POST GAME NEW YORK KNICKS - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Jaylen Brown Bright Spot In Wild Season-Opening Loss
Jaylen Brown had a career night


NESN by Nicole Fasciano

The New York Knicks took it to the Boston Celtics during quite a battle Wednesday night resulting in a 138-134 double overtime loss during the team’s 2021-22 season-opener.

The Knicks now hold a 1-0 start to the season. The Celtics-Knicks historic rivalry also was re-ignited during the season-opener as the teams have faced off against each other a total of 481 times during the regular season, 297 of which Boston has come out on top.

Kemba Walker made his first appearance playing against the Celtics this season but on the opposing team. He had 10 points however, that’s nothing compared to New York’s scoring offensive leader Julius Randle as he accumulated 35 points.

Marcus Smart came up big as he scored the game-tying three-pointer following Brown’s deep three to send the team into the first overtime of the game.

Here’s how it went down:

ONE KEY TAKEAWAY

The Celtics had an offensive powerhouse against the Knicks and it was no other than All-Star guard Jaylen Brown. Brown — coming out of NBA health and safety protocols due to COVID-19 — carried the C’s as nearly half of the points generated within the first two quarters of the game were coming from his 25 point total for the half. However, Jayson Tatum was not able to uphold his end offensively as he had a slow start and only added 20 points clearly falling short of last seasons point scoring average of 26.4 points per game. Tatum was 7-for-30 falling behind shooting wise on Wednesday night.

On the upside, Jaylen Brown set a new Boston record for most points scored in a season-opener in Celtics history. Brown also now has obtained a new career-high in scoring, among some NBA greats like Michael Jordan.


STARS OF THE GAME

Jaylen Brown, with 20 points within just the first quarter of the game was an offensive powerhouse against the Knicks. Brown also had nine rebounds and six assists adding to his wealth of a contribution to the game. He totaled 46 points…


Marcus Smart made the scoring basket to send the Celts into overtime against the Knicks. He also had eight rebounds, six assists and 15 points.


Julius Randle was a monster against the C’s leading the Knicks with 35 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. Randle was closely accompanied by the Knicks other offensive competitor Evan Fournier who scored 32 of the totaled points.


Boston finished with 56 rebounds coming out strong defensively as the team’s 2020-21 average for rebounds was 44.3 per game.

WAGER WATCH

Brown also quickly fulfilled his 2.5 three point prop within the first five minutes of the game as nine of his first scoring points were generated from three pointers.

More Betting: ZOZO Championship Betting Preview: Why There’s Value In Odds Down Betting Board

UP NEXT

The Celtics will return to TD Garden on Friday as they host the Toronto Raptors in their second game of the NBA season.

WOW O FOR 3 DAY
RED SOX BRUINS AND CELTICS

Your all around best player on the Celtics is Brown bar none! He can do it all and he is always involved in either the defense or offensive side of the ball.

Tatum, back to his usual MIA in stretches of the game. Very disappointing for a guy everyone calls an elite player.

Celtics did show a new side of their offense in the first quarter with nice passing and cuts to the basket. Hopefully that will extend to 4 quarters.

112288

112288

Robert Williams played well, and logged 44 minutes. If he can play major minutes and stays healthy we are in business!

I don’t think Marcus Smart has enough offensive ability to be a full time point guard on a contending team, always an adventure scoring with him, such an inconsistent finisher. He couldn’t score more with little Kemba Walker on him who always got scored on when he was with us. Tatum with one of his bad starts that extended to the whole game, he wasn’t efficient in preseason either. Did he put on too much muscle and lose touch? We will see….Kevin Durant has his own game, driving and getting off his shot, he doesn’t try to overpower you, if Tatum tries to be Karl Malone, he’s still not strong enough to score like that. Besides missing bunnies, he got too many of his shots blocked, it’s okay to use your length better and score over people more without the contact ala Durant. Air balls in the clutch, really stunk up the joint both ends, not even extending/jumping on Frenchy’s clutch shot right in his face. Terrible, your supposed to be a 2 way stud, your defense sucked.

They were pummeling us inside too easy for stretches with Toppin and Randle? That’s not exactly a twin towers and they were abusing us for stretches right when they took the lead. With no Al, RWill played a lot of good minutes and GWill had some good baskets that we needed, but was getting overpowered and abused on defense. Kantor and Bruno didn’t even get a minute and with no Al our only real big was RWill and hated seeing them score inside so easily on us. Gotta think Moses Brown could have really helped us tonight in the paint.

Nice game by Romeo, he’s earning minutes. Might take Pritch awhile to get adjusted to that mask, we could have really used a few 3’s from him with AN off and Tatum stinking all around….

I was able to watch almost all of the regulation time.

Jaylen Brown, coming out of COVID protocols and still suffering some, is a freaking stud-and-a-half.  If I have one complaint about his game last night it's that two of his 4 turnovers happened because he over dribbled and lost the ball.  Remember how some numbnut pundits were suggesting trading Jaylen for Simmons?  Does anybody know which unemployment line they're in right now?

Marc D'Amico @celtics
yesterday
Jaylen: "My breathing felt irregular, but fine for the most part. Toward the end, I could feel my heart beating through my chest … The adrenaline kind of took over."

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Jaylen Brown finished with 46 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists tonight. The only other Celtics to hit those numbers in a game are Larry Bird and John Havlicek, per @SportRadar. Only Michael Jordan and Anthony Davis have hit those numbers on opening night in NBA history.

S.T.U.D.  Period.



It's one thing if Marcus Smart or Grant or someone whose primary role isn't scoring shooting poorly from 3 but we can't have our top 3pt shooters, statistically speaking (Tatum, Nesmith and Pritchard) shoot a combined 2-20.  Tatum was 2-15.  Tatum ended up going 7-30 from the field.  Half of his fgas were 3s.  Half.  That's laziness.  Why did he put on that extra weight and muscle if he's just going to launch away from 3?

Gary Washburn @GwashburnGlobe
yesterday
Tatum admits he settled for threes toward the end of the game instead of attacking the rim. #Celtics #Knicks

That's mental laziness.


Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 2 hours ago
Jayson Tatum went 2/15 from deep tonight. The only other players to shoot 2/15 or worse on 15+ threes in NBA history are James Harden (5x), Steph Curry, Dennis Scott, and Gerald Green, per @Stathead. Only the greatest shooters/dunkers ever fail this spectacularly.

Grant was a surprise starter (at least I was surprised).  I thought Grant played a pretty good game overall.  Unfortunately for him he had to defend Julius Randle, who outweighed him by 15# and that was before Grant Williams lost 15#.




Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
Re: Fournier's late shots, Udoka said he changed coverage and it wasn't executed: "Changing our coverage in overtime and the fourth quarter we wanted to keep Rob on Julius Randle, and some of our guys just messed up the coverage. Have to be more communicative when we switch it up

The Time Lord with a 16/10 double-double.  5 blocks.  5.  What I like, though, is his 3 assists and no turnovers and his almost 45 minutes of play.  I am looking forward to any reports about how his body is feeling today.  If he's good, we're good, because he is so important.

Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Jaylen Brown said he was “extremely satisfied seeing what Romeo can do.”

What's your opinion of Romeo's game last night?


Marc D'Amico
Marc D'Amico @celtics
yesterday
"I loved our resiliency tonight," says Jaylen Brown.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401358775




Bob


.

bobc33 wrote:Robert Williams played well, and logged 44 minutes.  If he can play major minutes and stays healthy we are in business!

Is tha aftereffects when the pain comes out….that’s the real test

All congratulations to Brown and Williams for great games.  Wow!  Now if we can just get Tatum on board, and he will, things will start falling into place.  

The stretch where we went 0-10 for about 4 minutes killed us and carried on into the 2nd half.  Plus remember we started the game with no score for about 3 minutes.  That's about 1/6 of a regular game.  Not going to win too many games going dry for that long launching the 3-ball to try to get the lost time back.  Not much of a difference so far between Ime and Brad with the bricklaying and panic ball.  

There were stints of small ball where our tallest dude was GW.  Maybe just Ime mixing it up.  But Randle is a beast.  Then we put GW back on him with a flashback to last year's GW.  

Should we have won this game?  Yes...going away.  Did we make a valiant comeback at the end with MS's OT forcer?  Yes.  Push the panic button?  Certainly not, but my hand moved ever so slightly toward it.  

Again, the media and NY got what they wanted.  Home game against a playoff contender and the Celtics lost on a national stage.  Merry Christmas.  Home against TOR tomorrow.  The game goes on.  BTW, the Lakers lost as well!  

All this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we won't go 82-0 this season, so we can take that off the list.      

db

dbrown4 wrote:All congratulations to Brown and Williams for great games.  Wow!  Now if we can just get Tatum on board, and he will, things will start falling into place.  

The stretch where we went 0-10 for about 4 minutes killed us and carried on into the 2nd half.  Plus remember we started the game with no score for about 3 minutes.  That's about 1/6 of a regular game.  Not going to win too many games going dry for that long launching the 3-ball to try to get the lost time back.  Not much of a difference so far between Ime and Brad with the bricklaying and panic ball.  

There were stints of small ball where our tallest dude was GW.  Maybe just Ime mixing it up.  But Randle is a beast.  Then we put GW back on him with a flashback to last year's GW.  

Should we have won this game?  Yes...going away.  Did we make a valiant comeback at the end with MS's OT forcer?  Yes.  Push the panic button?  Certainly not, but my hand moved ever so slightly toward it.  

Again, the media and NY got what they wanted.  Home game against a playoff contender and the Celtics lost on a national stage.  Merry Christmas.  Home against TOR tomorrow.  The game goes on.  BTW, the Lakers lost as well!  

All this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we won't go 82-0 this season, so we can take that off the list.      

db

dbrown,

I agree with everything you said except one thing: 3 minutes is 1/16 of a regulation game, not 1/6th. It is a tad over 1/20th of a double OT game.


Bob


.

It was a good NBA game to watch; perhaps getting rid of the unnatural-move-based fouls will get the game back to basics. Jaylen played all NBA basketball last night.

What an exciting first game to  kick off the season.

Hats off to Jaylen Brown for carrying this team throughout the night.  When he was not in the game our offense sputtered.

Grant Williams got the start as I predicted in the pregame thread.  Offensively he more than exceeded expectations.  He scored 15 points on an efficient 6-9 from the field and 3-5 from deep.  He also collected 5 rebounds and dissed out 4 assists.

On defense however, he could not check Randle.  Randle used Grant like a discarded spit rag from a nursing home.    Some things do not require a great level of understanding.  Grant is just not big enough nor athletic enough to defend off the bounce or defend in the post.  

No Hernangomez tonight.  Ime only went 9 deep in a double overtime game.   WTF.  

Ime finally put RW on Randle but the damage was already done.  And even then we were repeatedly velcroed to Randle's screens while Evan Fournier drained big shot after big shot.

Why have Kanter and Fernando on the team if you are not willing to play them a single minute in a double overtime game?  And if a guy is really struggling containing his guy man on man why not throw a few zone variations in there to alter the flow?  Like the Heat do.

Marcus Smart took 11 (3) point shots.  Yes I know he hit a big one but I thought we would not be seeing him do that.  He was a very inefficient 5-14 from the field.  He never got to the line.  As a team we shot 17-23 from the line with both JB and RW putting up matching 6-8 numbers.

Dennis Schroder shot worse than Marcus (5-16)  But he did have 8 assists and only 2 turnovers.  I do not like seeing him and Marcus paired together.  That is not a workable paring because neither is a reliable shooter/scorer.  I think they should have used Langford more.  He shot the ball well but had 3 turnovers.  However I would still have had him in the game because of his ability to make shots especially with our Crown Prince shooting a ghastly 7-30.

I do not want to be accused of being overly negative.  We saw some good basketball by our guys.  But there remains things to clean up like turnovers for one thing.

The most disappointing player in the game was Jayson Tatum.   He did not look good in the preseason and he did not look good last night.  He is really struggling to adjust to a new system.  He is still playing ISO when things break down instead of moving the ball.  He is a fantastic young player and more than capable of figuring things out.  Cancel any notion of making an All NBA team and get back to playing team basketball.

I also want to mention the play of Robert Williams.  He had an exceptional game last night.  His 45 minutes were a career high.  Ime should have put him on Randle early on.

The Celtics really missed having Al and also Josh Richardson.

This game confirmed for me that the Celtics do in fact have a competitive team.  So while I am disappointed that we could not win the game I am not remotely discouraged by what we have on this team.

bobheckler wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:All congratulations to Brown and Williams for great games.  Wow!  Now if we can just get Tatum on board, and he will, things will start falling into place.  

The stretch where we went 0-10 for about 4 minutes killed us and carried on into the 2nd half.  Plus remember we started the game with no score for about 3 minutes.  That's about 1/6 of a regular game.  Not going to win too many games going dry for that long launching the 3-ball to try to get the lost time back.  Not much of a difference so far between Ime and Brad with the bricklaying and panic ball.  

There were stints of small ball where our tallest dude was GW.  Maybe just Ime mixing it up.  But Randle is a beast.  Then we put GW back on him with a flashback to last year's GW.  

Should we have won this game?  Yes...going away.  Did we make a valiant comeback at the end with MS's OT forcer?  Yes.  Push the panic button?  Certainly not, but my hand moved ever so slightly toward it.  

Again, the media and NY got what they wanted.  Home game against a playoff contender and the Celtics lost on a national stage.  Merry Christmas.  Home against TOR tomorrow.  The game goes on.  BTW, the Lakers lost as well!  

All this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we won't go 82-0 this season, so we can take that off the list.      

db

dbrown,

I agree with everything you said except one thing:  3 minutes is 1/16 of a regulation game, not 1/6th.  It is a tad over 1/20th of a double OT game.


Bob


.

Should know better than to mess up the numbers here. Bob H will get you straight quickly! LOL

dboss wrote:What an exciting first game to  kick off the season.

Hats off to Jaylen Brown for carrying this team throughout the night.  When he was not in the game our offense sputtered.

Grant Williams got the start as I predicted in the pregame thread.  Offensively he more than exceeded expectations.  He scored 15 points on an efficient 6-9 from the field and 3-5 from deep.  He also collected 5 rebounds and dissed out 4 assists.

On defense however, he could not check Randle.  Randle used Grant like a discarded spit rag from a nursing home.    Some things do not require a great level of understanding.  Grant is just not big enough nor athletic enough to defend off the bounce or defend in the post.  

No Hernangomez tonight.  Ime only went 9 deep in a double overtime game.   WTF.  

Ime finally put RW on Randle but the damage was already done.  And even then we were repeatedly velcroed to Randle's screens while Evan Fournier drained big shot after big shot.

Why have Kanter and Fernando on the team if you are not willing to play them a single minute in a double overtime game?  And if a guy is really struggling containing his guy man on man why not throw a few zone variations in there to alter the flow?  Like the Heat do.

Marcus Smart took 11 (3) point shots.  Yes I know he hit a big one but I thought we would not be seeing him do that.  He was a very inefficient 5-14 from the field.  He never got to the line.  As a team we shot 17-23 from the line with both JB and RW putting up matching 6-8 numbers.

Dennis Schroder shot worse than Marcus (5-16)  But he did have 8 assists and only 2 turnovers.  I do not like seeing him and Marcus paired together.  That is not a workable paring because neither is a reliable shooter/scorer.  I think they should have used Langford more.  He shot the ball well but had 3 turnovers.  However I would still have had him in the game because of his ability to make shots especially with our Crown Prince shooting a ghastly 7-30.

I do not want to be accused of being overly negative.  We saw some good basketball by our guys.  But there remains things to clean up like turnovers for one thing.

The most disappointing player in the game was Jayson Tatum.   He did not look good in the preseason and he did not look good last night.  He is really struggling to adjust to a new system.  He is still playing ISO when things break down instead of moving the ball.  He is a fantastic young player and more than capable of figuring things out.  Cancel any notion of making an All NBA team and get back to playing team basketball.

I also want to mention the play of Robert Williams.  He had an exceptional game last night.  His 45 minutes were a career high.  Ime should have put him on Randle early on.

The Celtics really missed having Al and also Josh Richardson.

This game confirmed for me that the Celtics do in fact have a competitive team.  So while I am disappointed that we could not win the game I am not remotely discouraged by what we have on this team.

LOL.. Randle used Grant like a discarded spit rag from a nursing home..

dboss wrote:What an exciting first game to  kick off the season.

Hats off to Jaylen Brown for carrying this team throughout the night.  When he was not in the game our offense sputtered.

Grant Williams got the start as I predicted in the pregame thread.  Offensively he more than exceeded expectations.  He scored 15 points on an efficient 6-9 from the field and 3-5 from deep.  He also collected 5 rebounds and dissed out 4 assists.

On defense however, he could not check Randle.  Randle used Grant like a discarded spit rag from a nursing home.    Some things do not require a great level of understanding.  Grant is just not big enough nor athletic enough to defend off the bounce or defend in the post.  

No Hernangomez tonight.  Ime only went 9 deep in a double overtime game.   WTF.  

Ime finally put RW on Randle but the damage was already done.  And even then we were repeatedly velcroed to Randle's screens while Evan Fournier drained big shot after big shot.

Why have Kanter and Fernando on the team if you are not willing to play them a single minute in a double overtime game?  And if a guy is really struggling containing his guy man on man why not throw a few zone variations in there to alter the flow?  Like the Heat do.

Marcus Smart took 11 (3) point shots.  Yes I know he hit a big one but I thought we would not be seeing him do that.  He was a very inefficient 5-14 from the field.  He never got to the line.  As a team we shot 17-23 from the line with both JB and RW putting up matching 6-8 numbers.

Dennis Schroder shot worse than Marcus (5-16)  But he did have 8 assists and only 2 turnovers.  I do not like seeing him and Marcus paired together.  That is not a workable paring because neither is a reliable shooter/scorer.  I think they should have used Langford more.  He shot the ball well but had 3 turnovers.  However I would still have had him in the game because of his ability to make shots especially with our Crown Prince shooting a ghastly 7-30.

I do not want to be accused of being overly negative.  We saw some good basketball by our guys.  But there remains things to clean up like turnovers for one thing.

The most disappointing player in the game was Jayson Tatum.   He did not look good in the preseason and he did not look good last night.  He is really struggling to adjust to a new system.  He is still playing ISO when things break down instead of moving the ball.  He is a fantastic young player and more than capable of figuring things out.  Cancel any notion of making an All NBA team and get back to playing team basketball.

I also want to mention the play of Robert Williams.  He had an exceptional game last night.  His 45 minutes were a career high.  Ime should have put him on Randle early on.

The Celtics really missed having Al and also Josh Richardson.

This game confirmed for me that the Celtics do in fact have a competitive team.  So while I am disappointed that we could not win the game I am not remotely discouraged by what we have on this team.

good synopsis. I needed oxygen after the game, but settled for a walk. Felt like we were outcoached at times, but it may have just been a failure to communicate on D. Either way, this is not a knock on Ime. Thibs has been a head coach for a while, and our guy was definitely engaged.One thing Fournier can do is shoot. If Bruno and Juancho don't see any minutes in this game, when will they play?

Same old song, small ball fascination again!! Some things never change.

It will take 20 games to see if the players are buying into the new coaches system. Some players who don't may be gone by the trading deadline or in the summer. This guy is a no
nonsense guy!

112288

112288,

As long was we are considerably north of 10-10, that will indicate buying-in. High water covers a lot of stumps. Anything less than that and I'm going to have to hit the panic button!

Past teams have gotten it together in a much shorter time frame but if his team comes back and goes .500 again then look for the big trade involving one of the J's.

db

I agree with 112288.

It will take a good 20 games for this team to find the right chemistry and for the coach to determine who fits best together and what tactics and strategies will work best.

I am pretty much satisfied with our roster in despite of any concerns that I may have about positional depth at 4..  I like the coaching staff and I like the fact that Stevens still has a few cards to play if needed.