Post Game - Celtics vs. Indiana Pacers - Tuesday, May 21, 2024 - Game 1 Eastern Finals (W-OT 1-0)

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401671998

And even Eddie and Scal said, he did get fouled on that 3

RosalieTCeltics wrote:And even Eddie and Scal said, he did get fouled on that 3

So, still OT after he misses the frito? (LOL)

Color me happy, 'caus we just stole one.

You are right Gyso. This has been my fear, they are not afraid to put JB on the line because there is a 50 -50 chance he will either miss one, both, or every now and then, hit them both. I just cannot understand this, to me it is in between the head sets. Even Tatum missed a few

This is going to be a difficult series. We sure could use the Zinger! Anybody have any info on when he's coming back? If he's coming back?

Berlin-T

As I've said before, my wife teaches high school math to 9th graders, clearly a thankless task.  I don't know how she does it in this era.  But some of her students are MIL, IND, LOL, etc. fans.  So they pick at each other throughout the season and in the playoffs.  Every time the Celtics win, the next morning she dons her Celtic shirt and lanyard and heads off to work.  When her students see her get up, they know what's coming.  

I told my wife this morning that seeing her in that shirt today I've never been proud to see her in that shirt.
Never been more proud of this team.  Wow!  Just watching the game I never thought JT had 36 nor Jrue 28.  Experience won this game.  And it will win the next 3.  

This series is the answer all the critics series.  The Celtics can't win in clutch time/close game.  Check.  OK, that was the big one so far.  Up next?  G2's.  

At this level, if you are the underdog, you get one shot.  IND got theirs last night.  They will not get another.  

Now I know it's early on in the DB 4-0 Bandwagon ride.  There are still a ton of seats on the bus.  But all are welcome.  There's only the driver right now!  Just get on.  G2 will slam the critics mouth's close on us giving those games away.  IND will not scratch 100 Thursday night.

Someone's gotta blink first and it was IND.

G2 myth up next.

Another aside.  My two oldest sons are heavy Celtic fans.  They live in Texas.  My oldest pointed out that for the two games the Celtics lost so far, he was not watching the game at home.  He took the blame for those two losses and said he's going to be home for all the rest of our games!  We'll see how that works out but after he "confessed", we're undefeated!

db

P.S.  JT lived up to his promise of better games at home.  G1 was that and then some.  JT 1-0.

Does anyone think the Celtics will come out and play worse than they did last night from 3-ville?  We were quite mediocre there.  Does anyone think IND is going to continue to shoot 50%+ against our elite defense?  Does anyone think IND defense will be any better?  Does anyone think this Celtic team is going to give IND even the slightest whiff of another chance to even come close to beating us?  I say, Come on, Man!!

Boston up 2-0.  There will be no "escape" (as the media is calling last night's game) in G2 by the Celtics.  Plenty of room on the bus. That's all I'm sayin'.

db

Oh, and BTW, 6-1 now sans KP.

Hi,
Yes, it was a tough win.
Some might say it was a lucky shot by JB. But I can counter that Haliburton's 3 at the end of 3rd quarter was also pure luck.
Overall, I think we did get lucky. Offense stagnation in the 4th quarter, so many (14) turnovers almost did us in.
Thankfully, our defense was great.
Also, I'm not sure that AH will last long playing so many minutes. Joe needs to put XT in for a few minutes to give AH breather. (I just noticed that XT wasn't available last night - personal reason).

9 down, 7 to go.

AK

As you know I have been pretty critical of JB because of his FT shooting, but let me just say this guy is one tremendous player. Not only did he hit the biggest shot of the game (and the biggest in the season so far), but he nailed two critical FTs to make the score 115-114, made the biggest defensive play of the game to force the turnover to get the ball back to have a shot to tie, then made another key steal in OT. He is the leader of this team. It's a shame he probably won't make All NBA and was left off the All Defensive teams because he deserves those honors, but I'm happy he wears Green!!!

Jrue was also tremendous. He gives us whatever is needed. Last night he scored, assisted, and made huge defensive plays. The pass that set up JB for the three was perfect. Not an easy pass to make. This guy is the real deal.

JT also deserves alot of credit. Yeah he went cold down the stretch of the 4th quarter, but hit the two biggest shots of the game in OT. He also worked his tail off on defense and grabbed a ton of boards.

This was great win, but let's face it, we didn't play very well. Al is playing his butt off, but they are targeting him every time. Switching on fast guards is hard on any big man, and he's 38 years old. I really think Queta or Tillman have to play. We got these guys for their defense, give them a shot. I like what Luke has done, but defensively he is no match for Turner, Siakam or their guards. Overall, they shot 54%. I think they hit some lucky ones (especially Haliburton), but our D has to be better. We have to dictate a slower pace while still taking advantage of transition opportunities.

This next game is key. Both JB and JT said we have to play better. The coaches have to make some adjustments to slow them down. 54% is unacceptable. I know we can do better.

The Cardiac Kids are back.  This should not have been this tough, it was almost a disaster.  "Misfortune is Virtue's opportunity" - Seneca.  Yeah, you can learn a lot from losing but at this time I'd prefer relaxed post-season reflection over being driven to drink.  If there's a plus out of this, other than winning, it's that the team who has been playing a lot of minutes over the past week just played a lot of minutes and have nothing to show for it.

Souichi Terada @SouichiTerada
about 10 hours ago
Jayson Tatum: "That shoot was chaos. That shoot was wild."

7 Pacers in double digits, only 5 for us.

That's because our bench was largely non-existent.  Sam played only 9 minutes, was 0-2, and committed a really bone-headed foul that kept them alive.  Luke and Payton combined for our total 13 bench points.  Good jobs by them.  Payton and TJ McConnell took turns abusing each other.  McConnell is another undersized 6'1" guard who, unlike Payton, is a career mediocre 3pt shooter and yet he continues to get the job done.  I would be very happy if Payton ended up as a TJ McConnell with a shot.  This is a golden opportunity for Payton to obsess on McConnell game film.  Obi Toppin was their other bench player that came through for them.  The game would have been blown WAY out if he hadn't scored 11 in the first quarter.

The Celtic who got us to where we are today, in the EC Finals, was the player who almost lost this game for us.  Al was 5-15, 3-12 from 3.  3-12.   He had 3 blocks, but man, that shooting...!  I realize this is a shooter's league and I know shooters are supposed to have extremely short memories, but damn!  Their front court isn't much.  They have Myles Turner, Siakam is long, but that's it.  You can't play in the low blocks against them, Al?

Jrue with a helluva game.  He was not going to let us lose this game.  Season high scoring 28 and his hands were everywhere on defense with 3 steals.  If you like players that are more physical than they should be for their size you have to love Jrue Holiday (Payton too).  Have you noticed that Payton is playing more bullyball this year than in previous years?  Would that come from watching and playing against Jrue in practice?

Jaylen's another one who didn't want to lose but his frito shooting, oh my God!  He's averaging 61.5% from the line for the playoffs.

Brian Robb @BrianTRobb
about 2 hours ago
New: The Pacers admitted after Game 1 that the plan was to foul before Jaylen Brown’s 3.

But that game tying 3 to get us to OT?  Priceless.  Pacer fans can, and I can guarantee will, complain about the refs but Siakam could have been called for a foul on that shot because he was in Jaylen's landing zone and we know that's (usually) an almost automatic whistle.

Jay King @ByJayKing
about 10 hours ago
Jaylen Brown said he was telling himself before his last shot of regulation: “If you get it, it’s going up and it’s going in.”


There will be a lot of screaming on the Comments From The Other Side thread later today about frito disparity.  We took 30 ftas and they took only 10, but if you look at the bigger picture you'll see that they got whistled for 23 personal fouls and we got called for 15.  That's not THAT big a discrepancy, certainly not consistent with the 30-10 fta difference.  Why is it then?  Well, for one thing, we have a couple of All-Star wings that like to drive the paint and create contact.  You don't usually get whistles for fast break layups.  You do get whistles from getting fouled on offensive rebound putbacks.  They got several offensive rebounds because the ball bounced out their way.  We got some down-and-dirty and those are the ones that get whistles.  In OT there were 7 ftas by each team.  


Cameron Tabatabaie @CTabatabaie
about 10 hours ago
Myles Turner in the first half: 18 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists Myles Turner in the second half and OT: 5 points, 6 rebounds, 0 assists


They shot 53.5% for the game and 56% in regulation.  That's not good (for us).  They took 91 fgas in regulation.  That's giving up too many shots.  They want to run, we need to stop them.

The good news is that they had 21 turnovers and we had 11 steals.  That's 32 changes of possession.  We were 14 and 8, for 22 against us.  They're a younger team, they should make more mistakes and we need to capitalize on them.  The Pacer fans will be obsessing over the frito discrepancy, I wonder how many will mention the turnovers by them (which have nothing to do with the refs) and our defense stealing the ball in part because of their poor passing?









Indy wants, doesn't needs but wants very much, to win one of these first two games in Boston.  They almost pulled it off and still have one more opportunity before heading home.  There are those who believe they should have won this one if not for this and that.  I hope this barnburner wakes our guys up.  


I think these minutes, on top of all the ones they've played vs previous series opponents, will wear them out more than us and will pay dividends as the series continues.  


Bob


.

not for anything, but Jrue needs a little love here for that pass to JB in the corner. He was tremendous all night but that one play sticks out to me at how great he is on this team. The stats from those three guys, JT< JB, Jrue. awesome

I read that the Pacers came in dead last in fouls/game during the regular season, meaning that they commit more fouls per game than the rest of the league.

We were near or at the top, committing less fouls per game than most of the league.

Our defense was described as "Disciplined aggressive defense", whereas the Pacers play "Undisciplined aggressive defense". They do a lot of reaching and fouling and not so much with a positional approach to defense.

Yeah, they have that "Crash" guy, and that's how he plays defense, flailing and out of control, but agressive.

Practice cannot come close to simulating the level of intensity and speed that the Pacers have been fighting through.  I do not know how you can even prepare for that.

But now they have seen it and now they will go back to the drawring board to see what they must do better.

The Celtics put up 45 3 pointers last night but they only made 15.  (33.3%)  most were wide open looks especially for AH.  You can see that the Pacers have decided not to check AH out on the perimeter.  He is simply not shooting the 3 ball with any level of efficiency.  He went 3-12 last night.  Those shots are going to be there all series long but we really need Al to make them otherwise they are nothing more than empty possessions.

Jrue Holiday is truly a great defender and he is now giving us great offense to fill the void.

Tatum and Brown also struggled making the 3 ball.  Brown went 1-4 and the one was the ONE.  That shot is the top 3 pointer of the year.  Brown still managed a 10-20 night as he continues his overall efficient shooting.  

I actually like the Celtics offense better when either White or Holiday is running the show.

Our bench was horrible outside of PP who had 8 points, all in the first half but nothing in the second.  Kornet looks average to below average.  Sam with another scoreless game on only 2 (3) point shot attempts.

Our bench is not looking too good.  The Celtics starters played big minutes.  

The Celtics defense was sporadic.  They need better closeouts and guys have to keep their assignments in front of them.  They need to tighten up their transition defense.

The Pacers are going at AH off of their PNR actions.  AH cannot defend at a high level in those actions.  I do not know what you do about that even if you had KP who is even more vulnerable defending PNR.

The only thing I can think of is to mix in some zone throughout the game.

The Celtics need to watch those turnovers especially the brain fart ones.  We had a few too many WTF turnovers.  The Celtics need to communicate better as they had a few too many defensive lapses on switches.

The Celtics were thoroughly humbled despite the win.  They were not happy at all.

That is a good thing because game 2 may be more difficult.  The Pacers are thinking that they can win.  Now the Celtics have an obligation to let them know that they cannot beat us.

It's important that we send a very clear message tomorrow night. We have much more to improve upon than IND does. They may have shown us their whole hand. Actually, I'm pretty sure they did. They can only retreat. The Law of Averages will come into play for them. Same for us. Sorry, IND. Ain't buying all your hype.

db