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Celtics Wrap: Trail Blazers Halt Boston’s Momentum With 129-119 Victory
Things got messy at the end for Boston


NESN by Abigail Adams


The Celtics entered Sunday’s game riding high off their epic overtime victory against the San Antonio Spurs, but the Trail Blazers stopped them dead in their tracks.

Boston fell 129-119 to Portland at TD Garden despite a strong effort from the bench, which hit all but five of its 18 attempted shots Sunday night.

Jayson Tatum and CJ McCollum led all scorers with 33 points apiece.

The Celtics slipped to 34-31 while the Blazers climbed to 36-28.

Here’s how it all went down:

STARING FIVE
PG: Marcus Smart
SG: Evan Fournier
SF: Jaylen Brown
PF: Jayson Tatum
C: Tristan Thompson


EARLY BOUNCE BACK
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: The Celtics did not start things off on the right foot.



This time, though, they managed to turn things around faster than usual.

The Blazers quickly opened up a nine-point lead behind solid starts from Damian Lillard (11 points, two rebounds, three assists) and CJ McCollum (seven points, two rebounds).

Boston pushed back rather quickly and erased Portland’s lead late in the quarter. Brown and Evan Fournier helped the Celtics find their rhythm and finished the frame with a combined 15 points and eight rebounds.


Tatum, on the other hand, turned on the jets late in the first and collected eight points on 3-of-5 shooting (60%).

The Celtics’ lead wouldn’t last the entire quarter, though. McCollum nabbed a triple at the buzzer to put the Blazers up 34-32 after one.


EVEN STEVEN
Things between Boston and Portland stayed tight in the second quarter.



Tatum continued to light up the scoreboard and finished the half with 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting (61.5%). He hit four of his five 3-point attempts in the first half, including this doozy early in the second:


McCollum (18 points, three rebounds, two assists) and Lillard (16 point, three rebounds, six assists) continued to lead the charge for Portland. Enes Kanter, meanwhile, was a non-factor with just one point and two rebounds in the first half.

There wasn’t much daylight between these two teams in the second. The Blazers shot 54.3% from the field in the first half, while the Celtics were close behind at 52.1% accuracy.

The game entered halftime at 71-all.

BOSTON LOSES SOME STEAM
The Blazers were just a bit better than the Celtics in the third. Lillard, McCollum and Powell all eclipsed the 20-point mark as Portland rebuilt its lead.

Boston’s bench gave the Celtics a continued boost, going 11-for-13 (84.6%) through the first three frames. Payton Pritchard (13 points, four rebounds) and Aaron Nesmith (11 points, three rebounds) helped the C’s maintain their rhythm, though Nesmith did rack up four personal fouls.

Robert Williams, meanwhile, gave Boston a boost on both ends of the court with four points, four rebounds (all defensive) and three assists.

Turnovers weren’t the Celtics’ friend in the third, though. Boston racked up seven giveaways in the quarter, allowing Portland to maintain their small lead entering the fourth.

UNFORTUNATE SERIES OF EVENTS
The Blazers kept the Celtics at bay through most of the final frame.


There still was plenty of fight left in Boston, though. Fournier, for one, ended the night with 8-of-10 completed shots (80%) for 21 points. He had five rebounds and three assists, as well.


Nesmith (16 points, four rebounds) kept up his success, too. He remained strong off the bench and now has three straight games with at least 15 points, according to Forbes’ Chris Grenham.


Smart was tossed with 1:56 left in the game after receiving a technical foul during a collision with Jusuf Nurkic. The ejection was sparked by Smart tapping Nurkic in the groin.

Tatum and Brown were next down the tunnel after colliding at the knee with 40 seconds to play. Both players appeared in pain as they left the game.


Try as they might, Boston just couldn’t close the gap. The Blazers wound up topping the C’s 129-119 on 51.8% shooting Sunday night. (The Celtics finished the game at 48.3% shooting.)

PLAY OF THE GAME
Someone looked solid Sunday.


UP NEXT
Boston will have two days off before taking on the Orlando Magic on Wednesday at Amway Center. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. ET.

112288

The big story here is the injury to JB.  Just hoping it is not serious.  JT said he should be ok.  We should get an update on JB today.

Lebron James when asked about the tournament said whoever came up with the idea should be fired. Whoever came up with this idea of so many games packed so closely all year should be fired, it has put players at risk, every team has had to use loads and loads of load management. The product sucks and to see how many times players have gutted it out for the team nicked up like this is balderdash. Jaylen never should have played he was still exhausted/sore from the super human effort he put in the previous b2b, Tatum missed the first game of that and good for him, sure he needed it. Silver is a f..kin moron!!!

Yet another opportunity blown by us. And now the elephant in the room injury that we have been avoiding all season addressing hits us with a potential devastating double, 1-2 punch to our two superstars. You can't make this )*$$@&ty season up, Bo!!

If there is any silver lining, the other greatest NBA franchise of all time just dropped themselves into the play-in bracket as well trying to get its two superstars back in sync before the playoffs (and now the world and perhaps the universe is now focused on LeBron and what the report will be this am on his ankle. Expect the Tiger Woods Crash-like media treatment except it will continue on that level ad nauseum until it is resolved and he is back on the court. There is no news cycle for this. This incident is the news cycle for all sports. Nothing else at ESPN will matter until this tragic, devastating crisis is resolved. You thought the across the league mentioning and ongoing discussions in every game being played of the James/Davis duo waiting for these two to get back on the court was simply vomitorious, you ain't seen nothing yet!!

I'm looking for a quick and painless death. Hopefully win one last play-in game, draw one of the Big 3 and get swept out of the first round. I simply want to get off the roller coaster and on to the off season.

db

Silver has to walk a very interesting tight rope.  He ultimately has to answer to the owners under the "He who has the gold makes the rules" banner, but he also has to put the product out on the court and that mostly involves the players.  

On the fly, the owners have had to hodgepodge a system together that attempts to make up the revenues missing from the gate so that the owners themselves are not hemorrhaging money for more than a season or two and all going broke at the same time.

Add to that diving head first into a brick wall COVID crisis that only seems to happen once every 100+ years and you have a job in which nobody will win.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the main NBA entertainment platform deviation to focusing on the social media platform play it by ear extravaganza.  

Oh yeah, and don't forget the NBA's complete snubbing of the whole China situation/cheap labor eyesore.  Just sweep that under the rug.    

This is all on his watch.  Looks like he's been handed the unpinned hand grenade immediately after he was working with superglue.

If I'm doing the math correctly, Silver is going to try to shave off a month from the break between seasons vs. last season' break which should put the league back to where the season calendar was pre-COVID.  That is unless the owners and players agree to keep it that way one more season.  Who knows. What a huge mess!!      

db

Let's hope Jaylen's ok.  He hopped, on one foot, off the court and down the corridor yelling some words you wouldn't want to hear your kids say and ones I've never seen nor heard him say or tweet before.  NOT good, to say the least.  He was having a terrible game.  6-22, 1-9 from 3.  Brad still played him 35 minutes.

Portland matches up very well against us.  Our strengths are our wings.  Their strengths are their back court/wings and that has become even more so with the addition of Celtic killer Norman Powell.  Their bigs are big painteating monsters.  We have Thompson and RWill, neither of whom have much of an outside game (Thompson has none and RWill only occasionally trots out his mid-range shot).
 
Tatum had 24 points at halftime.  He had 9 in the 2nd half.  He was trying to do too much, in my opinion.  He does that when he is trying to lead his team and is, once again in my opinion, evidence of his youth.  It's not that he went cold, he was 3-6 in the 2nd half, it's that he only took 6 fgas.  I think his legs were going on him a bit, he stumbled or even fell a few times with minimal contact.  It was an OT game they played last and the Js played heavy minutes in it.  6 turnovers.  He went from averaging about 5/game for a while, to zero against San Antonio and now back to 6.

The two-game record for most points scored by a Celtic is held by Kevin McHale with 98 points.  Tatum has 93 over the last 2 games (60+33).  Not bad for a 23 year old.

Furthermore, there's this:

Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
Correction to earlier tweet. Jayson Tatum now has 128 points in his last three games - a Celtic record for that many games. Larry Bird had the previous record with 126 in 1985. So Tatum has tied Bird (60 points) and now surpassed him on two occasions this week.

Marcus Smart is a marked man by the refs.  After getting suspended for a game for threatening a ref they sent their own message to him last night.  He got elbowed in the face by Powell, unintentionally but also without question.  They called it a common foul, reviewed it, and stayed with common foul.  Everybody knows that virtually any contact to the head or face is an automatic flagrant 1 now, but they weren't going to give him the fritos.  Then, with just 1:56 left in the game and the Celts down 3, Nurkic set a moving screen.  Smart came around the screen with his arm low and made contact with Nurkic groin area.  I think Nurkic sold it a bit but whatever.  Nurkic got called for the moving screen and Smart got T'd up for the groin shot and then ejected.  I have NEVER heard of a player being ejected with just one T.  They might give him the 2nd T just to get rid of him but there has always been that 2nd T.  It happened just inside the last 2 minutes, so it will be interesting to see if the L2M report mentions it.

This was the Evan Fournier Danny traded for and we've all been wondering where he disappeared to.  21 points on 8-10, 5-7 from 3.  5 rebounds, 3 assists with only 1 turnover and 2 steals.  Now we have to wait and see how long before we see this again.  If this is Fournier now integrated and being more comfortable in Brad's system we might have something here.  Great game by Frenchy.  He even played defense.

Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
You wouldn't know it by his 8-10 shooting tonight, but Evan Fournier said COVID has most affected his depth perception.

Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Fournier said he's been feeling "really weird" since returning from COVID-19. Said it feels like he has a concussion. The bright lights were bothering his eyes and his vision was blurry. Everything going too fast for him. A bit better now but in some ways, "it's still the case."


Thompson with a shitty game, completely outplayed on both ends.  RWill looking ok, but not great also.  Their bigs, Nurkic and Kanter, outplayed our bigs.

3Smith showing the Spurs game was not a fluke.  16 points in 20 minutes on 6-7 shooting, 4-4 from 3.  4 rebounds.  It's really amazing, isn't it?  Some players the light bulb never comes on (think James Young), some it takes a while and others just take to the NBA game like a(n Oregon) duck to water.  Nesmith is in the 2nd category.  It took him a bit, understandable considering he had no summer league and almost no preseason, but now it's flowing.  He's up to 38.2% from 3 for the season.  He's played in 9 of our last 10 games and in those 9 games he averaged 54.5% from 3.  He's averaging double digits in the last 3 games.  Trending really, really well and you gotta love the way he sticks his nose in there for offensive rebounds.  Well, at least I gotta.




Pritchard with 13 points on 4-6, 3-5 from 3 and 6 rebounds.  Nesmith, with his rep for being the best shooter in the draft, might have been a no-brainer at #14 but PP wasn't.  Credit to Danny for appreciating the value 4 years of college gives a player and for realizing that he already had enough projects on the team.  If he couldn't trade for a veteran he did the next best thing which was to draft an older kid with more experience. He's shooting 41.7% from 3 this season and is 46.4% from 3 in the last 10 games.

Langford with 14 fairly forgettable minutes.  He's getting pushed down the depth chart by Nesmith, who is playing well on both ends while Romeo is non-existent on the offensive end.

They shot 50% from 3.  The only Blazer who didn't shoot 50%+ was Dame, he was 3-9.  Everybody else was unconscious.  Not to be outdone, we shot 51% from 3.  They got 26 ftas vs 15 for us.  I am not pleased with the ref crew last night but there's something bigger going on here.  We are constantly coming in 2nd in ftas in almost every game.  There's 9 more points for them.  Tristan was called for an offensive goaltend that was clearly NOT one.  The refs refused to review it, claiming Brad called for a timeout too late.  Here's a pic of Tatum (far right) clearly calling for a timeout before CJ McCollum had the ball to inbound.  Another blown call by this reffing crew that took 2 points away from us.

John Karalis
@RedsArmy_John
·
9h
Here is Tatum signaling for a timeout before CJ McCollum has the ball after the Tristan Thompson goaltend


Sorry, I can't get Tatum into the picture, here's the original twitter link so you can see it for yourself, but the ball is obviously NOT in Portland's hands yet:  https://twitter.com/RedsArmy_John/status/1389070530121277441

We also had 18 turnovers vs 9 for them and 3 steals vs 8 for them.  Steals are live turnovers, so there's 5 more opportunities for them to score in a quick transition over us.  Our turnovers are going to kill us.  Tatum with 6, Smart and Brown with 3 each.  There's 12 just between the 3 of them.  

Our 7 offensive rebound edge kept us in it and helped offset our sloppiness with the ball.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401307771


Bob

.

Jay King @ByJayKing
about 37 minutes ago
Payton Pritchard is shooting 44.5 percent from behind the arc since the beginning of March. With the exception of February, when he was coming back from a knee injury, his worst 3-point shooting month is at 38.7 percent. Dude can really shoot.


Bob


.

It was really a ridiculous call on Smart after they refused to call the shot to the head on Powell. If ref's are going to go this way, it will be a long two weeks until season's end. I am wondering what REALLY was going thru Marcus's head when he got tossed. He looked like he knew they were going to rule against him, as he just walked off taking his shirt of in the runway.

This was without a doubt the worst officiated game I have seen in a while. This goes both ways. Portland had a right to complain of a couple of calls themselves. It was like they made up their minds who was going to go to the line and who wasn't. This is a clip for Silver and his buddies to really look at. This kind of ineptitude leads to nasty games, and that is not what should happen.

As I said in another post, this is the year from hell.

Does anyone know how it works? There’s so many blatant bad calls, can refs get away with that on a whim, how are they held accountable? So a tram sends direct game tape of the messed up call/calls to the League office, what happens? Something should happen, this league is the pits right now....

Have you noticed those reports they were issuing for the last 2 minutes have disappeared

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Have you noticed those reports they were issuing for the last 2 minutes have disappeared

All I know it’s messed up that refs get away with this, every profession has accountability, they get away with murder, it’s gotten to the point I hate watching the game, every game there’s gonna be a terrible call/calls. Tatum got hit full body and no call, then a little minimal touch just barely the other end and they called it on us, was the only thing Scal got right....sh.t like that always happens

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Have you noticed those reports they were issuing for the last 2 minutes have disappeared

Rosalie,


Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
The NBA L2M report concurred with the technical foul call on Marcus Smart for hitting Jusuf Nurkic in the nuts in crunch time last night, as well as the offensive foul call on Nurkic. Does not rule on whether the ejection was warranted.



Bob
MY NOTE: They haven't disappeared, I just didn't post this. I find it interesting they didn't rule on that ejection, and how he was ejected with only 1 T. I think this is the league trying to cover for their refs' bias. It's one thing to make a mistake, everybody makes mistakes, and own up to them. It's a whole other thing for the refs to be favoring one team or the other or having an obvious problem with a player that has nothing to do with the game and that's what the league would be saying if they said Smart's ejection was unwarranted.


.

so did they say why Powell got away with whacking Smart in the head??? The rule has been that any contact with the head is an automatic flagrant foul. That is what set Smart off I think. If this is the way it is going to be, he is handcuffed for the rest of the season. I am waiting for the suspension. That will add insult to injury. The funny thing is, Smart knew something was going to happen. He just walked off the floor, taking his shirt off in the tunnel. They have been ripping Smart up and down in the Boston news reporters. There are so many that want him traded it is unbelievable. I have to wonder what management is thinking.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:so did they say why Powell got away with whacking Smart in the head???  The rule has been that any contact with the head is an automatic flagrant foul.  That is what set Smart off I think.  If this is the way it is going to be, he is handcuffed for the rest of the season.  I am waiting for the suspension.  That will add insult to injury.  The funny thing is, Smart knew something was going to happen. He just walked off the floor, taking his shirt off in the tunnel.  They have been ripping Smart up and down in the Boston news reporters.  There are so many that want him traded it is unbelievable.  I have to wonder what management is thinking.

Rosalie,

I don't believe Powell's blow to Smart's face happened within the last 2 minutes. Ergo it is not addressed in the L2M report, nor anywhere else.

And, yeah, if I took a shot to the nose like that I'd have been up and charging.


Bob


.

The reason I said that is that it is becoming so obvious that the ref's dislike Smart intensely. This is because, with rule changes and ignorance on the part of referee's they do not know a defensive play from a deliberate hit on another player. I truly feel that the official's of this generation have an attitude of true dominance. There are many out there that enjoy controlling a game and the dislike of a team becomes obvious.

The Celtics have to bear some responsibility for this attitude. Constantly yelling at ref's makes it easy to "stick it to them". However, I look at guys like Kyle Lowry who flops all over the floor, barks at refs constantly and still lives to play! LeBron??? Giannis??? there are alot of cry babies in the league. So why they have decided to hate the Celtics is puzzling . Smart??? He has built his reputation, but no one on any team can deny that they would not love having a guy like him on their team. He will be in a very interesting position next contract. Does he stay or does he go? Do they keep him, or is he our trade bait? Including Jaylen in this category makes me sick

[quote="bobheckler"]

RosalieTCeltics wrote:so did they say why Powell got away with whacking Smart in the head???  The rule has been that any contact with the head is an automatic flagrant foul.  That is what set Smart off I think.  If this is the way it is going to be, he is handcuffed for the rest of the season.  I am waiting for the suspension.  That will add insult to injury.  The funny thing is, Smart knew something was going to happen. He just walked off the floor, taking his shirt off in the tunnel.  They have been ripping Smart up and down in the Boston news reporters.  There are so many that want him traded it is unbelievable.  I have to wonder what management is thinking.

Rosalie,

I don't believe Powell's blow to Smart's face happened within the last 2 minutes.  Ergo it is not addressed in the L2M report, nor anywhere else.

And, yeah, if I took a shot to the nose like that I'd have been up and charging.


Bob


.[/quot


Oh man I would have so kicked that guys a..

The refs took a basket away from us on the fake goal tending call against TT, let a obvious flagrant foul by Powell on Smart go away and also made a mistake for throwing Smart out of the game for an unintentional blow to the nuts. Nurikic steps into Smart on the screen.  It was not like Smart was swinging at his nuts.

Smart is clearly being punished for previous things.  The refs have decided not to cut him any slack.  This does not bode well for the rest of the season and the playoffs.

Basically, the refs Suck.

Jay King @ByJayKing
1 hour ago
Jaylen Brown just has a sprained ankle. He’s out tomorrow but is day to day beyond that. Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker each practiced in full today.


Bob
MY NOTE:  I expected a sprained ankle for Jaylen, considering the way he was hopping off to the locker room and cursing.  So missing a game and maybe not much more after that is as good as we could hope for.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I don't believe a freaking word of it.  It takes more than ice and a few days off to minimize an injury so painful you're afraid to put any weight on it.  While I'd love to have Jaylen back asap I am much more of the mind that I want him to be 100% for the playoffs.  I'll take our chances with the "play in" tournament with a healthy pair of Js and a ready-and-rested Kemba than pushing for a likely unattainable 4-seed and risking more injury to a physically-impaired Jaylen Brown.


.

bobheckler wrote:Jay King @ByJayKing
1 hour ago
Jaylen Brown just has a sprained ankle. He’s out tomorrow but is day to day beyond that. Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker each practiced in full today.


Bob
MY NOTE:  I expected a sprained ankle for Jaylen, considering the way he was hopping off to the locker room and cursing.  So missing a game and maybe not much more after that is as good as we could hope for.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I don't believe a freaking word of it.  It takes more than ice and a few days off to minimize an injury so painful you're afraid to put any weight on it.  While I'd love to have Jaylen back asap I am much more of the mind that I want him to be 100% for the playoffs.  I'll take our chances with the "play in" tournament with a healthy pair of Js and a ready-and-rested Kemba than pushing for a likely unattainable 4-seed and risking more injury to a physically-impaired Jaylen Brown.


.

Bobh

If they say he is day to day that actually means day to day. He could be out for the remainder of the regular season. Sprained ankles can be longer term issues or he may bounce back quicker. There is no way for us to know. The good thing is that no tears or ligament damage was reported. Keeping fingers and toes crossed for a speedy recovery.

We as fans may have to face up to the very real possibility that this team for this year is on a path to nowhere.

Maybe, but I would like a healthy lineup for a few games at least. This year has been murder

bobheckler wrote:Jay King @ByJayKing
1 hour ago
Jaylen Brown just has a sprained ankle. He’s out tomorrow but is day to day beyond that. Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker each practiced in full today.


Bob
MY NOTE:  I expected a sprained ankle for Jaylen, considering the way he was hopping off to the locker room and cursing.  So missing a game and maybe not much more after that is as good as we could hope for.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I don't believe a freaking word of it.  It takes more than ice and a few days off to minimize an injury so painful you're afraid to put any weight on it.  While I'd love to have Jaylen back asap I am much more of the mind that I want him to be 100% for the playoffs.  I'll take our chances with the "play in" tournament with a healthy pair of Js and a ready-and-rested Kemba than pushing for a likely unattainable 4-seed and risking more injury to a physically-impaired Jaylen Brown.


.

+1

It’s been a rough rough year and whatever happens in the next few months will be interesting. I’m looking more toward next season when maybe things are closer to normal. The whole league and season has been jacked this year.
As far as Sunday’s debacle goes, the officials (they really need to rename them to something like unofficials) were terrible as so many have been.
They don’t hate us any more than they hate anyone else’s that is if there is any hate in their heart at all. What we are seeing instead is incompetence across the board. Some of the “Unofficials” DO have it in for some players, It’s obvious and Smart is one of them. He got screwed without a kiss on Sunday. Smacked across the head. Common foul? Stevie wonder could see that was a flagrant. Nurkic? No ones trying to grab or kick his whatever’s. That was a joke and even he knew it.
There must have been a come to Jesus meeting with Smart because he has been really laid back since the suspension. His casually walking off was not a walk of guilt. It was more of a walk of “FK it, if I say something I’m subject to a 20 yr suspension so let me just get to stepping”. Personally, other than mistakes that all players make from time to time, I don’t think Smart has done anything to warrant this treatment-from anyone.
Those folks who are screaming for him to be traded are the same folks that have been spitting the same bull since the talk began. It’s just gotten louder thats all.
If the team makes a trade, it wont be because of the big mouth Smart haters out there. It’ll be a basketball reason only. I honestly believe that. I hope he is here forever but nothing would surprise me.
We only have a few games left until the playoffs. Playoffs? We try and get as healthy as we can and hopefully stay out of the “Pay-in” and I like our chances to at least go a few rounds. Hell, if nothing else, we’ll have something to watch b/cuz once the C’s are out the NBA will not be on my agenda.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Maybe, but I would like a healthy lineup for a few games at least.  This year has been murder

Rosalie a healthy lineup is all we are asking for.