Post Game - Celtics vs. Cavaliers - Thursday, December 14 (W)

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401584947

Celtics-Cavaliers takeaways: Tatum outduels Mitchell in win for C's

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-cavaliers-takeaways-tatum-outduels-030918259.html

Nick Goss
Thu, Dec 14, 2023, 10:09 PM EST·4 min read

Celtics-Cavaliers takeaways: Tatum outduels Mitchell in win for C's originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Cleveland Cavaliers were a thorn in the Boston Celtics' side last season, winning three of their four matchups.



The Celtics look determined to flip the script in 2023-24, and they're off to a great start with back-to-back wins over the Cavs this week, the latest coming Thursday night at TD Garden.

The Celtics led nearly the entire game, but the Cavs trimmed Boston's advantage to 90-87 by the end of the third quarter. The C's pulled away in the fourth quarter to secure a 116-107 victory, improving their record to an NBA-leading 18-5. Boston also is a perfect 12-0 at home this season.

Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 27 points, and 12 of them came in the fourth quarter. All five C's starters scored 14 or more points.



The Celtics will be right back at it Friday and Sunday against the Magic, with both games to be played in Boston. The Magic have won four straight games versus the C's dating back to last season.

Before we look ahead to those two games, here are three takeaways from Celtics-Cavaliers.

Much better start

The Celtics had to overcome a poor start in Tuesday's matchup with the Cavs when they fell behind 31-21 after the first quarter. Boston came out with much better energy on both ends of the floor Thursday and decisively won the opening 12 minutes.

The Celtcs held a 33-24 advantage after the first quarter, led by Jaylen Brown's nine points on 4-of-6 shooting.



Jayson Tatum chipped in seven points with three rebounds and two assists, while Derrick White (seven points) and Kristaps Porzingis (five points) also made a solid contribution.



The Celtics shot 60 percent from the field (12-of-20) and from the 3-point line (6-for-10) in the first quarter.

Boston's defense was fantastic in the quarter, too. They forced five Cleveland turnovers and held the Cavs to a dismal 1-of-10 shooting from 3-point range.

Good starts have been much more common for the C's than sluggish ones. After Thursday, the Celtics rank third in the league in first quarter points per game (31.2) and second in first quarter field goal percentage (50.6).

Celtics' defense shines

The Celtics scored 116 points and shot well from the field, but it was their defense that really propelled them to victory.

The C's came into Thursday allowing the opponent to hit 15-plus 3-pointers and shoot at least 40 percent on those attempts in each of the last four games. They did a much better job defending the perimeter versus the Cavs, who shot 33.3 percent (11-of-33) from 3-point range.

Boston also defended the paint very well. Tatum blocked a team-high three shots, including this emphatic swat in the fourth quarter that drew a huge roar from the crowd.



The Celtics tallied eight blocks a team, in addition to seven steals. They also forced 16 Cavaliers turnovers and won the rebounding battle 44-39.

The Celtics talked a lot in the preseason about being an elite defensive team, and they're on track to achieving that goal through 23 games. Boston ranks fourth in the league in both defensive rating and opponents points per game.

Donovan Mitchell loves playing vs. Celtics

If Mitchell played against the Celtics all the time, he'd probably be a top MVP candidate. For whatever reason, the Cavs guard loves playing against the Celtics, and that's evident in his stats.

Mitchell entered Thursday averaging 29.5 points per game in his career against the Celtics, which is his highest total versus any team (minimum three or more matchups). The Celtics have allowed an opposing player to score 40-plus points 11 times over the last two years, and Mitchell accounts for four of them.

Mitchell gave another strong performance Thursday, scoring 31 points on 12-of-24 shooting with eight rebounds and six assists.



Unfortunately for Mitchell, he didn't get a ton of help from his teammates. Darius Garland was the only other Cleveland starter to score in double digits. Only three players for the Cavs -- Mitchell, Garland and Caris LeVert -- scored 10-plus points.

Jaylen Brown stood out for me in this game. Yes, Tatum was much more visible in the game. But I did not like the too much of 1-1 play in the first half of Q4.

Jaylen has started cutting, posting up and hitting rainbow fadeaways, getting some dimes, and I believe that it is making him much more aware at the defensive end. I see less of the tunnel vision that would drive me mad at times. Would love it if this sustains. Exactly the advancement that I have been yearning for from him.

Go Celts!

I agree with Prakash and Jaylen that he is playing the best ball of his career. One of the reasons is with Zinger and Holiday the game is easier with more talented players, but he is also finishing better and faster and his post game is another dimension. He’s posting on 5’s no problem like Bernard King in his heyday posting on McHale and Moses Malone. He led us in assists last night, he gets in that lane so fast like a blur and your at his mercy for the finish or dish/lob. I’m giddy, we still have 7-8 more years of this, the best wing combo in the league.

12-0 at home.  That is the best home-court winning streak to start a season since the 2007-2008 season, and we know how that one ended up.  The 2007-2008 Celtics, led by KG, PP and RA, went 35-6 at home that year.  To match that Championship year's record the 2023-2024 Celtics would need to go 23-6 (.793) the rest of the way.  

Our MoV is +8.4.  Only Philly, at +9.2, has a better MoV and we own them every which way which means their impressive victories were against teams that don't matter.

We now have the 7th best offense (117.3ppg) and are tied with Orlando for the 3rd best defense (108.9ppg).  Remember when we had the #1 offense and, like, the 10th best defense?  That has almost flipped as the season continued on.  This makes me happy since defense wins Championships.  Who owns the league's #1 defense?  Ime Udoka's Houston Rockets, edging out the very defense-oriented Minnesota Timberwolves.  Nothing against Joe, but I sure wish Ime had kept his fly zipped and his mind on business.  We knew what to expect from him, ferocious defense all the time.  With Joe it almost depends on our opponent.  I can't argue with results, we are tied with Minny for the best record in the NBA (they currently own the tiebreaker because they beat us in Minny), but it'd be nice to see a signature philosophy from Joe, something that makes you say "yup, that's a Joe Mazzulla team for sure" like we could with Doc, Brad and Ime.

I'm trying to resist doing the "let's trade for Donovan Mitchell so he'll stop having career games against us and start having them for us".  That was the thought behind Philly signing Al Horford away from us, and Brooklyn signing Diarrhea Breath away from us.  It's a bad approach to team building, but he sure does have those games against us.  He is smoo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooth.  Inconsistent on defense, though.  Had a great play getting back on defense to stop a Tatum fast break but otherwise was dogging it a lot.

We talk about having the best back court in the NBA, and I believe that, but Mitchell, Garland and LeVert is pretty frippin' good too.  Damn, there's a lot of firepower there.  There's a distinct fall-off after we get past our starters to Payton.  That is not true for Cleveland when they get past their starters and Caris LeVert takes off his warmups.

Porzingis completely outplayed Jerome Allen.  Allen is a pretty good NBA center and does what is expected of most centers.  He sets solid picks, rolls well to the basket, rebounds and defends the baseline quite well, but The Unicorn is just so much more versatile.  If there's one area Z is, and has always been, weak in it's rebounding.  He's 7'3", for Pete's Sake, but he spends so much of his time away from the basket it's hard to contest rebounds (this is, btw, the same explanation I gave for Kelly O's rebounding numbers).  Despite this he is a game changer because Jerome Allen type of centers don't want to leave the paint and that's exactly what they have to do with Z.

Derrick with a couple of uncharacteristic bad decisions.  They're so rare I had to check the number on his jersey to make sure it was really him.  He did have 3 steals though so, yeah, it's still him.

Jrue with a quiet 15 points on 7-11 and a game-high +11.  More like this, please.  Solid and physical.

Jaylen has this fadeaway jump shot that has a difficulty score of +10, but he hit 3 straight last night.  Almost impossible to block.  I am very happy that only 5 of his 20 fgas were 3s.  Jaylen is just SO dominant when he attacks the rim.  He's too big and strong for a guard and too quick for a forward to defend him.

The anti-Jaylen, the other J, scored more points but he was 9-22 (vs 10-20 by Jaylen) and 3-10 from 3.  I know that scorers are supposed to have almost no short-term memory, but c'mon.  

Al's defense, and especially his outlet passing, were absolutely elite last night.  He is credited with 3 assists but he would have more except for a bad decision by Derrick (it was a 2-on-1 fast break and he didn't finish, or draw the defender to him, before attempting a pass to Tatum and it was picked off by the lone defender) and a great (lucky?) swipe by Mitchell to strip Tatum.  And, after taking a soft slap at Joe earlier, let me give credit to him for his strategy of releasing two players from on top to get ahead of the field and break.  Al got the rebounds, or stopped the shooter, and threw beeee-Utiful outlet passes up court to the streakers.

Other than Caris LeVert, who would be a starter on many NBA teams, our bench did an adequate job against their bench.  That's all they need to do.  Our top 5-6 players will beat anybody, our bench just needs to hold their own and we will win more times than not.  In a 7 game playoff series "winning more often than not" is all we need.

LAMAR STEVENS SIGHTING!!!  Ok, so I know I'm a fan boy of Lamar, but I liked what I saw last night.  Energy and defense.  He picked up 3 fouls in 9 minutes but two of those whistles were really weak.  One was a legit block that was called a foul and another was a Donovan Mitchell superstar call.  One thing Lamar did that I liked is that a Cav guard (can't remember if it was Mitchell, Garland or LeVert) rubbed his defender off on a high pick and was turning the corner and Lamar left his man and quickly zoomed to the middle to stop the penetration.  The original defender recovered and Lamar ran back to his man at the arc, but Lamar's court vision that saw the ball coming around the pick and rotating over to help was exactly, precisely the correct defensive thing to do.  I hope Joe and his coaches appreciate that.  Why did Joe put The Forgotten Man Lamar Stevens in?  Because he is a former Cav?  Was it a "revenge game" substitution?  I'm still not understanding Joe's substitution decisions.  For a while it looked like Dalano Banton was his fair-haired boy, and then he gets a string of Coaches-DNPs.  Oshae looks like he's our 9th man, and then he falls into the abyss.  You need more than 8 players for the 82 game regular season, Joe.  Figure out who 9, 10 and 11 are and play them so they can get game time rhythm until late March/April when getting your playoff roster synced becomes the priority.

Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Joe Mazzulla said the plan wasn't to play Lamar Stevens tonight. The #Celtics went to him when Luke Kornet got scratched late. Mazzulla wasn't sure what happened to Kornet (adductor), who wasn't on the bench during the game.


Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
Mazzulla on the bench: "Payton, Sam, Luke and Al. When we're 100%, that's our 9." "The unit behind that, you have to have a lot of conversations with them ... back-to-backs, injuries, they have to play ... keep the train moving and win ... you can't underestimate your role."

So Luke Kornet is our 9th man?  Uh, ok.  Sorry, but I'm not feeling great about those 4, not for a Championship winning team.  There really isn't much of an "X factor" there, is there?  No Caris LeVert, no Robert Covington or Pat Beverly, no Nazr Reid (who scored 27 points last night in 31 minutes off the bench for the Minny win).  Luke is 3rd on the depth chart behind injury-prone Kristaps Porzingis and 37 year old Al Horford.  He's better than he used to be, to be fair, but if Al Horford was even 5 years younger Luke Kornet would never get off the bench.  I think you need to go 10, or maybe even 11, deep Joe because if one of the Js go down with a hangnail who have you ginned up to come in for them?  You've given Dalano a taste in case one of the 3 guards in front of him is out but who is ready to step in if one of the Js or Sam are out?


8 blocks for the Celtics vs only 1 for Cleveland.  Tatum with 3, Z with 2.  Lamar, Al and even Payton Pritchard with 1 each.  Lamar with a block in 9 minutes and he should have had a second if not for that female referee that was blowing whistles on the inside when she was outside and fouls on the outside when she was inside.  Yeah, like I said, I'm a fan boy.

18 fast break points for the Celtics vs only 11 for Cleveland.  This is a surprise to me given that their high-powered 3-guard offense almost guarantees a faster pace.








Newly signed two-way player Drew Peterson was on the Celtic bench in street clothes.  He was probably in Boston for his physical but having him on the bench, at Da Gahden, gives him a nice taste of what he's working for.  He's working for the most intense and vocal fans in the league.  Work and play hard and maybe you'll be taking your warmups off for us too.

I'm in Sao Paolo, Brazil at a corporate hotel (Ibis Budget.  It's part of the Accor hotel conglomerate that also owns Raffles and Novotel and other brands across a broad vertical market).  If Ikea furnished hotels this would be it.  Clean, cheap and somewhat Spartan, I'm grateful they're not expecting me to assemble my own bed.  They have a free laundry on site (crazy good!!), their breakfast buffet is outstanding and steal at 32 reales ($6.55) and their internet is outstanding.  In the neighborhood of $40-45/night it really is a "value stay".  I was able to watch last night's game without links freezing up for the first time since I left California.  If I wasn't making a beeline to a beach tomorrow I might stay here for a while.

Orlando up tonight, an unusual b2b with both at home.  The league got weird this year with teams playing two straight games against each other on the same court like we just did with Cleveland, and then going into a SEGABAGA still at home.   We are tied with Orlando for 3rd best defense at 108.9.  Time to take the crown with a win.


Bob


.

Agree with Prakash and Cowens, Jaylen is playing at a high level in all facets of the game except FT shooting. If he could just get his FT % to 80%, he would be a complete player.

I liked what I saw of Lamar Stevens last night. He plays hard and looks physical on both ends. Obviously, his shooting is suspect, but we really don't need him to shoot. He just needs to be a force on defense and on the boards and finish on the break.

Celtics17 wrote:
I liked what I saw of Lamar Stevens last night. He plays hard and looks physical on both ends. Obviously, his shooting is suspect, but we really don't need him to shoot. He just needs to be a force on defense and on the boards and finish on the break.

I have also been waiting for Stevens to get some minutes. I'm sure he was pleased to get some floor time against his old team. I agree with you that he truly is a strong defensive presence, which is always valuable. Hopefully he gets more opportunities, and for more than 9 minutes. Besides, we, and the league, need more minutes for former Penn State players.

I saw something that may get swept under the rug from last night's game. You watch the game and look at P-Squared's line and you quickly start thinking WTF!! But when he was in the game in which he was only in there 14 minutes, you see he is the biggest pest and best ball pusher on the floor. 3 Ribbies and 2 assists. He's playing pretty good D for a vertically challenged player, running around like a chicken with his head cut off but really annoying the crap out of the competition. Like that dang gnat that won't leave you alone. IMHBAO, hold up on any trade talk. He's too invaluable to ship out. While in the end it is all about who has more points when the final horn goes off, Pritchard shows there's way more to the game. The points will come. Right now, Doogie's enough for points you can count on off the bench.

We're going to have to figure ORL out starting tonight. Clearly not the best of conditions either, but those are 7/2 off suit cards we were dealt. All hands on deck. This will either be a war which we win by less than 5 or we get blown back to the Great Wall of China again and are scratching our heads. Let's hope we flop the 3 other 7's in the deck and ORL holes any pair and immediately pushes all-in. Suckers!!

But I digress!

db

JB was tremendous last night.  Everyone that played contributed to the victory.

The Jays are  virtually unstoppable when they go to the basket  or post up.  We could have easily shot ourselves out of this game up until the time that JT decided to forego another 3 point attempt and just use his size, strength and skills to get to the damn rim.

Mitchell and Garland are flat out bucket getters and Levert seems to always play well against us.  But i'll take Holiday and White because our guards play defense at a high level and their guards do not.  Plus there really is something to be said for having switchable size in your backcourt.  

I shall not covet my opponents players.

As expected, AH rests tonight on the 2nd B2B game and Kornet will also be out.  

The Magic present some matchup issues for us.  

Here's the skinny on them

Their everyday starting 5 includes Bancherro, Franz Wagner and Goga Bitadze in their frontcourt along with Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black in their backcourt.  Their top 2 guys off the bench are Cole Anthony and Mo Wagner (he never played this well with us?)

The Magic are a big tough team that plays with physicality.  Therefore the key to this matchup is for us to be more physical than they are.  We do not have a great matchup against Banchero.  Nevertheless we need to limit Franz Wagner.   The problem is size.  Both Banchero and Wagner are 6' 10" forwards.  Both of them embrace their size. I think you have to put JB on Wagner and keep Wagner from getting to the rim.  JT can bang with guys but Banchero is 250 lbs.  Our 2 forwards are more skilled than theirs.  We will need to stay in front of them and keep them off the glass.  Great attention to detail will be required.  The center matchup favors us and the Celtics need to take advantage of using KP in a few more post up sets.  

I like our Backcourt over theirs but remember that Black is 6' 7"  and Suggs is 6' 5".   Things could get dicey because Cole Anthony is streaky shot maker and Mo Wagner plays very physical.

PP will need to stay with Cole Anthony when they get matched up and we need Queta to play and bring some brute force into the game   With both AH and Kornet out and KP looking a bit gimpy, another Lamar Stevens opportunity may be needed.

I really liked the way Stevens played last night.  I like his physical profile.  However it makes zero sense to pass him the ball in the corners for 3 point shot attempts.  Put him in the dunker spot on offense and let him post up because he does have a midrange game.  Tell him to calm down.  

The last thing I want to mention may make you hair stand up on the back of your necks.

Last season the Magic came to Boston for 2 straight games (Friday Dec. 16th and Sunday Dec 18th)  We lost both games 117-109 and 95-92.

The Celtics find themselves in almost the exact same situation.  The Celtics need to change into their BIG BOY pants and sport the MEAN MUG look.

One more observation...

The Celtics would do well to get Sam more shots.  He went 3-3 from deep.  The Celtics should do more to get him shot opportunities such as stting more screens for him.