Post Game - Celtics at Lakers - Monday, December 25 (W)

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401585031

Celtics-Lakers takeaways: C's starting five dominates in Christmas Day win

https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-lakers-takeaways-cs-starting-012012498.html

Justin Leger
Mon, Dec 25, 2023, 8:25 PM EST·4 min read




Celtics-Lakers takeaways: C's starting five dominates in Christmas Day win originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Three Key Storylines

Kristaps Porzingis shines in return to lineup
Jaylen Brown shakes off back injury
C's starting five > Lakers' starting five

The Boston Celtics closed out their West Coast road trip with a convincing Christmas Day victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.

They wasted little time taking it to their archrival, jumping out to a 12-0 start and going up by as many as 18 points in the first quarter. That lead didn't last long, however, as L.A. responded with a strong second quarter and cut the deficit to one at the half.

Third quarters have been an issue for the C's at points this season, but not on Monday. This time, they dropped 41 points in the frame to reclaim the lead and didn't look back as they went on to win, 126-115.

All five Celtics starters scored in double figures. Kristaps Porzingis (28 points) and Jayson Tatum (25 points) topped the list.

Anthony Davis was one of the few bright spots for L.A. offensively. The eight-time All-Star dropped 40 points while shooting 15-of-26 from the field.

The Celtics will return home to take on the Detroit Pistons -- who have lost 26 consecutive games -- on Thursday night. First, here are three takeaways from Monday's matchup.

Kristaps Porzingis shines in return

The Celtics played it safe with Porzingis during the trip out west. The Latvian big man missed the games vs. the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers due to minor injuries.

In the two games Porzingis took the court, he appeared unbothered by his ailments. He followed a standout performance in Sacramento with a spectacular showing in L.A.

Porzingis got off to a fast start with 11 points, six rebounds, and a block in the first half. The 3-pointers weren't falling, but he found other ways to assert his dominance against the Lakers.



Porzingis stayed hot in the second half, getting it done on both ends of the floor. He finished with team-highs in points (28 on 11-of-19 shooting) and rebounds (11) while logging two blocks and a steal.

Jaylen Brown shakes off early injury

Fans of both teams were given a scare in the second quarter when Jaylen Brown and LeBron James collided. Brown went down with a back injury while James went down holding his knee.



[My comment: One guy gets hurt, and the other guy looked at Brown and then PRETENDED to be hurt.  Truth or fiction, that's what it looked like.]

James went to the bench but returned to the court minutes later. Brown, on the other hand, exited to the locker room and was considered questionable to return with a lower back contusion.

Fortunately, Celtics fans were able to breathe a collective sigh of relief when Brown returned to the game in the third quarter. The two-time All-Star, who scored seven of Boston's first 12 points in the game, didn't miss a beat. He made several big shots down the stretch and finished with the third-most points on the team (19).



Brown didn't appear fazed by his back injury, so his availability shouldn't be an issue with two days of rest before Thursday night's game vs. the Pistons at TD Garden.

C's starting five dominates

This was a total team effort for a Celtics squad that's virtually impossible to beat when the starting five is firing on all cylinders.

All five C's starters dominated in some form or fashion. Jayson Tatum added to Porzingis and Brown's scoring efforts with 25 points despite a less-than-stellar shooting performance (6-15 FG, 1-6 3-PT). His shots weren't falling for most of the afternoon, but he made a difference by getting to the free-throw line (12-13 FT) and getting his teammates involved (seven assists). He also notched eight rebounds and a block.

"The Stock Exchange," a.k.a. the backcourt tandem of Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, was outstanding on both ends. Holiday -- donning a festive red headband for the special occasion -- logged 18 points to go with seven rebounds, seven assists, a steal, and a block.



White dropped 18 points of his own while dishing 11 assists. He also logged two steals and two blocks, making him the first Celtics guard ever to record two or more blocks in five consecutive games.



While the Celtics spread the wealth, Anthony Davis attempted to carry the Lakers offensively. He scored 13 of L.A.'s first 19 points, shooting 6-of-9 in the first quarter as the rest of his team combined to go 3-for-15 from the field.

Davis went on to score a game-high 40 points, his highest total of the season excluding the In-Season Tournament championship game. It's the first 40-point performance against the Celtics this season.

Taurean Prince helped out with five 3-pointers, but too much of the burden was put on Davis' shoulders to carry the offensive load. LeBron James had an off day, totaling just 16 points on 5-of-14 shooting.

Boston's balanced attack was the difference as it improved to an NBA-best 23-6 on the season.

From another perspective:


Celtics handle Lakers despite Anthony Davis’ strong showing

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2023/12/25/24014835/lakers-vs-celtics-final-score-recap-anthony-davis-lebron-james-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown

Anthony Davis was unstoppable yet again, but the Celtics had too much for the Lakers on Christmas Day.

By Jacob Rude@JacobRude  Dec 25, 2023, 4:30pm PST  62 Comments / 62 New




The Lakers fell behind early and, despite another dominant showing from Anthony Davis, were forced to play from behind the rest of the game, a daunting task that led to a 126-115 loss.

Boston jumped ahead by double digits from the start and, while the Lakers got back into the game in the middle quarters, it was the Celtics who controlled things from start to finish. Only a sterling performance from Davis, who finished with 40 points, 14 rebounds and four assists on 15-26 shooting kept the Lakers in the game.

LeBron James was uncharacteristically bad, struggling to get anything going to finish with 16 points, nine rebounds and eight assists on 5-14 shooting. Taurean Prince continued his strong run of late as well, knocking down five of his 10 3-point attempts to finish with 17 points. Reaves had just 11 points on 4-9 shooting.

The Lakers fell behind the eight ball immediately as the Celtics, who came into the game on an incredible hot streak offensively, shot out of a cannon to score the opening 12 points of the game. Jaylen Brown was the main culprit, scoring seven of those buckets including the 3-pointer that forced an early timeout.

The Lakers steadied things a bit out of the timeout to get on the scoreboard, but they still could not score at the level of the Celtics and the lead grew to 28-12 with the Celtics shooting 11-15 from the field.

Boston’s onslaught didn’t slow and the Lakers had nothing for them for much of the quarter. At last, the Lakers finally came alive against Boston’s second unit to cut the deficit down to 32-23 by the end of the quarter.

After a second quarter where the Lakers worked their way back into the game more and more, Rui Hachimura’s dunk on Kristaps Porzingis cut the deficit to six at 47-41.



AD, who was unstoppable in the first half, knocked down a pick-and-pop 3-pointer to halve that deficit.

A brief injury scare for LeBron forced him out of the game, but it was only momentarily and he set up Taurean Prince for the game-tying 3-pointer. LeBron nearly added to his long highlight video of chase down blocks with one on Jayson Tatum if not for a foul on Prince on the play.



While the Lakers won that challenge, their second challenge of the day, it left them without a challenge for the remainder of the game. Still, the Lakers rode the momentum to head into the locker room down just 53-52 after a furious comeback.

[My comment: So their star player reacted so heatedly after the foul call that his coach had to use their second and last challenge.  Sure, they "won" the challenge, but a foul was called on another Laker player in the process.]

A LeBron layup to start the third quarter gave the Lakers their first lead of the game. The opening minutes of the frame featured a host of Lakers trading baskets with Porzingis with the Celtics eventually building a five-point margin.

Porzingis continued his strong third quarter and helped Boston build a nine-point lead, but AD’s bucket in the paint and Reaves’ pull-up 3-pointer immediately cut it back to four points.



Offense remained hard to come by and defensive breakdowns late in the quarter saw Boston build it’s lead back to 13 points with LeBron on the bench. The Lakers kept the lead right around that mark for the remainder of the period because of AD but still trailed 99-90 going into the fourth.

Without Davis on the floor, the deficit grew to 13 points at 107-94, forcing the Lakers to bring the big man back into the game. But playing catch-up against an offense like Boston’s is a mighty ask, especially on a night when only one Laker star showed up for most of the day.

The Celtics delivered the nail in the coffin late and LeBron, who never got going, was pulled from the game in the final minutes as Boston iced away its win.

Key Takeaways

Anthony Davis is on one of the best runs of his career currently, and certainly so with the Lakers. His jumper is falling from all ranges and there aren’t many people who can stop him right now.

But, the Lakers rely on him to clean up a lot of mistakes defensively and that showed on Monday. With Davis on the perimeter defending Porzingis, the Celtics punished poor defense from the other Lakers and routinely got open shots.

Rarely did it feel like the Lakers were forcing misses but that the Celtics were just missing good shots. And in the end, that’s not a sustainable defensive approach.

That being said, if LeBron and Reaves are going to combine for 25 points on 9-25 shooting, you won’t be any good teams or most bad ones. Mix in bad nights from Cam Reddish and Rui Hachimura and you have the makings for a loss.

A bad night all around for the Lakers.

Editor’s note: No player grades for this one. Enjoy Christmas and the holidays!

Great Christmas Day present from the Celts. Played with poise and handled the Lakers.

Hope that JB is ok after getting hit by a freight train.

You know it's a great Christmas when Hans Gruber falls off of Nakatomi Plaza and the Celtics beat the Fakers in LA.

We started out 12-0.  We won by 11.  We were up 18 at one point and then that lead evaporated and we were down 2 on multiple occasions in the 3rd quarter.  That's embarrassing to say the least.  The good news is that it didn't faze us overall, despite being before a hostile Laker crowd.  Yeah, they had a great run.  Yeah, we started missing our 3s and didn't adjust and run plays that weren't 3s and would maybe get us some fritos, but we didn't completely cave.  The Fakers had the Big Mo and the crowd feeling it, heading into the locker room for halftime only down 1 instead of deep double digits, and we came out for the 3rd and added 8 points to our lead and then played basically even in the 4th.  I was concerned about that.  Too often we come out for the 2nd half flat.  Whatever Joe or whomever said in the locker room worked.  Do it some more.  The Lakers went 11-24 in the 3rd, 45.8%, while the Celtics went 12-22, 54.5% in the 3rd.  We went 12-21 in the 4th, but only 1-7 from 3.  We were running great motion offense in the 1st quarter and, as usual, got lazy and fell in love with the 3-ball.  That's great when they drop but as legs tire...

The Davis vs Zinger battle was epic.  Statistically AD edged out Porzingis but last year and those before then it wouldn't have been close.  Neither Al nor The Time Lord could have kept up with Davis.  That's the value of Kristaps Porzingis to us.  Our center position, while thinner than last year, can now measure up against the best centers in the league one-on-one.  We don't need monster games from the Js to offset AD's domination to compete.  Our center can go mano-a-mano with theirs and the rest of our roster can beat theirs.

Jared Weiss
Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Jayson Tatum on Kristaps Porziņģis: "We haven’t had a low post presence like that since I’ve been on the Celtics and it creates so many problems. Are you gonna switch us? Are you in drop?...I'm just happy to be on this side of it."

Watch how many times Z finishes through contact.  We have NOT had that for a long, long time.  A big that is big and strong enough to finish through contact.




Jrue Holiday outplayed the greatest player of this era, LeBron James.  Granted LeBron turns 39 years old this coming Saturday, but nobody he's still playing well.  Jrue was the primary defender on LeBron this game, and frustrated the living crap outta him.  Not only was he statistically close to LeBron but, just like with Z, all he needed to do was stay close for us to win.  Negate AD and LBJ and the Lakers can't beat a good team, and we're a great team.  What an amazing game by Jrue.  It really did blow my mind watching him D up a player that's 5" taller, 45# heavier and extremely skilled and hold his own.


Derrick, Derrick, Derrick.  Just doing the job.  I don't know if he's going to be an All-Star but I also don't know what else he needs to do to be one.  Score more?  It's not his fault he's on a juggernaut that doesn't need him to score to win.  Nevertheless he continues to do everything well.  11 assists (game high) and only 2 turnovers last night.  2 more blocks for him.  The Lakers with one block, total.  One.  Derrick White out-blocked the entire Laker roster combined.  If you're just into scoring there's a lot of NBA players you can gravitate to but, if you understand and enjoy the sport of basketball, Derrick White is a joy to watch.  AAU coaches should make their kids watch film of Derrick White, he's so fundamentally sound and effective in every mental aspect of the game.




6-15 is not a good shooting night for Tatum, but 7 assists and only 1 turnover?  Excellent.  I don't mean to be blasphemous here, but that's like what Bird used to do when he wasn't shooting well.  He would find other ways of helping his team win.


Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
yesterday
Joe Mazzulla on Jayson Tatum's impact without scoring: “I think that's what we talk about when he's got to reinvent. It's not so much sacrifice as it is reinvent. You're starting to see what leadership looks like and what value looks like for him."


I sure hope Jaylen's back is ok and hasn't stiffened up too much.  They've got a long flight home and he probably didn't have time to get much treatment for it in LA.  


LeQueen demanded a "green light special" on a block he had on a Tatum breakaway and, of course, Darvin Ham acquiesced.  LBJ forgot he wasn't the only Laker on the play and assumed the whistle was on his block.  Jarred Vanderbilt fouled Tatum's elbow even though LeBron's block was clean.  As a result of LeBron tunnel vision Tatum still went to the line and the Lakers lost their last challenge.  I'm alone in a hotel room 6300 miles away and I still smiled at this.


Bobby Manning @RealBobManning
yesterday
#Celtics’ best net ratings in recent history: 2008 +10.8 (1st) 2009 +7.9 2020 +6.3 2022 +7.4 2023 +6.7 (1st) 2024 +10.1 (2nd! PHI)

The Celtics' MoV is +10.2, Philly's is +10.8.  The gap has been shrinking for a week now and our schedule has been tougher I think.  The deeper into the season we get the more the MoV means something. Whether we catch Philly or not isn't that important. What is important is that a +10 MoV means we are not just winning, we're dominating. We have the 3rd best defense in the league, best in the East, and the 6th best offense in the league.


The Knicks beat Milwaukee last night, dropping them 1.5 games back (2 in the loss column), and Miami knocked off Philly, sending them to 3 games back from us (3 in the loss column).  We are 1-0 vs Milwaukee with 3 more to go and we are 2-1 vs Philly so far this year with one more to go.  

Playoff tiebreaker rules (yes, I know it's really early to discuss this but it's early in Rio and nothing is open yet) are:

1.  Best W-L record.  If we're tied with Philly and/or Milwaukee we move on to #2.
2.  Best H2H record.  If we lose to Philly in the 4th game we're tied and we move on to #3.
3.  Division leader beats non-Division leader.  Philly and us are in the same division, so on to #4.
4.  Division W-L record for teams in same Division.  Boston 9-1, Philly 5-2
5.  Conference W-L.  Boston 9-4, Milwaukee 18-8, Philly 15-7.

Bottom line:  IF Philly ends up with the same W-L record as us AND wins H2H #4 we currently have a nice edge in tiebreaker #4.  If Milwaukee ends up with the same W-L record as us it is much murkier at this time because we have 3 more H2H vs them.  We're up 1-0 right now but that could go as far south as 1-3.  Still, we're up 2 games in the loss column, that's a 1 loss cushion before we get to H2H.


We play @ home on Thursday vs the lowly Pistons, a very possible trap game. We are 14-0 at home and will have a chance to get to the cusp of a new season home win streak record with our two home games this week.


Bob


.

These last 3 games on the road were impressive.  3 out of 4 wins on the road is solid.

One strange thing about the season is the number of games that the Celtics have played.  Last year we beat the Bucks on Xmas and that gave us a 24-10 record.  This year we are 23-6 at the same point.  34 games played last year by Xmas but only 29 games this year.

Things are about to get more difficult

We will have 5 sets of B2B games beginning on Thursday with the Pistons coming to town.  We will play 4 sets of B2B games during the month of January.

These matchups will put this team to the test.  For example, we will play Utah on Friday Jan 5 and then travel to Indiana for a Sat game with the Pacers and then a 2nd game at the Pacers on Monday  (Basically 3 games in 4 nights)

We play a B2B (home and Away) against the T'Wolves and the Bucks.

The 4th set will be 2 away games at Houston and Dallas.   hello ime.

The final January trek of B2B games will be an away and home game against Nola and the Pacers.  Why are we playing the Pacers 3 times in 24 days?  (Jan 6, 8 and 30th)  I just do not like the way they are bunching teams together.

This part of our season schedule puts a lot more stock into CJ utilizing his deep bench.  We know right away that there will be 5 games that AH will not play in.  Those 5 games are baked into the cake and they do not contemplate other DNP's that will likely occur.  

I think this may be the time for Brissett, Stevens and Queta to earn their paychecks.  We will be playing 10 homes games and 9 road games through the end of January.

So anybody figure out how the 5 games will be made up?

Last year we played our last game on April 9th.  This year  it will be on April 14.  The difference between playing 29 games so far as compared to 34 games last year.  A 5 game difference to be made up at the end.

The in season tournament is the reason.  It messes up the schedule and creates an imbalance in when and how many times a team matches up with another team.  Why should the Celtics be playing the Pacers 5 times this year?  They are not even in our division.

Please scrap the In season tournament along with all those butt ugly floors.

https://us.yahoo.com/sports/lakers-player-grades-l-gets-012637584.html



Lakers player grades: L.A. gets outplayed by the Celtics


Robert Marvi
Mon, December 25, 2023 at 10:26 PM GMT-3·5 min read



The greatest rivalry in NBA history continued on Christmas Day when the Boston Celtics visited the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers came in with a 16-14 record and were still in serious need of wins in bunches, while Boston had won seven of its last eight contests and had scored over 140 points in each of its last two games.

The Celtics came out scorching, as they scored the first 12 points of the game before the Lakers could seemingly blink. Boston led 32-14 before the Lakers scored nine unanswered points to come to within 32-23 at the end of the first quarter. Los Angeles finally tied the score with just over two minutes left in the second quarter and trailed by just one at halftime.

Boston, however, regained control of the game afterward by outscoring the home team 41-33 in the third quarter and going up 99-90 heading into the final period. It led by as many as 15 down the stretch and claimed a 126-115 win.

While the Lakers outshot Boston 40.6% to 31.0% on 3-pointers, Boston had the edge in free throws, fast-break points, points in the paint and second-chance points. It just seemed the men in green had more players who could do damage offensively, even though L.A. has arguably more depth overall.

With a 16-15 record, L.A. is in ninth place in the Western Conference, and the championship hopes they had to start the season are starting to fade.


Anthony Davis: A-plus

Davis was the one Lakers player the Celtics had no answers for. He attacked from the start and went at Kristaps Porziņģis without fear or hesitation. The superstar big man scored 40 points on 15-of-26 shooting while grabbing 13 rebounds and adding four assists and one blocked shot. Those 40 points were a season-high for him.

One encouraging thing about Davis’ play lately is the resurrection of his 3-point shot. That aspect of his game had been weak the previous three seasons, but in December, he has been hot from downtown. He went 2-of-4 from that distance on Monday, making him 8-of-16 this month in that category.


Cam Reddish: C/C-plus

Reddish did a pretty good job on Jayson Tatum, as Tatum never really got going offensively and was forced to be more of a facilitator than a scorer.

But the Lakers needed more from Reddish offensively. He attempted just two shots and made one of them, which was a 3-pointer. He finished with five points.


Jarred Vanderbilt: B/B-plus

When Vanderbilt was in the game, Tatum had trouble hitting shots. Overall, Tatum shot just 6-of-15 and he was only 1-of-6 from downtown, and while he had seven assists, the Lakers did a pretty good job on him and prevented him from doing his usual amount of damage.

Vanderbilt grabbed six rebounds, four of them on the offensive boards, and he even shot 3-of-5 from the field to score six points in 23 minutes. Offense will be the key for him, as the Lakers know he will play excellent defense and often make a nice effort to crash the boards. How Vanderbilt figures out to not be an offensive liability, at the very least, is the big question for him.


Taurean Prince: A-minus

Prince continues to spit out fire from 3-point range. On Monday he went 5-of-12 from that distance, although he missed all four of his 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter as Boston pulled away. He finished with 17 points, four rebounds, three assists and one steal.


LeBron James: C/C-minus

James shot just 2-of-7 in the first half. He scored the Lakers’ first basket of the second half to give them their first lead of the game, but he was 3-of-9 through three quarters, and he never found his game offensively.

He finished the game scoring just 16 points on 5-of-14 shooting, and it seemed like every time he got into the paint, the Celtics made him take shots in major traffic. James did contribute nine rebounds and eight assists in 37 minutes to help L.A.’s cause.


Austin Reaves: B/B-minus

Reaves shot 4-of-9 overall and 2-of-3 from downtown, and like James, he wasn’t able to consistently convert inside of the painted area. He scored 11 points to go along with six rebounds, three assists and a steal, but the Lakers needed much more offense from him in this game.


Rui Hachimura: C/C-minus

Hachimura was pretty aggressive, but although he scored a solid 12 points in 29 minutes, he shot only 5-of-14. He missed each of his first seven 3-pointers before hitting back-to-back treys in garbage time.

The fact that the Lakers shot 40.6% from 3-point land was deceiving. With only Prince and Reaves, and to a certain extent Davis, hitting threes with any consistency, they were unable to prevent Boston from collapsing into the paint when they looked to attack the basket.


Jaxson Hayes: D

In nine minutes, Hayes only contributed one rebound and missed his lone field goal attempt. When Davis is resting, it is clear the Lakers are at a disadvantage because of Hayes’ lack of production and the fact that Christian Wood has been getting only sporadic playing time over the last few weeks.


Bob
MY NOTE: Every Celtic must get "A"s if these are the grades he's giving to bums who were lucky to "only" lose by 11. Austin Reaves gets a "B/B-"? I have clear memories of Derrick White and Jrue Holiday torturing him.


.

How great was our Christmas? We win, Milwaukee, Philly and the Lakers lose. Quite a stocking stuffer. Santa is a Celtics fan.

The perfect Christmas gift for me. This is all I wanted, A win against Lejerk. Tired of hearing from Doris what a player he is. God knows, he has patted himself on the back enough. I know he is a physical specimen, and a bull out there, i do not deny his talent. If they ever talked about Russell the way they talk about him he would have been embarrassed. This was a terrific win. We let them back in, and than slammed the door. I don't care what Davis did, the rest of his team stunk. A Merry Christmas in the Troy house (at least for me!!!!!!)

I really enjoyed this game and what struck me is we won fairly easily on the road and had control both ends and we didn’t play near our best. At least the J’s didn’t, they were nothing special, like they can be. Jaylen is a gamer coming back on the floor after getting kneed right in the small of his back by a locomotive. Even somewhat sub par, his contributions were still dramatic and huge. I actually liked the way Jayson played without his A game, used his athleticism to score down low making it look easy and some very good rebounding and passing and running the floor. Our overall team speed is so much faster and better than Lakers. Glad he didn’t force anything like his 2-14 days from 3 when he used to keep bricking away.

Zinger was the man, running the floor, scoring in traffic, getting as good as it gets, mixing it up with Davis. The perimeter defense of White and Holiday was a constant in the game, those 2 got their fast hands on so many balls; also constantly picking apart the defense with drives, sharp passing and hitting open looks. Well done and could have been another 25-30 point blowout, but I’ll gladly take it.

It is kind of scary because we have not really hit our stride or peak yet. Let’s hope that comes in June