Celtics Beat Sixers 109-101

[dboss]

I figured I would get this one started.

The Celtics outlasted the 76ers 109-101 in a game that was marred by injuries.  First Jaylen Brown took a knee to his quad from Joel and he limped off the court.  Later in the game Gordon Hayward landed poorly on the foot of a Sixer player and rolled his right ankle.

This was just game 1 of what we all hope will turn into a historic playoff run for our team.  Injuries are part of whatever they are able to accomplish.

All world Jayson Tatum led the Celtics in scoring and rebounding on his way to becoming the youngest Celtics ever to notch a double double with 32 points and 13 rebounds.  His much improved defensive presence included 3 block shots.  But you cannot mention one Jay without mentioning the other.  Their games sync together like a perfect fit.  After Jaylen left the game for treatment and a ride on the stationary bike, Boston's offense started to sputter.  The rotation was thrown off.
 
To everyone's relief Jaylen came back in the game with 5:02 left in the 3rd but the momentum had already changed sides.  The Sixers won the QTR 30-20 and went into the 4th holding a 4 point lead at 79-75.

The Sixers were on a 13-0 run and took a 6 point 81-75 lead early in the 4th.  As one Jay cooled off the other Jay heated up.  Brown knocked down a step back 3 to bring us within 4 at 81-78.  Kemba completed an And One to keep things moving at 83-81  (Sixers) and Josh Richardson dunked before Jaylen hit a short floating jumper followed by another 3 pointer to knot it at 86-86.  Marcus hit 2 freebies before Jaylen went to line twice  dropping 4 out of 4 and for good measure he knocked down yet another 3 off a pull up jumper giving Boston a comfortable 99-91 advantage.  Kemba and Jayson finished the deal at the line going a combined 6-6.

We took their best shots and won.

My take from this first game comes down to how well our two young studs ball in difficult situations.  There were many contributors to support our star players.  Theis' battle down low on the behemoth Embid, Marcus was all over the place with tremendous help defense.  Wanamaker once again showed a steady hand.  Kanter showed up in his 2nd rotation and Rob Williams showed his leaping ability while grabbing 6 rebounds.  Grant Williams only logged 2 minutes but he had two rebounds, the 2nd one resulting  in us retaining possession.  Hayward had a tough game even before the ankle roll but he still scored 12 with 4 rebounds and 3 assists.

The Celtics look like the better team overall.  We turned them over and that was the difference maker combined with some outstanding big time shot making from both Jayson and Jaylen.

The Celtics will need to continue to gang tackle Embid because in game 2 they will be looking to get him the ball more.  I thought that Embid tired late in the game.  They do not have anyone that can match the quickness of Walker but we need for Kemba to knock down those wide open looks off the high screens that are being set to free him up.  The ankle injury to Gordon will slow him down even further and it is hard to determine how it may affect his availability for game 2.  We are really going to need Marcus to play better on offense and Brad Wanamaker becomes our hole card to fill in our rotation.

The bottom line for me is the fact that they are an excellent team but they cannot check our best players.  Our wings are infinitely better.
 
On a side note, the draft day trade by Danny Ainge needs to be revisited.  He made a trade with Philly sending the 20th pick, Matisse Thybulle to the Sixers for the 24th pick and the 33rd pick (2nd round) Unfortunately I think he checkmated himself.  He turned around and traded that 24th pick along with Aron Baynes to the Suns for a 2020 1st round pick that belonged to the Bucks.  (Pick 30th this year)  Did anyone think the Bucks were going to suck this year? Danny used the 33rd pick on Carsen Edwards.  As it stands now this was a series of unimaginative trades by Danny Ainge.  Thybulle looks like a high quality wing defender and Carsen Edwards looks like G-league talent at best.  Danny's only redemption could come if he is somehow able to either land a quality guy at 30 or parlay that pick for yet another trade for someone else that will at least even up the pieces.

[bobheckler]

Embiid is going to be an unstoppable force.  We're just going to have to grant him his points and rebounds and try to deny the rest of the team as much as we can.  Remember when the Knicks had John Starks?  We let him have his big games but strangled the rest of the team.  Something like that, because, nobody on our team can defend him and he's a good enough passer to hurt us if we double him too much.  Brad did an excellent job of mixing up the coverage on Embiid in the 2nd half.  He was 5-7 for 13 points, 9 rebounds in the 1st half but was only 3-8 in the 2nd half.  Smart, in particular, did an absolute magnificent job of defending Embiid.  He defended him one-on-one at times (imagine that!  6'4" 220# Marcus Smart bodying up 7'+, 255+# Joel Embiid!) and he was the most effective double teamer, always making his double move at the right time and committing fully.  Doris Burke, whom I really like as a color commentator because she is quite knowledgeable, kept calling for the Sixers to "have patience" and just keep dumping it down into Embiid.  They tried a few times but if Smart was anywhere in the area that didn't turn out well.  If the Sixers want to do that again, and they will, they should run some switches to get Smart on the weak side of the court before they dump it down into Embiid.  Force some other Celtic to make the good defensive decision, and not Smart, because Smart will make the right one 9 times out of 10.

Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 9 hours ago
Vintage Marcus Smart here... It was the 4th time in 447 career games he scored 2 points or fewer in 31+ minutes. In those four games, he missed 24 of 26 shots.. ..yet was a +23. The Celtics weren't outscored with him on the floor in any of them. And of course, won all four.


Chris Grenham
@chrisgrenham
·
2h
The Sixers have to do a better job of getting Embiid involved down the stretch. Simply can't run the late-game offense through Burks and Harris.

Here are Embiid's five 4th quarter FGA - Two 3's, two tips and only one true FGA inside the arc. His last made FG was with 11:36 left.

It was the J&J show.  21 points for Jayson in a torrid first half but the 2nd half belonged to Jaylen.  And you know that if you switch your best defender onto the new hot guy the last hot guy will just step up.  Philly's top two defenders against these two are Al Horford and Matisse Thybulle.  Al's not really built to defend either of our guys but he is a very smart and experienced defender and he is much longer than either of them.  He's also MUCH slower than them too.  Thybulle has impressed me with his defense, quite a bit really.  He could be a real pain in our asses this series since he seems to be the only player on their team capable of hanging with either J.  What a game by our two franchise building blocks though.  Wow.  Jayson was just shooting by himself in the gym in the 1st half and Jaylen just attacked and ripped their hearts out in the 4th quarter.

Chris Forsberg
@ChrisForsberg_
·
3h
Brad Stevens highlighted Jayson Tatum’s defensive contributions last night noting: "I thought he was unbelievable, defensively, the whole game."

NBA tracking data had Tatum holding the Sixers to  8 points on 3-of-11 shooting. Had 3 blocks, team-high 9 shots contested.





Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 10 hours ago
Jaylen Brown in fourth quarter of Game 1 vs. 76ers: 15 PTS 4/5 FG 3/3 3PT 4/4 FT Jayson Tatum: "I can't stress enough how important JB is and how special he is."




RWill with 4 fouls, at least 3 of them were really, really dumb.  I'm not talking about rookie fouls or rookie whistles, I mean him just not thinking...at all.  He did have 6 rebounds in 13 minutes but his defensive decision-making was very disappointing given how good he looked in the seeding games.

Kanter's bulk isn't working against Embiid's greater height, length and bulk.  He had 4 rebounds in 8 minutes, 3 of them offensive, but was 1-4.  He can't bully-ball Joel Embiid like he can other centers.

Another Celtic who had a great 4th quarter besides Brown was Kemba.  Boy, I was really loading up my slingshot after 3 for him.  After 3 quarters Kemba was 4-12 for only 8 points.  He was 0-4 from 3.  NOT what we should be getting from our max free agent in playoff games.  In the 4th, though, he was 3-4 and 5-5 from the line for 11 4th quarter points.  That's a big 4th quarter, especially when they came back and took a multi-possession lead and in doing so spared him from my stones.

Wanny had a short 10 minute stint but was solid.  That's what we need, solid bench work.

Speaking of short but solid bench work GWill got 2 minutes yesterday and looked good in both of them.  He defended Sixers even out at the arc and contested all their shots (my memories are of them missing them too) and he had 2 offensive rebounds, one of which was an absolute Tommy Point.

The Sixers outshot us 465-42%.  They outrebounded us 50-43.  They barely outshot us from 3, 33% -32%.  And they still lost.  They lost because they had 18 turnovers and we only had 7.  They averaged 14.2 turnovers per game during the season, but that's with Ben Simmons, who isn't playing.  Their lack of a good backup point guard is going to screw them up if we pressure players and force them to pass and there really isn't that much they can do about it.  Al Horford played 31 minutes.  That's a fair amount for a 34 year old, especially if he's being asked to stay in front of Tatum or Brown and if he plays less they will go small and that's our game.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401236268




bob


.

[dboss]

GYSO. Can you merge my thread with Bob's?

[gyso]

GYSO. Can you merge my thread with Bob's?

dboss,

I merged them. I hope the results are satisfactory to all parties.

[dboss]

GYSO. Can you merge my thread with Bob's?

dboss,

I merged them.  I hope the results are satisfactory to all parties.

gyso

Thanks

[cowens/oldschool]

2 J’s showed why this team is going to be a contending team for the next 10 years hopefully, injuries notwithstanding. Jaylen had a torrid 4th quarter getting into his zone. Tatum put on a highlight film earlier with variety of finishes and midrange shots and 3 pointers. Both also played their usual great defense. We should have had a bigger lead at halftime, but a few careless passes kept Philly in it. Now we are down GH to match them not having Simmons, still like our chances, every team is dealing with some sort of injuries and we still have the 2 J’s!!

[gyso]

Here is the Game Flow graph:



Overall it was a fairly close game.
We got a little separation halfway through the 2nd quarter.
We were stuck at 75 points for eight minutes or more in the 3rd.

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