POST GAME CROOKLYN AWAY

Celtics return from All-Star break with blowout win over Nets

SPORTS HUB Alex Barth


NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics drives to the basket past Bruce Brown #1 of the Brooklyn Nets during the first half at Barclays Center on February 24, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images)
After winning nine of 10 games heading into the All-Star break, some wondered if the pause would cool the Celtics off. If anything, it appears to have had an opposite effect. The team came out firing on all cylinders in their return Thursday night, blowing out the Nets 129-106 in Brooklyn.

While it wasn’t as big as their 28-4 lead last time they faced the Nets, the Celtics got up big quick. They had Brooklyn doubled up 20-10 midway through the first quarter, and then the offense really kicked in. The C’s shot 10-of-17 over the first 12 minutes and led 35-22 after one quarter.

The Celtics’ lead grew to as many as 22 points early in the second quarter. A 9-1 run from the Nets cut that down, but the stretch was brief. Lights out shooting from the Celtics flipped the momentum again – they were 22-of-40 from the floor and 10-of-19 from three at the half, leading 67-52.

In the third, the Celtics continued to pull away. Jayson Tatum had 11 points in the quarter, and by the time the horn sounded the Celtics had their biggest lead of the night at 23 points. Heading into the fourth, Boston was up 98-74.

For most of the fourth quarter, both teams went deep into their respective benches. Boston’s lead grew to as large as 29 points in the frame.

Jayson Tatum led all scorers with a 30-point performance. He was 10-of-20 from the field, and 4-of-9 from three. Jaylen Brown added 18 points. Both of the Celtics’ starting bigs recorded double-doubles, with Robert Williams finishing with 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Al Horford putting up 11 points and 13 boards. Marcus Smart had 15 points and six assists in 30 minutes in his return from an ankle injury.


With Kevin Durant still injured, Seth Curry led the Nets with 22 points. Bruce Brown had 15.

With the win, the Celtics improve to 35-26 on the year. They’ve won 12 of their last 14 games.

Next up for the Celtics is a rematch with the last team to beat them, the Detroit Pistons. Saturday’s tip-off from Detroit is set for noon, with pregame coverage beginning at 11:30 a.m. on 98.5 The Sports Hub.

Hi,
It was a good win. Demolishing a potential playoffs opponent is always a good thing.

AK

The defense looked great against the Nets JV team, not our fault, can only play whoever is in front of us. Would have liked to see Theis get more PT as well as Nesmith in 2nd half. Nesmith’s shot looked good, just like it’s a game of runs, all shooters are streaky, even Steph and Klay. Some pundits are questioning our depth, now is the time to get Nesmith and PP going.

I'm not going to read too much into this game.  The Nets were without 3 All-Stars.  This was their bench and deeeeep bench we beat.  Having said all that, though, we had some truly beautiful ball movement and hellaciously good defensive rotations.  

A lot of the ball movement was Pop-like.  To be expected I suppose, Ime is of course off the Pop tree, but last night we saw more evidence that the players are not just buying in but are learning where and what they should go and do.  When they play offense like this they are not only hard to beat they're also a lot of fun to watch.

Switches were sure.  Rotations were swift but not overreactions and/or too soon.  Like I said they're missing all their shooters so let's not get too giddy here, and they were getting open shots, they just were missing them but we were where we were supposed to be most of the time to challenge them.

7 Celtics in double figures.  Hard to stop a team when the coach is only going 8 deep until it's deeeep into garbage time and 7 of those 8 are scoring effectively.  Our starters shot 30-53, 56.6%, and the 3 bench rotation players shot 10-23, 43.5%, for 40-76 for those 8.  52.6%.  I would have liked taking more than 85fgas but when you're shooting like that I can live with it.

28 assists on 43fgm, 60.5% assist-to-fgm is nice.  Not mind-blowing, we've done better, but very nice.  25 assists on 40fgm for Ime's Magnificent 8.  

One stat I'm taking away from this game that might carry over against other tough teams is our 23-7 fast break point edge.  Preventing them from scoring in the half court would be harder with KD and Kyrie, and there'll be more fast break points for them with Simmons running it, but those 3 players aren't going to be stopping our fast break so much as increasing the number of theirs.  So it might have been 23-15, or 23-20, but 23 fast break points is very good for us.  Ime has us playing at a high tempo and it's paying off.  It has taken 3/4 of this season for them to play Ime's defense and also Ime's passing-and-running offense but we're finally there.  A WHOLE lot less iso from the Js, and that makes us very dangerous indeed.

I can't remember who but some player on the Nets said during the ASB that they wanted to avoid the play-in tournament, and that was their primary goal heading into the end of the regular season.  To do that they need to get to 6th.  We're in 6th so the team they need to catch, coincidentally, is us.  For obvious reasons we don't want to slip to 7th too.  To do that we not only have to hold them off but the Raptors, who are currently in 7th, also.  What's their chances of catching us?  We have 21 games left, they have 22.  They are 3 games behind us in the loss column.  We have one H2H game left, on March 6th in Boston.  If we win that game (who knows who will be playing for them, so I am loathe to predict) we win the tiebreaker.  If they win we're tied 2-2 on H2H but they're likely to win the next tiebreaker.

Assuming they win the tiebreaker they have to win 3 more than us.  While we could both go on epic winning streaks or both implode if we assume that we play roughly .500 ball the rest of the way we'd end up with 10-11 more wins.  Let's include last night's wins and 10 more (we had 22 games to go yesterday, so 11-11 is .500).  .500 ball is, obviously, not very impressive playoff-bound ball, much worse than the .574 we have now, but let's just say...That would get us to 45 wins, 45-37.  For the Nets to get to 45-37, and win with the tiebreaker, they'd need to go 14-8, 63.6%, the rest of the way.  To put that in perspective there are only 5 teams in the NBA that have a record to-date that's better than .636.  

If we win in Boston on March 6th then we own the tiebreaker and then the Nets need to go 46-36, 15-7 the rest of the way, .682.  Brooklyn's next games 7 games  are @ Milwaukee, vs Toronto, @ Toronto, vs Miami, @ Boston, @ Charlotte, @ Philly.  2 home games and 5 away games, only one against a sub-.500 team and that sub-.500 is right on their tail and wants to move up from 9th and replace them at 8th.

Believe it or not we're only 2 games in the loss column behind Milwaukee, which leaves me torn as to whether I should root for the Bucks over the Nets.  It'd be perfect if Brooklyn and Toronto split their home-away series.  Then neither of them gain on us and there's 2 games gone from both their schedules. If they beat us (and lock up the tiebreaker), Charlotte and split Toronto then that'd be 4-3 over those 7 games and that's .571 and not keeping up the .636 pace they need.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401360709




Bob


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I'll take it.  It was on the road.  It was against their 2nd and 3rd stringers.  Should have been more of a beatdown, but this was great all-around play by us.  

You would have thought Ben Simmons, Dragic, and the ghosts of KD and Kyrie were going to suit up and play as many times as they panned the cameras  to or referred to all of those not playing.  Yes I counted.  I stopped around 26!!  That's pathetic.  

Sports media trying real hard to resurrect the dead.  Suckers.  Still no one is convinced we're who we look like we are...Dream Killers.  That's ok.  Keep pushing us off.  You'll regret it.    

Charles on TNT kept emphasizing that it going to be relatively easy for BKN to get their crap together and go past the first round in the playoffs.  Scoring does help, but when those guys are getting locked up by better defense, they have to expend so much more energy just to get back to square one.  Teams like the Celtics are showing that opposing team's offense (and offensive play calls) goes out the window when faced with lockdown D.  KD and Kyrie are going to be no different.  They ain't in any better shape than anyone else.  They'll score but they will be worn out because somebody has to run down the court on all the breakaway TO's.  The Celtics get easy points now via TO breakaways and facing opposing scrambling D.  Wide open looks.  That will beat high scoring KD and Kryrie and anyone else that wants to be included EVERY SINGLE TIME.  This has been tried before time and again and it NEVER works!  EVER.  The legs ALWAYS give out.  But I digress.  

Keep it up, Boston.  dboss needs a 10-game win streak...THIS SEASON!!!  Bring on Saturday!

db

P.S. Bobh, Assists/FGM is 28/43 =65.11%, not 60.5%. That's two out of three, that's pretty good. Few if any teams can put up 3 out of 4 or 75%.

dbrown4 wrote:I'll take it.  It was on the road.  It was against their 2nd and 3rd stringers.  Should have been more of a beatdown, but this was great all-around play by us.  

You would have thought Ben Simmons, Dragic, and the ghosts of KD and Kyrie were going to suit up and play as many times as they panned the cameras  to or referred to all of those not playing.  Yes I counted.  I stopped around 26!!  That's pathetic.  

Sports media trying real hard to resurrect the dead.  Suckers.  Still no one is convinced we're who we look like we are...Dream Killers.  That's ok.  Keep pushing us off.  You'll regret it.    

Charles on TNT kept emphasizing that it going to be relatively easy for BKN to get their crap together and go past the first round in the playoffs.  Scoring does help, but when those guys are getting locked up by better defense, they have to expend so much more energy just to get back to square one.  Teams like the Celtics are showing that opposing team's offense (and offensive play calls) goes out the window when faced with lockdown D.  KD and Kyrie are going to be no different.  They ain't in any better shape than anyone else.  They'll score but they will be worn out because somebody has to run down the court on all the breakaway TO's.  The Celtics get easy points now via TO breakaways and facing opposing scrambling D.  Wide open looks.  That will beat high scoring KD and Kryrie and anyone else that wants to be included EVERY SINGLE TIME.  This has been tried before time and again and it NEVER works!  EVER.  The legs ALWAYS give out.  But I digress.  

Keep it up, Boston.  dboss needs a 10-game win streak...THIS SEASON!!!  Bring on Saturday!

db

P.S. Bobh, Assists/FGM is 28/43 =65.11%, not 60.5%.  That's two out of three, that's pretty good.  Few if any teams can put up 3 out of 4 or 75%.  

Ben Simmons is a pussy, a head case that refuses to fix his game, he’ll be out of the league soon….

My first impression of the game last night was how competitive it felt.  I was thinking that the Nets could be an elite team if they had a full compliment of players.  Their bench is 3 layers deep.  Then I realized that the Celtics were blowing them off the court and even when they get healthy they will have a small window to get everyone on the same page.  

The way I see it is that The Nets have a brutal stretch of games in front of them and as long as the Celtics keep ballin, the Nets are very unlikely to secure anything other than a berth in the playin tournament.  Their next 7 games will be against 7 EC contenders.  

We probably will not see the Nets again after our March 6th game.

I am sure there are fans out there that have some doubts about the Celtics.  Yes we have been beating up on bad teams and teams with a lot of missing players.  One stat sets the record straight on what our expectations should be.

The Celtics record vs teams that are .500 and above is 15-12.  Not only is it the top record in the Eastern Conference the Celtics are the only team in the East that are playing above .500 when playing against .500 and above teams.

https://www.espn.com/nba/standings/_/view/expanded

The Celtics have an excellent opportunity to move up further in the standings.  At the minimum, making it up to #4 will give us home court in the first round of the playoffs.  We are only 2 games back in the loss column behind 4th place Milwaukee.  I expect the Cavs to fold as well.

The other two things I want to acknowledge is that Boston is now 15-15 on the road and #1 in the East in point differential at +5.7

As Ime sprinkles (his word not mine) a few bench guys into games it should help us to established more quality depth.

dbrown4 wrote:I'll take it.  It was on the road.  It was against their 2nd and 3rd stringers.  Should have been more of a beatdown, but this was great all-around play by us.  

You would have thought Ben Simmons, Dragic, and the ghosts of KD and Kyrie were going to suit up and play as many times as they panned the cameras  to or referred to all of those not playing.  Yes I counted.  I stopped around 26!!  That's pathetic.  

Sports media trying real hard to resurrect the dead.  Suckers.  Still no one is convinced we're who we look like we are...Dream Killers.  That's ok.  Keep pushing us off.  You'll regret it.    

Charles on TNT kept emphasizing that it going to be relatively easy for BKN to get their crap together and go past the first round in the playoffs.  Scoring does help, but when those guys are getting locked up by better defense, they have to expend so much more energy just to get back to square one.  Teams like the Celtics are showing that opposing team's offense (and offensive play calls) goes out the window when faced with lockdown D.  KD and Kyrie are going to be no different.  They ain't in any better shape than anyone else.  They'll score but they will be worn out because somebody has to run down the court on all the breakaway TO's.  The Celtics get easy points now via TO breakaways and facing opposing scrambling D.  Wide open looks.  That will beat high scoring KD and Kryrie and anyone else that wants to be included EVERY SINGLE TIME.  This has been tried before time and again and it NEVER works!  EVER.  The legs ALWAYS give out.  But I digress.  

Keep it up, Boston.  dboss needs a 10-game win streak...THIS SEASON!!!  Bring on Saturday!

db

P.S. Bobh, Assists/FGM is 28/43 =65.11%, not 60.5%.  That's two out of three, that's pretty good.  Few if any teams can put up 3 out of 4 or 75%.  

DB  I spoke to dboss and he said he will gladly take another 9 game streak!

No one knows if the Nets can put it all together with only 22 games remaining.   I think it is unlikely.  Guys have to get comfortable playing with each other and that takes a lot of time even for the better quality players.  Nash is faced with a conundrum of who should play together.  There is not enough time to figure that out.  The Nets have a chance to become the most talented and horrible team ever to play in the NBA.

One thing I am starting to see is that our switch everything or mostly everything defense closes the door on teams who are PNR heavy.  PNR is still the bread and butter of most offenses around the NBA.  Our defense is designed to shut that down among other things.

Cow, I am not going to be as harsh on Ben Simmons as you are.  Yes he is a head case but we should not assume that he is capable of fixing his game...because he is a head case.  Fix the head and that fixes the problem.  In other words "Free your mind and your ass will follow"  He needs help to figure out what is the root cause.

Nice to get a win against a weakened opponent without breaking a sweat. That's exactly what should happen and what was not happening prior to January 1.

Progress continues. We were able to limit minutes where needed and give a short run to the deeper end of the bench.

It's looking more and more like Smart is a longer term starting PG and that Horford may have enough legs to get him through the season. The current starting 5, may actually be the starting 5 for the foreseeable future, into next season. As many have speculated, the roster building work may focus on a stronger bench and eventual starting power forward. That would be a very welcome development.

cowens/oldschool wrote:

dbrown4 wrote:I'll take it.  It was on the road.  It was against their 2nd and 3rd stringers.  Should have been more of a beatdown, but this was great all-around play by us.  

You would have thought Ben Simmons, Dragic, and the ghosts of KD and Kyrie were going to suit up and play as many times as they panned the cameras  to or referred to all of those not playing.  Yes I counted.  I stopped around 26!!  That's pathetic.  

Sports media trying real hard to resurrect the dead.  Suckers.  Still no one is convinced we're who we look like we are...Dream Killers.  That's ok.  Keep pushing us off.  You'll regret it.    

Charles on TNT kept emphasizing that it going to be relatively easy for BKN to get their crap together and go past the first round in the playoffs.  Scoring does help, but when those guys are getting locked up by better defense, they have to expend so much more energy just to get back to square one.  Teams like the Celtics are showing that opposing team's offense (and offensive play calls) goes out the window when faced with lockdown D.  KD and Kyrie are going to be no different.  They ain't in any better shape than anyone else.  They'll score but they will be worn out because somebody has to run down the court on all the breakaway TO's.  The Celtics get easy points now via TO breakaways and facing opposing scrambling D.  Wide open looks.  That will beat high scoring KD and Kryrie and anyone else that wants to be included EVERY SINGLE TIME.  This has been tried before time and again and it NEVER works!  EVER.  The legs ALWAYS give out.  But I digress.  

Keep it up, Boston.  dboss needs a 10-game win streak...THIS SEASON!!!  Bring on Saturday!

db

P.S. Bobh, Assists/FGM is 28/43 =65.11%, not 60.5%.  That's two out of three, that's pretty good.  Few if any teams can put up 3 out of 4 or 75%.  

Ben Simmons is a pussy, a head case that refuses to fix his game, he’ll be out of the league soon….

I doubt he’ll be out of the league anything soon. Now, the other parts of your post…

NYCelt wrote:Nice to get a win against a weakened opponent without breaking a sweat. That's exactly what should happen and what was not happening prior to January 1.

Progress continues. We were able to limit minutes where needed and give a short run to the deeper end of the bench.

It's looking more and more like Smart is a longer term starting PG and that Horford may have enough legs to get him through the season. The current starting 5, may actually be the starting 5 for the foreseeable future, into next season. As many have speculated, the roster building work may focus on a stronger bench and eventual starting power forward. That would be a very welcome development.

NYCelt

Marcus is having an impressive year.

He is in fact the head of the snake.

Year after year we have seen way too many roster changes.

If we can keep this starting 5 together they will collectively be even better. I hope the Celtics do not move him in the offseason.

I say keep what you have and add to it.

dboss wrote:

NYCelt wrote:Nice to get a win against a weakened opponent without breaking a sweat. That's exactly what should happen and what was not happening prior to January 1.

Progress continues. We were able to limit minutes where needed and give a short run to the deeper end of the bench.

It's looking more and more like Smart is a longer term starting PG and that Horford may have enough legs to get him through the season. The current starting 5, may actually be the starting 5 for the foreseeable future, into next season. As many have speculated, the roster building work may focus on a stronger bench and eventual starting power forward. That would be a very welcome development.

NYCelt

Marcus is having an impressive year.  

He is in fact the head of the snake.  

Year after year we have seen way too many roster changes.

If we can keep this starting 5 together they will collectively be even better.  I hope the Celtics do not move him in the offseason.  

I say keep what you have and add to it.

As talented as the J’s are, was getting tiresome seeing them do too much iso ball, was unbearable seeing Smart jacking/bricking them up too often too. Now that Ime finally has them sharing the ball with patience, everything is clicking and the players are burying easy makeable shots, the key word being patience and keep sharing the ball and the love. This is a very sustainable formula, attack of wolves switching man in the face defense, running opportunities off the defense and sharing the love offense. 2 J’s can’t carry us with with their playmaking, but with 2 points like Smart and White and RWill from the high post all moving the ball, sharing the love works and we will only get better and better at it.

A win is good, but let me be clear, we beat a team without their BIG THREE. We also beat a team in turmoil. We still have not gone up against a top 5 team, so I am holding my breath to see if we can pass the litmus test ?

Just an FYI, heard on the radio sports talk that the LAL owner - Busses daughter may want to divest and trade LBJ in the off system. It was her fathers opinion that you do not hold on to your superstar player beyond their years, because there is always another new star entering the spot light.

112288

cowens/oldschool wrote:

dboss wrote:

NYCelt wrote:Nice to get a win against a weakened opponent without breaking a sweat. That's exactly what should happen and what was not happening prior to January 1.

Progress continues. We were able to limit minutes where needed and give a short run to the deeper end of the bench.

It's looking more and more like Smart is a longer term starting PG and that Horford may have enough legs to get him through the season. The current starting 5, may actually be the starting 5 for the foreseeable future, into next season. As many have speculated, the roster building work may focus on a stronger bench and eventual starting power forward. That would be a very welcome development.

NYCelt

Marcus is having an impressive year.  

He is in fact the head of the snake.  

Year after year we have seen way too many roster changes.

If we can keep this starting 5 together they will collectively be even better.  I hope the Celtics do not move him in the offseason.  

I say keep what you have and add to it.

As talented as the J’s are, was getting tiresome seeing them do too much iso ball, was unbearable seeing Smart jacking/bricking them up too often too. Now that Ime finally has them sharing the ball with patience, everything is clicking and the players are burying easy makeable shots, the key word being patience and keep sharing the ball and the love. This is a very sustainable formula, attack of wolves switching man in the face defense, running opportunities off the defense and sharing the love offense. 2 J’s can’t carry us with with their playmaking, but with 2 points like Smart and White and RWill from the high post all moving the ball, sharing the love works and we will only get better and better at it.

                 +1

112288 wrote:A win is good, but let me be clear, we beat a team without their BIG THREE.  We also beat a team in turmoil.   We still have not gone up against a top 5 team, so I am holding my breath to see if we can pass the litmus test ?

Just an FYI, heard on the radio sports talk that the LAL owner - Busses daughter may want to divest and trade LBJ in the off system.   It was her fathers opinion that you do not hold on to your superstar player beyond their years, because there is always another new star entering the spot light.

112288

112288

Did you read my post about our record against.500 or better teams?  The perception that we have not beaten a top 5 team is simply not true.  The difference now is that we are destroying teams we are suppose to destroy.   Our defense is for real and our offense is catching up.  Momentum is a wind on our backs.

dboss wrote:

112288 wrote:A win is good, but let me be clear, we beat a team without their BIG THREE.  We also beat a team in turmoil.   We still have not gone up against a top 5 team, so I am holding my breath to see if we can pass the litmus test ?

Just an FYI, heard on the radio sports talk that the LAL owner - Busses daughter may want to divest and trade LBJ in the off system.   It was her fathers opinion that you do not hold on to your superstar player beyond their years, because there is always another new star entering the spot light.

112288

112288

Did you read my post about our record against.500 or better teams?  The perception that we have not beaten a top 5 team is simply not true.  The difference now is that we are destroying teams we are suppose to destroy.   Our defense is for real and our offense is catching up.  Momentum is a wind on our backs.

We beat Milwaukee, the Heat convincingly, the Suns, 76ers, I believe we have another shot at the Warriors.