Post Game - Celtics at Atlanta Hawks - Monday, November 04 (W)

The NBA Power Rankings are updated on ESPN and the World Champion Boston Celtics remain in the top spot with a 7-1 record.

Last night they demolished the Hawks by 30 points 123-93.  The Celtics took 58 3 point shots.  They made 18 which is a horrible percentage 32.7%  They did other things quite well on offense and defense as they still managed to shoot 48.5% from the field.  They won the rebounding battle 50-43 and had 15-9 steals advantage.  The number that really pops out was their 35-4 advantage in fast break points. It was a thing of beauty.

The Cavs look good in their hot 8-0 start but I guarantee that they will come back down to earth.

The Bucks and the Sixers remain 15th and 14th respectively, in the East standings.  Heard Joel now wants out of Philly.  Could be just a rumor.   How long before the freak demands a trade?

We will see the Hawks next week in Boston on the 12th in the opening game of The Cup.  From this point on I will be referring to those games as the Cupcake Games.

If I was an Atlanta Hawk fan not a day would go by where I didn't curse the basketball gods because the Hawks traded Luka for Trae.  1-10, 0-6 from 3, 6 assists and 3 turnovers and, worst of all, looked completely spooked by the Celtic defenders.  It didn't matter if it was Jrue, Derrick or Payton, Trae didn't even try to put moves on them, he barely put the ball on the floor, just passing out as quickly as he could.

Onyeka Okongwu is Julius Randle without the 3pt shot but better defense.  Shooting is the easiest skill to learn, it's just following the fundamentals and practice, practice, practice and yet Okongwu still can't shoot from distance.  If the Hawks coaching staff isn't on his ass everyday about getting in his shots they should be fired because otherwise he's a great old-school power forward.  He just needs to download NBA 2025 software into his brain.

What I like is that our DEEEEEP bench played the last 8 minutes and we still outscored the Hawks 20-18 in the 4th.  I don't think it was because of them, the lineup of Davison, Scheierman, Springer, Walsh and Tillman went a combined 4-15, 0-6 from 3, but that makes our domination even greater.  We were up 33 (112-79) with 8;21 left and we only lost 3 points off our lead despite 4-15.

Once again Queta thoroughly outplayed Capela.  This is our 4th big we're talking about, the last big off our bench, outplaying an 11 year NBA veteran.  And Capela's still only 30 years old, he's not over the hill yet, and Q has outplayed two straight games.  He signed a 3 year contract (2 years with a team option for #3) for a maximum of $2.6M/year.  Brad might be good at that GM stuff.

Scheierman needs a TON of reps in Maine.  The G-League season begins Friday.  We won't be seeing him for a while.

Walsh's boxscore isn't anything to brag about but I was focusing on his defense when he was on the floor (he played 19 minutes, including some early minutes when the game was still very much in contention).  I like his defense.  He's got Joe's defensive schemes down.  He switches swiftly, he doesn't give up on his man (although they occasionally got past him.  He just stayed with them and funneled them towards help, which is what you're supposed to do).  It still blows my mind that a 2nd round pick with only one year in Maine has leapfrogged 5-going-on-6 year NBA veteran Jaden Springer.  I'm liking what I'm seeing from Jordan but, damn, the bottom just fell out from underneath Springer.









Kudos to the NBA for not scheduling ANY games on Election Day.  Regardless of who you support voting is democracy.  Basketball is just entertainment.

We take on the 6-1 GSW on Wednesday at home.  They are 4-0 on the road so far.  We should NOT assume they are the same team as last year.

Cleveland beat Milwaukee in Cleveland by 2 points.  The Cavs have the best record in the NBA at 8-0.  Doc is toast.  Fairly or unfairly, no coach leading a team that is not in a complete rebuild could survive a 1-6 start.  The fault isn't his that much.  Giannis can't handle the idea of not winning the Championship every year and so the Bucks front office rolled the dice for Dame, but had to give up Jrue to make that happen, and the rest as we all know is history.  They gave Giannis his elite running mate but brought back his aging and mediocre posse, and 33 year old Khris Middleton has played a total of 88 games in the last two seasons plus the 7 games of this season.


Bob


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Celtics17 wrote:I know the Hawks were on a B2B, but this was still an impressive win. The last game of a road trip is always tough, and we didn't have JB.

Queta may be the real the deal. He is doing his job well. He is not trying to do too much and is playing great defense and is active on the boards on both ends. We may have something here.

Although we all love D White, I think every now and then we have to praise him more. This guy just makes every right play, his defense is amazing and the range on his shot has even improved. I really hope he makes the All Star team this year because he is deserving.

C17,

I couldn't agree more about Derrick White and I'm happy to pile onto this. Despite having a couple of horrendous shooting games his scoring average is up to 19ppg and is shooting 41.4% from 3. He has increased his ftas/game from 2.1 to 2.6 but is still hitting them at > 90%.

His Offensive Rating is 133 and his Defensive Rating is 109, giving him a Net Rating of +24. It's still early, of course, but that's the best Net Rating of his career. For comparison Jayson Tatum's Net Rating is +21, Jrue's is +11 and Jaylen's is +2. In fact, the only regularly playing Celtic players with a better Net Rating are Al Horford with a +39 and Luke Kornet with an absolutely insane +51 (Payton's has a +22, so he's close to Derrick).


Bob


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