Post game vs Suns

Well we won it with defense as the Suns have been scoring very well and winning this year. Tatum with a great game after early foul trouble, had some electrifying drives/finishes. He is so talented, hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Jaylen kind of in a fog last 2 games, his decision making hasn’t been as stellar as it was recently, maybe because of no GH, I expect more from Jaylen. GWill showing he can defend, with 2 monster blocks, he is still in a learning/putting it together phase, but a positive outing. Sooner or later his outside shot will begin to fall, then he’s gonna be even more of an asset. Kemba so steady, giving us what we needed despite his 3 point game being off. Smart with his usual gritty game, hopefully he will be back for Clippers. We played really good defense for enough stretches to pull out a good win on the road. Gordon really adds so much movement and offensive firepower, this gives more minutes for our developing players, but this team with GH can play at another level as he just made things easier for everybody.

what happened to Smart...I missed the second half.


and I see Kanter only played 5 minutes...I guess he missed the second half?

kdp59 wrote:what happened to Smart...I missed the second half.

Sprained ankle, later he said he’ll be fine....

Wanamaker is a real gem. Super steady. Very low price tag.

Here is the Game Flow.  It was nice to have a game where point separation came earlier.

The Suns were 5th in the NBA in points/100 possessions, with 111.6.  Last night they were 85.9 points/100 possessions.

Only two Suns in double-digits:  Booker and Oubre.  Unless a player is going off for 40+, which could easily describe Trevor Booker, you've really done your job when there are only two opposing players with 10 or more points.

Booker is SO smooth.  The 70 points he dropped on us a few years back was historic but you can see how he did it.  He's their Donovan Mitchell.  But Brad figured out how to defend him. Brad and Marcus. Check out these numbers. NOBODY was able to score on him.

Chris Forsberg
‏
Verified account

@ChrisForsberg_
Follow Follow @ChrisForsberg_
More
Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown combined to defend nearly 74% of Devin Booker’s possessions, per NBA tracking data. His line: 2-4 FG, 7 PTS.

Suns vs. Smart (before his ankle injury): 2-11 FG, 0-4 3PT, 4 PTS



After all the talk about how great a 3pt shooter Baynes has become he shoots 1-5.  This game just took 40 points off his 3pt average.

Theis with 11 boards and a block, zero points, but you felt him.  He had defensive presence.

Tatum was our scorer this game.  He also had 11 boards.

Jaylen with a rough night, but he had 9 rebounds for almost a double double anyway.  4 of those rebounds were offensive and he really battled for them.  He has matured as a player so much, right before our eyes.  

Wanny is a solid, solid player.  I've said this many times, it's boring at this point, but every time I see him that is the #1 thought that keeps coming into my head.  He had that one bad game but otherwise he does not beat himself.  That is a coach's delight, when he can insert a player and know what he's going to get from that player.  Wanny played, what may be, his career-high minutes with the Celtics, he played 30 minutes last night, and had a GAME-HIGH 6 assists.  More than Smart, more than Kemba, more than Booker or anybody on the Phoenix roster.  He also had 3 of our 12 steals.  He's not a huge scorer, he doesn't shoot enough for that, but this might be his best all-round game as a Celtic.

Tom Westerholm @Tom_NBA
about 8 hours ago
Jayson Tatum on Brad Wanamaker: "He really is like a true point guard out there. Slows things down. He’s an OG."

Marcus Smart sprained his right ankle, but he says he should be good to go on Wednesday in LA.  Said he could have come back into this game if it was close, so that doesn't sound serious.

Grant Williams started out like, well, Grant Williams.  He brought nothing to the table.  Then he started getting going and started playing like Grant Williams of summer league, or preseason, and not like Grant Williams of the regular season-to-date.  Not a great boxscore, but he had impact.  He had two great blocks that turned into good things for us and put the ball on the floor and scored inside.  He is still 0-fer-the-season from 3 (Hint:  Stop taking them for a while).  He worked hard and didn't look lost out there, a change from his last few games, and turned his game around.

Here's one of GWill's blocks, this one on Frank Kaminsky.  Look how far Williams came to make the block.  Not only wasn't Kaminsky his man, he came from the weakside frito line to get to him.

https://twitter.com/RedsArmy_John/status/1196682692512796672


We had 17 turnovers.  3 by The Time Lord, 3 by Kemba and 4 by Tatum.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401160837





bob



.

Yeah good luck keeping MS out with a sprained ankle.  See ya Wednesday.  

Well, the climb up the 5-game West Road Trip Ladder continues.  This was supposed to be a tougher game against a top half team in the league and the fact that it was on the 2nd night of a B2B.  But alas, the sleeping giants woke up and played a decent game against stiff competition.  And no, Rubio doesn't make up the 14 points.  Anymore than our very own GH would add the same.  

Defense was the key.  Balls were flying everywhere on Suns offensive possessions.  Right into the hands of the Celtics.  Does anyone keep track of points off turnovers anymore?  I don't see them in ESPN's box scores.  Just curious.  

This game was essentially over by halftime.  JT, nice DD.  Wannamaker, almost a DD.  Solid game.  Starting to like him a lot off the bench for solid time and contributions.  60% Assists/FGM.  Nice.  12 steals...VERY nice.  Our TO's a little high but it didn't matter.  Won the Rebound contest 52-45 and JB with 4 OR's.  Looks like the kick in the pants from the SAC loss got their attention.

Now for the real tests.  These first 3 games were just warm ups compared to LAC and DEN.  Now I'm convinced Doc has held out Kawhi just to have him and George play together for the first time against us putting LAC in the best possible win/win situation.  How horrible and humiliating it would be to have those two united for their first game together of the season and lose?!!  Impossible! It will never happen.  (Think of it as a corollary to the Balloon Game.)

I know Doc loves the Celtics but he's crafty and is ready for consistent winning with all the cylinders firing.  The fully operational death star is now ready to display it's awesome power.  Time for all the pretenders in the West, which is everyone else, to fold up like a cheap suit.

The good news is the Clips won their game last night.  Not very impressively but they won against a sub .500 team.  Similar to LAL and SAC victories this week.  If they have lost, that would have created the perfect storm and we probably would be blown out tomorrow night.  

So there is some hope for us tomorrow.  Only way to win this is to play one game with inspired ball like we played last night against top half competition.  It would be nice to put a thorn in Doc's craw that early in the season you had your team fully operational and then still lost at home to the Celtics.  My guess on the line?  LAC-5.5 which is a rout for the most part.

db

Excellent defense against the Suns holding them to 26 points below their season average, and much better shooting by the Cs compared to the Sacramento game.

Nice win after a tough loss. Moving forward with a much more fun team to follow this season.

Bob those blocks by GWill surprised me, he has more hops than I thought....

cowens/oldschool wrote:Bob those blocks by GWill surprised me, he has more hops than I thought....

Cow,

He seems to like those "coming over the back" blocks more than the "in your face" blocks. Not sure why, one would think that coming from behind will pick up more whistles, but they seem to work for him.

This is the best game by him in a week or two, more likely. I was really starting to despair with him, I'm still not completely back on board yet, it was just one game, but at least he had a good game and I have to give him credit for the results.


bob



.

This was a very decisive win on the 2nd night of a B2B game.

The Suns are no longer chopped liver.  

Interestingly the Celtics replicated their 99 point output from Sunday's game.  Their defense however went up a notch as they only gave up 85 points to a team that averages around 115 PPG.  That's means Boston held them 30 points below their season average and did this at their gym.

Defense wins games.

Overall this was a team effort but the Celtics really struggled on offense.  They turned the ball over 17 times and went 12-41 from behind the arc.  

Our 3 headed center rotation scored just 2 points as both Theis and R Williams put up a bagel.  However Theis, had 11 rebounds and Williams had 7 and Kanter had 4 in very limited minutes (5 MP)  Both Tatum (11) rebounds and Brown (9) rebounds were also very active on the glass.

Saw a very solid outing from Wannamaker and GW made two tremendous blocks that would have been buckets for the Suns.

When Smart went down I was praying it was not serious.  He says that he is okay however the day after a sprain can change everything  We will need him to bang with Patrick Beverly tomorrow night.

Semi is now shooting 50% from deep on low volume attempts for the year but this is what we need from him in addition to his defense.

Grant Williams continues to miss his 3 point shots and is now 0-16 for the year.  He missed 2 attempts last night.  One was from the corner and it looked like a make until it wasn't.  Once the Monkey gets off of his back, he will make one of these attempts.  He did have a real nice score off the bounce driving from up top from left to right and to the rim for a real nice hook shot.

The Clippers game will be must watch TV.  They have 3 really good scorers in Paul, Leonard and Williams and a 4th in Harrell.  The Celtics defense will be really put to the test.

Phoenix is a very different team without Ricky Rubio.
Carter and Okobo are not quality NBA point guards.
This was a good win for Boston, especially with two really tough games coming up.

If we win one of the next two the trip was a success. Two of the next two, a smashing success.

These next two games will have a playoff intensity to them for us.  Got to win on the road to advance in the playoffs.

Pretty sure Hayward and Rubio would have canceled each other out with us probably getting slightly more of the shaft from his absence than Rubio's.  Plus 2 net for PHX.      

db

Per ESPN, GH is 18.9 vs 13.6, ribbies about a wash, Assists, Rubio has 4 1/2 more assists for 9 points, so yeah, about 2-3 plus for PHX. That's straight up and not accounting for who's replacing who and the net gain/loss there. But we'll never know.

DB

GH is significantly more valuable than RR.

dboss wrote:DB

GH is significantly more valuable than RR.

GH is not more valuable to Boston than RR is to Phoenix.
Phoenix has no legit player to fill in for RR.
Boston has Smart, Tatum and Brown to fill in for GH.
Plus Boston can give more minutes to Walker to make up for GH's ball distribution skills.
A team with a bad point guard is a bad team.
That is Phoenix without Rubio.

But GH is a better more valuable player overall who can contribute more to any team ...even the Celtics...than RR can contribute to Az.

worcester wrote:But GH is a better more valuable player overall who can contribute more to any team ...even the Celtics...than RR can contribute to Az.

Exactly. That is the point I was trying to make.

OK. Actual Spread is LAC-5. I need to start getting paid for this!

But as for tonight...sorry. We'll be coming up short. Probably woefully. I don't think Brad is ready for what's coming at him tonight. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if the game comes out any differently. But I just don't see it. ESPN/LAC teasing with Leonard questionable for tonight's game. Yeah, so is MS and you'd have to chop his legs off to keep him from missing out on opportunity to shut down Bev, George and maybe Kawhi.

This will be a good indicator game of exactly where we are relative to the best in the league.

db

I’d take us with a healthy GH and Smart and give them Kawhi....

Time for 2 J’s to step up, they have in the past big games and will be ready for this IMHO.

cowens/oldschool,

Trust me. I like your assessment and confidence better than mine and I want to come on here tomorrow or late tonight and throw myself on the mercy of the court for thinking otherwise!

We will need J-Squared tonight. 2J will not be enough!

db

db