2022 - 2023 POST GAME CLEVELAND - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Falls In OT To Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers
Mitchell took over down the stretch to down the Celtics

NESN by Keagan Stiefel

The Boston Celtics fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime, 114-113, at Rocket Mortgage Field House on Wednesday– losing their second-consecutive game to the Eastern Conference’s early top seed.

The Celtics fell to 4-3 on the year, while the Cavs improved to 6-1.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
Perhaps you’ve heard it said before that basketball is a game of runs.

That point was proven Wednesday night.

The two squads traded blows throughout their contest, with Cleveland dominating the first quarter and outscoring Boston by eight points, before the Celtics returned the favor and outscored the Cavs by 14 in the second. In the second half the runs got a little shorter, before Boston and Cleveland’s stars, Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell combined for two final minute shots and one incredible defensive play to send the game to OT.

In OT, Boston found itself down by one with 2.3 seconds remaining. In that situation, coach Joe Mazzulla called Jaylen Brown’s number over Tatum’s, with the All-Star guard rimming out a mid-range jumper.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Mitchell took over completely down the stretch, serving as the difference maker for a second-consecutive game against the Celtics. He finished with 25 points on 11-of-27 from the field. He added six assists, four rebounds and two blocks.

— Jayson Tatum was the sole reason this game even got to OT. He finished with 26 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and four blocks.

— Darius Garland was on fire from outside in his return from a five-game absence. He finished with 29 points, 12 assists and three steals.

— Jaylen Brown quietly finished with 30 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

WAGER WATCH
DraftKings Sportsbook set Brown’s total for points, rebounds and assists at 25.5, with -110 odds to hit the over. He cleared that number before halftime, meaning a $100 bet on the All-Star guard to achieve that mark would have paid out $190.91.

112288

The Celtics are just plain boring team to watch.  Same crap different day, this team is by no means a final two team even if Williams come back.

There is no swagger, no creativeness, just same predictable basketball that I have seen way too often in the past.

There is no one either starting 5 or off the bench that can give you firepower from beyond the arc.  No Ray Allen, no Eddie Mansion House.  

Tatum cannot hit a 3 if his life counted on it.  Grant Williams is your best 3 point shooter, but he comes off the bench.

For the Celtics to rise to the top like heavy cream, Brad needs to truly get a 2 guard who can shoot the 3 ball!  Melo could have been the key to a win tonight with his shooting while the Celtic players bathed their hands in ice water!

Houser was your go to 3 point guy but come up with goose eggs (0) points in 10 minutes of play with just 1 3 point shot!

But again I am just one pissed - off Celtic fan!

112288

Some glimmers and a lot of dumb play. Bottomline we should have won this game off that vintage Dr J like dunk by Tatum, where the fo(k was the and 1…???? That ref should be fired as Tatum clearly got hit and no call. Tatum should have hit the and 1 and we get a gritty road win against a young stacked up and coming team. I applaud their GM and how stacked they are at every position.

Having said all that we still should have won this game and won it easy, but we play dumb at too many crucial times. Jaylen drove into the teeth of their defense and got stopped or lost the ball too many times. Jaylen we love you, you can’t drive into 2 twin towers, just use your lethal mid range game. You kept on driving and getting your shot blocked too many times, your 26 now, not 22 or 23. Finally later when you did a mid range shot, it was so easy. You’ve got to know what works and not go strength on strength, stick to basics to beat your man or get an easy efficient look.

Marcus Smart is shooting 22% from 3, I know he eventually hits a few, but those misses throughout the game sure do add up. Is it me or are more players, scoring/shooting right in his face than ever before? Those add up too, that we can’t get key stops. Coach Joe blew another one, how long is he going crunch time minutes with Smart, when his offense is a train wreck. If he has the ball, he’s not creative or dependable enough, without the ball, everyone sags off him, giving him open 3’s. Brogden, 2 J’s, GWill Al would have won this game down the stretch.

112288 wrote:The Celtics are just plain boring team to watch.  Same crap different day, this team is by no means a final two team even if Williams come back.

There is no swagger, no creativeness, just same predictable basketball that i have seen wat too often in the past.

There is no one either starting 5 or off the bench that can give you firepower from beyond the arc.  No Ray Allen, no Eddie Mansion House.  

Tatum cannot hit a 3 if his life counted on it.  Grant Williams is your best 3 point shooter, but he comes off the bench.

For the Celtics to rise to the top like heavy cream, Brad needs to truly get a 2 guard who can shoot the 3 ball!  Melo could have been the key to a win tonight with his shooting while the Celtic players bathed their hands in ice water!

Houser was your go to 3 point guy but come up with goose eggs (0) points in 10 minutes of play with just 1 3 point shot!

But again I am just one pissed - off Celtic fan!

112288

My brother pointed out that right now Tatum is avg 30 ppg on a 50 40 90 efficiency, will it last, we’ll see? Right now he and Brown are no where near Larry Legend or even Pierce at taking over the game in the last 2 minutes. Big shoes to fill when you play for this franchise.

Just following the game on the Internet play by play without watching it was obvious JB cooled down in crunch time and JT carried the team. But to 112288’s rant I was thinking the same thing about a pure shooter. Takes some of the pressure of your big guns (Js) when some else (like a Tyler Hero) can also be counted on to drain the game winner.

Just like the early part of last season we are showing signs of mental weakness and immaturity when trying to close out close games.  Why?

I'm trying to keep in mind how early we are in the season, and how our season started with some pretty dramatic changes, but I'm starting to sour on head coach Joe Mazzulla pretty rapidly.

1.  His coaching philosophy of "letting them play through the other team's runs" is a loser.  Is that plain-speech enough for you?  He doesn't understand the value of breaking the other team's momentum with a strategically taken time out.  He doesn't understand the value of quieting the crowd for a minute during that time out when you're on the road.  We had a 12 point lead.  In a sport where runs are normal they put on a run and Joe didn't take a time out until our lead was down to 2.  The Cavs were feeling pretty good about themselves and the crowd was alive again.  This strategy must change or we're going to lose a lot of games this year and probably won't go very far in the playoffs because we'll be outcoached.

2.  When he finally does take a time out I am underwhelmed by his ATO plays.  Same shite, different possession.  Our offense is back to a lot of iso ME-ball.  That's easy to defend.

3.  After the last game Joe was asked why we are taking so many 3s.  His response was "I like math".  That's good, I like math too.

41 of our 91 fgas last night were 3s, 45%.  At one point we were > 50%.  We shot 11-41, 29.8%, from 3.  That's math and the math sucks, Joe.

We shot 30-50, 60%, from 2.  That's math too and and it's pretty good.

We had 19 fast break points, and that's good math too.  Take those, let's say 9, 2pt fgm out and we shot 21-41 from 2 on non-fast break point scores.  That's really good math too, Joe.

3s are great when they're dropping.  When they're not they create long rebounds that gives the other team an opportunity to run.  I don't have the stats to back this up but my eyeballs told me that in the 2nd half they started getting back on defense and that stopped our fast breaking.  So we started launching more 3s in the half court set.  We were 6-22 from 3 at the half, 27%.  In the 3rd quarter we were 4-12, 33%, from 3.  A slight improvement percentage-wise, but not much, but we took 22 fgas in the 3rd and 12 were 3s.   Joe doubled-down on triples and it cost us.

Our offense is stagnant.  It's all drive-and-kick.  That's great when the 3s are dropping but when they're not you're dead and Joe is looking more-and-more like a one-trick pony.

And quite frankly Jeff Van Gundy, I don't GAF how many people there has been in the NBA with 2 Zs in their name.


Our front court is getting overwhelmed on the boards and in the paint.  56 points in the paint for them vs 42 for us.  The only thing that helped to even the final numbers up was them getting back on defense to stop our fast breaking, so less crashing their offensive boards.  I understand that up tempo is a great way of doing that but just imagine if our bigs could rebound with other teams' bigs.  Then they'd always have to get back on defense because they're not going to get the O-boards.

I blame Brad for this weakness.  Luke Kornet is not the answer when the question is "who's your 3rd string center?".  He played 3 minutes last night and was a -8.  One assist, one block (admittedly a pretty one in the paint vs Allen) and a personal foul.  No fgas or ftas and no rebounds.  Once again, when going up against a big front court Joe showed he has no confidence in Luke.  Why does Brad?

Blake with another Coaches-DNP.  35 year old Al Horford played 40 minutes.  I'd love it if a reporter asked Joe about this.  Why is Blake not getting any minutes when the player in front of him is hopelessly outskilled?  Whatever Blake lost by joining camp late should be fixed by now.

Probably our best big last night was Grant.  A very solid defensive effort and 11 points on 3-7, 2-6 from 3.  7 rebounds with 2 offensive.  Grant decided to bet on himself this year and let the contract situation take care of itself next off-season.  So far that is looking like a sound strategy by him.

Someone, I think BobC, said on the Game On! thread that Brogdon is our only star who is smart.  He might be onto something.  Jaylen Brown got the rebound with a couple of seconds left in OT.  EVERYBODY should have been screaming for a timeout immediately.  EVERYBODY includes veteran Al Horford, Jayson Tatum and EVERYBODY else on the floor at that time including Jaylen Brown.  Because Jaylen was unaware of the clock he started dribbling up court before Joe was able to call for a timeout.  Because of that we had to go full court with 2.3 seconds left (that's when we got the timeout), instead of taking it out at half court with 2.8 seconds left.  The difference is how much Jaylen ran off the clock by dribbling.  HUGE difference.  The last two timeouts before that final one was a Cav's timeout with 1:58 left and the Cavs up 3.  How about that Joe?  Bickerstaff took a time out with 2 minutes left and up 3 so he could pre-coach the last 2 minutes.  The score was 112-109 from 3:43 left in OT until it became 114-109 after Bickerstaff's well-timed timeout produced a bucket at 1:45.  You get two timeouts in a 5:00 minute OT.  Joe only used one of them and that was with 2.3 seconds left despite having a 2:23 minute long scoring drought.  That's awful.  Awful coaching.  

Jaylen Brown went 1-6 in the 4th quarter and 1-3 in OT.  That's 2-9 in the last 17 minutes of play, plus that braindead dribbling at the end instead of calling a timeout.  Donovan Mitchell woke up and Jaylen faded.

Smart got some shite for some of what he did towards the end but nobody else was stepping up.  He was 2-7 after 3 and ended up 5-12.  That's 3-5 in the last 17 minutes.  He wasn't the problem.  He didn't take a lot of shots and the shots he took were efficient.  NONE of those 5 fgas were 3s.  He was 1-5 from 3 after 3 and he took it inside instead.  That was smart of Smart.  Was he perfect?  No, but nobody else was doing diddly and, because of who he is, he tried to carry us over the finish line.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401468262


Bob


.

After his 2-9 3 point performance last night Tatum went down under 40% on 3. Shame refs stole another one from us, that ref should be fired, how do they miss such an obvious call with the whole world watching….and they get away with it. We should be 5-2 even with a sub par shooting night.

Another frustrating loss, I see the same things as others pointed out:

1) Up 12 in the third quarter, they cut it to 6, should have called timeout at this point, then 4 , then finally at 2 calls timeout. I don't know if Mazulla was trying some new concept, but you have to break the momentum. He has to know Cleveland will makes runs, especially at home. Minimize the run!!!. Hopefully he will learn.

2) Tatum was obviously fouled on the dunk that tied the game. If refs are going to start calling traveling (which they should), why not call the obvious foul even in a tie game?

3) Three minutes of Luke Kornet was three minutes too much. Minus 8 in three minutes, probably the difference in the game. I don't get why Blake can't play these minutes. I would rather see Vonileh. I apologize for continuing to belabor this, but this guy can should never play meaningful minutes.

4) It's a real dilemma as to who should be on the court at crunch time. Smart has to be on the court because he makes so many key plays defensively. So it's really between Brogdon and Grant? With Cleveland's size I can see why Grant played these minutes, but Brogdon is just such a smart and clutch player I think he's got to be in these minutes. Yes, we give up size, but have to believe the offense will execute better.

Right around this time last year and up through the end of the calendar year, Ime was getting tons of criticism here and elsewhere.
I came to his defense on many occasions. Why? Because I knew he had lots of experience as an assistant, played in the NBA and felt that he just needed a little time before things start to click. I felt very strongly that this dude can coach.

This year we have Joe and if i’m not feeling the same patience with him its because I’m not sure if he’s qualified for the gig.
I don't have the confidence in him that I had with Ime.
I don't think he has enough experience at any level to be where he is now and it makes me very uncomfortable. Maybe that will change in the future but I tend to doubt that I will have any trust in him. I ain’t feeling it.
Bob H spelled it out perfectly so i wont need to rehash.
During the first 3 games against supposedly the top teams in the east i could feel the confidence in our players. I felt like we will not be denied this year.
Now, here we are. Bad defense, blowing leads and looking like early/late 2021.
I think the Ime thing has some of the players scratching their head. Sure, they get paid to play and should move on but thats easier said than done. They're human and have feeling just like you and I and being kept in the dark about whats really going on and now their former head coach is headed across the street. It has to be weighing on them somewhat.
I don't feel as good about this team as I did a week ago.
I don't get the Brad think on Puke Kornet, Joe Mazzula and our not picking up another big.
Can either of them tell us why Brogdan was not in the game on that last play in overtime?
Can either of them tell us why Brogdan is not starting or at least playing 28-32 minutes a game?
Can either of them explain why we stopped defending?
Tell us and then show and prove. Give us back our optimism please……

This was a very competitive game.  These teams were statistically pretty even.

There were a lot of good things that happened in this game for the Celtics.

The Celtics went 26-27 from the line and they did well in other areas too.

Fast break points 19-14
Rebounds   52-51
Blocks 9-4
Assists 26-24

The Celtics lost this game because they did not shoot the ball well from the field and we lost the points in the paint battle 56-42.

The Celtics missed a lot of 3 points shots but most of those were makeable shots.  For the year the Celtics are shooting 38% from deep!

With respect to comments from you guys, I agree with most of them.

CJ still does not seem to understand game management.  So far we are seeing him sit on his hands when the other team is making a run and he fails to call a timeout.  Last night he let the score get down to a 2 point spread before he decided to call a timeout.  

Last night he went with an 8 man rotation plus boy wonder Kornet got 3 lousy minutes of playing time. Once again Malcolm Brogdon was not given the minutes on the court that he clearly deserves (24 minutes and 15 points on 6-11 shooting)

CJ played Sam Hauser 10 freakin minutes and he got one shot off (a miss)  From my way of thinking the Celtics should be running plays to get Sam open.  CJ, I hope you know that Math is an exact science.  

The Luke Kornet experiment was destined for failure the moment that it began.  

Overcooked Blake will be seeing a lot of DNP's and Noah Vonleh  is not one of our top 9 rotation guys.

CJ why the hell are you playing Al Horford 40 minutes?  At this rate he will be a roasted bird by Thanksgiving. Al played very well last night and in the process made a liar out of me because he went into the post area time and time again and scored against contact.  But as we saw he was exhausted going into the stretch run because he logged too many minutes.

Should we really be surprised at the incompetence of our interim head coach?  All of us knew that this was going to be a work in progress.  

Going into last night's game the Celtics schedule included 7 out of the next 11 games on the road.  

Let the experimentation continue in hopes that CJ learns from each game in how to better position his team to win.  So far he is missing on the big ticket items.

The teams fortunes will rest heavily on the return of Robert Williams.  We would have won last night's game if he was playing.  The Celtics need to hold the fort until reinforcements arrive.

Great points but if the team and/or fans are waiting for the return of Rob with hopes of playing better D than we need to put that out of our minds.
A healthy Rob coming back of course should help the team immensely but Rob is often hurt so the mindset of everyone in my opinion should be to play the D that got them to the finals and act as if Rob has retired because even with Rob back if the rest continue to defend as a team the way they have been we are gonna get cooked Rob or no Rob.
Lets think of Rob as Santa Claus.
If we start defending like we should- Now. Santa will be happy because we’ve left him milk and cookies.
Continue to play bad, well then Santa…..( Dboss help me out here)
s**t never mind I was going to try and paint the coal in the stocking scenario but thought better after the corny Milk and Cookies example.

Fk it. Just start playing like we did late last season and Rob coming back will be a bonus and not a necessity.

The difference between winning and losing is often the difference between smart and dumb. I've had great doubts about our BB IQ for some years now. Brogdon is a very smart player who because of our coach isn't on the floor often enough or at the right time. We have our coach because management decided to suspend the coach who took us to the finals last year. The fish stinks from the head down.

Berlin-T

If we had a better rotation of bigs our situation would be much better.

Without RW returning our prospects diminish greatly.

dboss wrote:If we had a better rotation of bigs our situation would be much better.

Without RW returning our prospects diminish greatly.

I’m shocked how Brad dropped the ball on our bigs situation, Cousins or Howard could help us alot more than Kornet….no brainer