Post Game Mavs Home

There are no more undefeated road teams in the NBA, not anymore.  I started off listening to the Dallas studio crew predicting a Dallas blowout.  Blow this out!

The Mavs have the #7 offense (ppg) with 115.3 ppg and the 12th best defense, giving up 112.3 ppg.  We have the 9th best offense with 113.4 ppg and the 5th best defense in the league, only giving up 104 ppg.  With a final score of 116-106, our season-to-date averages are born out.  We scored a little more than our average and gave up a little more, but both were close.

What made our 116 points so impressive is that, not only was this our first game without Hayward, Jayson Tatum had his worst game as a pro.  1-18 is hard to talk about.  It's a fluke, of course, nothing to overreact about, but it does make everybody else in green look really good.  Take Tatum's 1-18 out and the rest of the Celtics shot a blistering 58.8% from the floor.  Without Gordon Hayward, who was playing like an All-Star again and was integral in running of the offense. This team can be very special. Consider how good were the Celtics when KG was out, or Pierce, or Ray? Big hit, right? We all remember how we struggled when KG went down with his knee injury. We lose a player who is playing at an All-Star level again, and our other key player can't throw the ball in the ocean from the edge of the pier, and we still beat the best road team in the NBA by 10.

Kemba is the new King of the Fourth.  10 points on 3-3 from 3.  When all we had was IT that was dangerous, but now?  Sure, go ahead and overplay Kemba to take the ball out of his hands, like you did with IT, and see what happens to you.  Having a clutch player like Kemba with a more fully developed Jayson Tatum, this game notwithstanding, and a now coming-into-his-own Jaylen Brown and you've got a powerful team.

Yet another in a pretty consistent string of breakout games by Brown.  25 points on 9-16, 2-4 from 3 and, I love this, 5-7 from the line.  His ft% so far is 77.4%.  That's all I wanted.  Would I like him to get over 80%, 85%?  Sure, but 77% is solid and makes all his hard work that got him to the line pay off.  Jaylen is now averaging 4.0 ftm/game this year.  Last year he averaged 1.8 ftm/game.  That's 2.2 more ppg and that's big.  His numbers are pretty much up across the board, from fga to fg% to rebounds to assists.  The only number that's off is 3pt fg%, but he's only losing .1 ppg there, so not a significant issue.  There were people who thought that Danny overpaid Jaylen Brown.  Uh, no, not based upon what we've seen so far.  Based upon his career-to-date heading into this season?  Sure, I could see that, but not based upon his actual numbers this year.   His growth as a player has been nothing less than transformative for this team.  Not only can opposing coaches not fall asleep on Jaylen Brown anymore because he was the 4th option, you have to scheme your defense for dealing with him when he's lighting you up on one end and shutting you down on the other.  Last night we saw Brad putting Jaylen, defensively, on Porzingis.  The 7'2" Unicorn was 1-11 and was never really able to get to the front of the rim.  That was Jaylen bodying him up.  You can't front him, you can't deny him, he's too tall.  Jaylen tried to deny him his spot and then dug in and held his position.  On a night without Hayward and the other J being useless Jaylen was a force on both ends.

It is looking like the early season experiment of having Semi and GWill on the floor together is over.  Semi is only getting spot duty and so is Grant Williams, whose offense is now, officially, painful.  He does other good things but his offense is inept.  I'm not throwing in the towel on him but when you're shooting 26.7% from the field and are oh-fer-13 from 3 you're not being helpful.  Carsen Edwards is another one who struggled last night.  A couple of bad defensive plays, including getting beat on an inbounds play.  These are 3 key bench performers.  We need them to "figure it out".

The flip side of that is Javonte Green.  Another 9 points on 4-8.  I love the way he always makes beelines to the front of the rim.  13 minutes last night, it was his 3rd game in a row in which he was given 13 mpg.  So, 13mpg even before Hayward went down.  Is that his new "rotation player" level?  He's earning those minutes, that's for sure.

Brad Wanamaker is a solid, solid player.  He's also surprisingly strong.  He's 6'3", 209# and plays well through contact.   He stuck around for another year, probably for a lot less money than he could have gotten in Europe (where he's known as a 2X German League Champion), because he saw an opportunity for more minutes playing for Brad and he's getting them.  Not flashy, not explosive, not particularly athletic but he does a good job of holding down our very young 2nd unit.

Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Brad Stevens: “Brad Wanamaker’s been excellent. ... he’s a pretty steadying hand right now for that group where we don’t have a lot of experience.”

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Our Tough Guy of the Night Award goes to Theis, who dislocated his finger twice and popped it back in both times.  

Tough Guy of the Night Award Runner Up goes to Marcus Smart.
Chris Forsberg @ChrisForsberg_
yesterday
Marcus Smart: “I don’t know what it is but I keep getting kicked in the groin.” Smart said he’d like that trend to end.

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Luka is the future.  He's something else.  Amazing court vision and passing for a 20 year old.  He's averaging 28.3 ppg, 10.3 rpg and 9.1 apg.  Just .9 assists/game short of an impressive triple double.


Kanter said his knee feels good, he just got winded because he hasn't played in 7 games.  That tells you, right there, why players like Romeo get sent to Maine.  Game shape is not the same as healthy and in-shape.

What an amazing play by Smarty, doing Smarty things.  First he steals Finney-Smith's cookies and then he hits RWill with a behind the back pass without hesitation.  SportCenter worthy stuff by Smart.
https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1194090192115765248


We've played 2 Western Conference teams so far, both playoff teams but not elite.  We're 2-0 against them.  In 2007-2008 pundits were talking about how weak the EC was and how strong the WC was and, therefore, our team's record wasn't that impressive.  Well, just because the other conference is stronger and deeper doesn't mean their top teams are better than our top team, it just means there aren't as many good teams in the East.  That's ok, we only need one elite team and why can't that elite team from the East be the NBA leading 8-1 Boston Celtics?

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401160783





bob

The Celtics just completed an 8 game winning streak.  They did that once last year.  The big difference is that Boston managed that feat last year against marginal teams.

There is a grind it out element to this team that was missing last year.

Boston won this game without GH and without Jason Tatum.

This game was a good test for Boston as Dallas is no longer a scrub team.

Jaylen Brown carried the offense through most of the game and down the stretch run Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart sealed this victory by making one big shot after another.

The rotations are starting to change a bit.  Wannamaker is establishing himself as a veteran guy that can come in and keep the fire burning.  I have not been thrilled with his productivity but I have to admit that he is a much better PG rotation guy than rookie Carsen Edwards.  Kanter made a 6 minute cameo appearance and grabbed 3 rebounds and made his only shot attempt, an elbow jumper from the left side.  Semi with 000000 across the board and everybody's favorite Grant Williams looks more and more like a rookie trying to adjust to the speed and quickness of the NBA.  He has no touch at all from the perimeter and is now 0-13 from deep.

Daniel Theis had to have 2 fingers taped together (funny I mentioned taping fingers yesterday)  He was active in 22 minutes with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block.  The only negative comment I have concerns his propensity to commit dumb ass fouls.  

Robert Williams had an average game scoring 6 points with 3 rebounds, one block and 1 assist.  He was out of position a few time on defense.  He did however play with a lot of energy.

Javonte Green looks more NBA ready than the rest of our rookies.

Jaylen Brown with another he-man game with 25 points on 9-16 shooting and the team lead in rebounds with 11.  He also handed out 3 assists.  Jaylen has always had the ability to score but he did not know when or how to score.  The biggest weakness was his handle and settling himself down at the line to make his free throw.  His handle is greatly improved and it is allowing him to attack the rim in all manner from all directions.  Unlike Jason he is not trying to avoid contact.  I just checked the Celtics stats and Jaylen is now our 2nd leading scorer.  He has raised his scoring average up to 19.8 PPG just a tick under 20 PPG.

Jason Tatum did not have a bad game last night.  Bad is an understatement.  A game like this has no reasonable definition.  It was most unexpected but all great players poop their pants now and then.  This game however highlights a few things that Tatum really need to work on to.  His FG percentage has dropped to 39% and his 2P percentage is down to 37%.  He is really struggling to make baskets on his midrange pull-ups and when he drives to the basket.  I know he can shoot.  His drives however display an avoidance of contact because he is trying to finesse his way to the rim.  He continues to get balls knock out of his hands.   Basically he is too soft.  He is only getting 3.3 FT attempts per game.  I think if he works on finishing at the rim and getting to the line he will be fine.

My overall impressive of this team is very positive.  Brad is still searching for the right mixtures.  Credit to this team for playing this well given all the changes that have been made.  It is a long arduous process.  But these guys seem to embrace the challenge.  They have a little chip on their shoulders as they should.