and facilatator. If he can do more of that he could be a very solid 6th man.

For the 76ers game however who checks AH?

Either GH or JT would get that assignment most likely.

tatum, brown, walker , hayward and a big. poirer might be the best bet to slow up joel