Post Game - Celtics vs. 76ers - Friday, December 01 (W)

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401584903

Squeaked past an inspired Philly team. Glad that JB finally was able to find rhythm. PP was a shot in the arm right when needed.

Like last year, Celts are starting to look like the tedium of the season is starting to get to them. Hopefully they can sustain their level of play this year.

Celtics-76ers takeaways: Horford comes up big in C's hard-fought win

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-76ers-takeaways-horford-comes-034215608.html

Justin Leger
Fri, Dec 1, 2023, 10:42 PM EST·4 min read



Celtics-76ers takeaways: Horford comes up big in C's hard-fought win originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Three Key Storylines

Al Horford comes up big
Derrick White picks up the slack
Tough night for Jayson Tatum

It wasn't the prettiest performance, but the Boston Celtics outlasted the Philadelphia 76ers in a shootout Friday night at TD Garden.

The C's tied a season-high with 44 first-quarter points while shooting 70 percent from the floor, including 8-of-11 from 3. While they were on fire offensively, so were the Sixers.

Playing without stars Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, Philly erupted for 72 first-half points and shot 58.2 percent against the second-ranked defense in the NBA. It took advantage of Boston's turnover woes (11 in first half, 20 for the game) to keep it close for all four quarters.

It was a back-and-forth affair that included 16 lead changes. Ultimately, the Celtics escaped with a hard-fought 125-119 victory over their Eastern Conference rival.

C's star Jayson Tatum (21 points) was ejected after arguing with officials and earning his second technical foul at the end of the third quarter. Derrick White (21 points) and Al Horford (20 points) stepped up in his absence as seven Celtics players scored in double figures.

Sixers guard Patrick Beverley tied his career-high with 26 points in the loss. De'Anthony Melton chipped in 21 points of his own.

Next, the Celtics will visit the Indiana Pacers on Monday night for the knockout stage of the NBA In-Season Tournament. Before we switch focus to the IST, here are our takeaways from Friday's game.

Al Horford comes up big

Horford continues to step up for the C's in Kristaps Porzingis' (calf) absence.

The veteran big man played a crucial role in Friday's win over his former team with key plays on both ends of the floor. His night started with back-to-back 3-pointers and he didn't let his foot off the gas for the rest of the game.

Horford notched 20 points (7-9 FG) to set a season-high for the second consecutive game. He scored 16 points in Tuesday's win over the Chicago Bulls.



As much of an impact Horford made on offense, he was even better defensively. The 37-year-old constantly contested shots and he made his presence felt with two huge blocks on Sixers forward Tobias Harris in the fourth quarter.



Horford immediately followed those blocks with an assist on the other end to Jrue Holiday, who drained a 3-pointer that put the C's up by one. He ended up with six rebounds, three assists, and a steal to go with his 20 points and two blocks in 33 minutes.

Derrick White picks up the slack

Like Horford, White continues to be a stabilizing force when his team needs him most.

The Celtics were noticeably worse when White was off the court on Friday night. The All-Defensive guard was a difference-maker in all facets of the game. He notched a team-high 13 points while shooting 3-of-4 from beyond the arc in the first half and remained a key contributor throughout the final two frames.

White was a team-best +18 while logging 21 points, six rebounds, five assists, and one steal, and a block. With Tatum playing only three quarters and Jaylen Brown (8-20 FG) struggling to find his shot for most of the night, it was White who propelled Boston to victory alongside Horford.

Jayson Tatum has a night to forget

The Celtics held off the Sixers despite playing without their superstar for the entire fourth quarter.

Tatum was ejected at the end of the third quarter for arguing with the officials and earning his second technical foul of the game. You can watch the sequence below:



The ejection topped off a tough night for Tatum. While he dropped 15 points in the first half, he also turned the ball over five times through the first two frames. He finished with seven of the team's season-high 20 turnovers.

Had Tatum taken better care of the basketball and avoided the second tech, he would have finished with a strong stat line. The four-time All-Star recorded 21 points (6-9 FG), seven rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block before being booted. He'll look to avoid making the same types of mistakes in Monday's In-Season Tournament showdown with Indiana.

From another perspective:


Pat Bev, Roco lead hell of an effort but Hospital Sixers come up just short vs. Celtics

https://www.libertyballers.com/2023/12/1/23984952/sixers-celtics-final-score-game-recap-patrick-beverley-robert-covington-mo-bamba-deanthony-melton

Patrick Beverley and Robert Covington had their best games as Sixers, but it wasn’t quite enough as they fell to the Celtics in Boston Friday.

By Josh Grieb@JGrieb10  Dec 1, 2023, 10:10pm EST  15 Comments / 15 New



Isn’t it wild they lost the Pat Bev game?

The Sixers went up to Boston without Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey or Nico Batum and fell 125-119 to the Celtics Friday night.

The game’s high man was Patrick Beverley, who put up 26 points, shooting 10-of-15 from the floor and pulled down eight rebounds and seven assists.

Robert Covington gave the Sixers a season-high 18 points as well as five steals, but De’Anthony Melton fouling out and Tobias Harris going cold were too much to overcome.

Here are some thoughts at the buzzer.

First Quarter

Neither team struggled to put the ball in the basket at the start of this one. The hospital Sixers made eight of their first 11 field goals of the game. Running the show, Beverley had nine first-quarter points. His jump shots have certainly looked to have more legs under them the past week or so.

Robert Covington was the game’s lone source of defense in the opening quarter. He got himself on the board with three Covington-esque steals. He made his first couple threes of the game, making it six straight going back to Wednesday night in New Orleans.



Unfortunately for the Sixers, Boston came out of the gate shooting even hotter. They were a scalding 8-of-11 from downtown in the first, good enough to hold an eight-point lead despite a 36-point quarter from Philly.

Second Quarter

Mo Bamba’s minutes in the first half weren’t disastrous, which is probably the first time that’s been the case as a Sixer. He fought his way into a couple of offensive rebounds and blocked a shot in six minutes of action.

The Sixers didn’t take advantage of the 12 first half Boston turnovers as much as you would expect. The fast-break points in the half were actually a Celtics 16-13 advantage. The Sixers did however generate constant rim pressure throughout the quarter, having a 10-point advantage in points in the paint at the half. Paul Reed and Harris led the charge here, combining to shoot 9-of-11 in the half.

Making over half of your three-pointers will certainly help generate rim pressure. The Sixers shot 52% from deep in the half to match 54% from Boston. It was a corner three from Morris that gave Philly a three-point lead at the break.



Third Quarter

The Celtics would clamp up on defense coming out of the half, making it significantly harder for Philly to drive into the paint. The Sixers opened the quarter shooting 3-of-12 which allowed Boston to re-take the lead.

Naturally it was Bamba who kept the Sixers afloat in the quarter. They really got none of the dribble-penetration they were able to in the first half, though the Celtics’ offense hit a bit of a wall as well. All Bamba had to do was pop behind a couple of screens and knock down a couple of threes to keep themselves in it.



It was certainly an interesting final seconds of the quarter. Tatum got called for an offensive foul trying to get by Covington, and was so displeased that he was called for a technical and was subsequently ejected. After the play was upgraded to a flagrant, the trip to the free throw line for Covington ended up giving the Sixers a two-point lead with one quarter to go and no Tatum for the rest of the game. It does feel like referees have a quicker trigger than ever to eject players, stars or not, and that is a shame.

Fourth Quarter

The first half appeared to be a bounce-back game for Harris, but he would slide back down to earth late. He had two turnovers and shot 0-of-5 in the final quarter, including getting stuffed on two consecutive dunk attempts by Al Horford.

When the final injury report came in tonight, De’Anthony Melton fouling out probably wasn’t that high on the priority list. He fouled out with 5:08 remaining, a tough loss for the shorthanded squad. Melton finished with 21 points, shooting 7-of-19 from the field and 4-of-12 from three, as well as two stocks.

KJ Martin was one of the most buried players on any NBA bench a week or two ago. Tonight he was on the floor with less than two minutes left in a single-possession game in Boston. Injuries and illnesses suck, but depleted roster games are always so much fun.

In the end, Beverley was not able to go basket-for-basket with the Celtics, as hard as he tried. But it was still quite the offensive performance from a guy who was getting compared to P.J. Tucker last week.



As they didn’t make the next round of the In-Season Tournament, the Sixers will have time off. They’ll have four days off before heading down to Washington to take on the Wizards next Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET.

We won by 6 despite taking 13 more ftas.  You know if Embiid and Maxey had played that wouldn't be so.


94 fgas vs 77 for us.  We're losing that metric, again.  20 turnovers will do it.  The Js accounted for 10 of them, Jayson with 7.

16 steals for them vs 10 for us.  That's 6 fewer fgas by us and a live ball turnover favoring them.


15 offensive rebounds for them vs 10 for us.  No Embiid and we still lose the offensive rebound battle.  5 offensive boards for Mo Bamba.  He has played in a grand total of 57 minutes this season for Nick Nurse, with 20 of them last night, and he gets 11 points and 6 boards.


50 points in the paint for them vs 42 for us.  No Embiid and they still beat us in the paint.


Watching this highlight film it is clear they were trying to take advantage of Luke, and they did.  I like that, with :44 left and Pritchard out beyond the frito line on defense, he crashed the board.  The shot went up and he went for the ball.  Jrue put a body on Mo Bamba and Jaylen was with Harris, leaving the middle of the lane open for Pritchard to crash.  Nice.  Then, on the next possession, Pritchard cuts baseline for the backdoor with the clock expiring. He didn't just stay out at the arc hoping for a pass, he moved to create something.






Pritchard is now 9th in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio at 5:1:1. Some of the players ahead of him include John Konchar, who has played 245 minutes all year and only has 22 assists total; Julian Strawther, who has only played 215 minutes and only has 16 assists total; Jacob Gilyard, who has only played 231 minutes and has 43 assists. My point here is that there are at least 3 players who are ahead of Pritchard in this key point guard metric who have played less than him. This early in the season, with them only 200+ minutes of playing time, makes it easy to look really good or really bad but it isn't indicative of the season. Remember when Grant started off his rookie year 0-25 from 3? He ended up the season shooting 25% from 3 by going 24-72 (33.4%) from 3 the rest of the season. The chances of Pritchard moving up on this list is pretty good and this is a good list for a ballhandler to be on.


Bob


.

cowens/oldschool wrote:I was disappointed Jaylen couldn’t get his game going and take over, Holiday missed a bunch of makeable shots too. Then I see boxscores of other games and other stars having 2-12 nights, is it me or were other top guns from past eras more consistent?

Good question.

Although I don’t have an educated answer, I do know that, personally, the older I get, the better I remember I was.

Selective memory? Halo effect?

NYCelt wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:I was disappointed Jaylen couldn’t get his game going and take over, Holiday missed a bunch of makeable shots too. Then I see boxscores of other games and other stars having 2-12 nights, is it me or were other top guns from past eras more consistent?

Good question.

Although I don’t have an educated answer, I do know that, personally, the older I get, the better I remember I was.

Selective memory? Halo effect?

LOL, I'm sure even Bird or McHale had a 2-12 night on occasion.

At least we got the win. The turnovers by the J's is alarming. I think we took the sixers lightly last night and our heads were not completely in the game. What I don't understand is when Beverly got a tech why did Jaylen shoot the tech? He promptly bricked it. He's a 70% ft shooter. White and Hauser were on the floor, why didn't one of them shoot the tech? In the 80's Bird shot every tech and in the 70's Hondo shot the techs (although I think JoJo may have taken the role late in Hondo's career). Seems that if the person involved in the play where the tech is called shoots the tech. That is just plain stupid. These are free points, the best FT shooter on the floor should shoot the tech. My rant for the day.

The assist to turnover ratio is not a reliable stat to lean on due to the fact that turnovers come in so many different ways that have nothing to do with passing or assists. I've stated this in the recent past without much commentary. I had one comment that agreed with me and another that said that they planned to keep using it.

If anyone tries to use +/- or per 36, even within the proper context, they often get an immediate negative reaction. I would group A/TO with those two as nice stats, yet often meaningless.

Anyway, that's not just my opinion, I've seen it being debated elsewhere and it makes sense to me. There is too much noise in what constitutes a turnover to actually have any meaning when compared to assists.

Did the Celtics win this game?

Yes they won the game.

Aside from the TOV,  the Celtics actually played quite well.  Their low 77 FGA was mostly impacted by their 20 turnovers, however they shot 39/77 50.6% from the field and sizzled behind the arc 16/33 or 48.1% and they made their FT's  31/36 or 86.1%.

125 points is fairly impressive when a team only takes 77 shots.

My lone complaint is directed at CJ.  He did a really good job moving pieces in and out of the lineup.  Having acknowledged that, he had a brain fart when he took PP out and inserted Kornet into the closeout session in the 4th QTR at the 3:38 mark.  It did not take long for CJ to realize that mistake as PP came back into the game at the 2:28 mark of the 4th QTR.  Luke went back to the bench.  

I like the play of Queta who scored 5 points and had 5 rebounds in 10 minutes of limited action and I also like Banton who also logged 10 minutes while scoring 4 points and securing 5 rebounds.  The two of them combined for 5 offensive rebounds of our team total of 10.

AH also had an old school game.  He was significant.  D White continues to be the most consistent guy on this team.  I had no idea that he would be this good.

With this win, the Celtics moved to a 15-4 record.   Same as last season through 19 games.  One thing is clear to me.  When the Celtics lock down on defense they win.

The Sixers are now 3 games back in the loss column to us.  Furthermore we play them 3X this season total, we've already played all 3 of them, and we own the H2H record 2-1.  That effectively puts them 4 games back from us since we own the first tiebreaker.


Time to change our focus to Orlando, which is only 1 game back, and Milwaukee which is 2 games back, and we still have games to play against both of them.


Bob


.

dboss,

I don't think DW thought he'd be this good! Heck, why would Pop trade him in the first place?!

Anyway, like you are positing, dboss, not much to complain about in this game. I found it amusing as the announcers were quick to point out ad nauseum throughout the game that the 6ers were missing the 2nd and 3rd coming of Christ, but to hear on that broadcast we had Tatum and Porkchop missing, you're going to have to go back and listen very carefully to discover NOTHING was said about that. So the final score shouldn't surprise us. Where was Doris Burke?! She usually lathers us up pretty good!

Anyway, here comes IND. Better not brain fart and lose to these clowns after we shellacked them by 50+. I can predict with great accuracy this upcoming game will be completely different. Best come loaded for bear.

I'm curious. How did the NBA have what looks like a full slate of games on Wednesday this week yet when they set the schedule in the summer did not know who the Final 8 teams were going to be? That may be the smartest/rocket scientist part of the whole In Season Tournament! Please someone lead me from the darkness!

db