POST GAME DENVER - HOME

by **112288** Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:36 pm

Tatum scores 24, Celtics beat Denver for 7th straight win

ESPN BOSTON

BOSTON -- — Jayson Tatum had 24 points, Marcus Smart added 22 points, five steals and two crucial free throws, and the Celtics held on to beat the Denver Nuggets 108-102 on Friday night for Boston's seventh straight victory.

Robert Williams added 15 points and 16 rebounds to help Boston extend its longest winning streak of the season. Derrick White had 15 points, six rebounds and two assists in his debut with Celtics after being acquired from San Antonio in a trade-deadline deal.

Boston spoiled another big night for Nikola Jokic, who had his 71st career triple-double with 23 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists. Aaron Gordon finished with 17 points.

Denver led by as many as 11 in the first quarter and held a nine-point edge at the half. But the Celtics outscored the Nuggets 57-42 over the final 24 minutes.

The Celtics closed the gap in the third, capping a 15-2 run with a layup by Smart to put them in front 69-65. But the Nuggets closed the period on a 14-7 run and took a 79-76 lead into the fourth.

Boston ended a wild sequence that started on the defensive end by a Williams block with an alley-oop to him on the other end to put the Celtics in front 91-90 with just over seven minutes to play.

A technical foul during an ensuing timeout on JaMychal Green pushed the lead to 92-90 following a free throw by Tatum. Denver tied it at 95 on a 3 by Jokic and nudged in front on a free throw by Will Barton.

But Boston got the lead back on another dunk by Williams and a free throw by Brown that made it 98-86. Jokic got to the foul line but converted on only one of his attempts, and White then got free underneath and dropped in a layup.

Barton missed a 3 with just over a minute left. Smart was fouled on the other end and hit two free throws to push the lead to 102-97 with 55.1 seconds left.

White made his presence felt almost instantly with his new team. He checked in at the 4:35 mark of the first quarter and less than a minute later scooped up a deflection by Smart, led a fastbreak and lobbed a pass to Brown for an easy layup.

When he wasn't scoring, he always seemed to find his way to the ball, whether it was tipping in a miss or just keeping the ball alive in the half court.

TIP-INS

Nuggets: Jokic has had eight triple-doubles in his last 14 games and is just seven tripl- doubles behind Wilt Chamberlain (78) for fifth on the NBA all-time list. … Held a 60-51 halftime lead. … Led by as many as 11 in the first quarter, getting eight points from Gordon and seven by Jokic.

Celtics: Smart had three steals in the first quarter on his way to four in the first half. … Boston had 54 points in the paint.

UP NEXT

Nuggets: At Toronto on Saturday.

Celtics: Host Atlanta in Super Bowl Sunday matinee.

112288

by **112288** Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:47 pm

This was the first real test for the Celtic playing a good tough team under Ime's new style of play. The intensity was playoff style basketball.

The Celtics passed with flying colors, it was the first time in a long time I was really into the game. If we played Denver a month ago, we would have lost this by implosion, but not this time!

I think the players bought into Ime's system and now they are seeing that it actually works! If we had more shooters who can bury them in crunch time they can go far in the playoffs.

What about Smart, talk about a guy who should be labeled untouchable! The more Smart excels on defense, his offensive game picks up, interesting motivation for him.

White looks like a great bench guy to bring in. One game does not indicate anything, put he did show some positive flashes of hustle, scoring and quickness on his feet. So far so good!

112288

by **bobc33** Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 pm

Mr. White was telling Dad jokes during his post game. I think he’ll fit just fine.

by **cowens/oldschool** Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:16 pm

112288 wrote:This was the first real test for the Celtic playing a good tough team under Ime's new style of play. The intensity was playoff style basketball.

The Celtics passed with flying colors, it was the first time in a long time I was really into the game. If we played Denver a month ago, we would have lost this by implosion, but not this time!

I think the players bought into Ime's system and now they are seeing that it actually works! If we had more shooters who can bury them in crunch time they can go far in the playoffs.

What about Smart, talk about a guy who should be labeled untouchable! The more Smart excels on defense, his offensive game picks up, interesting motivation for him.

White looks like a great bench guy to bring in. One game does not indicate anything, put he did show some positive flashes of hustle, scoring and quickness on his feet. So far so good!

112288

No question, a month ago we blow this game, 2 J’s 1-14 from 3. We won on grit and defense, so props to Ime getting team to buy in and play/defend hard. RWill was the star of this game, shut down Jokic at crunch time, big heady timely defensive plays. White looked good, really polished, plays fast, much faster than Smart. Hope we can get Theis on the floor next game, he’ll add even more to our D.

by **jrleftfoot** Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:59 pm

The negativity surrounding White on this board was deafening. Seeing guys play before forming opinions is a good approach.

by **jrleftfoot** Sat Feb 12, 2022 12:18 am

NJ missed a quadruple double by one turnover. Robert Williams 58% lowered his FG percentage. Basketball

by **bygone** Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:05 am

Last night's win was the season's most satisfying for me.
I saw those heavy bags under Brad's eyes in his interview with Forsberg. He's worked hard and long to get this trade done. He explained a lot in that informative interview overall. I especially liked his expressed hope that he never has to send away 7 players in one night again, regarding talking to etc. those players who he cared for. It's a hard job, and to get White he acknowledged he gave up a lot. The 2028 swap pick made me smile. I doubt that was Brad's idea. But it's a balancing act and I'm hopefully optimistic it will work out. Thanks Brad, I like your style.

by **BingBang!** Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:38 am

Pop shook Brad down somewhat but ok the Celtics end up with a key piece for the future and got the better player in the trade. Ime described White as a combination of Schroeder and Richardson on skills —- my thought, almost always prefer one complete player over two with some high skills but also limited elsewhere. I liked Richardson a lot but with White’s handle and passing he is a more valuable player. Schroeder wasn’t missed.

by **NYCelt** Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:51 am

Since the reported trade to Atlanta fell through, Smart has been lights out. Maybe they’ll rethink dealing him.

Jokic can’t catch a break. He keeps coming through with big games, and Denver keeps losing them. Their bench sure wasn’t up to playing a good number of minutes in the second half, either. We played them at the right time. Nice to post yet another win.

Short rotations and getting big minutes out of our young rotation players, while they’re still young enough to do it, has been not only necessary, but wise.

by **cowens/oldschool** Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:55 am

NYCelt wrote:Since the reported trade to Atlanta fell through, Smart has been lights out. Maybe they’ll rethink dealing him.

Jokic can’t catch a break. He keeps coming through with big games, and Denver keeps losing them. We played them at the right time. Nice to post yet another win.

Short rotations and getting big minutes out of our young rotation players, while they’re still young enough to do it, has been not only necessary, but wise.

Our pack of wolves forced a lot of TO’s on Jokic

by **NYCelt** Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:04 am

cowens/oldschool wrote:
NYCelt wrote:Since the reported trade to Atlanta fell through, Smart has been lights out. Maybe they’ll rethink dealing him.

Jokic can’t catch a break. He keeps coming through with big games, and Denver keeps losing them. We played them at the right time. Nice to post yet another win.

Short rotations and getting big minutes out of our young rotation players, while they’re still young enough to do it, has been not only necessary, but wise.

Our pack of wolves forced a lot of TO’s on Jokic

Yeah, Jokic is always among the league leaders in turnovers. He’s up there again this season. If he were a running back they would have to sit him.

When you get the ball a lot, that can happen. Tatum and Brown are right behind him among turnover leaders. Embiid, who touches the ball almost every possession, is again in the TO lead. That’s naturally where the defensive focus goes, and those guys pay the price.

by **cowens/oldschool** Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:25 am

Well speaking of turnovers, been astounded how Jaylen gets stripped so often on his drives, but technically don’t know if that’s a turnover. Last night they said he had 2 TO’s, but they stripped him numerous times….

by **sinus007** Sat Feb 12, 2022 11:31 am

Hi,
Yes, it was a good win. And the main reason for it was good defense. Even from stat's point if you win shooting <40% FG, 27% 3pt and 73% FT, your defense is working.
On the negative side - I'm worried about JT's 3pt shooting. Is it mental, is it mechanical? I hope it's temporary.

AK

by **bobheckler** Sat Feb 12, 2022 12:39 pm

My link sucked last night so I didn't get to see as much of the game as I would have liked.

We won shooting under 40%. How often will that happen? We were lucky that Jokic had 9 turnovers. 22 of our 108 points came off of their turnovers. We also had 13 steals vs 7 for them. I think it's the scorer's decision whether to award a change of possession as a steal by the defense or a turnover by the offense. Those 22 points were off turnovers, meaning they were live turnovers. Steals are, I think always, live. I wish I know how many points we made off of steals. Bottom line, our defense won this game. In a league that is heavily biased towards offense our defense won this game.

Denver is without Jamal Murry and Porter. A grain of salt needs to be taken here. A good win, every win is a good win by definition, but with some caution. The margin of victory should have been bigger but this was not one of Jaylen's better shooting games, 4-17. His handle did seem a little looser last night. If he has a normal Jaylen Brown game we win by 15+ going away. If Murray and Porter played too?

Our ball movement was very good last night, very good indeed. There was one possession, at 1:48 of RWill's highlight film, where it just can't get better than that. That was pure Pop. That's what Ime's been trying to get them to do all year, with limited success. They're buying into the defense, was this play evidence they've finally bought into the offense too? 24 assists on 38fgm is a 63% assist-to-fgm percentage and that's really good.

I'm not going to judge a player after one game (if you only saw one game of Jeff Green's you might be lead to believe he's the greatest player in basketball history, but by the end of week 3 your whiplash would make you reconsider that) but Derrick White certainly made a positive impression in his first game in green. One difference between him and Schroder that I think I can say after this one game is that he seems to be more full court than Schroder. White will run it right down your throat. I liked Josh, I liked his effort and energy and defense, but so far so very good with Derrick White. He has a very quick release on his shot, something the previous #9 didn't have. I wonder why he took Romeo's old #9? He was #4 in San Antonio and that number's available in Boston.

What a great game by The Time Lord. Jokic got the stats but RWill played great, especially in the 4th quarter. 4 points on 2-2, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, zero turnovers and 3 blocks. That's a good 4th quarter for the 4th or 5th option. His block and behind-the-back save at 2:45 of this highlight film is a Sportcenter moment.

Horford with only 9 points on 3-8, 1-4 from 3, but 11 rebounds, 4 of them my beloved offensive rebounds, 3 assists and no turnovers. He had 3 blocks and defended Jokic most of the game. Other than his scoring that's a good game, especially considering his defensive assignment.

We are in 7th place, 2 games in the loss column behind Toronto but with 3 games in hand (Toronto is 31-23, 54 games total, while we are 32-25, 57 games, and we have one of the easiest schedules left). We are 1 game in the loss column ahead of Brooklyn. We'll see what happens with the Harden-Simmons swap. If NY doesn't lift their vaccine mandate then they will have just replaced a shooter (Harden) with a non-shooter (Simmons) and Kyrie still won't be playing.

Cleveland @ Philly tonight. A loss by 5th place Philly and they'd only be 1 1/2 games ahead of us. The Nuggets are playing their SEGABABA in Toronto tonight. If they go 1-1 then they can help us tremendously since Toronto has more away games left than home games.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360661

Bob

.

by **112288** Sat Feb 12, 2022 1:02 pm

cowens/oldschool wrote:Well speaking of turnovers, been astounded how Jaylen gets stripped so often on his drives, but technically don’t know if that’s a turnover. Last night they said he had 2 TO’s, but they stripped him numerous times….

Cowen,

I have been saying that for the past 2 years in my posts. I will also add, Tatum cannot hit the ocean with his 3 point shooting. This could be a real problem next year if Tatum does not work on his 3 point shooting. What you may wind up with is having a less then bona fide superstar, which lowers his overall value to the Celtics, if he cannot turn his shooting around.

112288

by **dbrown4** Sat Feb 12, 2022 3:44 pm

Elephant in the room? Finding ways to win despite of/in spite of. We're never going to see a perfect game as something is always going to stick out on the negative end. So you have to find ways to win in spite of what's happening to you negatively on the court.

This was a gutsy win. Fun to watch. That's big as well. Celtic .500 ball is absolute torture for Celtic fans. Either go 82-0 or 0-82, but never go 41-41 and certainly not for more than one season. That's purgatory in Boston. Lukewarm. Not Hot or Cold. I would have been po'ed had we lost, but I enjoyed watching that game.

If one game doth a sample space make, I was pretty impressed with Derrick White. I think the word I'm searching for is seamless. 15 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists not a bad first showing coming out of nowhere. Spotlight needs to blare in on PP, AN and GW. How far we go in the playoffs is going to be ALL on them. They've got about an old school college season (25 games) to figure it out. Even though our bench last 32-26, that's a tie IMHBAO.

Next up the ladder? ATL. I think there may even be a little revenge coming out in this game tomorrow. We know what payback is. Then after that a bigger game is lurking. But first things first. Time for an ol' ATL AW.

db

by **dboss** Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:10 pm

Sinus and bobh said it best.

Our defense was the difference maker in this game.

The turnaround we have witnessed began on defense, now the offense is trying to catch up.

New comer Derrick White was solid at both end. The pace that he plays with stood out.

Robert Williams was great. Down the stretch when he was matched up with Jokic he shut him down in the post. Very impressive.

Marcus turned the ball over 5 times and was not happy with himself but he played an overall great game.

This was actually a game that we should win. Denver is missing 2 very key players. However with all the recent trades Boston did not let that activity distract them from the task at hand.

We have won 9 out of 10. With 25 games remaining, Boston is well within striking distance to secure a higher playoff seed.

by **jrleftfoot** Sat Feb 12, 2022 4:51 pm

dboss wrote:Sinus and bobh said it best.

Our defense was the difference maker in this game.

The turnaround we have witnessed began on defense, now the offense is trying to catch up.

New comer Derrick White was solid at both end. The pace that he plays with stood out.

Robert Williams was great. Down the stretch when he was matched up with Jokic he shut him down in the post. Very impressive.

Marcus turned the ball over 5 times and was not happy with himself but he played an overall great game.

This was actually a game that we should win. Denver is missing 2 very key players. However with all the recent trades Boston did not let that activity distract them from the task at hand.

We have won 9 out of 10. With 25 games remaining, Boston is well within striking distance to secure a higher playoff seed.
+1

by **cowens/oldschool** Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:38 pm

112288 wrote:
cowens/oldschool wrote:Well speaking of turnovers, been astounded how Jaylen gets stripped so often on his drives, but technically don’t know if that’s a turnover. Last night they said he had 2 TO’s, but they stripped him numerous times….

Cowen,

I have been saying that for the past 2 years in my posts. I will also add, Tatum cannot hit the ocean with his 3 point shooting. This could be a real problem next year if Tatum does not work on his 3 point shooting. What you may wind up with is having a less then bona fide superstar, which lowers his overall value to the Celtics, if he cannot turn his shooting around.

112288

Yeah he’s due for a big 35 point game, but way too many stinkers this year, where he takes so many bad shots and is ice cold. When Pierce or Bird had a bad game, you knew the next one they would be back to their punishing self; well that’s not true with Tatum this year, he can have 4 cold/bad games in a row it seems.

by **dbrown4** Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:34 am

OK, dboss. Boston is real close to delivering us our FIRST 10-game win streak. (Clearly, we want more!). After the games from last night finished up, another glass ceiling popped back into my mind from last season.

I don't know if we ever named them but there were infinite times (and yes, infinite is accurate) last season where we would catch a break (or multiple breaks from several teams on the same night) from teams around us laying gold at our feet that, if we would win the game in front of us, would give us unfettered clearance to move up in the standings. If we lost the ensuing game, it was treading water but in our case resulted in us losing ground somehow. 10 times out of 10, we would return the gift unopened.

Without fail last season, we would manage to squander just about EVERY opportunity handed to us by teams around us to succeed and improve our position.

Now, for those that watched DEN vs. TOR, which was a great game, we were rewarded by TOR barely losing to DEN in the last seconds. This moves TOR 1 more game in the loss column closer to us and now we are only separated from TOR by 1 loss in the East. (There was also PHI vs. CLE going on and if CLE had lived up to their end of the bargain would have moved PHI a game closer to us as well but we'll take one team at a time. PHI ate CLE's lunch, which should be expected as CLE is only good on paper and this will be highlighted for all to see when they lose in the first round probably via El Broome. But I digress.)

What I'm getting at is this is another glass ceiling for Boston. We never broke through the gifts glass ceiling.
And what I'm implying for Boston to rid us all of every memory of last season is that this afternoon vs. ATL and Tuesday vs. PHI are must wins. They can be nothing less. Statement games, inflection points, turning points, playoff atmosphere, whatever you want to call them. If we come up with anything less than 2 hard fought victories, we're back in the same boat. We will not have learned our lesson about how to accept gifts graciously from others and utilizing them to our fullest advantage. We did learn last season you can't move up in the standings treading water.

Last night, TOR laid yet another gift at our feet. A chance to put ourselves in a position to move up. I think this may be the first one of the season. We've been screwing around so much this season I may have missed one but I'm pretty sure I'm correct. We actually have 3 games left up to the ASG.

dboss, we win these three and we have our first 10-game win streak. I'm afraid I can accept nothing less than 3-0 from here to Friday at this point.

db

P.S. Almost forgot. The Lakers lost yet another game that was A LOT closer than I was ever expecting. (So did BKN but them losing has become so boring and expected!! 0-11 and counting!!) Surprisingly Steph couldn't throw it in the ocean from 3-ville...1-8. Hmmmm. Sounds like one of our guys. But the result was the same, GSW won. They found a way to win. We are finding ways to win regardless. Great game as well. Excellent ball movement. Boston's future looks very bright. We're not to GSW's Globetrotter ball movement level but we're getting there in a hurry. Their passing and passing angles were exquisite. But Boston will also throw in cringe defense for free. 117-115 means No D IMHBAO. Good luck winning a championship with no defense. Again, that has never worked. Many have tried but surprisingly none ever get passed the conference finals.

by **Ktron** Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:36 pm

bobc33 wrote:Mr. White was telling Dad jokes during his post game. I think he’ll fit just fine.

At first I thought they were saying Dad jokes to but I think they meant bad jokes.

by **Ktron** Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:40 pm

I don't think anyone on this board was really negative about White post trade. I got the impression that most of us think we gave up too much for him. I don't consider that a knock on White’s ability.

by **cowens/oldschool** Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:53 pm

Ktron wrote:I don't think anyone on this board was really negative about White post trade. I got the impression that most of us think we gave up too much for him. I don't consider that a knock on White’s ability.

I was negative and wrong, didn’t follow White at all, for all I knew he was as good as Gary Harris, and I loved the way JRich played for us both ends. It’s debatable that White is a better defender than JRich, he does appear to have better point skills than JRich and being Schroder was just a rental and terrible passer, this trade can definitely help us.

by **jrleftfoot** Mon Feb 14, 2022 1:16 am

White repeated jokes his father,i.e. told

by **jrleftfoot** Mon Feb 14, 2022 2:15 am

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest-----Paul Simon

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