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Celtics Wrap: Joel Embiid Leads 76ers Over Shorthanded C’s
Embiid finished with a game-high 41 points for Philadelphia


NESN by Sean T. McGuire

The shorthanded Celtics welcomed the 76ers back to TD Garden on Monday while missing eight players including four impactful pieces, and Philadelphia was able to capitalize on it, pulling out a 108-103 win down the stretch.

Both teams entered with identical 15-15 records. Boston fell to 15-16 while Philadelphia improved to 16-15.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The Celtics were able to hold Joel Embiid to 3-for-17 from the field just three weeks ago in Boston’s one-point win. But back at TD Garden with the Celtics missing three of their most impactful front court contributors — Al Horford, Robert Williams and Grant Williams — Embiid had his way with Enes Kanter inside.

Embiid finished with a game-high 41 points on 14-for-27 from the field. Nine of those 41 points came in the final 1:22 of regulation. He added 10 rebounds and five assists in 40 minutes to go along with it. And while it was the Celtics who held the advantage in both points in the paint (46-22) and total rebounds (42-34), it was Embiid who proved too much to handle for the shorthanded Celtics.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Jaylen Brown led the Celtics offensively with 30 points on 9-for-22 from the field. Brown added four assists, five rebounds and two steals.

— Philadelphia’s Seth Curry was crucial for the 76ers early on. He finished with 26 points (18 in first half) on 10-for-14 from the field including a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.

— Payton Pritchard proved the Celtics with a fourth-quarter spark they failed to capitalize on. Pritchard, playing a larger role with eight players sidelined, scored 14 points off the bench on 6-for-9 from the field in 22 minutes. It was more than double Pritchard’s usual minutes.

WAGER WATCH
With so many absences, bettors probably thought it meant more of an opportunity for Brown and Jayson Tatum, and perhaps some placed a wager depicting that. Well, let’s hope you went with Brown as he hit the Over 20.5 on his point prop while Tatum (17 points, nine rebounds, six assists) failed to beat his individual total of 28.5. A $110 bet on Brown, which felt more than gettable before the tip, would have paid out $210, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.


UP NEXT
The Celtics are set to return to TD Garden and host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.

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Sorry.  The excuse closet is full.  Should have won that game.  It was mildly entertaining.  Close all the way from start to finish.  Really should have won that one.  Not much ball sharing/assisting.  FT's on target.  TO's a little higher than normal at 18.  But a game that was delivered as predicted.  We just quit about 3 minutes early again.    

My next high marker/inflection point will be around mid-January.  If we're still swapping wins for losses and have not built a significant gap in the Win/Loss Columns (and by that I mean +6 or 7 games above .500), then it's first round sweeper at best.  We can wrap it up right there.  We're always competitive.  Just not going to get out of the play-in round or even make the real playoffs.  

I really wish the league would drop this play-in experiment.  Teams 7-10 certainly don't want it.  It's more humiliation that anything.  Unless the pay to the players is similar to those no-name college teams that go up against a Top 20 team early on in the schedule just to get millions of dollars of funding for their sports programs to have a real team absolutely beat the ever loving crap out of you for 40 minutes and really drill in to your heads just how far you have to go to get to the top, then just drop it.  I'm pretty sure NBA fans hate it as well once they see the whole picture and what asses you look like sliding right into the season-ending wood chipper.  Approximately 4 weeks...Mid-January.  Mark your calendars.  It's much closer to the trade deadline (Feb 10) and we would have done something by then if we were going to do anything at all.  All the big trades names would be gone by then as well.    

db

The Celtics snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory!

They have become way too good at doing that.

With both RW and AH out I thought, Oh God, we are up the creek.

I doubt I have seen a more pathetic defensive contribution from a 250 lb center. Kanter got destroyed in all manner and function.  He changed his name to Mr. freedom but he sure looked like Kanter to me.  His stat line looks pretty good on paper 15 points and 11 rebounds but the reality of his 40 minutes tells an entirely different story. Embid went over, around and through Freedom as if he was not there.

Boston pretty much decided to leave freedom on an island against Embid and occasionally doubled teamed him but for the most part it was man against boy.  Our defense was simply not working.  

What could they have done differently?  How bout a little more zone?  90% of his shot attempts came from the left side into the middle.  He was able to freely operate in those areas unimpeded.

Even with a huge night for Embid, Boston still had many, many opportunities to close this game out but that is really hard to do when you go 7-27 from deep (25.9%) and you turn the ball over 18 times, several of which happened down the stretch with the game on the line.

So here we are again, a game below .500 and all the excuses in the world are just excuses.

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday season I do want to point out a glimmer that has only manifested themselves because of circumstances.  

#1, Payton Pritchard has B2B games where he is shooting lights out.  It is all about opportunity.  Even Ime knows that and he has said as much.  The depth chart has pretty much eliminated him from getting regular and quality rotation minutes.  Payton may never become a classic playmaking PG.  Payton is in fact a shooter trapped in a PG body.  He shoots the ball way too good to be buried on the bench much longer.

As I have watched him play I really do see some Patti Mills in him.  If Ime uses PP the way Mills was used in SA and now in Brooklyn, he could become a key rotation guy with a specific and specialized role on this team.  His niche is shooting and making perimeter shots.

He has not been playing because of Dennis Schroder.

People may ponder the question, 'where would we be without Dennis'?  There is no profound impact at play here.  Dennis may be a guy you add to a championship contender for a year.  The truth is that we traded Walker, let Waters walk and also traded Edwards.  Our depth at PG was shallow.  Along comes an expected and cheap option at PG so Brad had to jump at the opportunity.  

Now I would venture to say we would be better off by moving Dennis before the deadline and finding regular rotation minutes for Pritchard.  Payton should be a regular rotation guy on this team right now.  

Since we are seeing JT and JB running more offense we can live without Dennis.  He is not a pure playmaking PG.

Ridiculously undermanned (signing a 34 year old player who hasn't played NBA ball in 2 years is stark evidence of that!), I thought the Celtics put up a good fight.  Their late game execution cost them, again.  At this point I don't see many excuses for why the Js can't execute late game.  They have enough veteran experience and they've been playing together for a long time.  This is the most disturbing aspect of the game, to me, because it's not as rare as it should be.

Tatum 5-14.  He was 2-5 at the half.  That means he had a 3-9 2nd half.  He is now shooting 42.2% from the field this year, 32.8% from 3.  He had a much needed, with almost all our bigs out, 9 rebounds.  He had 6 assists but he had 6 turnovers, so not so great there either.  Ime is trying to develop Tatum to be more of a floor general, more of a passer, knowing that he's going to get doubled.  His assists/game is down this year despite playing more mpg.  At the risk of sounding blasphemous I am seriously starting to wonder, and worry, about Jayson Tatum.  He works out with Embiid during the offseason, they are both trained by Drew Hanlon.  Joel earned some serious bragging rights for this summer.

Jaylen was 2-8 after one and 4-12, 10 points, at the half.  He ended up 9-22 and 30 points, so a 5-10 20 point 2nd half.  That's how you make up for a poor start.

Sean Grande
@SeanGrandePBP
Jaylen Brown's 4th quarter 3 was the 600th of NBA career.

He's the 7th Celtic to hit that milestone.





Smart with 3 assists and 3 turnovers, also not good (especially for "the floor general") but otherwise he was all over the place doing Smarty things.

When was the last time Dennis Schroder had a good game?  Asking for a friend.

Enes had about as good a game as one could ask from him.  Without Horford and RWill he was, really, our only big going up against an elite center.  40 minutes, sitting only 2 minutes/quarter.  15 points, 11 rebounds, 6 of them offensive.  On any other night we'd be ecstatic with that and against any other center (except maybe Jokic?) that would have been enough.  I bet Horford would have defended Embiid better, he knows him better if for no other reason, but I doubt it would have been too much different.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Embiid turning into a 300 lbs. KD seems like a tough thing to scheme for


I called a "Payton Pritchard Podium Game" before it started.  He has been his old self the last two games.  He not only needs to play, he needs to know he needs to play.  The loss of two guards in the depth chart ahead of him gave him that confidence.  Stop trying to turn him into a floor general now, Ime, he's still to fresh for that.  Let him be who/what he is, and that's a shooter.  6-9, 2-5 from 3 and 2 steals.  He was even guarding Embiid out at the arc and did a good job of deflecting his entry pass using some clever defensive positioning.  Instead of just jumping and trying to block the pass at the top of the arc, which he has no chance of doing, he ran past Embiid and got a finger or two on the ball while it was still back behind Embiid's head, making the ball sail up into the 5th row crosscourt.  You know you're doing a good job when the opposing coach calls a time out to change their defense to adjust to your game, and Doc had to do that.  Brad has to do something about Schroder, doesn't he?  Then it'll be your time, Fast PP.  Doing your job.  Making it a hard decision for the coach to keep you off the court and for the front office by keeping a player ahead of you on the depth chart.

Ben Rohrbach @brohrbach
yesterday
Weird how when you give a good young player more consistent minutes, he plays better.




I don't know about anybody else but I saw things I liked about Bruno's game.  He set a lot of good picks.  He got Sixers to commit fouls on him, trying to keep him out of the paint.  I thought he played a good 7 minutes and was surprised Ime didn't play him more given our shorthandedness, to be honest.

Doc got one point out of his bench.  One.  Ime got 28.  It feels good to say that.

7-27 (25.9%) vs 10-25 (40%) from 3.  Jaylen 3-9 from 3.  Other than that nobody took a lot of 3pters for us (Pritchard was 2nd with 5), but a lot of ohfers.  Tatum ohfer 3, Schroder ohfer 2, Nesmith ohfer 2 and Romeo ohfer 2.  Nesmith needs to go out there and shoot like a crazy man.  When you're a young'un you need to do what got you there in the first place.  Nesmith came in billed as the best shooter in the draft.  He needs complete short-term memory loss and just shoot, shoot, shoot.  Forget about whether you hit or not, kid, you have another 2-3 years left on your contract.  Just shoot until you get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in your right wrist.  They will drop, but if you only take 2/game you may never get to see those.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Jaylen Brown after another close Celtics loss: “If the question is do I still believe, 100%, regardless if anyone else does or not.”

I love this kid.  I really do.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360281


Bob


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db

The league is a revenue generating venture so a few extra games helps their bottom line.

I do not like the play in tournament. It is not an experiment at this point.

The way I see it, an 82 game schedule is more then enough time and opportunity to be one of 16 of 30 teams to go into post-season play. Heck, the 82 game schedule is a play in tournament. I do not believe that mediocrity deserves a second chance. The regular season is grueling enough as it is, IMO.

The Celtics and 76ers were both down several players.

The '6ers, with virtually no experienced bench available, got it done with a strong finish by Embiid.

Tough one to justify and no excuses available since both teams were in a weakened state.

Celtics flat out blew this one.

The inconsistency of this team, from quarter to quarter as well as game to game, is astonishing.

There was no way Freedom could guard Embid. Embid's eyes opened wide everytime down the floor. I agree with who ever said I would have put Bruno in there a little more One thing Embid does not like is being pushed around. It would have been worth 6 fouls to get him ticked off a bit. Maybe that is a bit of a stretch, but it might have been worth a try.
The other thing that got me about this game was that, Pritchard was put in there towards the end for one reason, he was hitting some of his shots. Tatum was not going to give him that ball no matter what. I kept saying "feed the hot hand" but it just did not happen

Let's face it, their starters killed us, at least Embid, Harris and Curry. If we had more consistency in our shooting, they would have won that game, because the Celtics were playing very good defense on alot of plays.

Another woulda, shoulda, coulda game. Time is getting short boys.

NYCelt wrote:The Celtics and 76ers were both down several players.

The '6ers, with virtually no experienced bench available, got it done with a strong finish by Embiid.

Tough one to justify and no excuses available since both teams were in a weakened state.

Celtics flat out blew this one.

The inconsistency of this team, from quarter to quarter as well as game to game, is astonishing.

NYCelt,

They had no experienced bench, but all their starters.   We were down 2 starters and some of our top bench players in Grant and Josh.  In a playoff intensity game starters are played heavily, and Doc did so last night, and so bench is not as relevant.   Ime's options were more limited since 2 of his veteran bench  players were starting and 2 of his veteran bench players were out too.

WHO was out is at least as important as how many.


Bob


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Embid killed it, just like Tatum did against Bucks. Unfortunately JT was very off, had read he was dealing with an ankle injury, maybe he was better taking the night off. PP gave us a nice spark, much better shooter than Schroder and Smart. Starting to feel if we lose Dennis, won’t be end of the world, as his play is never consistent and like having PP’s shooting on the floor. Schroder always seems to have turnover issues also.

Despite Tatum being off we still had a 7 point lead with 3 minutes left. Last 3 minutes we just cooled off and didn’t hit shots and had bad execution. PP helped us get the late lead, I would have preferred him on the floor at the end. The iso ball at the end just didn’t work as Tatum didn’t have it and Embid had it going on Freedom, would have liked to see Bruno get a chance on Embid defensively as he couldn’t have been worse than Freedom.

This would have been a great game for Freedom to say, "You know what?  My defense sucks, everybody knows.  But not tonight.  I don't care if I foul out in the first 3 minutes, make a fool of myself, whatever.  But I ain't going down without a superhuman performance on the defensive end and make that fool work his a$$ off for every point.  Nothing is off the table except maybe the Kevin McHale."  

Now granted he went 15 & 10 and stayed in for the whole game, but I would have taken less there and have him put up some Marcus Smart intangible defensive numbers in this case.  

In a pre-prediction to my assessment/projection coming in mid-January, unless Brad pulls up the carpet by then or even by the trade deadline February 10th, I don't see things improving.  That's my gut right here, right now.  And if they do improve, we're looking from the backside of the East and there are more teams in front of us that will be improving as well.  We'd have to go above and beyond just to move up.  We will need something superhuman to move up now.  Slippery slope.  Given our record and position, most of the games we play going forward will be against better or at the least equal competition.  This will more than likely keep this particular team in Mediocre-ville.  

Hopping back on the there has to be a big move in the near future train.  But let's see what happens tonight vs. another top-tier team in the East.  

db