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Celtics Wrap: Boston Earns Impressive Win Despite Jayson Tatum Clunker
The depth was on display Sunday afternoon

NESN by Sean T. McGuire

The Boston Celtics earned arguably their most impressive home win Sunday at TD Garden in a 115-107 verdict against the Memphis Grizzles.

The Celtics improved to 41-16 on the season while the Grizzlies fell to 34-22.

Here’s how it went down:

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
Playing without both Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart and in a game where star Jayson Tatum (16 points on 3-for-16 from field) scored three second-half points, the Celtics not only competed with the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference but they did enough down the stretch to pull away for a victory. And they did so in large part because of their depth pieces like Derrick White, Sam Hauser, Payton Pritchard and newcomer Mike Muscala.

Boston was sloppy on the offensive end for much of the first half, but took a 61-48 lead at the intermission as the Green combined to shoot 50% from long range (12-for-24). Hauser scored 11 points of 3-for-4 from the 3-point line while Pritchard (3-for-4), Muscala (2-for-4) and White (2-for-5) also connected on lead-building shots.

That hot shooting continued down the stretch with veteran Al Horford hitting a trio of crunch-time 3-pointers to help put the game away. Boston concluded while shooting 41% from long range, assisting on 28 of their 39 made baskets.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Hauser continued to impress in his role in the starting lineup, tying his season-high of 31 minutes. The Celtics sharpshooter finished with a 20 points on six made 3-pointers.

— White stepped up in a big way for the Celtics offense, doing just about everything in the contest. The starting point guard dished 10 assists to go with his team-high 23 points as he shot 8-for-20 from the field in 40 minutes.

— Grizzlies star Ja Morant got off to a slow start depicted as five of his nine first-half points came at the charity stripe. However, Morant kept the Grizzlies in it down the stretch with a team-high 20 points on 7-for-15 from the field.

WAGER WATCH
Tatum’s poor offensive performance might have been appreciated by a number of Super Bowl bettors. After all, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert entered Sunday +130 to have more receptions than Tatum’s assists and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker was +280 to make more field goals than Tatum’s 3-point total.

UP NEXT
The Celtics return to action Tuesday as they face their Eastern Conference rival Milwaukee Bucks.

112288

8 Celtics in double figures, I like that!

I just cannot figure out why Tatum has lost his touch from beyond the 3 point arc. He needs to seek advice from a top shooting coach!

112288

112288 wrote:8 Celtics in double figures, I like that!

I just cannot figure out why Tatum has lost his touch from beyond the 3 point arc.  He needs to seek advice from a top shooting coach!

112288

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
                It's a mystery. He's playing great otherwise, but his shooting has become a real issue.

Like most of us, I hate the national broadcasts.They cut away from the action, talk about everything but the game, and seem to be aiming at an audience that is not composed of actual baskrtball fans. That said , I loved the short interview with Ja Morant. When asked which teams he was most leery of, he said Boston Celtics. When it was pointed out to him that Western Conference teams had loaded up at the trade deadline and asked which of those teams worried him, he shook his head and said " Celtics."

This was a matinee game back east, it went on at 2am here in Pattaya, so I slept through it.

Without watching the game I have to believe the game ball goes to Sam.  20 points on 6-11 from 3.  Very nice.  I think he's back, but when Jaylen's back he goes back to the bench.  Can he keep doing this, with a reduction of production commensurate with his reduced minutes, off the bench or will he revert to the Sam we saw for 3 months?

Sam is 19-33 from 3 in his last 4 games. That's 58%. He's now shooting 41.7% from 3 on the sesaon.

DWhite still on a tear, I see.

Muscala stealing Luke's minutes.

14 offensive rebounds vs 3 for them.  Wow.  It figures.  The game that we have an absurdly slanted result in my favorite stat, I miss.


https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401469010

112288 wrote:

I just cannot figure out why Tatum has lost his touch from beyond the 3 point arc. He needs to seek advice from a top shooting coach!

112288

Hi,
I suspect it's his wrist.

AK

I thought overall we won this game with defense and rebounding. Great to see our 3 point shooting coming back, but at 39 they couldn’t score for the longest stretch and we built up a good lead. Our defense looked great during this stretch, contesting every shot didn’t matter who was on floor. I liked the big combo we used for stretches White Tatum GWill Al RWill, that unit can defend and rebound.

This was yet again another solid win by the Celtics against one of the top teams.  They are 6th in the league and #2 out West.  However, if you really want to know how good a team is just take a look at their road record.  At 11-17, Memphis is not going anywhere.  

The Celtics won this game with great passing (28 assists). 41% shooting from the arc (21-51) and a dominant rebounding performance (54-34).

As noted, the Celtics had 8 players in double figures as our revitalized bench has made the most of their opportunities to play more minutes.  Even with JT having another subpar shooting performance along with missing Smart, Brown and Brogdon, the Celtics looked significantly better than the Grizzlies.  A poor 3rd QTR as evidenced by a 33-21 advantage for the visitors did not alter the final outcome as the Celtics finished the deal in the 4th, 37-28.

This is another game where the team carried the star to victory.

I see that Robert Williams is coming along despite a noticeable   reduction in his verticality.  Through 5 February games his MPG are up to 27.6 and his scoring average for the month is 10.2 to go along with 12.6 rebounds.   He continues to get the team 2nd chance opportunities with his persistent work on the offensive glass.  (18 offensive rebounds over the past 5 games or 3.6 per contest)  

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if some of our rotation guys can continue to perform well while logging fewer minutes.

I remain very optimistic about our team.  Last year on 2/13 we had begun our club up the mountain and were in the midst of a 9 game winning streak,  We were 33-25 .  Here we are one year later holding a 41-17 record.

So glad Hauser’s stroke is back, 19-33 last 4 games.

White has been spectacularly good both ends.

Brogdon has been so good and efficient, even though he was off yesterday.

Mascala has fit in perfect, can play next to Al or Timelord and further spread floor and hit shots. His defense is adequate enough.

Timelord is on a rebounding tear. Al’s defense is still worthy.

We will eventually be getting a rested Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart back. Kudos to SIASJ for getting the team ready and able to win with the injuries.

cowens/oldschool wrote:So glad Hauser’s stroke is back, 19-33 last 4 games.

White has been spectacularly good both ends.

Brogdon has been so good and efficient, even though he was off yesterday.

Mascala has fit in perfect, can play next to Al or Timelord and further spread floor and hit shots. His defense is adequate enough.

Timelord is on a rebounding tear. Al’s defense is still worthy.

We will eventually be getting a rested Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart back. Kudos to SIASJ for getting the team ready and able to win with the injuries.

SIASJ has been defensive with reporters and then he turns around and does the things that everyone has been talking about like managing the game by using his timeouts and drawing up plays to enhance the teams' opportunity to score.

These regular season trials and errors should help to prepare him for the big playoff challenges. Everybody here wants him to be successful.

I really believe the recent absences of MS, JB and to a lesser extent AH and RWIII for our team are helping leaps and bounds for the next men up philosophy. White, Brogden, Hauser, P-Squared, GW and now Muscala all are playing out of their brains great. We're seeing massive acceleration of an already potent bench to get ready for the playoff run. There is NO price you can put on this. So if there is ever a silver lining for guys being out due to injury, this is it. Really liking what I'm seeing here.

And now we can look ahead to tomorrow @ MIL. Not saying this is just another regular season game between two top teams in the East or NBA, but this is one game to note for sure. I'm going to pre-empt before the lines come out tomorrow, but MIL has to be favored, but not by much. MIL (-2) or (-3) maybe? You wouldn't know this but we've quietly won 6 of our last 7 games. MIL has won 10 in a row. This is a true Clash Of The Titans and the winner of this game will know a whole lot about themselves and the opponent and feel much better about themselves going into the ASG Break. A win by the Celtics would be for MIL like the Coyote getting the proverbial anvil dropped on his head. That's gotta hurt. A MIL win? Everyone's expecting that, especially MIL. Nothing to see here. MIL has to win this game. I'll take MIL.

db

dboss wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:So glad Hauser’s stroke is back, 19-33 last 4 games.

White has been spectacularly good both ends.

Brogdon has been so good and efficient, even though he was off yesterday.

Mascala has fit in perfect, can play next to Al or Timelord and further spread floor and hit shots. His defense is adequate enough.

Timelord is on a rebounding tear. Al’s defense is still worthy.

We will eventually be getting a rested Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart back. Kudos to SIASJ for getting the team ready and able to win with the injuries.

SIASJ has been defensive with reporters and then he turns around and does the things that everyone has been talking about like managing the game by using his timeouts and drawing up plays to enhance the teams' opportunity to score.  

These regular season trials and errors should help to prepare him for the big playoff challenges. Everybody here wants him to be successful.

There was time a in the 3rd Q where Memphis came back from 13 down to take a slight lead before Joe called time out too late. Other than that he was OK.

Ktron, it seems like double digit leads get blown way faster than they used to, almost in the blink of an eye. I'm guessing SIASJ just blinks slightly slower than the rest of us!!

db

DANNY GREEN OFF THE BOARD - SIGNING WITH CLEVELAND

112288

Ktron wrote:

dboss wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:So glad Hauser’s stroke is back, 19-33 last 4 games.

White has been spectacularly good both ends.

Brogdon has been so good and efficient, even though he was off yesterday.

Mascala has fit in perfect, can play next to Al or Timelord and further spread floor and hit shots. His defense is adequate enough.

Timelord is on a rebounding tear. Al’s defense is still worthy.

We will eventually be getting a rested Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart back. Kudos to SIASJ for getting the team ready and able to win with the injuries.

SIASJ has been defensive with reporters and then he turns around and does the things that everyone has been talking about like managing the game by using his timeouts and drawing up plays to enhance the teams' opportunity to score.  

These regular season trials and errors should help to prepare him for the big playoff challenges. Everybody here wants him to be successful.

There was time a in the 3rd Q  where Memphis came back from 13 down to take a slight lead before Joe called time out too late. Other than that he was OK.

Guess I did not notice that. I believe in timely time outs.

dboss wrote:This was yet again another solid win by the Celtics against one of the top teams.  They are 6th in the league and #2 out West.  However, if you really want to know how good a team is just take a look at their road record.  At 11-17, Memphis is not going anywhere.  

The Celtics won this game with great passing (28 assists). 41% shooting from the arc (21-51) and a dominant rebounding performance (54-34).

As noted, the Celtics had 8 players in double figures as our revitalized bench has made the most of their opportunities to play more minutes.  Even with JT having another subpar shooting performance along with missing Smart, Brown and Brogdon, the Celtics looked significantly better than the Grizzlies.  A poor 3rd QTR as evidenced by a 33-21 advantage for the visitors did not alter the final outcome as the Celtics finished the deal in the 4th, 37-28.

This is another game where the team carried the star to victory.

I see that Robert Williams is coming along despite a noticeable   reduction in his verticality.  Through 5 February games his MPG are up to 27.6 and his scoring average for the month is 10.2 to go along with 12.6 rebounds.   He continues to get the team 2nd chance opportunities with his persistent work on the offensive glass.  (18 offensive rebounds over the past 5 games or 3.6 per contest)  

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if some of our rotation guys can continue to perform well while logging fewer minutes.

I remain very optimistic about our team.  Last year on 2/13 we had begun our club up the mountain and were in the midst of a 9 game winning streak,  We were 33-25 .  Here we are one year later holding a 41-17 record.

Notable reduction in verticality---I was wondering if I was imagining that until I read your post

dboss wrote:This was yet again another solid win by the Celtics against one of the top teams.  They are 6th in the league and #2 out West.  However, if you really want to know how good a team is just take a look at their road record.  At 11-17, Memphis is not going anywhere.  

The Celtics won this game with great passing (28 assists). 41% shooting from the arc (21-51) and a dominant rebounding performance (54-34).

As noted, the Celtics had 8 players in double figures as our revitalized bench has made the most of their opportunities to play more minutes.  Even with JT having another subpar shooting performance along with missing Smart, Brown and Brogdon, the Celtics looked significantly better than the Grizzlies.  A poor 3rd QTR as evidenced by a 33-21 advantage for the visitors did not alter the final outcome as the Celtics finished the deal in the 4th, 37-28.

This is another game where the team carried the star to victory.

I see that Robert Williams is coming along despite a noticeable   reduction in his verticality.  Through 5 February games his MPG are up to 27.6 and his scoring average for the month is 10.2 to go along with 12.6 rebounds.   He continues to get the team 2nd chance opportunities with his persistent work on the offensive glass.  (18 offensive rebounds over the past 5 games or 3.6 per contest)  

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if some of our rotation guys can continue to perform well while logging fewer minutes.

I remain very optimistic about our team.  Last year on 2/13 we had begun our club up the mountain and were in the midst of a 9 game winning streak,  We were 33-25 .  Here we are one year later holding a 41-17 record.

                                                                                        Notable reduction in verticality---I was wondering if I was imagining that until I read your post