2-22-2023 POST GAME NEW YORK KNICKS - HOME

Celtics Wrap: Jaylen Brown Shrinks In Big Moment In OT Loss Vs. Knicks
Brown fell flat when the Celtics needed him the most


NESN by Gio Rivera

The Boston Celtics came up short against the New York Knicks, 120-117, to lose their third consecutive game Thursday night at TD Garden.

The Celtics dropped to 34-16 on their season, while the Knicks improved to 27-23.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The Celtics needed to get themselves back in the win column and were positioned to do just that against a subpar Eastern Conference foe. However, they fell flat when needed the most.

And it wasn’t pretty, to say the least.

With just seven seconds left and an opportunity to put Boston ahead in overtime, Jaylen Brown missed back-to-back free-throw attempts which the Knicks, as they did countless times, capitalized.

The Knicks, who entered the contest 1-15 when trailing at halftime, fought through all 48 minutes. And while New York has been mediocre for the better part of their first half run to begin the season, the Knicks also have an elite duo — as was evident — in Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson. The pair combined to score 66 points as the only 20-plus-point scorers from the Knicks’ offense.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Randle flirted with a season-high 37 points to lead all scorers. He connected on five 3-pointers and collected nine rebounds with two assists.

— Jayson Tatum, who was named a starter to the All-Star Game before tip off, led the Celtics with some late-game heroics. Tatum scored the equalizing bucket to send the game into overtime and gave Boston new life. The 24-year-old finished with 35 points and 12 rebounds to record his 20th double-double of the season.

— Brunson played Robin to Randle’s Batman for the Knicks. The veteran guard scored 29 points with four rebounds, one assist and one steal.

WAGER WATCH
DraftKings Sportsbook set the odds of Malcolm Brogdon’s assist total at 3.5 with -160 odds on the over before game time. Brogdon, who struggled to get shots to fall (3/10 FG), collected four assists to clear those odds. A $100 bet would’ve netted a $162.50 total payout.

UP NEXT
The Celtics will host LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, who enter as the Western Conference’s 12th seed, at TD Garden next. Tip off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET. on Sunday.

112288

Lethargic play means no win.

No I am not bashing Brown for the two missed FT at the end of OT. Nope! But I will bash them for starting to play defense with 4 minutes left in the game down 10pts! Where the F was your defensive play the whole game up until then?????????

And oh BTW you reverted back to chuking 3 pointers the whole night instead of attacking the paint, and I am not talking about ISO HERO ball, I mean get the offense in motion rotating through the paint and get multiple players involved with attacking the paint.

Tatum 2-7 from 3 point land, boy there's a sniper for you! As a team we shot 34.8 from 3 point land, a joke!

Too many times they walked the ball up instead of a fast break.

They need another true 3 point shooter and a big and productive center and another guard/forward before the trade deadline or they will be gone early in the playoffs.

Smart is the glue that keeps the Celtics together, without him they are lost.

Good for Tib's the Knicks deserved the win! They played great defense for the majority of the game!

112288

The Celtics are now 2-4 in OT games.

The phrase "mentally weak" comes to mind, and mentally weak teams don't win Championships.

Your move, Joe.


Bob

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I have been a little disappointed by the lack of focus with which the Celts are playing. At the same time, it is only human to be distracted by the events on the horizon: All-Star Game and Trade Deadline. Let's limp our way beyond without too much damage. Hopefully, everybody gets well focused after that.

Aside, has anybody noticed the ground bound RWill lately? Perhaps he has been told to play in a lower gear to avoid injuries. Can't believe that the Celts will let him play if he is injured.

Perplexed!!

prakash wrote:I have been a little disappointed by the lack of focus with which the Celts are playing.  At the same time, it is only human to be distracted by the events on the horizon: All-Star Game and Trade Deadline.  Let's limp our way beyond without too much damage.  Hopefully, everybody gets well focused after that.

Aside, has anybody noticed the ground bound RWill lately?  Perhaps he has been told to play in a lower gear to avoid injuries.  Can't believe that the Celts will let him play if he is injured.

Perplexed!!

Yes, Rob Williams was playing below the rim all night. Not sure if his knee is still bothering him although in a closeup on a basket by him in the second half ,he was holding his back.  If that is the case, we better get a legit center at the trade deadline ASAP.

112288

It’s very disheartening but I agree with everything stated above by all.

Except-

UP NEXT
The Celtics will host LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, who enter as the Western Conference’s 12th seed, at TD Garden next. Tip off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET. on Sunday.


The game is Saturday!! NESN strikes agin….

Here is the bottom line summing up the 2022-2023 Celtics.  

The Boston Celtics strategy simply is to out score their opponent with the fire power they have.  Up until now they have the best record in the league, however that is becoming tarnished of late.  What gives?

The Celtics took off on a hot streak early while other teams in the league were getting their act together and melding with their teammates.  That takes 25 games as per our esteemed found Dick Dorr.  I happen to agree with that. But now teams are settling in and the better ones are focused on a well balanced defense to win. The Celtics on the other hand have abandoned full time defense to stop teams from scoring and are focused in just on out scoring their opponent.  This needs to stop!  

Look at the game last night. Celtics score on a tough grinding play and within 20 second the Knicks scored on an easy basket in the paint or an uncontested shot from the outside. At one point each team scored on the following possession 6 or 7 times in a row!  This is not good and they are regressing backwards to a few years ago before IME coached the team.

The Celtics need to get back to a more offense and defense balanced approach to their game or this will get back to bite us in the ASS come playoff time!

112288

I am in Costa Rica so could only follow the last games via gamecast. Picked up both games in early fourth quarter.

From what everyone is saying apparently our D was not solid till the last minutes when we had to stop them. Not sure how we blew a 10 point lead vs heat in 4th. All of a sudden it went from being 87-77 to tie.

However, it is definitely concerning. Jaylen is shooting 78% from the line this year, a career high, but I’m always a little uneasy when he’s shooting big fts. He’s got to be consistent in those situations.

I hope Rob is not injured. This is definitely something to watch. Before I left for vacation didn’t think we needed to make a move, but now I’m not too sure.

I know smart is out, but we should be able to win these games without him.

Keep me posted, your analysis is all I got for the next week and keep the faith. Maybe when we see those purple and gold jerseys we will snap out if this funk.

112288 wrote:Here is the bottom line summing up the 2022-2023 Celtics.  

The Boston Celtics strategy simply is to out score their opponent with the fire power they have.  Up until now they have the best record in the league, however that is becoming tarnished of late.  What gives?

The Celtics took off on a hot streak early while other teams in the league were getting their act together and melding with their teammates.  That takes 25 games as per our esteemed found Dick Dorr.  I happen to agree with that. But now teams are settling in and the better ones are focused on a well balanced defense to win. The Celtics on the other hand have abandoned full time defense to stop teams from scoring and are focused in just on out scoring their opponent.  This needs to stop!  

Look at the game last night. Celtics score on a tough grinding play and within 20 second the Knicks scored on an easy basket in the paint or an uncontested shot from the outside. At one point each team scored on the following possession 6 or 7 times in a row!  This is not good and they are regressing backwards to a few years ago before IME coached the team.

The Celtics need to get back to a more offense and defense balanced approach to their game or this will get back to bite us in the ASS come playoff time!

112288

Last I checked, the Celtics had the 5th best defensive rating and the 3rd best offensive rating. Seems pretty balanced (and pretty good) to me. Teams are going to lose games, and the Celts are a little banged up. Assuming none of the nagging injuries progress to anything more troublesome, I'm not concerned. The sky isn't falling yet.

Shamrock1000 wrote:
Last I checked, the Celtics had the 5th best defensive rating and the 3rd best offensive rating. Seems pretty balanced (and pretty good) to me. Teams are going to lose games, and the Celts are a little banged up. Assuming none of the nagging injuries progress to anything more troublesome, I'm not concerned. The sky isn't falling yet.

I'm with you.

I have read everyone's comments and I think they are accurate assessments.

112288 mentioned adjustments:

"But I will bash them for starting to play defense with 4 minutes left in the game down 10pts!"

Much earlier in the games it should have been crystal clear that neither Derrick White nor Brogdon could check Brunson.  To me it is not about the defensive abilities of those two players.  White in particular is a very solid defender but he could not contain Brunson last night.  It was all about the ability of our guys to match the physicality that Brunson was playing with.  Once they put Jaylen on Brunson that changed what he was able to so.  It took damn near all game for CJ to figure that one out.

The Celtics executed a hard trap on Randle and it worked but again this happened after he lit the Celtics up more times than I care to remember.

Good for CJ to implement these adjustments however he was waaaay too late in addressing those defensive issues.

None of us have Rob's knees attached to our bodies so we can only speculate on some observations.  He clearly is not playing as high above the rim.  The way that I see it is that if he was injured he would not be playing at all.  I think that he wants to get the job done without expended more energy or stress on his body.  Last year when he came back he stated that the team did not want him to overdo things.

Therefore maybe we should spend more time on results and less time on his eye popping athleticism.  He did come away with 12 rebounds including a fantastic 5 on the offensive class.  Rob pretty much saved out bacon all night.  Every time the bacon was ready to burn he flipped a piece over.  He had his usual 4/5 from the field and when given an opportunity, ran a few sets from the top.  He actually made some great plays like setting perfect screens without fouling.

I think we should be more concerned about Al Horford.  He missed the Heat game because it was a B2B and in the two losses to the Magic and the Knicks he had 4 rebounds and 6 points in each. AH has played bad in every single loss that we have had except vs the Cavs where he went 12 and 12.  Don't believe me see the game log for him.  

For those in the, we need another center camp, Al Horford is Exhibit A.

Jaylen Brown choked at the line!  There is no other way to describe it.

The 3 losses are nothing more and nothing less than the customary bump in the road.  The wheels have not come off so just keep riding.

If Jaylen hits those FT’s we are marveling that we played bad, but still executed well enough to win and pull out a tough game. Unfortunately Jaylen missed and it’s easy to point out other’s that also didn’t play well and some coaching lapses that also occurred. Too bad Jaylen missed, too many of our players were off and Tatum couldn’t carry us over the hump with his usual 30 point double-double. Brunson and Randle played over their normal games, shame we couldn’t stop them better. We need to play much better vs LA.

Steve Bulpett @SteveBHoop
about 9 hours ago
The fact the Celtics failed in their comeback bid against New York last night contained an important lesson that could help them in the long ... because one of the most dangerous things about iso ball is that it sometimes works.


Bob


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Tatum and Brown have to grow a pair, they have to want it and take control and silence the crowd like Pierce and Bird and Havlicek used to in their heyday. The rest of the season coach Joe should be experimenting with end of game situations and plays to be run at that time. Getting comfortable in those situations is going to determine this teams legacy and everything going forward. If either of them were already at that level, we would have won the last 2 games, hopefully by the end of the season they are better.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Tatum and Brown have to grow a pair, they have to want it and take control and silence the crowd like Pierce and Bird and Havlicek used to in their heyday. The rest of the season coach Joe should be experimenting with end of game situations and plays to be run at that time. Getting comfortable in those situations is going to determine this teams legacy and everything going forward. If either of them were already at that level, we would have won the last 2 games, hopefully by the end of the season they are better.

If I have to pick I will take Paul Pierce any day over Tatum. PP is a very special Celtic for me. Instrumental in ending that championship drought, too bad, he had to play on bad teams for a long time.

prakash wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:Tatum and Brown have to grow a pair, they have to want it and take control and silence the crowd like Pierce and Bird and Havlicek used to in their heyday. The rest of the season coach Joe should be experimenting with end of game situations and plays to be run at that time. Getting comfortable in those situations is going to determine this teams legacy and everything going forward. If either of them were already at that level, we would have won the last 2 games, hopefully by the end of the season they are better.

If I have to pick I will take Paul Pierce any day over Tatum. PP is a very special Celtic for me. Instrumental in ending that championship drought, too bad, he had to play on bad teams for a long time.

True, but the level they finally got with KG, Ray, Perk and Rondo was worth the wait with some incredible good strong play with an elite defense at worst, one for the ages with Tony Allen, Big Baby and Leon Powe coming off the bench to further get into people.

112288,

If what you say is true about Celtics abandoning defense in order to just outscore opponents, I can predict with great accuracy what will happen to us in the playoffs this year.  No one's going to like it.  The NBA playoffs are littered with teams that had this philosophy going into the playoffs from the regular season much like Mt. Everest is with empty oxygen bottles and dead bodies.  None made it to the top and most went out early.  

There are 32 games left.  That's a whole college basketball season.  We'll figure it out.    

db