bobcats@ Celtics Post game

Ok

So the Celtics are so damn good that they can just show up and scare the bejesus out of their opponent.

It is but another lesson to be learned.

By the numbers

The Celtics were midly outrebounded 50-45.  They actually had more points (21) on fast breaks than they did over Orlando,  Turnovers were close 11 for them and 15 for us.  Both teams shot horrible from the field  38% for us and 37% for them (rounded up), assists, 16 for them and 15 for us.  It looks like the difference came down to free throws.  They hit 26 of 30 and we made 18 of 25.

We missed having Sully in the post at both ends but I thought the Celtics played on the perimeter and put up 21 three point shots hitting 7 of them and did not get to rim often enough. Although Points in the paint were also pretty even (40 for them and 38 for us)

The defense was ping pong ball defense.

I am sure that most of us still expected a win and the Celtics just stayed in the game.  

Overall we only gave up 89 points but our offense got bogged down during certain stretches of the game.  

I thought that Jeff Green needed to get more shots and MORE rebounds...

This game is a perfect example of why statistics are very misleading.   Style, Pace and Energy are the only true measures of how this team played.

dboss

Agree Dboss

we "played " well enough to win.....but didn't. Bobcats "played" a little bit better. We were always attempting to climb out of a hole but never getting quite to the top. Trailed the entire game but did get close a couple times late. Still we played hard for 48minutes although not particularly smart. Shot selection was not good. Plus some open looks didn't fall.

Sully might have made a difference but guys are going to miss games from time to time and someone else needed to step up. With no go to guy our ship ran, but with no rudder so it appeared.

beat

One place where I still see Coach Stevens struggling is in his substitution patterns and how long he waits to go back to his starters.

This game, you could feel the momentum changing - and the Celtics were making their move in the late 3rd quarter. When the 4th started, they began to slip back a bit and I think he waited too long to bring AB, Green and Crawford back in. Pressey added basically nothing last night - some games are like that. But he should have gone back to those 3 earlier in the 4th.

-Jeff Green needs more plays run for him - or more "clear outs" for him. Too often they give him the ball and you have Vittor or Bass trying to post up on the same side. GET OUT OF THE WAY and give this guy the space he needs to dominate. He scored 19 points by forcing the action. Stevens needs to harness his talent and get better spacing.

-Jordan Crawford continues to shut up his critics and play very good basketball.
-AB seems like he rises to the occasion against the best opponents, but cant bring that effort on the offensive end every night. He was killing Walker for a short stretch - but unlike he did against Wade - he shrunk as the game went on.

Sully would have made a difference, as he at least would have been able to push Al Jefferson further out and make his life a bit more difficult.

Overall, it was a bit of a hangover game....that was there for the taking. But lack of execution with a young team is par for the course.

As an aside, if anyone wants to see how successful "Tanking" is in the NBA - Charlotte is example A. They have been in the draft lottery for ages and still STINK. They finally got it, by signing Al Jefferson - they are on the road back towards respectability, but they have a long way to go to establish a winning attitude in down in NC.

kleen on bobcats in the lottery, nobody ever made more bad, lousy picks than Jordan, alot of drafts depend on the year, this year there seems to be 3 legit franchise players, some years there are none. Look how well Thunder did with the lottery/draft.

Mrkleen

It was like we were 1 shot away all the second half. We'd get a little momentum then get the ball and get an open look ............... and miss.

May sound crazy but almost seemed we were too tight, a big and loud crowd cheering.... might we better on the road with our focus, than at home?

One time in particular Green had hit a trey a couple minutes earlier now down 4 he was set up wide open in front of our bench.......... could have cut it to 1, anticipation was there crowd was ready to go nuts and ................ he missed.

oh well as you say we are young as long as the effort is there wins will happen.

beat

Look up "ugly" in the dictionary and you'll see two NBA teams shooting 38% and 37%.

Not many attempts to go inside, and yet we had 38 points out of our total 83 in the paint.

Not much running, and yet we had 21 fast break points, vs 8 for them.

Not a particularly physical game, and yet we had 25ftas and they had 30.  It seemed like they had a huge edge there, but it evened out by the end.  One difference is that they hit 87% of theirs for 26 points while we only shot 72% of ours for 18 points.  That's 8 points and we lost by 6.  If we evened up the ftas then it would have only been a 2 point game.  This is one of those little things you need to focus on that Stevens talks about.

1.  I hate Violet Palmer.  There.  I've said it.

2.  Green and Crawford showed up for the offense, Lee and Wallace were sidemen but the rest of the team couldn't throw the ball in the Atlantic from the pier.  A lot of jump shooting.  Poor jump shooting and worst of all it was poor jump shooting after wasting most of the shot clock.

3.  Bass-o-matic didn't show up.  He tried to play defense, but Big Al just owned him inside.  He tried to play offense, he took 9fgas, all of them in his range (of course!) but only 2 of the 4 he took in the paint dropped. Early foul troubles screwed up his game rhythm but he still got 8 boards.

4.  Vitor had an awful shooting night, 2-8, but he had 9 boards in just 22 minutes and did a helluva job of shutting Jefferson down for most of the 2nd half.  I don't believe he was on the floor when Al got the offensive rebound putback that put them up 4 with less than a minute left.  

5.  Brad Stevens made virtually no substitutions for the last 8:21.  So, now that I look it up, Vitor was NOT on the floor at all in the 4th quarter.  I don't understand this, Vitor was the only one who was doing a good job on Jefferson.  And even if there was someone better, 8:21 minutes of straight play?  You want people to run for 8:21 straight, play tough defense and not run out of gas too?

6.  We had a bunch of blown bunnies and two blocks by Tolliver on Green and by Jefferson on Wallace in the final minute or two.  I didn't see any replays, so I can't tell if they were legit (forgive my skepticism with Violet reffing the game)

7.  Olynyk with 11 rebounds, I believe his first double-digit rebounding game, and they were legit, no stat stuffing multiple offensive tip misses.  Wouldn't it be great if he has figured this out?  I was expecting to have to wait until the next off-season for him to hit the gym and bulk up.

8.  No Sully, no inside game.  Bass gets some, but he doesn't live in the paint like Sully does. We. Must. Run.

9.  Another good game by Crawford.  Yep, MrKleen, he's shutting me up.

10.  If the league doesn't fine Kemba Walker for flopping at least once (he flopped 3x that I can remember) then they should be ashamed of themselves.  One of them was a particularly hideous acting job, where he flew backwards onto his back because the player advanced on him. It was truly inspiring to watch him bounce back to his feet immediately after being so viciously mauled. Time to wake up and smell the sarcasm. The real problem, of course, is that the players don't blow fouls on flops, the refs do.  I just hope the league keeps track of which refs are blowing the fouls on those flops that the league find egregious and fines on, not that I ever expect us to find that information out.  

A valuable lesson learned, I hope.  As LBJ said after we beat Miami "we messed with the game and the game messed with us".


bob



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From the Celtics' point of view, it wasn't a good night for Al Jefferson to be recovered enough from his ankle sprain to have his first good game of the year. Boston is going to be vulnerable to good post players, and Al certainly took advantage.

After Crawford made a three-point play with 32 seconds to go to pull Boston to within two, all they needed was a stop, and they got it when Kemba Walker missed a shot, but Big Al was there in great position and got the put-back, and that was that.

You lose a game with your play all during the game, not just on one play, but that one play sure was emblematic of Big Al's ability to move his Big Butt wherever he wanted. They really could've used Sullinger. I didn't see Humphries play in this game, but from what I've seen in the past, he's ineffective guarding guys like Al, so I'm assuming that's why he played only 10 minutes.

On the bright side, another good all-around game for Crawford, and good rebounding totals by Olynyk and Vitor. They needed at least one more scorer to produce.

Inconsistency is frustrating, but it's bound to be a fact of life for the first half of the season (at least).

....Sully

cowens/oldschool wrote:kleen on bobcats in the lottery, nobody ever made more bad, lousy picks than Jordan, alot of drafts depend on the year, this year there seems to be 3 legit franchise players, some years there are none. Look how well Thunder did with the lottery/draft.

Thunder may be the exception, but they havent won anything yet, and with the departure of James Harden and the financial reality of a small market...they better get it done this year or next.

Every time they seemed to be gaining momentum in the 4th, they committed a turnover.  My little formula for success suggests that, for them to have a decent shot of winning, their turnovers divided by FGA shouldn't be more than 16.0%.  Last night, it was 19.5%.  Of course, a dip in their volume offense and a bump in their turnovers weren't the only factors that led to the loss.  Although Vitor played a fairly good game, offensively-minded centers like Big Al are bound to give the Celts problems this season.   The one other guy who might have been able to push Al away from the basket (Sully) didn't play.  Of course, who knows how much Al might have taken advantage of Sully's lack of height?

This season is shaping up as very much about trust.  As a team, they seem to be trusting one another much more quickly and profoundly than I would have expected.  But there are still trust issues between Brad and some members of the team.

In particular, I don't believe Brad dares to have either Pressey or Faverani on the floor late in the game.  Last night, Pressey didn't do anything to earn more trust.  Vitor did, but only to a limited extent (three turnovers).

Would a late presence of Vitor have prevented Al from getting that putback Outside mentioned?  Maybe; maybe not.  The shortfall (pun intended) of legitimate centers on this roster is underscored by the fact that the only one we have plays 3 minutes one night and more than 20 minutes the next.  That's a form of discontinuity that helps neither Vitor nor the team.  I'm definitely not dissing Brad, by the way.  The simple fact is that Vitor's performances are not yet consistent enough to warrant more responsibility being thrust upon him on a regular basis—especially in the clutch.

Bump in the road.  Learn from it and move on.

Sam

cowens/oldschool wrote:kleen on bobcats in the lottery, nobody ever made more bad, lousy picks than Jordan, alot of drafts depend on the year, this year there seems to be 3 legit franchise players, some years there are none. Look how well Thunder did with the lottery/draft.

cow,

Atlanta's another team that thought it could build a contender through draft picks and letting the youth grow up together.  Look at them, stuck in mediocrity year after year after year.

The real deal is the real deal is the real deal and you don't know if you have the real deal just because they played well in college.  You can think you know, but you can't really know until they actually show it.

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the #2 pick in the 2012 draft (#2!) and he did not have a very good rookie year, to put it gently, and he's not starting his 2nd season off any better.

You talk about how well the Thunder has done with the draft.  True, but can you name another?  If you can't, then maybe it's just Sam Presti who has the magic vision and that's not something we can/should hang our hats on UNLESS we get a #3 pick like they did and get a shot at a James Harden level player and, even then, they needed a #3 for Harden in 2009 and a #4 pick for Westbrook in 2008 and #2 pick for Durant in 2007 to become contenders.  That's a bunch of really high draft picks for 3 straight years!  And, oh yeah, they got a #5 pick from us in the Ray Allen deal, so that was a #2 (Durant) and a #5 (Green) in the same year.  That's 4 Top 5 picks in 3 years. How bad did the franchise have to suck to get those picks?  They won 31 games in 2006-2007 (to get Durant in the 2007 draft, although they were still in Seattle at the time), 20 games in 2007-2008 and 23 games in 2008-2009.  Those are a couple of years that make this one for us look like a stroll in the park.

Are you willing to have 3-5 years like this one, or worse, just to have a shot at those type of draft picks and hope the basketball pingpong Gods smile on us (and not like they did in 1997 with Tim Duncan)?


bob


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I don't know who was on Al when he got that putback, but that's because Al made whomever it was look nonexistent. Al's been around a while, and he's good.

In the past, Al struggled more against length (Bob observed that Vitor was effective against him), so I'm not sure how effective Sullinger would be, but you'd think Sullinger has the lower body mass to root Al out of his desired position, or at least not let him get where he wants to go so easily.

They at least know what to expect the next time, which will be on November 25 (Monday of Thanksgiving week, less than two weeks away).

They're only one game behind those powerhouse Sixers, tied with Toronto. The standings in the division seem to be upside down compared to the predictions.

The other team that comes to mind doing well in the draft is San Antonio, and not just because of Robinson and Duncan. If that's all they had to hang their hat on, they should've faded into obscurity a long time ago, but they've picked guys like Kawhi Leonard, George Hill, DuJuan Blair, and international players like Ginobli, Parker, and Splitter (they also originally drafted Beno Udrih.

But the best bet is a combination of drafting and trading. That's what the Spurs have done, and that's how the Warriors, Pacers, and Clippers built their teams. It's rare to build a good team almost exclusively through the draft like OKC or through free-agent signings like Miami.

Kleen

I did not have a problem with the substitution patterns.  I think Stevens will let guys play through a bad stretch and that is important for the condfidence of his players.

We had many, many opportunities to get multiple stops and make multiple buckets.

As Russell said It is all about buckets!

dave

He sits his big guns too long....especially someone like Green who was having a nice game and is the type that needs time to warm up again. You put him back in with 7 minutes left in the game - he doesnt warm up until their are 4 minutes left. IMO you put Jeff back in much earlier if you are going to count on him down the stretch.

bob I am not saying I would want to suck for 3 years ala Thunder, but we already have a promising young nucleus that will not enable us to suck that long, if we can just get lucky and add a few pieces we wouldn't need 3 years....so this year does seem like there is some considerable talent out there. If we got in lottery somehow this year I'm fine with that. We also have the Hawks pick from the Joe Johnson deal with Brooklyn, imagine if we had 2 lottery picks in this draft? maybe were due for some draft luck after years of bad bounces. I'd be ecstatic with a shot at either Wiggins, Parker or Randle to combine with our youthful pieces.

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob I am not saying I would want to suck for 3 years ala Thunder, but we already have a promising young nucleus that will not enable us to suck that long, if we can just get lucky and add a few pieces we wouldn't need 3 years....so this year does seem like there is some considerable talent out there. If we got in lottery somehow this year I'm fine with that. We also have the Hawks pick from the Joe Johnson deal with Brooklyn, imagine if we had 2 lottery picks in this draft? maybe were due for some draft luck after years of bad bounces. I'd be ecstatic with a shot at either Wiggins, Parker or Randle to combine with our youthful pieces.

cow,

The Atlanta pick you referred to, it's the worse of Atlanta's or Brooklyn's pick next year, and Atlanta gets to choose which they take.

So:

If Atlanta ends up with #15 and Brooklyn ends up with #23 then Atlanta would get to choose which and they would, of course, take #15.  That would give us Brooklyn's #23.

If that was reversed, and Brooklyn ends up with #15 and Atlanta has #23 then Atlanta would still get to choose and they would, of course, take Brooklyn's #15 and we'd get Atlanta's #23.

So, for this to pay off the way you want, we'd need Atlanta AND Brooklyn to suck really, really badly.

Furthermore, here's how the lottery works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_draft_lottery

The lottery only occurs to pick the first 3 slots.  So #1, #2 and #3 are determined by the pingpong balls.  #4 - #14 are just in order regular season record.

To get Wiggins or Randle or Parker we'd have to get one of those 3 balls.

To get one of those 3 balls, here are the odds, ranked by worst team to better:

1 - 25%
2 - 16.4%
3 - 16.4%
4 - 16.3%
5 - 9.4%
6.  6.6%
7 - 4.4%
8 - 2.7%
9 - 1.5%
10 - 1.1%
11 - .8%
12 - .7%
13 - .6%
14 - .5%

The simple math says that the four worst teams in the league have a total of 74.1% of the chances of getting the #1 pick and the rest divvy up the remaining 25.9%.  If someone, say, #10, pulls off a miracle and gets #1, then it gets even harder for the lower teams to get #2 or #3 since the top 4 teams still own 74.1%, except it's 74.1% of less than 100%.  If so, then we would have one chance out of 11 to get the right ball, at best.

Will we be one of those 4 bottom feeders?  I doubt it.


bob


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bob----Will we be one of those 4 bottom feeders? I doubt it.


I hope so----swish

Hey Swish, how are you doing? How's Attleboro treating you? Nice to see you posting.

Sam

if Boston had actually won last night after playing rather terrible the whole game, it'd have been counterproductive to what Stevens is trying to teach these guys. in other words, its better they lost this game.

they came out like they were good enough to "flip the switch" at any given moment. well, what do you know? they aren't.

they forgot that they have to play hard every game, regardless of the opponent . essentially, their arrogance came back to bite them in the ass.



KJ

What would you call that, TJ? Tough self-love?

Sam

a four game streak is nothing. its not an accomplishment. its a mere stepping stone. they had a small taste of what victory is and allowed it to go to their heads. until they prove otherwise, they're an average team.

on the other side of this, they played poorly and only lost by six. their pg play left a lot to be desired. on offense, they regressed to old habits of standing around. thus, most of their shot attempts were contested.

they went away from vitor in the second half despite his success against big al.. they did miss sully but it was still winnable with what they had. Crawford had a couple bad plays but he did make timely baskets when the offense stalled.

their defense wasn't too bad but they were beaten to almost every loose ball. they were outhustled and they don't have the ability to win many games that way.



KJ