Post Game - Celtics vs. Cleveland Cavaliers - Saturday, May 11, 2024 - Game 3 Eastern Semifinals (W 2-1)

Jay King @ByJayKing
about 2 hours ago
“He just went around to everybody. Just encouraging us and challenging us.” “He just kept reminding us. He did a great job setting the tone.” Jaylen Brown was ticked off about the Celtics’ effort in Game 2. He set out to ensure they wouldn’t fall flat again.…


Sean Grande
@SeanGrandePBP
The Celtics have now played 90 games...

70 wins
+11.4 scoring margin
47 20-point leads
48 10-point wins
23 20-point wins













Souichi Terada @SouichiTerada
yesterday
Jayson Tatum: "Jrue's kind of like the glue that keeps us all together. He does literally everything that we need him to."


He was Mr. Do-It-All last night. This is what we got him for: steadying, veteran influence and impact in critical games. 5 of Jrue's 10 fgas were in the paint.



Jay King @ByJayKing
yesterday
Jrue Holiday said he was more aggressive partly to make Donovan Mitchell work on defense: "There’s a lot of times where I might defer or do something (else) and I just thought maybe attacking him might get him even more exhausted by the third or fourth quarter."


Jrue may have worn Mitchell down, but it was Tatum who got Mitchell into foul trouble when they switched.


They really wanted (didn't NEED to, but wanted to) win at least one of two in Boston. Didn't matter which, but one of them. Mission Accomplished for them. We really wanted (didn't NEED to, but wanted to) win one of these two in Cleveland. Mission Accomplished for us, and now it's time for extra credit. By winning the first of two the pressure is back on them, big-time. If they lose Game 4 they're done. It's not an elimination game, and therefore not a MUST win, but a Cleveland loss would be a definite coffin nail. Furthermore, with 3 games in the books already they have to win 3 of the remaining 4 games to win and two of those would be in Boston. If they lose on Monday they'd have to sweep the next 3 with only one at home. Monday will be CRAZY, because they know this.


Bob

.

Hi,
It's hard to beat Celtics when their defense works like it did last night.
A very important win. I have a feeling that they broke Cavs mentally last night.
6 down, 10 to go.

AK

PS Gyso, it's game 3, in the header of the thread.

Jorge Sierra @hoopshype
PLAYOFF SCORING
Jaylen Brown passed Pau Gasol, Moses Malone, Nikola Jokic and Jeff Hornacek last night.
He’s No. 58 all-time now. – 4:43 AM

MY NOTE:  Jokic just passed Jaylen, but The Joker is two years older.


“I think that’s what we need,” Brown said, “I think we just need everybody to be on the same page and everybody to come out with the right effort. That’s 85 percent of the battle right there. We come out, we play hard and then we’re on the same page and the rest will take care of itself. We got enough talent in the locker room to beat teams. But if we’re not on the same page and we’re not playing hard, those are when we get ourselves in trouble. “So making sure, before the game, at film and shootaround, talking to everybody, touching everybody, letting everybody know that, ‘Hey, we’re not here to play around.’ We didn’t come to Cleveland for the weather, so let’s go.”

MY NOTE:  Tatum may be the best player on the team but Jaylen's a better leader, and not too shabby a player either.



StatMuse @statmuse
Jaylen Brown tonight:
28 PTS
9 REB
13-17 FG
Leading the Celtics in scoring this playoffs.


Bob


.

Rosalie

Jaylen went 0-2 from the line last night.  Both attempts looked like wounded ducks.  There is some good news however.  During this series Jaylen is 9-11 from the line (81.8%)

Overall JB has been very efficient shooting the ball.  80-144 for 55.6%.

Defense wins championships.  It has to be the defining characteristic of this team.  

The Celtics regained home court and as this series moves forward I think the Celtics will be even better.  Like Jaylen stated in his post game presser "We didn't come to Cleveland for the weather"

JT is trying to break out but he is still struggling to shoot the ball efficiently.  His defense and rebounding are great.  He is about due for an A+ game.

The Celtics offense runs smoothly when they play with more pace but when it slows down we still see a few too many bad possessions.    We went into the funk a few time and CJ called time outs.  He actually took the ball out of JT's hand and played him off the ball and had him post up on the baselines. CJ was screaming at his team to push the ball.

The no stick mantra really works.  Keep ball and man in constant motion.

JH had a great game and D White started to break out of his short lived shooting woes.  PP knocked down a huge 3 pointer from way up top when the Cavs were desperately trying to come back.  Overall, the Celtics played with a collective purpose.  AH played hard all game long.

This games reminds us that when the Celtics play  great defense they are hard to beat.  Their offense always seems to look sharper after they get defensive stops.

sinus007 wrote:Hi,
It's hard to beat Celtics when their defense works like it did last night.
A very important win. I have a feeling that they broke Cavs mentally last night.
6 down, 10 to go.

AK

PS  Gyso, it's game 3, in the header of the thread.

sinus007

I have a feeling that they broke Cavs mentally last night.

So true

Jrue scoring efficiently and playing All NBA defense sure makes this team a winner. I miss Marcus, but what a gift to replace him with Holiday.

Against The Grain?

A good win against an elite Donovan Mitchell performance last night.
Or was it …

What i liked
Jrue: everywhere all the time doing everything
D White: sticking with it and finding the range again.
JB: His “Run- Gun- Get-It-Done” show keeps Rollin’ !
Hauser: rolling hard when he’s chased off the line.
Luke’s D and blocks - effort plays. Jrue and JT found him rolling
JT: making plays for others early. Getting guys connected.

What i don’t like: 4th quarter execution in that Cav’s win.
I know we won, but I still didn’t like it.
That wasn’t a 4th quarter to build on. We didn’t play team ball.

Did we need JT to go into take-over mode at that point? No
Is it a good idea to go to that, practice it “just in case”?
No. That’s actually the worst of all ideas for this team. What they need to run and to practice, all the time, is screen-pass-cut move the ball.

I don’t like JT taking step-back contested jumpers late in the game instead of attacking. His 4th Q ISO’s are bad for everyone. Bad for Tatum. The other 4. Coach. Bench. Total Team.

For one thing, his crunch time stats are Not so hot.
But - WAY more than that ! - is a much bigger reason —>
When goes into ISO-Man and starts pounding the ball on the floor:
- the ball doesn’t keep moving, so
- the defense doesn’t have to keep chasing it, so
- the guys stop moving / cutting/ screening, so
- It totally kills the energy.
And we stop playing the team game that got us where we were.

Maybe it’s just me. But
I didn’t like what we did in the last 5 minutes of the Cav’s win.

When we need a late-game bucket we should keep doing what we do best. Move the ball. Make it hop. Screen and cut.

We have a lot of guys we can turn to for a Must-Have shot. We have an abundance of riches; so many assets; options most teams can’t even dream about. Maybe it’s “JT’s team” - but i think it’s more like -
JT is the “best player”. As long as “best” means, best total skills across the board, from: O, to D, to team-D, to Rebounding, & Distributing, to Get THAT Rebound. And he can score.

…the biggest range of top-tier skills. Most night. On a team so Loaded with friendly executioners that you never know who’s night it’s gonna be.

So I mean no offense to Tatum.
But - use the 4th Q to show that you “Trust your guys. Trust the team” - by acting like it. Even (especially) in a tight spot.

Do you believe in them, too? Or, not? Choose.

Why run 4th Quarter ISO’s now, if that is not how this team will win #18 ? !!
That’s exactly[/u[u]] what we did wrong to stumble to those last two early exits.

What we need to be sure Not do is simple:
don’t turn into That team again.

Actually, it’s a really terrible to use late-game time to practice for this: “What If It’s All On Me?”
It’s not just that it’s a bad idea to run that play. The biggest damage comes from the attitude behind it I just opened up.

For when it does come down to “all on me”, that’s your individual work. But you trust everybody first, and make sure it shows.

Do you believe that? (Believe in that?) Or not?

If running a series of ISO plays is like giving a poison pill to your team-ness, you gotta remember that
- You can’t practice taking a poison pill.

You got to be ready to take it, but you don’t practice taking it.
You only get to do that once.

The only time JT (or anyone) should turn to “When all else fails”, is
When all else has failed.

This is much better and what we are accustomed to seeing on a regular basis. dboss, I like your assessment. This is what this championship caliber team does. Sure, we'll blow a home court game against a team we should be rolling. But we come back the next game and stomp on your parade in front of your somewhat hopeful, take over the playoffs fans. Just as an effective way to get to and win the Finals. Not the way most of us would prefer or would compare them to previous Celtic championship teams, but we also didn't like the first two round of 2008. That team was much further behind than this team. Those three, PP, KG and RA had never played a playoff game much less a playoff series together. But we went to G7's in both those first two series. Normally a pretty bad showing for a #1 seed.

So as hard as I am on them blowing another G2 this year, I'm just as elated the other way when they come back in G3 in their house and immediately impose their will and strangle all that hope and elation they just had two days ago thinking they are on top of the world and going to take us out. Poke the bear. See where it gets you.

db

After the game the Boston media spent most of their post game analysis and comments on pumping up Jayson Tatum.  He was really special on the glass but his shooting from the field continues to be poor.  

He continues to take a few too many questionable shots from behind the arc.  He just loves that dribble dribble step back 3.  It's his worst shot.

He is shooting 41% from the field in this series and if you include the 5 game Heat venture his FG percentage is 41.3%  And he is shooting 26.5% from deep.   I am still waiting for him to have a legit breakout game.  Decision making with a particular focus on shot selection is the area where he is not performing up to standard.

CJ took the ball out of his hand in the second half and posted him up on several plays..  That's fine but what I would like to see is him playing off the ball more and the team setting screens for him.  All of those post up opportunities were not easy.  They were still ISO plays.

When Tatum decides to go to the rack he has been very effective.  He is likely to make those shots or pick up a foul.  Overall, I still think that he is playing too slow.  (decision making)

The offense has sputtered but only when the ball sticks.   There is a reason why Boston was lethal on offense during the regular season.  They played with pace and created great spacing and they moved the basketball.

More of that please.

dross nailed it

dboss,

I believe this break out game in which you seek will be rolling in in about 28 hours...

I will be stupefied if we don't win this game by 60 no matter who's on the court for CLE.

db

While the media focuses most of their attention on the Golden Boy, Jaylen Brown is the one who is flat out ballin game after game.  All the post game shows begin with JT.

JT will be fine.  He has been playing really well with the exception related to his shooting which is related to his shot selection which is still a decision making deficiency that he still has not grown out of.  

The Celtics are virtually unbeatable when the Jays are both on their games.  I'll take them over any other pairing.