Post Game Thread - vs Toronto, Away

[bobheckler]

Rapid Reaction: Raptors 116, C's 109
October, 10, 2014
OCT 10
10:05 PM ET
By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com



For the first 11 quarters of the exhibition season, the Boston Celtics looked like a team that has made great strides in Year 2 of a rebuilding process. In the 12th quarter, it looked a lot like the 2013-14 team that struggled to put games away when given the chance.

The Celtics overcame an early 14-point deficit behind some red-hot 3-point shooting and carried a six-point advantage into the final frame before the Toronto Raptors ripped off a monster run to pull away with a 116-109 triumph at the Air Canada Centre.

After a pair of lopsided wins to open the preseason, and maybe sensing this was the team's best chance at a real measuring-stick game before the regular season, Celtics coach Brad Stevens employed a tight 10-man rotation. Some typical preseason sloppiness was masked at times by both teams' hot shooting from beyond the arc (the two sides combined to finish 26-of-51 shooting from distance, with both sides at 50 percent or better). And it felt like an honest-to-goodness regular-season game when Toronto's arena got loud as the Raptors -- defending Atlantic Division champs -- utilized a 21-3 run to open as much as a 14-point lead late in the fourth frame.

• Nitty gritty: Avery Bradley scored a game-high 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting with four 3-pointers. But 20 points came before the intermission and Bradley sat out much of the second half. Jared Sullinger added 10 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists, while Marcus Thornton continued to provide a spark off the bench with 19 points in 22 minutes. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry each scored 18 points, while Patrick Patterson kicked in 17 more off the bench to pace the Raptors.

• Frequent helpers: The Celtics weren't selfish with the ball while posting 29 assists on 37 made field goals. Both Sullinger (7) and Bass (5) were particularly assist-happy on this night -- posting more single-game assists than they have in any regular-season game.

• Defensive regression: After using defense to fuel their offense the past two games, the Celtics seemed content to just engage in a shootout at times on Friday. Boston's rally was aided by defense, but Toronto still shot 50 percent overall, including 52.2 percent beyond the arc. Boston just wasn't crisp at either end but benefited from making shots to keep things interesting.

• What it means: The Celtics fall to 2-1 on the exhibition season. Boston will play the second night of a back-to-back on Saturday back in Connecticut as part of a rematch with the Knicks at Mohegan Sun.



bob



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[bobheckler]

This game was against a team that could/should win the Atlantic Division Title (not that that is saying much).  Regardless, they are better than either the Knicks and certainly the Sixers.

A classic game of runs.  They'd go up by 10, we'd go up by 9, they'd roar back and go up by 6.

We started out ice cold.  At one point we were 3-10.  Then we started to run more, hit our shots more (Bass, Thornton and especially Bradley were highly efficient) and we had a 35 point 2nd quarter.

Our offense in the 4th quarter looked like just a bunch of pointless passing the ball around the perimeter, hoping for an open 3.  When we didn't get one, we had an empty possession.  Toronto, on the other hand, kept running that high, wide PnR that was just money for them all night.  None of us cut to the hoop, so none of the defenders had to drop back, so none of our outside shots were wide open.  There was always a defender within a few steps of the shooter.  Pretty good D by Toronto, pretty predictable offense by us.

There were, what appeared to me, to be multiple moving screens being set by Toronto all night.  Greivus Vasquez was the usual donee of those.  He'd saunter up to the 3pt line, weaving back and forth behind a Raptor big who was walking forward and when Vasquez got the the 3pt line, having kept the Celtic running left-and-right in front of the big trying to keep up with Vasquez' weave, he's stop and hit a 3.  You can't use a moving player to set a screen for you.  That's not basketball, that's student body right.

1.  Kyle Lowry took the game over in the 4th.  He just gutted us like a fish with his penetrations.  The perimeter defense that was so good in the first two games ceased to exist.  The Raptors had 5 steals, Lowry had all 5 of them.  He had 2 in the first half and 3 in the 2nd.

2.  Marcus Smart played pretty well on defense.  I'm impressed with his spacing and his hedging, he doesn't play defense like a rookie who is seeing pro defenses and offenses for the first time.  He's getting away with a lot of contact that rookies usually get called on too.  Kelly is probably looking at that and thinking "why didn't I get those breaks last year?".   Maybe that's because he moves his feet well and you didn't.   Offensively he was 2-8 and a horrible 1-7 from 3, including 2 straight 3ptfgas airballs.  Marcus, Marcus, Marcus.  When the shot's not dropping, do something else.  Ok, he did something else.  He had 7 assists and only 3 TOs.  That's not bad for a new PG.

3.  "Microwave Marcus" (to differentiate him from "Marcus the wrecking ball") sure can light it up fast.  19 points in 22 minutes on a very efficient 7-13 and 4-6 from 3.  He's a natural scorer.  He had a couple "ME-ball" possessions, but for the most part he shot within the offensive scheme.  When he was traded his agent bleated about how he was afraid his client would be given a chance to show what he's got (Thornton's next contract weighing upon the agent's mind).  Well, he's getting his chances and he is making the most of them so far.

4.  Zeller had a solid game.  He had a couple of nice plays where he would set a back pick for the ball up high and, when his man came up to prevent the ball from coming off the pick, rolled to the hoop and got the pass.  One fgm and one foul resulting in two ftm were the result.  He also ran the court and beat his man downcourt, as he was advertised in pre-camp.  Some better defense, which is not his forte.  Only 2 rebounds in 21 minutes.  I'll bet if I looked up his rebound total, after 3 games, it would be single digits.  I'm not being harsh, he had a good game, but his rebounding, for a 7'er, isn't that good.  He needs to up his aggressiveness, I think.  There was one sequence where Turner threw up a contested shot, contested because Zeller's man came over to help on the penetration, and Zeller didn't go to the front of the rim.  It would have been an easy offensive rebound and putback for him and something that Sully, Kelly and Bass would all have done.  As it was, he just stood there and a Raptor guard swooped in and got the rebound on the missed shot instead.

5.  Part of the reason is because the Toronto length was killing us on the offensive boards.  Valanciunas and Johnson were just coming over our back and tapping the ball towards the rim on missed shots.  They had 46 rebounds and 12 of them were offensive with Johnson and Valanciunas getting 8 of them.  Valanciunas had 5 by himself out of his 9 total.  We have 2 7'ers on the team now ourselves.  This should not have happened, we got pushed under the basket.

6.  Bradley had a 20 point half, 17 of them in the 2nd quarter.  He was as hot as I've seen anybody.  It all went in for him.  He didn't play in the 4th quarter and was seen icing down his ankle.  When asked post-game about it, Stevens said that he "was just giving him some rest".  He needed rest after playing just 6 minutes in the 1st quarter, 11 minutes in the 2nd quarter and only 4 minutes in the 3rd quarter?  Really?  Do you believe that?  Bradley's fragility is generally well known and documented.  I hope we're not seeing a serious limitation on his minutes already, after only 3 pre-season games.  Considering we only scored 16 points in the 4th quarter Brad's decision to sit Bradley (assuming it really was not injury related) might have cost us the game.  Bradley was on fiyah.  Well, one man's loss is another man's gain.  The door might have just swung wide open for the Marki (that's a latin plural of "Marcus").

7.  Brandon Bass is the name most thrown around when talking about trades (Rondo's name gets thrown around more, but that's mostly due to sportswriters with too much time and not enough column-inches written on their hands).  He's a pro's pro.  He just comes in, starting or off the bench, and is Steady Eddy.  14 points on 5-6 in 23 minutes.  And let's not forget the 5 assists from No-Pass Bass, or maybe I should say The Player Formerly Known As No-Pass Bass.

8.  Pressey looked VERY confident in his shot last night.  He came off a pick and went right up into a shot that went in and looked good going in.  He was also his completely pesky self on defense.  It amazes me nobody posts the little fella up, but nobody does.  He played with Turner a lot.  What I don't get is that Turner had the ball most of the time.  He's the point guard, Evan, give him the ball.  Turner has done a lot of good stuff in these 3 games, no doubt about it, but damn little of it was without the ball in his hands.  Damn little.  What will happen when Rondo comes back and he's on the floor with Turner?

9.  Sully with 7 assists.  Smaht with 7 assists.  Turner with 4 assists.  Bass with 5 assists.  Kelly and Pressey with 3 assists.  29 assists on 37fgm for 78%.  That is really getting everybody involved.

10.  After two straight games of generating 20+ turnovers, Toronto only had 11.  It looked, quite frankly, like we got a little tired in the 4th quarter.

11.  Only 75fgas for us (and 87 for them).  That is just not enough shots.  At the half, we had 38fgas, so it wasn't just a 2nd half/4th quarter swoon.  We just weren't shooting enough.  Too much passing around the horn, trying to make the defense shift for an open 3 and not enough cutting and penetration.


Second half of a back-to-back against the NY Knicker-slackers tonight.  Here's where we see if that fatigue was real.



bob



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[bobheckler]

bob



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[k_j_88]

Toronto was a fairly high seed last year. They are returning with the same team this year with another year of chemistry. I'd say they are the class of this division. Without Rondo and Green, Toronto was going to have the advantage anyway. But the game was close nonetheless, and Boston didn't even play with a full deck.

I thought that Stevens made a few errors. He allowed the game to get too far out of hand in the fourth when the Celtics were settling for low percentage threes. Instead of calling for a timeout, he allowed them to continue running a rather poor, freelance offense with contested shots late in the clock. This is something he needs to work on: judging the momentum of the game and gauging when a timeout is necessary. Sure, not having Bradley's offense hurt, but that doesn't mean everyone else needs to decide to settle for ill-advised shots.

I also have yet to be proven wrong that Sullinger and Olynyk are still a very poor defensive combination in the post. The problem with Kelly is that if he's not productive on the offensive end, he's essentially dead weight on the floor because his defense isn't good enough to make up for it.

All in all, this is yet another learning experience.


KJ

[Sam]

Bob,

I know you always want to see the Celtics shooting a lot of shots.  But, the higher your shooting percentage, the lower your shot total is likely to be.  75 shots absolutely IS enough if you can maintain your shooting percentage at 55% (their three quarter figure) and especially when you're shooting 62% from beyond the arc.  Heck, they scored 72 points over the second and third quarters on only 39 shots.  And their final tally was 109 points.

We're all enjoying the spectacle of their running game.  But being able to score a few fast break points (7 last night) doesn't mean you know to play productive volume basketball. 

Volume basketball doesn't mean simply taking a lot of shots.  A major goal of volume basketball is to get a high rate of good shots.  The way the Celtics played in the fourth quarter, it wouldn't have mattered how many shots they took because they took mainly low-percentage hero shots.  They lost their poise.  And the problem didn't originate with the offense.  It was a function of the complete breakdown of any semblance of interior defense that completely disarmed the Green.

Sam

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