POST GAME CROOKLIN - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Fourth-Quarter Run Not Enough In 109-104 Loss To Nets
Boston fell to 32-28 on the season


NESN by Sean T. McGuire

It was far from a star-studded showdown as the Boston Celtics traveled to Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Friday, and it was the depth of the Nets which ultimately proved too much for the visitors in a 109-104 defeat.

Kyrie Irving was held to just 14 points on 4-for-19 shooting, but the Nets, without Kevin Durant and James Harden, had four others score double figures including ex-Celtic Jeff Green (19 points on 5-for-11 shooting).

They were able to get involved in large part due to the Celtics turning the ball over at an excessive clip yet again. Brooklyn held a 32-0 advantage in points in transition after Boston turned the ball over 19 times.

Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 38 points and 10 rebounds while both Jaylen Brown and Kemba Walker were inactive. Tatum, who shot 14-for-27, scored 25 of those points in the first half.

Payton Pritchard scored 22 points on 6-for-7 beyond the arc. Marcus Smart chipped in 19 points, five rebounds and three assists.

The Celtics fell to 32-28 on the season while the Nets improve to 40-20.

Here’s how it went down:

STARTING FIVE:
PG: Marcus Smart
SG: Romeo Langford
SF: Jayson Tatum
PF: Semi Ojeleye
C: Tristan Thompson

C’s TAKE EARLY LEAD
Tatum hit each of his first three shots from the field, including a pair of 3-pointers, to give the Celtics a 9-2 lead just 1:38 into the game. He scored eight points in the opening four minutes.


Thompson helped control the glass for Boston (five offensive rebounds) with a pair of baskets in the paint helping the C’s build back up to a seven-point lead with 2:54 left in the quarter.


The Celtics, though, went the final three minutes of the quarter without a field goal as Brooklyn cut Boston’s lead to 25-21 after the first quarter.

The C’s shot 35% from the floor (8-for-23) and 38% from 3-point range (3-for- while holding a 19-12 edge on the glass. Boston was plagued by six first-quarter turnovers, and assisted on just two of its eight baskets.

NETS ON THE RUN
The Nets were 6-for-8 from long range in the opening six minutes, extending a once 12-0 run en route to taking a 45-35 lead over Boston.


Brooklyn continued to add to it. The Nets forced the Celtics to turn the ball over, got out in transition and beat the C’s down the floor while putting together another 8-0 run.

The Nets took a 55-41 lead with 2:39 left in the half and, at the time, had outscored the Celtics 34-18 in the frame. Brooklyn had 15 assists compared to Boston’s nine turnovers.

It appeared the Celtics were about to get run out of the gym until Tatum finished the second quarter with seven of his 25 first-half points in the final 2:10.

With that, Boston cut Brooklyn’s lead to single digits, 60-51, at the half.


BROOKLYN HAS A RESPONSE
The Nets scored the first five points of the quarter to build their lead back to 65-51 before Smart scored nine straight points for the Celtics with a 3-pointer cutting Boston’s deficit to just 69-63 with eight minutes left.


Another 3-pointer by Smart cut Brooklyn’s lead to 76-70 with 3:40 left in the quarter.


Brooklyn, though, followed it up with a 10-0 run late in the quarter to regain their 16-point lead and the Nets took a 88-73 advantage entering the fourth.

The Celtics, perhaps most notably, turned the ball over 15 times in the first three quarters and it led to the Nets outscoring them 26-0 (!!) in transition.

CELTS MAKE A PUSH
The Celtics trailed by as much as 17 with 10 minutes left, but cut that to just six points, 98-92, after a Pritchard 3-pointer.


Boston continued to make its run, which was at one point 11-2 after a 3-pointer from Tatum. That trey with 3:32 left cut the C’s deficit to just 98-95.


Brooklyn scored the next five points, though, to make it 103-95 with less than three minutes left. The C’s proceeded to follow that up with three turnovers in a matter of a minute.

Brooklyn held a two-possession lead for 3:30 of the final 3:32 before a Pritchard 3-pointer with two seconds left made it 107-104.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will travel to Charlotte to face the Hornets on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

112288

Unlike our losses in the terrible stretch in February (I think it was February) I'm not discouraged by this loss. Too many injuries and too many guys trying to do too many things that they're not equipped to do and that includes Tatum bringing the ball up the court. Inspite of the terrible offense, turnovers etc. we didn't lose by much. If we can ever get healthy I still think we can compete well in the playoffs.

Berlin-T

We can add this one to the list of winnable games that the team could not secure.

It was a bad loss at the wrong time.  This team is well past the time where they can literally throw a game away because they lack discipline.

They looked like a group of guys that never played before together.

The depth on the Nets is impressive.  We have guys missing but they do too.

Gold star awarded to Peyton Pritchard.  Brad should have played him more like at least 30 minutes.

Sooner or later Celtics fans will come to realize that Romeo Langford remains a non-shooter and needs a lot of work on his shooting mechanics and touch. He is no guy that can serve as a ball handler and he has to be able to shoot from the outside because he is a wing.

Grant Williams may have a high BIQ but (fill in the blanks)

Aaron Nesmith earned a 1/2 gold star, is there such a thing??  He had 8 rebounds and made another 3 pointer.  He also had 2 assists and scored 5 points in 17 minutes.  It is all about having the game slow down for him and staying disciplined with the way he shoots.

Fournier was a warm body out there who remained ice cold on offense.

I was really surprised that Jayson Tatum ended up with 38 points as I was not keeping track.  He shot the ball exceptionally well except for his melt down at the line when the game was still in doubt.  Message to him.  Dude, get off the rock.  Too many (5) turnovers.  That is 5 turnovers in each of his last 3 games.  

Funniest play of the game.  Marcus Smart throwing the ball to the bench and then fussing with them because they were standing up so he thought they were in the game and then patting his chest and declaring, my bad.

Hard to take away much from this game given the absences of players on both teams...other than the 'L' that is...They were down Harden and Durant, two BIG losses, we were down 3 starters.

19 turnovers.  DBoss is right, it's like we never played together before.  Brad's talking about "integrating the new guys", but Parker only played 13 minutes, Kornet 8.  Fournier played 22.  His problem wasn't integration, it was shooting.  Frenchy (as Cowens calls Monsieur Fournier) had 5 assists and only 2 turnovers.  When you're generating 5 assists in 22 minutes of play that's not poor integration.  He was 0-7 from the field.  Even 3-7 would have won this for us.  Fournier is looking like the ultimate streak shooter.  He's 0-10, then he's 10-10 (or some such equally ridiculous number) and now he's 0-7.  I realize he's just back from COVID and all but damn.  It's all or nothing from him.

In fact, almost anybody not named Tatum or Pritchard having a decent shooting night might have won it for us.  Tatum and Pritchard combined for 60 points on 22-39, 56.4%.  The rest of the team combined for 16-55, 29%.  Grant Williams blew a fast break dunk.  Parker, whose purpose in life is to score ("they don't pay players to play defense") was 1-5.  Tristan Thompson, who never takes a shot > 6' away, was 3-9.  Marcus Smart, who started out icy cold, came on and finished 7-17, but that's still only 41%.  Without doing the math imagine just how truly bad our scoring was if you take Smart's still-weak 41% out!

Smart was 2-10 from 3.  That means he was 5-7 from 2.  Unfortunately it didn't dawn on him that he was much more effective posting up Kyrie than launching 3s until the 2nd half.  His defense throughout, however, was superb...as always.

Tatum with 5 of those 19 turnovers.  Why?  Several reasons.  He keeps dribbling into traffic, for one.  For another, he's always bringing the ball up.  I try not to second-guess Brad too much, it's very easy to sit back in your Lazy-Boy and Monday morning quarterback a coach when you don't have to make decisions and change things real-time, but I really wish he'd have our elite ballhandlers bring the ball up and not defer to a non-elite ballhandler.  Give the ball to Kemba, give the ball to Smart, give the ball to Pritchard (and Waters if/when he's in) and let them bring the ball up.  Just because you rebounded it doesn't mean you own it.  I've been hammering on this point for a while, and I'm going to let it go as soon as I am emotionally able to, but you can run faster without the ball than with it and I guarantee you Pritchard can dribble the ball up court faster than Jayson Tatum can.  Give him the ball, run like the wind and he'll give it back to you in your sweet spot.

Speaking of Payton Pritchard what a game, huh?  22 points on 8-12, including that BIG 3 that gave us a chance in the final seconds.  He was 6-7 from 3.  Just one last flagellation of the deceased equine here, he shouldn't give the ball up to Tatum in the back court.  Stop. Doing.  That.  If he gets the rebound, demand the ball.  If you get the rebound tell him to start running and then run the ball up yourself.  What's the point in all those years of dribbling drills if you're not going to use them now?  On defense he did his usual scrappy, in-your-grill defense.  Staying in front of Kyrie is no easy task neither.




Langford got the start again with Jaylen out.  His offense needs tons and tons of work.  He needs to become a reliable shooter, and he's not now.  He's a slasher who isn't slashing.  Brad wants him to become another Evan Turner (and having Evan Turner on staff as a coach certainly cannot hurt that effort), but he's not there, not even close to being there yet.  I'm not a big fan of the +/- stat, but as a bit of an indicator he was a game-worst (including the Nets) -26.

We played zero transition defense last night.  None.  Zip. Nil.  Bupkiss.  The final tally was an embarrassing 32-3 in fast break points.  The one fast break bucket, a 3, that we had was in the final minute or two when PP pulled up for that 3ptr.  Until then we were shut out on fast breaks, while they were having a field day.  

19 turnovers by us and 12 steals by them.  There's 31 empty possessions for us.  SO sloppy.  

Brad was at such a loss he gave Carsen Edwards 7 minutes.  Throwing darts, hoping one of them hits the target.  Lord knows nothing else was working.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401307698


Bob


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Great analysis by all and mostly agree on all the points made here.
However, I would probably give Fournier a pass here. Oh boy has played since it seems like Forever, that and battling Covid, I didn’t expect much from him. Missed shots I expected. Most if not all were taken out of Rhythm and he had to reacquaint himself with everyone on the floor. I wouldn’t say he’s streaky at least I hope not. I’m going to throw this one gane of his in the trash. I think we’ll have a better read tomorrow.
I am concerned about No O RomeO (now we know why Danny calls him Rommy) this dude doesn’t even look for his shot. I don’t even think he looks at the basket. This has to change with a quickness. His D is not that good that we can afford to have him play 30 minutes and score ZERO. The other night he took 4 shots but we did get a bonus of the 2 points out of him. Yay.
No handle no shot no ticks. Have a seat.
Grant was horrific. I probably was a little hard on him but that’s only because he’s making mistakes that he shouldn’t still be making. The blown layup.. well he made up for it quickly with that 3. Bob H you’re too kind. Zero sum for him last night was a Medal of Honor. Lol.

Romeo, GWill and Semi look really putrid of late, maybe they need more talent to play with to hide their deficiencies, but they can’t be this bad. Glad Tatum’s shot came back, he also has been careless with the ball lately. Very winnable game, just can’t make so many turnovers and blown plays like that to win in this league. Praying we can get healthy and stay that way soon.

Danny, don't resign Fournier for $17M. I can score as much as Frenchy did last night for free.

One thing I didn't note about Nesmith is that he had 8 rebounds, 2 offensive, in his 17 minutes.  That's adding value.


Bob


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worcester wrote:Danny, don't resign Fournier for $17M. I can score as much as Frenchy did last night for free.

I would give Fournier a break as this was his first game after Covid. He was missing for a while there I think he did not have a symptom free run of it.

Just remember Tatum is still using inhalers before games. Fournier might be a shadow of himself for the rest of the season+playoffs.

What a terrible year the Celtics are having with bad timing for injuries like this.

Mulberry, cordyceps, ginseng and gecko, and andrographis would be a good less than $100 investment for each of these multi-million dollar players. Lack of knowledge is the root cause of much otherwise needless suffering.