POST GAME ATLANTA - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Hawks Snap Boston’s Streak With 108-92 Win
The Celtics fall back to .500


NESN by Alexandra Francisco

The Celtics had a chance to earn their third straight win, but fell 108-92 on Friday night to the Hawks.

With the loss, Boston falls back to .500 at 25-25. Atlanta, meanwhile, improves to 22-25.

The Eastern Conference will be interesting, to say the least.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
Ime Udoka’s 50th game as a head coach was pretty standard for the Celtics. Shots didn’t fall, Boston made it interesting down the stretch but the opponent ultimately benefited from that final run of the game.

Atlanta closed out the first two quarters strong, but Boston’s effort to make it close in the third helped them get within a possession. The Hawks bench hurt them on offense, outscoring the Celtics’ unit 40-11.

Boston shot 34.9% from the field, and 16 turnovers contributed to a quintessential fourth quarter collapse for the Celtics.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Bogdan Bogdanovi? took over from deep at the end of the game, hitting a couple of clutch 3s to give Atlanta a bit of breathing room. Credit where credit is due, these were tough shots against Rob Williams. He finished with 19 points behind Trae Young (21) and John Collins (21).

Smart was efficient with 17 points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal, shooting 2-for-4 from 3-point range, which was the best percentage of any of his teammates. Williams, meanwhile, had an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double with an assist and steal.

WAGER WATCH
By halftime with Boston down 62-47, DraftKings Sportsbook didn’t see it coming back at +450 odds. Surely no one placed that wager, but the Celtics almost made it look like a missed opportunity. Almost.

UP NEXT
Boston has a back-to-back and heads to Louisiana to take on the New Orleans Pelicans next. Tip on Saturday is at 7 p.m. ET.

112288

Old habits die hard.  16 TO's.  Only 15 Assists?  3-point disaster in the teens?!!! Choking in the 4th.  Back to the drawing board.  Don't want to say it's Panicville and time to push the trade button, but this is who we are.

Started digging the comeback starting in the 2nd through the 3rd.  Then halfway through the 4th the wheels came off all 4 tires.  Too many offensive rebound dunks by the Hawks. ATL even looked lucky at times but teams that are successful create their own luck.  

Time to start enjoying our team for what and who they are and what they have. For us, we hold out until the trade deadline for a possible change with no guarantees.  But make no mistake, this ain't working.    

db

P.S.  At least the Lakers lost!!  Always some solace there.

DBrown 4

AH....................for every dark cloud............there is always a silver lining!

112288

15 points in the 4th.  Awful.

People who just see the Sportcenter highlights will think Tatum had a good game because he had 20 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.  What will be overlooked is that he was 5-17 from the field, 2-8 from 3 and had 5 turnovers.  If Kevin Durant doesn't play in the All-Star game Jayson Tatum will be the starter.  He doesn't deserve it.  He has become the dictionary poster child of high-volume, low efficency.  He's shooting 42.5% from the field on the year and 32.9% from 3, but he leads the league in fgas.

Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Jayson Tatum said he may have settled for too many 3s. Took some tough ones against Hawks bigs: "Yeah, you know, those are the ones where you make it and everybody is clapping and shoot, and when you miss it, you’re like, ‘I probably should have penetrated.'"

So in other words, what you're saying Jayson, is that you play for the applause and not for the game?

Jaylen with a much more efficent 26 points on 9-22.  He also had 12 rebounds.  A nice game except for his eyepopping 7 turnovers.

There's 12 turnovers right there from those two.  The whole team had 16.  Ime's trying to run his offense through his two All-Stars.  The problem is that they either aren't ready for it or they just plain can't.  It's a shame it's going to take a whole season to figure this out one way or another.

Fournier and Kemba suck this year, but when they play us they play like All-Stars.  Horford and Schroder go home to Atlanta, the team that drafted both of them, and they are a combined 1-8, 3 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists in 31 combined minutes.  I think Horford has finally started to come back down to earth after what appeared to be a very good start of the season and I am souring on Dennis the Menace.  If you are frustrated with Tatum's inconsistency, Dennis Schroder makes Big Al look like Big Ben.  I'm talking about the clock, not Roethlisberger.

Our bipolar 3pt shooting has got to be mental.  We all know we have some shooters on our roster.  Tatum, Brown, Pritchard, Grant all can shoot at close to 40% from 3 if not higher.  So how can those 4 players shoot a combined 4-21 from 3 last night?  Youth?  They lack mental toughness?  I don't know but don't you think it has to be more than just a coincidence that they all shoot lights out or they're all a bunch of blind mice?  We're all healthy, and we had some days off, so it wasn't fatigue.  Some further fodder for thought:  last night we were 25-27 from the line.  Robert Williams, who is shooting 71.6% from the line this year (but is a career 65.6%) was 5-5 from the line last night.  Al missed one, Jaylen missed one, everybody else was perfect including our brick meister-in-chief Jayson Tatum who was 8-8.  That's mental.  My conclusion:  this is a mentally immature, if not mentally weak, team and mentally weak teams do not go far because the pressure increases by leaps-and-bounds with each playoff series.  Bird, Magic, Jordan, Kobe, Duncan, LeBron.  Multiple championships and multiple Finals MVPs each and not a single exposed nerve in the lot of them.  That's what Championship teams need.  They need a player that is unshakable, cannot be rattled and that will not be denied.  We don't have one of them.  What we have are two All-Stars.

Our bench scored 17 points.  Bogdanovic scored 19.  The Atlanta bench scored 65.  65-17.  That's the problem.  Who are our scorers off the bench?  Schroder?  Only on odd-numbered Tuesdays when there's a waning gibbous moon crying Mary.  Nesmith?  HTF would we know?  He never plays.  Same with Pritchard.  He did great last year because he played.  Richardson is a solid all-round player.  He plays solid defense and will chip in some points, he's shooting 39.7% from 3 this season, but he's not an explosive scorer.  Atlanta has Bogie and Galli-freaking-nari coming off the bench.  It galls me to say this but individual defense is overrated in this league because the rules and the refs are biased towards the offense.  Good offense in this era, especially good team offense, will always beat good individual defense because that's how Adam Silver wants it to be.  Who are the elite defenders on GSW?  Green, that's it.  All the rest of it are solid, but not great defenders, flying around the court like on a string.  We switch on everything and don't send help when they get the matchup they want.  In short, our bench minutes are slanted towards individual defenders and not towards scorers, but the league is slanted towards team defenders and individual scorers.

We shot 34.9% on the game.  The only thing that prevented this from us getting blown WAY out was our 27 ftas.  I don't think we should bank on that happening often on the road.

Steve Bulpett @SteveBHoop
yesterday
One of the reasons Rob Williams' Celtics teammates love playing with him -- and they really, really do -- is that the ball never sticks in his hands... (Just gonna leave that there.)

Double-double by The Time Lord.  As I have said before I'd like to see some high post offense running through Robert Williams.  Set a weak side screen and let RWill make the pass.  Can't be worse than "Point Js".

Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
yesterday
20-21 Celtics through 50 games: 25-25 21-22 Celtics through 50 games: 25-25

And last year we won the play-in but got eliminated in the first round.

Nothing is going to change until Brad changes it.  To quote a famous American "I yam what I yam", and the Celtics are who they are.  Ime can talk until he's blue in the face, they can make all the right responses (and they have) but leopards don't just change their spots because they're among zebras.  We need to lure, or trade for, an elite shooter to come off our bench or we have to give the green light to Nesmith and Pritchard and let them get a ton of game reps in.  Riding the Schroder Train all the way to the terminal isn't going to help either of those other two one single bit.  Brad has to take a big swallow and make a decision.  Is he going to resign Schroder for future years (can he?!) and move the young'uns for a proven, quality veteran or is he fatalistic enough to realize that isn't going to happen and moving him for anything is a step in the right direction since it will give AN and PP minutes to develop?

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360556


Bob


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Each story resembles the other stories because you have the same characters and the same damn plot.  The outcome is so predictable that you could literally forego slicing and dicing your way through all the underlying metrics and just cut to the chase.

Boston went 19.4% from deep in yet another hideous 7-36 barrage of scud missiles.  We already know why this happens and we already know that performance like that usually result in another Loss.

Our top dogs.  Our pillars to build around accounted for 12 of our 16 turnover possessions.  

After a valiant effort to make it game  by closing to within 3 points (80-77) at the end of the 3rd QTR, the Celtics totally collapsed in the 4th.

Marcus Smart and Robert Williams were the best two players on the court for us last night.

There seems to be a pattern in so many games that I think has contributed to the overall inconsistency that we are seeing.

You never know who the hell is going to run the offense.

Marcus Smart has been impressive the last 3 games but the Celtics did not let him run the offense.  We also know that Rob does an excellent job as a facilitator off high post action in setting screen as well as passing to open guys.   We simply did not see a lot of that.  What we got was a heavy dose of Tatum and Brown pretending to be playmakers, resulting in 3/4 of the team's turnover and 4-17 from deep.

Our bench was once again a non-factor and 35 year old AH played like he is 53.

Back to Marcus.  With all the trade talk swirling around Marcus, like that Nor'easter hammering Boston, he's just out there trying to help this team.  If you are going to put the godamn ball in his hands than do it.  

The other day RW was interviewed and was asked if he works on (practices) his alley oops!  He said NO, it just comes natural.  

The issue with the Jays is that playmaking does not come natural.  It is not inherent in who they are as players.  Trying to get both of them to evolve at the same time has been a disaster.  Scorers love to pound the rock.  They both want the ball but that is why we really need a floor general to be the decision maker.  The Celtics offense is quite functional and entertaining when the ball keeps moving.  ISO basketball on the other hand should only be employed in situations where the play breaks down and you need one of your go to guys to get you a bucket.  Unfortunately both the Jays rely on ISO plays way too much and it is killing our offense.

Ime needs to step up and address this issue with the team.   Run the offense mostly through Marcus and Robert Williams and let the Jays play off the ball more.

Speaking of Rob he had another double double last night but had limited touches and production in the 2nd half.  I see that he dropped a 5 for 5 stat at the line and is now shooting 71.6% on the year.  For the month of January he has made 18 of 19 Free Throws for an eye popping 94.7%.  

NOLA is on the scheduled tonight so I hope the Celtics can get back on the good foot.

Nice having bobh back. He always seems to write what I am thinking.

In the recent past Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were great scorers/shooters and we had Rondo running the offense and KG also took his turns from the high post. As noted the J’s are trying, but it doesn’t come natural and putting them in a create for others position also takes away from their attack mode mentality, so we get the worst of both worlds. Ime is stuck because he is no offensive juggernaut and we see him experimenting with different strategies from game to game. The starting line up as noted is so lacking in shooting, if one or both J’s are off, the shooting woes are even more dramatic and we have no chance of winning. With such a flawed team, a point with Smarts efficiency, a big with no offense except lobs and garbage tip ins, and an old man; maybe it’s amazing we are even a .500 team? Hope the youngins can make a big jump this second half of season, we need alot more better pieces around J’s. J’s are playing confused, don’t see the swagger or confidence enough, this is the first year they are regressing.

Looks simple to me. The Celts lay an egg when faced with dominant interior rim protection. Against Philly and now against Capella.

I am hoping that the Celts will be sellers at the trade deadline unless a real star can be acquired.