2022 - 2023 POST GAME ORLANDO MAGIC - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Overcomes Gritty Magic Effort In Close Win
The Magic gave the Celtics a run for their money on Saturday


NESN by Gio Rivera

The Boston Celtics encountered their first major challenge of the young season, defeating the Orlando Magic 126-120 at Amway Center on Saturday.

The Celtics improved to 3-0 on the season, while the Magic fell to 0-3.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The Celtics had no business keeping the much less dominant Magic within reach of the game, resulting in a competitive battle against a winless Orlando team.

Boston’s defense showed its first signs of noteworthy struggle, highlighting the absences of veteran Al Horford and defensive anchor Robert Williams. Williams, who remains sidelined under recovery from his knee injury, notably missed against the Magic, with the Celtics front court struggling to both protect the glass and neutralize Orlando’s bigs.

The Magic out-rebounded the Celtics 48-37, while also totaling 22 second-chance points to Boston’s six.

A subtle early-season struggle, which appeared at moments in Boston’s wins over the Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat, foul commitment, came into play yet again — assisting Orlando’s run at closing the Celtics’ lead gap throughout the contest.

The largest lead the Celtics managed to put together within the game was nine points.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Tatum led the way in scoring for the Celtics, finishing with 40 points, shooting 14-for-21 from the field with six rebounds.

— White came through huge, delivering a pivotal performance that featured a strong outside shooting night from the veteran guard. White, who hit five 3-point field goals, scored 27 points with four rebounds and four assists, finishing 10-for-17 from the field.

— Magic guard Terrence Ross kept Orlando within striking distance, serving as the biggest offensive threat to the Celtics. The 31-year-old veteran finished with 29 points, shooting 11-for-16 from the field while knocking down five 3-pointers and collecting three rebounds.

WAGER WATCH
White found a quick hot hand from 3-point range, connecting on 4-of-4 attempts in the first half. DraftKings Sportsbook set the odds of White’s over/under 3-pointer total at 1.5 with +105 odds on the Over. White’s total of five 3-pointers knocked down, cleared those odds with ease. A $100 bet on White’s outside shooting would’ve resulted in a $205 total payout.


UP NEXT
Now three for three to start the season, the Celtics will have Sunday off before continuing their road trip against the Chicago Bulls. Tipoff from the United Center on Monday is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.

112288

Hi,
I know, win is a win is a win. But the way we played...oy wey.
I hope they're not waiting for a wake-up call, say in Chicago on Monday. They have to play the way they did in the first game. Coach Joe, aka CJ, has to say a few words on this matter.
On individual level, very nice surprise from White. He was smoking.
Nice move to sit AH for back-to-back game.

AK

I guess if you wanted to sit AH down for a game this was the one to do it.

As I was watching the game I was just looking for 180 seconds of quality end to end basketball.

Our offense continues to carry us.  Our defense is not good without Rob.  We are 3-0 mainly because our offense has been better than the other teams that we have played.

Message to rookie coach CJ.   Sam played 7 minutes and scored 9 points on 3/4 from deep and he had 2 rebounds.  You might want to get him a few more minutes and definitely a few more shots.  When a player shoots like he has been shooting you should run more offensive sets to open things up for him to get more shooting opportunities.

Lousy defense, lousy energy on the SEGABABA and they played hard. I'll take the W anyway.

Tatum with a beauty. 40 points on 14-21. He was 4-10 from 3, meaning 10-11 from 2. Think about that! 91% from 2. I don't remember ever seeing numbers like that before. Not that high a percentage for that many fgas. 4-4, 5-5, sure, but 10-11? That's a lot of opportunities to miss and he didn't.




Despite this the star of the game was Derrick White. Without him this is an L. By far the best game of his as a Celtic. 27 points on 10-17, 5-9 from 3 and 4 assists with zero turnovers.




Jaylen and Marcus combined for 6-27, 1-15 from 3. There is no excuse for this, in my opinion. We all know players have off shooting nights but Smart was 2-11, 1-9 from 3. STOP SHOOTING, MARCUS!!!! It's not your night!! Do something else to help the team win. He had 8 assists and 2 turnovers, so there's that, but he didn't do a very good job of shutting down Celtic killer Terrence Ross. Rosalie mentioned on the Game On! thread that she wanted Ross from Orlando instead of Fournier and I agree 100%. One of Danny's less successful transactions. Jaylen just had a bad night. He was 4-16, 1-6 from 3. So he was 3-10 from 2. That's just a bad night. When Jaylen Brown can't score inside the paint he's just having a bad, bad night but he has to keep taking them. Get inside, take your shot, hit or miss you did right. Smart didn't recognize he wasn't hitting from distance and just kept launching. Terrible! I hate this version of Marcus Smart because he wipes out all the good he does.

Blake with an almost nothing boxscore (0-1, 0 points, 1 assist, 1 steal) but he had two great Tommy Points. Last night was a classic example of where the stats don't show the value of the play on the court.

Our other two bigs were Vonleh, who was ok but got dominated many times by Wendell Carter Jr., and Grant. Grant with 13 points on 3-3, 3-3 from 3 and 4-4 from the line, 6 rebounds in starter 31 minutes. Grant's now 8-10 from 3 this season. His ppg is up to 12.7ppg from 7.8ppg last season. His fg% is 85.7% and his eFG% is 1.143. That means > 100%. Both of those numbers are league leading numbers.

Our bench looks real good, so far. Once again ours outscored theirs. How many times did that happen last year? 40-21 this time. That disparity, one could argue, is the game right there. Grant and Brogdon's 13 each powered us. I don't know if Grant could start on a really good team but he's definitely one of the better bench players in the league this year so far. Brogdon, of course, would start anywhere the reigning DPOY and the two Js weren't.

Paolo Banchero is the real deal. 6'10", 250# and very mobile. Only 6-19 last night but he's going to be a great one, I expect.

3-0. In fact, we are the only 3-0 team in the league (Milwaukee, Atlanta, Washington are 2-0, as are 4 teams in the west). And we were worried about how we were going to do early on with RWill out and with Philly and Miami right out of the chute. Oh we of little faith...We play the 1-2 Chicago Bulls on Monday. Then we don't play again until Friday, so blow it out tomorrow and you can rest then.


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401468185


Bob


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I didn't check minutes played and I'm not planning on it either but I would like to see Malcolm on the floor a little more.

Its not because Marcus gets 3 cray cray. Its that Malcolm is just a better point guard. We need his high level D but cut the s**t Marcus. We dont need you shooting like a mad man when we have better shooters out there with you.

I had the temerity to compare Marcus with Luka. Then the next game Marcus craps out and Luka is Superman. LOL.

Use all the clichés you want for this "trap" game, but ORL didn't roll over as we had hoped. Good. Of course the holes on our side became readily apparent. No Al, RWIII, etc. Without those guys, we are very mediocre. And that is not to throw any shade on ORL. (OK, I probably watch too much Stephen A!!) This is the NBA. All the teams are professional and stocked with ones peers of equal talent. But ORL matched us stat for stat.

We basically won at the free throw line. They made 15, we made 23 and shot more efficiently at that.

We'll have to split the game ball and give it to White and Tatum, IMHBAO.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think DW may be the 2nd Coming along with MB after that performance last night. Someone spent some time over the summer launching rockets from behind the line and it appears to be paying off in gold bullion bars. Yikes! Someone else to have to check on defense for the opposition. This may be leading to the ISO's for Brown and Tatum. When they get the right match-up, ISO's result in lay-ups and fouls, and And 1's. I'll take that everyday and on Sundays. Those two can't be doubled up anymore. Every man has to man up. I can assure you none of the other 29 teams put/had Derrick White on their radar over the summer. As Deborah from Everybody Loves Raymond would say....IDIOTS!!

On to CHI. Little bit tougher game coming here on the road. We'll see!

db

Kudos to White and the coaching staff, White is an improved player and playing with our talent, all he has to do is take advantage of playing off J’s for open shots and lanes. He and Brogden are giving such a jolt to our bench mob, and GWill looks improved too. Tatum is really carrying us, committed to driving and finishing better this year. Expecting Jaylen to have big bounce back game tonight.

Anybody notice that our core guys are playing a lot of minutes?  JT-38, JB-37, MS-35, DW-and AH-29 Grant-27

Malcolm only 23 MPG??????

We have not seen Kabengele play since the early preseason.  We have seen Noah quite a bit, Blake is in the rotation  for only 9 MPG in 2 games, Kornet finally made a cameo like 6 minute run.

So far we have not seen any of those guys really distinguish themselves.

Early in the season CJ is going to try different lineups.  Guys are going to get their share of DNP's  but at some point he must decide on our rotation of bigs and everyone needs to get an opportunity to play.  Then they will either sink or swim.

We are 3-0 and it may be an over reaction for glee in winning, especially against 2 of our top Eastern Conference contenders.  There is a spot someway in between that I find myself.

Clearly we have a deep team but Brogdon needs to be playing more than 23 MPG.  How about bringing Marcus down to around 30 MPG and kicking Brogdon up to 28?  The Marcus that I do not like looks to be in full effect while shooting a butt ugly 11.8% from deep and an abysmal 32% from the field.  His 5.7 3PA per game only exacerbates the situation.  The Celtics do not need Marcus to be a big time shooter from deep.  The Celtics just need for him to play like the defending DPOY, run the offense and keep the defense honest when you need to.

I would also like to see the Celtics pull back a bit on playing the Jays so many minutes. Again, Brogdon should be playing more as well as...drum roll please...Sam Hauser.

Derrick White and Grant Williams are off to fantastic starts.  White is shooting the ball with a lot of confidence and Grant has brought forward his play from last year except he really looks better doing everything.  His efficiency is really high.  Did you know that he is only taking 4.7 FGA per game while averaging almost 13 PPG?  Keep playing like that and your next contract will be....

It's on to Chi-town.  Let's go Celtics

Marcus should be studying Grant's offense.