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Celtics Wrap: Strong Second Half Lifts Boston To Season-Opening Win

The Celtics took control in the third quarter


NESN by Greg Dudek

Celtics Wrap

BOSTON — With a strong second-half showing, the Boston Celtics opened the 2022-23 season with a 126-117 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night at TD Garden.

The Celtics improve to 1-0 on the season while the 76ers drop to 0-1.

Check out the full box score here.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY

Maybe a skirmish between Marcus Smart and Joel Embiid, which also featured Jaylen Brown, was exactly what the Celtics needed to ignite them.

The Celtics owned the third quarter — a rarity compared to recent past seasons — following the dustup, outscoring the 76ers by 10 points in the stanza after being tied, 63-63, at the half.

Boston’s pace was too much for the 76ers as well. Entering the final frame, the Celtics had 22 fast-break points compared to just two for the 76ers. Celtics interim head coach Joe Mazzulla has put an emphasis on playing faster offensively, and Boston certainly did that in the season opener.

It also helped that Jayson Tatum found his groove after the intermission as well, and with the Celtics getting out and running at all times, they pulled ahead of the 76ers and never looked back.


STARS OF THE GAME

— Tatum exploded in the third quarter, scoring 17 of his 35 points in the frame. Tatum shot 13-for-20 from the floor and showed an improved finish around the basket. The Celtics superstar made it a double-double by grabbing 12 rebounds.


— James Harden was the offensive engine for the 76ers. He tallied 35 points to go along with eight assists and eight rebounds. As usual, Harden made his way to the free-throw line plenty, going 12-for-12 from the charity stripe.

— Jaylen Brown was a terrific in this one to match Tatum. While not shooting well from 3-point range and getting off to a slow start, Brown still poured in 35 points on 14-of-24 shooting.


WAGER WATCH

Malcolm Brogdon showed his value off the bench in his Celtics debut. The veteran guard cleared the over/under of 13.5 points set by DraftKings Sportsbook fairly easily. Brogdon notched 16 points to hit the Over, and with +100 odds, a $100 would have netted a payout of $200.

UP NEXT

The Celtics head out on the road for the first time this season as they take on the Miami Heat on Friday in rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference finals. Tipoff from FTX Arena is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET.

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Really impressive win, we played at a fast pace and had a 24-2 advantage in fast break points. If we continue outworking and outrunning teams to that degree, we’re going to win every game. Was worried about Embid having a monster game, loved how quickly we doubled him and stole the ball from him. Brogdon with a hugely efficient game, 16 points in 24 minutes, 7-11 FG. GWill on fire giving us a huge spark 5-5 FG.

2 J’s all over the place doing everything, scoring, defending, carrying us and rising to the moment. On a night honoring Bill Russell, these guys carried us, looking like the 2 best most dynamic players on the floor, playing with great energy and pace. I always thought we should have ran more, these guys are so talented running the floor.

Well, I'm glad I was completely wrong on this one!  Please forgive me.  Here's  what I saw:

1)  Winning the rebound battles sans RWIII.  36-31 and 52-40 points in the paint.  WOW!  That may be the sole reason we won or didn't lose.  

2)  Defense REALLY showed up for Boston as expected and then some.  James Hardin, despite his offensive display, which was spectacularly ridiculous and he has found a whole new way and level in which to gather fouls, one can point the sole finger at him for not shoring up his defense of ANY kind and contributing to their loss.  He's ABSOLUTELY USELESS on defense.  Zero, Zilch, Nada, Goose-Goose baby.  At 58, almost 59, I could have gotten on that court last night and played better defense.  

3)  If this game is an indicator of the future, we officially have a tandem.  35 & 35?!!  I say "Come on, Man!!  That's ridiculous, Gus!!"  Tatum with 12 Rebounds.  Not throwing the ball away as much.  Still some room for improvement but I can't complain and won't.  That's what I was talking about where those two are so good and dominant, it leaves the rest of our players wide open their defense in shambles.  We didn't shoot very well from 3-ville @ 34%, mathematically we would have been equally better off taking 2's and jumpers.

4)  You'll lose few if any games shooting 56% from the field.  Same if you have 10 or less TO's.  Nice, very nice work guys.  

5)  The announcers made it sound like there were a ton of fouls on both teams, but in the end, the total number of fouls for both teams averaged about 6 per frame.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Average fouls per game per team is 18, so they were right about more fouls.  I'm going to blame that on all the new rules and first game of the season for the refs.  Harden got away with a few extending his leg again but us getting the foul.  That's all I'm going to say.      

6)  Didn't see Doogie Hauser nor Pritchard used much.  Might have helped the 3-point shooting numbers. Good first win as a head coach for Joe.  He knew what he was doing.  That guy must go through 10 packs of gum a night.  He always looks like he's destroying that poor piece of gum in his mouth!

7) Malcolm Brogden was and is a HUGE acquisition.  WOW!!  That's all I've got to say.  Grant Williams very solid as well.  

 While the numbers didn't look good on paper for Horford and White as starters, they contributed mightily in the intangibles.  Al did the best he could against Embiid when he was out there and the refs weren't targeting Al.    

9)  Not great overall regarding Rondo-Style, Game 6 2008 Finals fast break basketball.  I would have liked to have seen a little more running but I liked what I saw.  Lots of walking the ball up the court and darn near getting an 8-second violation several times.  

10) Forgot about the Bill Russell dedication at Boston.  No way in the world Boston could lose that game.  TNT also did a spectacular job on their Russell dedication.  Truly amazing.  They did Bill right.

That's enough.  Great, great start for the new coach and the Celtics.  Glad I was wrong.  Heat on the road up next.  Let's see what we've got!  

db

Unrelated, Charles is right. Lakers aren't contenders.

db

This is what I wanted to hear. Jaylen Brown:

“We’re not taking no mess this year” Nuff said…

That was a dirty play by Embid, he could have easily dislocated Smarts arm/elbow, it’s actually a martial arts move. We dodged bullet on that play.

I got this one wrong too, dbrown, and I'm happy to admit it today.  I didn't think we'd win the rebound battle.  Between Embiid and PJ Tucker I thought for sure we'd get bullied.  Didn't happen, and I love it.

We got a lot of easy buckets because we ran.  The Js, in particular, got a lot of easy buckets because they ran.  The final tally was, you're gonna love this!, 24-2 in fast break points.  24 easy Celtic points and only 2 for the Sixers.  Joe needs to make sure they don't forget this feeling because it's our ticket back to the Finals.

Jaylen started off 3-9, 1-6 from 3.  He ended up 14-24 and 4-12 from 3.  That's a 11-15, 3-6 from 3 righting of the ship starting with the 2nd period.  He had 18 at the half, somehow, and finished with 35.  4 turnovers though, and that's a lot of the team's total 10 turnovers.  His handle didn't improve much this offseason, at least not as seen in this game.  When he wasn't being casual with the ball though he was damn near unstoppable.  

There was a play where Smart's arm got caught in Embiid's and Embiid tried to rip Smart's arm off.  Jaylen immediately ran to confront Embiid.  Smart got called for a technical after this.  That was ridiculous.  At another time Horford got called for a BS call, JT threw his arms up and got teed up for it.  Joe challenged the call, got it overturned (so no foul on Horford) but JT's technical stood.  For protesting a call that even the refs admitted was wrong.  Should JT stop throwing his arms up?  Yes, stop that, but there've been a lot of dubious whistles since the beginning of preseason.  This is the regular season.  The refs need to start reffing like it's for real too.




Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Jaylen Brown said he went at Embiid when he pulled Smart's arm because he thought Embiid was trying to hurt Smart. "Embiid was getting away with a lot of unnecessary pushing and shoving...We're not taking no mess this year."

This statement makes me very, very happy.




JT is a bully.    He showed a lot of muscle last night, especially considering he had baby Brahma bull PJ Tucker guarding him at the PF spot.  I don't want to make too much of one game (even though that's what I'm doing) but if he's going to get to the line 9 times/game this year we're going to be very good.  Starting at the :12 mark of this film you see JT power his way to the line against Tucker and Embiid.  You can just see him thoughout this film backing down Tucker (of all people!) and powering through a hack by Harris and just not letting himself get bullied.  Last year, when Ime was playing big, Tatum played SF.  Until RWill comes back he might be playing PF and if last night is any indication he's up for the physical challenge.

Ben Rohrbach @brohrbach
yesterday
Jayson Tatum says this is the best he’s felt physically coming into a season, and that’s helped his ability to attack the basket and play through contact.




Malcolm Brogdon is The Big Smooth.  He is a classic example of how you don't need to be exceptionally athletic or fast to be very effective.  The game is very slow for him.  He sees what you, the individual defender and the defense as a whole, are giving him and he takes it.  16 points on 7-11, 4 assists and only one turnover in 24 minutes.  He was 0-2 from 3, obviously not too good, but he was 5-9 from 2 and that is very good.  Only 2 of his 9 2pt fgas were outside the paint, so he was getting to the rack almost at will.  He was a +9 overall.  I was leery about the Gallinari signing because I've seen Gallo as a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer and a weak defender.  6'10" going on 6'5".  Brogdon, however, is a much more complete and efficient player on both ends.  I think the trade that got us Brogdon for Nesmith and a pick was a master stroke by Brad.  This guy's a needle-mover for us and 24 minutes/game should keep him healthy.  The Celtics pioneered the concept of The Sixth Man.  If Brogdon plays like this for the whole season he has a shot at winning the league's Sixth Man Award.  When he was running the offense it looked very coherent and that's because he's not a helter-skelter player.




Despite the heroics of the Js this game was won by our bench.  Their bench scored 11 points on 4-13 shooting, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 2 turnovers and a block.  Our bench scored 34 points on 13-20, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 turnover and 1 block.  Last year our bench was our Achilles Heel.  This year?  Not after the first game it isn't.  

Everybody who came off the bench contributed something, except for Sam who only played 3 minutes and had goose eggs.  Griffin with 5 rebounds, 2 offensive, in 8 minutes.  Grant with 15 on 5-5 and 3-3 from 3.  Shoulda paid the man.  I gave Brogdon his own piece but I think Vonleh's contributions might not be as appreciated today as much as they could/should be.  Horford got into foul trouble early because the refs were letting Harden kick his legs out on 3s and Embiid throw people around and Joe sent Vonleh into the game before he sent in Blake (which I thought was strange at the time).  I thought Vonleh did a very credible job of fronting Embiid and bodying him up and forcing him to get his entry pass a foot or two further away from the basket than he wanted.  That wasted a few seconds as Embiid tried to back him down and it also allowed an effective double team before he got so close the double couldn't help.  4 personal fouls in 20 minutes but he was going up against one of the top 2 centers in the league.  

24 assists on 46fgm is ok, not great.  16 assists on 40fgm, which is the Sixers' line, stinks.  Harden with 7, Embiid with 5 and the alleged 2nd point guard Tyrese Maxey with 2.  Personally I thought Maxey was a black hole.  He scored 12 straight but his teammates just stood around while he went one-on-one.

Starting point guards, starting floor generals the line was Harden 7 assists and 3 turnovers, Smart with 7 and 1.  Only 14 points for Smart, but that's not his job.  Smart with 8 ftas and a bunch of whistles on Maxey.

Congratulations to Joe for his first NBA win as a head coach, and doing it on Bill Russell night.

Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 10 hours ago
Jayson Tatum on Joe Mazzulla: "He’s just an overall good person. As much as I do on the court, he cares about the things that I do off the court. We’ve had a great relationship ever since he’s been here. I ain’t crying, I just got something in my eye."


Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Tatum: "Tough summer .. everywhere I went, somebody mentioned good job in the Finals, next year, you guys did well. They meant in a good way, but it's just a reminder that we lost .. it's opening night, one team is getting a ring and we're not. That kind of kept me up last night"

Go get'em, kid, and keep going after them.

Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Tatum: "It's just one game ... as Brad Stevens would say."


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401468016




Bob


.

Brogdon proved he was a valuable acquisition.

GWill is still a solid if undersized rotation player as a big.

Vonleh made some good first steps. He could prove to be a great pickup as he adapts better to the system.

Js and Smart were, well, the Js and Smart.


Fun side note for me. My son wore his Jason Tatum jersey around campus all day yesterday. He's at Penn State, 40,000 students strong and a ton of them from the Philly area. He was counting how many 'F... the Celtics' and 'Celtics suck' comments got thrown his way. Big number overall, he thinks he may be the only Celtics fan around. Apparently he went out post game with it still on. A little shot right back at those Philly fans.

For those who are interested here's NBC Sports Philadelphia's post-game take.




Bob


.

The Celtics preseason offensive fire power transferred over to our first regular season game.

During the offseason, the Sixers top priority was to add tough defensive minded players to the mix.  That makes this win even more significant.  The Sixers could not slow the Celtics down.  They tried to play PJ Tucker on Tatum.  That did not work as Tatum smoked PJ and any other Sixer defender that got in his way.

For more years than I care to remember, I have longed for a Celtics team that had a determined strategy to run the other team off the court.  Sam and I used to discuss fast break basketball all the time.  It was in fact a distinguishing feature of Celtics teams that won all those titles in the early years.  If there was a singular way to honor the memory of Bill Russell, the Celtics certainly did that last night.  Remember the balloon game?   Russell set that game up by declaring that they were going to turn the game into a track meet!

The TNT game announcers said that James Harden was in better shape.  Statistically he played well on offense but by the middle of the 3rd QTR he was cooked.  He was out there huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf trying to dislodge a brick house from its' foundation.

More About the game

There seems to be an unmistakable symmetry between Jayson and Jaylen.  Here we have 2 stars at work both on a singular mission.  Even during their post game interviews you could hear that they are on the same page.  They both said this is just 1 game.  Their experience together in making it to the finals last season and losing has haunted them all summer.
 
We have seen off season additions of veteran guys come to the Celtics and have a positive impact on the team but I do not recall a player coming to us that was on a level with Malcolm Brogdon.  All I can say is "WOW"
 
Grant did not get his extension but that did not stop him from playing really good last night as he went 5-5 from the field including 3-3 from deep.  His shot clock beating 3 from the right side after the offense was getting twisted, was a big time shot.  Big time.

I do not see how the Sixers will be able to take the next step.  Their frontline, despite Embid, looks pretty average and their team cannot defend a team like Boston because we have so many playmakers.
 
Coach Joe (CJ)  coaches like a cross between Brad and Ime.  This game was just the first one but it was a huge coming out party.  CJ knows the game.  He appears to have a good handle on game management as it relates to rotations and when to call a TO or not.  The most amazing thing to me is that he has finally got the team to play with high end pace.  Neither Brad nor Ime were able to do that.

Dboss, I too liked Coach Joe's ability to get this team running the fast break, a defining characteristic of earlier Celtics teams. Such a gratifying win.

We have seen off season additions of veteran guys come to the Celtics and have a positive impact on the team but I do not recall a player coming to us that was on a level with Malcolm Brogdon.  All I can say is "WOW"[/b]

Kevin Garnett- Ray Allen?

Ktron -

Well, KG and RA certainly made an tremendous impact...but since then, Malcom has been the big deal. So far (one game) much bigger than the star-crossed Gordon Hayward, the arthritic Kemba Walker, or the ego-maniac Kyrie Irving (although, yes, he did have a great handle, but what good did that do us?).

It looked like a couple of times in that game, Doc was trying to assume the Ghost of Phil Jackson (although he's still living) by letting PHI play through getting their a$$es handed to them by the Celtics like Phil used to do with all his talented teams. Phil would assume his team was made of professionals and they could figure out what the problem was and correct it in-game. Now when you've got a Shaq or a Kobe, yeah, you can do that. And those players/teams responded. By the time Doc figured it out, our lead was in the double digits and PHI had already bled all over the floor.

Speaking of Russell, I'd like to see some of those games when he was player/coach. That may be more amazing than anything else Russell did IMHBAO. You literally have to be in two places at once mentally....deep inside the game and then up in the rafters looking down on the game to see what is going on on the court. Doc, while you're a good coach, you're no Phil Jackson nor Bill Russell. And as dboss has pulled out the curse of death, neither is your lipstick on a pig team.

db

Dboss. I think you’re the coolest of the coolest, the hippest of the hippest and the Slickest of the slickest.  You are THE man but this CJ abbreviation for Coach Joe is a bit much.
For Gawds sakê, Theres no one with a shorter name than Joe. It’s only 3 letters! It doesn’t get much shorter than that and here you come with the CJ!
Spare me..DB! LOL

Ktron wrote:We have seen off season additions of veteran guys come to the Celtics and have a positive impact on the team but I do not recall a player coming to us that was on a level with Malcolm Brogdon.  All I can say is "WOW"[/b]

Kevin Garnett- Ray Allen?

How could I forget about KG and RA...touche