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Pistons end 8-game skid, Celtics' 9-game winning streak

ESPN BOSTON

BOSTON -- — Jerami Grant hit the winning basket and scored 24 points to help the Detroit Pistons end an eight-game losing streak and the Boston Celtics' nine-game winning streak, 112-111 on Wednesday night.

Jayson Tatum had a chance to send the Celtics into the All-Star break on a 10-game roll, but his jumper from the top of the key bounced high off the rim. Tatum scored nine of his 22 points in the fourth quarter.

Cade Cunningham scored 20 points and had a key lock in the final minute in the Pistons' first victory since Jan. 30.

Grant completed the scoring with a jumper from 10 feet with 19.1 seconds left. Cunningham blocked a shot by Jaylen Brown with 8.9 seconds left and the Pistons survived after Boston's Derick White broke-up the inbounds play, giving the Celtics one more shot to extend their streak.

Saddiq Bey added 20 points and 11 rebounds, and Kelly Olynyk had 15 points for the Pistons.

Brown led Boston with 31 points. Al Horford finished with 19 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Grant Williams scored 17 points.

Boston was was coming off a 135-87 blowout victory the night before at Philadelphia.

TIP-INS

Pistons: G Frank Jackson missed his second straight game with a back injury. … The Pistons made 13 of 24 shots in the third quarter, including 6 of 10 from three-point range that helped them to a 84-83 lead after three periods. … Hamidou Diallo opened the second quarter with a powerful, two-handed dunk that tied it at 25.

Celtics: G Marcus Smart, who sprained his right ankle in the second quarter Tuesday night at Philadelphia, did not play and C Robert Williams (right calf tightness) was out for the second consecutive night. … Brown scored 13 points in the first quarter and 14 in the third. … C Daniel Theis, who returned to Boston last week in a trade with Houston, received a warm round of applause when he entered the game with 4:18 left in the first quarter.

UP NEXT

Pistons: Host Cleveland on Thursday, Feb. 24.

Celtics: At Brooklyn on Thursday, Feb. 24.

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Tough game, we collapsed with an 8 point lead in 4th, then reverted to some bad habits. Some weaknesses exposed without Smart and Timelord, got killed on the boards as Al and GWill are not board eaters. They both shot really well, but all those second chance points constantly kept them in the game, 18-2 edge for them on the offensive boards. Tatum had 7 turnovers overdribbling, getting trapped, dribbling a few times off his foot and some terrible passes. We missed those easy baskets, the lobs to Rob and ofcourse his defense, but that’s hard knocks. We sure didn’t need him the night before and no one cares it was 2nd game of a b2b. Jaylen played hard and carried us, wanted someone to drive on his last possession, maybe it should have been a mid range shot.

Bottomline after we lost the late lead, we had our chances, Grant, who had a string of inefficient games recently, hit the big shot over Tatum and Tatum missed a good look for him. Came down to one possession each. It happens, 9 out of 10 was a great stretch; we’re in the thick of the race, let’s stay healthy and were still in a good place. It could be worse, glad we’re not the Lakers.

That game revealed for all to see what the two issues are for us. Health. And depth. That's it. Even against a crappy team, we're not very good without RWIII and MS. If we're healthy, we're going to the top. Small, puzzling bump in the road. But a bump nonetheless.

Was hoping to come on here this am and deliver to dboss his long-awaited for gift on a platter but we came up one game short. Sorry, dude! 9-1 is the best I've got! Lather.Rinse.Repeat!!

It doesn't help now that the scrubs in BKN overcame a huge Knicks lead in NY to win. And we're up next right after the break. Those guys probably won't be losing many from here on out even with Basket Case. So they will be on our tails. It's going to be real hard for anyone to believe anything that comes out of BS's mouth (isn't that ironic?!) as the talking heads ripped him a new one from his initial BKN press conference with the whole "mental" issues. He certainly didn't do that community any favors, either. Steven A. is right though. Somebody's lying. Don't know who but somebody's lying. I'm going to go with the young one.
Just a hunch. But I digress.

Well, nice week off coming for us at just the right time. Marcus definitely needs it. He'll be ahh-ight. We'll be ahh-ight, too. Just knock off the injuries! I thought we had passed all that!! The Death Star still needs some repairs for the final push!!

db

dbrown4 wrote:That game revealed for all to see what the two issues are for us.  Health.  And depth.  That's it.  Even against a crappy team, we're not very good without RWIII and MS.
db        

Agree.

RWIII and Smart really are the keys to that great defense. RWIII is also the inside scoring threat that makes raining down all those 3s possible.

John Karalis @John_Karalis
yesterday
Interesting stat: The Pistons now have more wins against teams .500 or better (7) than against below .500 teams (6)


Our 15 turnovers weren't the reason why we lost, although Tatum's 7 didn't help.  They had 14 turnovers so the difference is inconsequential.

They won, in my opinion because of 3 reasons:

1.  They shot 53% from 3.  They are next to last, 29 out of 30, in 3pt fg% at 32%.  If you're a coach and you're trying to plan out a game, and you're trying to figure out how to set up your defense to give them the shots you want them to take, 3s are it for this team.  They just hit them last night.  It's really hard to beat any team that shoots >50% from 3 for the game.

2.  They out offensively-rebounded us 18-2.  They took 93 fgas and we took 77.  Those 16 extra fgas track closely to the 16 extra offensive rebounds they got.  Offensive rebounding, all rebounding really but especially offensive, boils down to ganas.  Who wants it more?  And you should never, never, ever lose on ganas.  Inferior talent can be offset with 'fire in the belly', as we saw last night.

3.  We reverted to the bad old habits of iso.  We have been playing such beautiful, pure-Pop basketball during the win streak and we reverted last night.


Jaylen with a great night, right from the beginning.  



Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
Jaylen Brown rolled his ankle, but predicts he'll be "fine" when he returns from the break,


Al had an aggressive offensive game, his best in a long while.  Nothing to fault Al for.




Grant with, what might be, a career-high 17 points.  His 4-7 from 3 inches him up closer to PJ Tucker for 1st place.  2 blocks for Grant which are, for me, gravy.  He's a position defender, he defends by moving his feet and getting to the right spot ahead of the opposing player, but doesn't have the size and length and athleticism to be a good shot blocker.  Anytime you get blocks from a position defender is bonus.  We're seeing Grant drive more too.  He's been scouted, they're not falling off him as much as they used to (which in and of itself is value to the team because it opens the floor regardless if he takes a shot or not.  His defender doesn't leave him as much anymore).  He was 6-11 last night, 4-7 from 3, making him 2-4 from 2.  Grant is averaging 1.7 2pt fgas/game.  He had 4 last night.  I predict an upward trend in 2pt fga as more and more teams change their scouting reports to highlight the foolhardiness of leaving Grant Williams open in the corners.




We shot 40% from 3 and 54.5% for the game.  Our shooting wasn't the problem.  They shot 36.6% on the game, albeit over 50% from 3.  So, really, even their shooting wasn't the biggest problem.  We lost because of offensive rebounding, which makes me even less happy than I am when we lose normally.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360694


Bob

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bobheckler wrote:John Karalis @John_Karalis
yesterday
Interesting stat: The Pistons now have more wins against teams .500 or better (7) than against below .500 teams (6)


Our 15 turnovers weren't the reason why we lost, although Tatum's 7 didn't help.  They had 14 turnovers so the difference is inconsequential.

They won, in my opinion because of 3 reasons:

1.  They shot 53% from 3.  They are next to last, 29 out of 30, in 3pt fg% at 32%.  If you're a coach and you're trying to plan out a game, and you're trying to figure out how to set up your defense to give them the shots you want them to take, 3s are it for this team.  They just hit them last night.  It's really hard to beat any team that shoots >50% from 3 for the game.

2.  They out offensively-rebounded us 18-2.  They took 93 fgas and we took 77.  Those 16 extra fgas track closely to the 16 extra offensive rebounds they got.  Offensive rebounding, all rebounding really but especially offensive, boils down to ganas.  Who wants it more?  And you should never, never, ever lose on ganas.  Inferior talent can be offset with 'fire in the belly', as we saw last night.

3.  We reverted to the bad old habits of iso.  We have been playing such beautiful, pure-Pop basketball during the win streak and we reverted last night.


Jaylen with a great night, right from the beginning.  



Mark Murphy @Murf56
yesterday
Jaylen Brown rolled his ankle, but predicts he'll be "fine" when he returns from the break,


Al had an aggressive offensive game, his best in a long while.  Nothing to fault Al for.




Grant with, what might be, a career-high 17 points.  His 4-7 from 3 inches him up closer to PJ Tucker for 1st place.  2 blocks for Grant which are, for me, gravy.  He's a position defender, he defends by moving his feet and getting to the right spot ahead of the opposing player, but doesn't have the size and length and athleticism to be a good shot blocker.  Anytime you get blocks from a position defender is bonus.  We're seeing Grant drive more too.  He's been scouted, they're not falling off him as much as they used to (which in and of itself is value to the team because it opens the floor regardless if he takes a shot or not.  His defender doesn't leave him as much anymore).  He was 6-11 last night, 4-7 from 3, making him 2-4 from 2.  Grant is averaging 1.7 2pt fgas/game.  He had 4 last night.  I predict an upward trend in 2pt fga as more and more teams change their scouting reports to highlight the foolhardiness of leaving Grant Williams open in the corners.




We shot 40% from 3 and 54.5% for the game.  Our shooting wasn't the problem.  They shot 36.6% on the game, albeit over 50% from 3.  So, really, even their shooting wasn't the biggest problem.  We lost because of offensive rebounding, which makes me even less happy than I am when we lose normally.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360694


Bob

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Exactly and we couldn’t overcome Timelord and Smart’s absence, if Timelord can be healthy we can compete with anyone and he has been tearing up the glass lately. Smart has been playing so smart, not having the newer version limited our previous effective ball movement. Still if only Tatum would have hit that last makeable shot….

I figured this might be a tough game. Detroit played well above their usual and we were meh, short two of our core and on a B2B. So I could live with this. But I was really disappointed to see us revert to Tatum hero ball at the end of the game. Is it part of the plan for him to slow walk the ball to eat clock and then everyone stops moving while he tries another ISO? Is White too new to take the ball away from the super stud? Does it take Smart to do that? Does Ime approve?

Did anyone notice DW was on his way to a poor man's triple double in this game? So was Al.  

db

Another strong performance by our guy Isaiah Stewart.

Not even 21 yet and the big guy is making great progress as Detroit's starting center.

Still wishing we took him at 14 in 2020, our team would be even more promising right now. Wishing, however, don't make it so and he went at 16. We just root for Detroit when they're not playing Boston. A dilemma when they play Washington and our other guy Thomas Bryant, though. Fun to have had a front row to see the two grow up and play. They should both be productive centers in the league for some time.

NYCelt wrote:Another strong performance by our guy Isaiah Stewart.

Not even 21 yet and the big guy is making great progress as Detroit's starting center.

Still wishing we took him at 14 in 2020, our team would be even more promising right now. Wishing, however, don't make it so and he went at 16. We just root for Detroit when they're not playing Boston. A dilemma when they play Washington and our other guy Thomas Bryant, though. Fun to have had a front row to see the two grow up and play. They should both be productive centers in the league for some time.

I wanted him too, love good dirty work players….

dbrown4 wrote:That game revealed for all to see what the two issues are for us.  Health.  And depth.  That's it.  Even against a crappy team, we're not very good without RWIII and MS.  If we're healthy, we're going to the top.  Small, puzzling bump in the road.  But a bump nonetheless.  

Was hoping to come on here this am and deliver to dboss his long-awaited for gift on a platter but we came up one game short.  Sorry, dude!  9-1 is the best I've got!  Lather.Rinse.Repeat!!    

It doesn't help now that the scrubs in BKN overcame a huge Knicks lead in NY to win.  And we're up next right after the break.  Those guys probably won't be losing many from here on out even with Basket Case.  So they will be on our tails.  It's going to be real hard for anyone to believe anything that comes out of BS's mouth (isn't that ironic?!) as the talking heads ripped him a new one from his initial BKN press conference with the whole "mental" issues.  He certainly didn't do that community any favors, either.  Steven A. is right though.  Somebody's lying.  Don't know who but somebody's lying.  I'm going to go with the young one.
Just a hunch.  But I digress.

Well, nice week off coming for us at just the right time.  Marcus definitely needs it.  He'll be ahh-ight.  We'll be ahh-ight, too.  Just knock off the injuries!  I thought we had passed all that!!  The Death Star still needs some  repairs for the final push!!

db        

No one outside has the right to question someone else’s mental health issues especially Stephen A.
No one outside can know the depths of another’s mental health. Whether they are lying or not is irrelevant because we don’t know.

If we had had a full compliment of players and loss, this game would fall into the trap game category.

With our two best defenders nursing injuries, the overall ability to defend was suspect. Smart is an aggressive perimeter defender and Rob is a legit rim protector and rebounder.  We had no verticality in this game.

As has already been pointed out, we got clobbered on the offensive glass.  What that also means is that we did not do a good job on the defensive glass.  That was the first stat that caught my eye immediately following the game.  18-2 was the big difference in this game.  Second chance points, another bite of the apple, a morale destroying circumstance that kills your defense.

Rob is averaging 3.9 offensive boards per game.  On a night when the team is not shooting all that well, not getting those extra chances hurt.

Scalabrine told a lie last night while mentioning Daniel Theis and how he can play with Al or Rob.

There is simply no history of those pairings even though those 3 have played on the same team before this year.

Was there a point in the game where our inability to rebound the ball made you cringe? Big Al scored big for us but we really needed more rebounding. He had 7 boards. Grant shot lights out but only collected 3 rebounds.  Al logged 34 minutes last night and DT only played 16 minutes.  I was thinking this would be a good time to put Theis in the game with Al to help on the glass.  

The Celtics tightened up down the stretch and reverted back to attempting bad shots. The ISO thing has not been completely purged from our team.

One last observation. Derrick White filled up the stat sheet (9 points, 6 assists, 6 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks)  The sample size is small since this is game 4 for him in green but his 3 point shooting has been awful.  He has gone 6-26 in 4 games or 23%.  His games with SA  this year produced 31.4% from deep.  He looks like a really good fit  but his shooting remains suspect.

Moving forward my concerns remain the same.  Brad made a lot of moves but did not address our #1 need, adding a knock down shooter.  If his percentage does not improve I hope he will not be taking 6.5 3PA per game.

Last night's loss had little to do with his shooting.  We struggled defending the 3 ball and we did a very poor job on the glass.

Overall I am just a bit disappointed that we missed our 10 game streak.

The guys can heal up and get ready to play from the 3rd QTR pole right to the finish line.

I have to agree with Ktron.

When the story first broke that Simmons no longer wanted be play for the Sixers, he was obliterated in the media.

I said before that Simmons inability or reluctance to shoot the ball even at the foul line reflects some form of mental illness.  He has a fear of failure.  That cannot be fixed with 1,000 reps per day.

We know of several players that have gone through mental depression and some have come out publically and talked about it.  I do not think you would lie about something like that.

More studies are being done on the link between athletes suffering from depression.

NYCelt wrote:Another strong performance by our guy Isaiah Stewart.

Not even 21 yet and the big guy is making great progress as Detroit's starting center.

Still wishing we took him at 14 in 2020, our team would be even more promising right now. Wishing, however, don't make it so and he went at 16. We just root for Detroit when they're not playing Boston. A dilemma when they play Washington and our other guy Thomas Bryant, though. Fun to have had a front row to see the two grow up and play. They should both be productive centers in the league for some time.

NYCelt

Every time I see Stewart play I think about you. I know he was at the top of your draft list.

dboss wrote:I have to agree with Ktron.

When the story first broke that Simmons no longer wanted be play for the Sixers, he was obliterated in the media.

I said before that Simmons inability or reluctance to shoot the ball even at the foul line reflects some form of mental illness.  He has a fear of failure.  That cannot be fixed with 1,000 reps per day.

We know of several players that have gone through mental depression and some have come out publically and talked about it.  I do not think you would lie about something like that.

More studies are being done on the link between athletes suffering from depression.

It’s obviously a bad situation, what is even worse a lot of these owners are pissed, and whether it’s right or wrong, there are gonna be a lot of changes at the next collective bargaining meetings and players are going to get some rights/privileges taken away because of guys like Kyrie, Simmons, John Wall, Harden. They are not gonna allow players to kidnap franchises, by demands to not play and not honor their contracts.

I just heard the local news while running a couple errands this morning. The Charlotte Hornets are going into the A-S break losing 9 out of the last 10 games. We, on the other hand, are going into the break winning 9 out of the last 10 games.

That puts it into the proper perspective, at least for me.

This game was such a weird one to lose amidst the crazy, razor thin East. The Celtics knew they had to win this game, regardless of who was on the floor.

I don't know how this will pan out overall. It's just one game, but it tells the league how to beat us. Get us back to the ISO BS. Whatever it takes.

When your defense is smothering the opposition, the opposition has no chance to put us back in the ISO mode. They are too focused on righting their own ship.
But when things get tight, we revert back to the old ways from the first half of the season. If we don't make a miraculous run to the Finals this season, this will be the way we are bounced from the playoffs. Clearly, our old ways are still fresh on our minds even with a 10-game winning streak just in reach.

Now, I'm still on track with my prediction. We've gone 9-1. I said we needed to go 27-3 to finish the last 30 games and so far, we've gone 9-1. Right on target. I can't complain. I'm splitting hairs. But if you are going to lose 3 games, this one was not on the radar.

When you have little if any wiggle room for error thanks to your performance in the season to date, and you lose this game against this team, clearly the worst team in the league, even without RWIII and Marcus Smart, we should have won this one going away with our bench alone.

If we come out and lose to BKN right out of the gate after ASG, then we're probably not going to move up the standings very well. Again, we're backing ourselves into a corner where we have to win games or it's over. We've left ourselves no room for error. We know our defense can cover a lot of stumps. That's Ime's plan. Was glad to see BKN's streak-breaking game was a fluke. They couldn't beat a hapless Wizards team last night. They still suck and they are on the hot seat to be bounced from the playoffs until further notice. But we have to start to put them our of their misery immediately after the ASG. Give them no hope.

We need to get back to the smothering defense leading to easy offense that won our last 9 games. And quickly.

db