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Celtics 121, Nets 105: Rondo, C's roll

By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com

BOSTON -- One season after having one of the most anemic offenses in the league, the Boston Celtics put eight players in double figures, shot 55.7 percent from the floor, owned as much as a 29-point lead, and emerged with a decisive 121-105 triumph over the Brooklyn Nets in their season-opener on Wednesday night at TD Garden.

Box score | Play by Play | Shot Chart
• Stat of the Game: Boston shot a blistering 61.4 percent (27 of 44) in the first half and all 10 players that touched the floor scored as the team led 67-41 at the intermission. Rajon Rondo had nine assists at the intermission and was a plus-22 over 17 minutes.

• Near Triple Double of the Game: Rondo, starting the season less than five weeks after surgery on a fractured hand, flirted with his 30th career triple-double. He finished with 13 points, 12 assists, and seven rebounds over 30 minutes.

• Gesture of the Game: The Celtics honored Isaiah Austin as a Hero Among Us, presenting him with a No. 21 jersey and naming him an honorary Celtics for life. Austin, who was forced to remove himself from the NBA Draft this year, was on hand as a spokesman for The Marfan Foundation, a life-threatening genetic disorder of the body’s connective tissue.

• Awkward Moment of the Game: With the Celtics up 17 with under three minutes to play, their famed Gino Time clip ran. It used to be a personal favorite of Kevin Garnett, who was on the opposite bench -- and didn't look up -- as it rolled.

• What it Means: The Celtics move to 1-0 on the young season, but a daunting November slate loaded with legitimate contenders awaits to show this team exactly where it stands. Boston will take a couple days to savor the win before visiting the Houston Rockets on Saturday night.

NEXT GAME - SATURDAY - AWAY - HOUSTON - 8:00PM

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Celtics beat Nets 121-105 to open the season

CSNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

BOSTON — So much for working off the rust.

Rajon Rondo, returning to the lineup after missing all of training camp with a left hand injury, looked in mid-season form as Boston pulled away for a 121-105 win over Brooklyn.

It was Boston's first season-opening win since 2010.

As surprising as the outcome was, the decisive nature was even more of a head-scratcher.

Boston dominated this game in every way imaginable, doing with the kind of balanced attack that speaks to the "evenness" nature of this team.

Kelly Olynyk, who had a team-high 19 points, had a stretch in the first quarter where he dominated play. Soon after that, Jared Sullinger got going.

After that, Marcus Thornton got things cooking with some timely drives and pull-up jumpers. And in the third quarter, it was Jeff Green and Evan Turner giving the Nets problems.

But the one thread binding all of them was Rondo who began the season with a double-double of 11 points and 11 assists before the third quarter had ended. For the game he finished with 13 points and a game-high 12 assists.

And with that, the Celtics ended an opening night skid with Wednesday's win, their first to open the season since 2010.

As for Brooklyn, Deron Williams led the way for them with 15 points while former Celtic Kevin Garnett had 10 points and six rebounds.

 

WHAT WORKED

Ball movement. Spacing. 3-point shot selection. You name it and if the Celtics did it, the result was probably good for Boston. One of the more impressive aspects of the game was how the Celtics really clicked at both ends of the floor, even when boston had the game well under control in the fourth quarter.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

There really wasn't much for Brad Stevens to be terribly upset or bothered by in this one. Like any coach, I'm sure he'd like to see fewer turnovers and a better job of contesting shots which truth be told was pretty good for most of the game.

KEY PLAY/STRETCH: In the first quarter, a 20-foot jumper by Kevin Garnett cut Boston's lead to 10-8. The Celtics responded with a 14-5 run and continued to pull away for a surprisingly easy victory.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Celtics are tentatively scheduled to practice on Thursday with their next game being at Houston on Saturday.

For Boston, it was the first time since 2010 that they won the season opener.

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IS DESTROY A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THE CELTICS DID TONIGHT?     I THINK SO!

DEFENSE + ATTACK THE PAINT + BALANCED OFFENSE + POISE = A WINNING FORMULA

HEY LOOKS WHO IS IN FIRST PLACE..........GET YOUR PLAYOFF TICKETS EARLY!!!!!!

HEY NBA BETTER LOAD UP ON EXCEDRIN MIGRAINE....YOUR GOING TO NEED IT AGAINST THE LIKES OF BRADLEY & SMART AND NO QUIT DEFENSE!!!!!!

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Hi,
Congratulations everyone, with the new season!
And what a wonderful way to start it!

AK

I was wondering if they brought out Gino. KG used to enjoy Gino when he was wearing kelly green, I guess not so much anymore.

He didn't much like green Kelly either!!

Great game from an exciting young team.

Rondo played 30 minutes with a broken hand? The sports writers will be saying Danny's obviously showcasing him for a trade!

How many Nets 1st round picks do we have?

Too bad Johnny Most isn't around any more. I would have loved to hear him lament how dirty KG's game has become since he left Boston

great game and I even got to watch it on the big screen instead of my laptop, thanks to the free NBA TV week thing.

121 points!

what is this 1986?

gonna be fun to watch this team play the suns this year.

we shot the lights out at 55.7%, but even if we'd have shot 48% for the game we'd still have scored 107 points. 45% shooting would have us right at 101.

so our up tempo style will create more chances to win, even on nights we're not shooting such gaudy numbers.

Kelly's play gave some Celtics fans reason to breath about our center "problem"...at least for one night. It very well might be different in Houston against Howard, but since most of the NBA doesn't have elite centers, we'll be fine inside.


while Rondo had a good game for sure and not trying to take anything away from him at all, the team does look different when he is on the floor. not as much ball movement as we got used to in the preseason. But you can't argue with results!

for some nitpicking:

Green hit 4-10 from the field, as typical. Though he did stick his nose inside for rebounds more than we're used to seeing. 36 minutes might be too much to play him each night , if his shooting doesn't improve.

I'd like to see Thornton and Zeller both get some more minutes.

5 blocked shots in the games , but none from our "centers" Kelly and Zeller.

Sloopjohnb wrote:

Too bad Johnny Most isn't around any more.  I would have loved to hear him lament how dirty KG's game has become since he left Boston

I would not call KG a dirty player. What he did to Kelly was simply looking for a way to get a rise out of a young player and also inspire his team to start playing ball. Nothing dirty about it IMO. KG's game as always been chippy. You must have not noticed as much when he wore green.

You may not but Johnny Most would have.

I might be the odd man out, but I don't think we played THAT great......

I saw us many times walk the ball up the court. At least 6 times we were under the gun with the 24 second clock, 2 of these all we had was Smart left with nothing other than a heave from 3. Too much dribble at times by various players. Thought Zeller should have got some second half minutes too. As for Crash he was the 11th man last night....we only played 10. And our pacesetter Pressey sat there next to him. Says a lot for the depth when 2 of our important players from last year did the same thing I did last evening, granted their seat was better than mine.

Hard to gage, I guess. Is New Jersey good? Certainly Lopez would have helped them.

As for some other things we battled on the board, Green actually mixed it up more than normal. We swallowed up penetration fairly well.

Was it just me or didn't Deron Williams looked a bit in need of Jenny Craig.
Rondo went by him almost at will and did pretty much whatever he wanted.

Somewhere midway thru the second quarter I noticed we only had taken 2 fouls shots despite the rather frequent whistle.....in the end we took 23 so it wasn't too bad but making only15 was. Rondo with 4 misses in 4 tries...the rust is showing. He needs to make the next 4 to get to 50%. Ray Allen went months without missing 4.

Forced 20 TO's and only had 12 ourselves, I'll take those numbers any day.

We coasted a little in the 4th and made the score look a lot closer than it truly was.......

On to game #2..........Houston we have a problem !! And Hopefully it is Their problem not ours.

I Think we can improve a lot. Stevens is still figuring out things like a kid with a bunch of new toys on Christmas morning. What do I put together first?

beat

I agree.  I couldn't decide if the Celtics played really well or the Nets played really badly.

But if this continues it's double good news for the Celtics.

Man, that's a ton of points.  Three 30+ point quarters in a row.  Our last quarter was 20 points, and we gave up 33, but when you have three 30+ quarters in a row you usually have enough of a pad to get the W, and that's what happened last night.

First, let me apologize to gyso for not seeing his request on the Game On thread for a link.  For future reference here's the one I use.  www.sportstream.tv  Click on 'basketball', open the event and then pick a specific link.  The real pain is that, when I take it off of fullscreen to post something on the thread and I go back to the game there are ads that I have to click through to delete and get back to full screen.  When you are in fullscreen mode there are no ads (other than the ones from the network.  None from sportstream.  The sportstream ads come when you are not in fullscreen).

We really spread the floor well last night.  We also did a good job of taking advantage of that.  62 points in the paint.  That's the type of number I have been yearning to see for years now.

1.  That had to be one helluva power nap.  Rondo played 30 minutes less than 4 weeks after breaking his hand.  I hope there's no swelling or setbacks today.  He had 5 assists in the 1st quarter and 9 at the half.  It seems like he's a little more uptempo than last year, not as much as Pressey or as much as I might like but more, but the half court sets are just SO much more coherent when he's in.  He really does find angles that others don't.  I'd be just fine if he plays 30-32mpg, especially if we continue to get these results.

2.  I thought Jeff Green had a good game.  17 points on 4-10 but 9ftas.  That's roughly 40% of the team's total ftas.  He was creating contact and that's all I really want him to do.  He's a skilled shooter, he just needs to be aggressive with it consistently.  Also, his man, Joe Johnson had 19 points on 7-19.  That's a tough matchup for anybody and I thought Green did well defending him.  I'd like him to play fewer minutes too.

3.  In order to do that, though, Evan Turner has to step up.  I am not a fan of his game last night.  He over dribbled a lot, repeatedly dribbling himself into trouble and turnovers and just does not seem comfortable without the ball.  He's not a strong defender either, he just didn't show the instinctive feel for defensive angles to ensure he's where he will need to be.  Rookie and #6 pick Marcus Smart is way ahead of #2 pick and 4 year veteran Evan Turner on defense.  Johnson and Bogdanovic took turns tormenting him.  I did like his rebounding, 7 in 24 minutes, but that's about it.  It's hard to find much to harp on today but this might be one of them.

4.  Kelly started out strong, shooting and playing defense, but picked up two fouls and that hampered him.  At one point he set a hard screen on a Net and KG came up to him and shoved him, in defense of his teammate.  Kelly stood right there while KG pointed his finger and told him to behave himself.  Good on ya Kelly, good on ya.  I love KG, I want to have his love child, but he's not in green anymore so don't back down from him.  Kelly's individual defense is still suspect but he's turning into an adequate team defender.  He had a difficult assignment last night, guarding KG.  He was Celtics high scorer last night with 19 points on 8-14.  There was also a couple of nice hustle plays in which the Nets thought they had the loose ball but he beat them to the 50/50 ball.  He wasn't able to finish, but his efforts blew them up.  4 offensive rebounds by Kelly.  4.  I like that a lot, especially when we're shooting 56% as a team (61% at the half), so it's not just cleaning up after lousy shots.  Half of Kelly's rebounds, including his offensive ones, came in the first half.  He hit, I think Bradley, with an absolutely beautiful pass from the top of the key right underneath for a layup.  Then, he faked his man and did a nice easy cruise down the lane for the layup.  

5.  Tyler Zeller thinks he died and went to heaven.  He is a pick-and-roll machine and now he's playing with one of the best PnR PGs in the game.  Rondo fed him to perfection.  If that doesn't make him work even harder then I just don't know what it will take.  He only played 6 minutes but was 3-4 for 6 points.  I don't understand why he only played 6 minutes, you'd think that Plumlee would be a good matchup for him.  They're both limited offensively beyond the short jumper, both run the court exceedingly well and are both bangers (more Plumlee than Zeller).  On the other hand, Plumlee only played 11 minutes too.  Hmm.  Plumlee had 2 blocks in his 11 minutes.  Zeller should watch the film from this game and see what Plumlee's doing.  Plumlee isn't exactly known as a great shotblocker either, but he did well last night. Nevertheless, a good game in limited minutes by Zeller. I thought his defensive rotations were pretty good too.

6.  Deron Williams struggled in the first half but lit Avery Bradley up in the 2nd half.  Everything went Williams' way.  Too little too late.

7.  I guess if you want a stretch 4 you have to go to Europe to get them.  Mirza Teletovic can bomb away from anywhere but only 3 of his 11 fgas came from anywhere near the paint.  Game high scorer with 20, 4-6 from 3, even Bass had trouble with him.

8.  Jarrett Jack's competitiveness came out too.  Not much of a passer but he's a steadier version of Bayless.

9.  We had 28 assists on 49fgm.  Nice.  88 fgas.  Very nice.  Only 12 TOs.  If we are able to maintain that (I don't think that's realistic but if...) we are going to surprise a lot of teams and pundits this year.  Those are excellent stats.  On the other side, the Nets shot 49% as a result of their back-to-back 30+ point quarters in the 2nd half after shooting only 39% in the first half.  Williams, Jack and Teletovic, in particular, really went off on us in the 2nd half.  They had 20 assists on 39fgm but, once you get past Williams' 8 it thins out.  For the Celtics, only Avery Bradley and designated gunner Marcus Thornton didn't have at least one assist.  Our ball movement was quite good last night, not just around the perimeter but drive-and-dish.  LOVE the "drive" part.

10.  The other Marcus, the pit bull one, had a nice first NBA game too.  4 steals.  He has a nose for the ball.  10 points on 3-7 but only 1-4 from 3.  So, that means he was 2-3 from inside the arc.  I'm ok with that.  One of those fgm was off a steal of an inbounds play.  His instincts are just astonishing for a player as new and young as him.  The Nets announcers last night (I don't know who the play-by-play guy was but the color man was Dave Spanarkle.  Rondo's nemesis, Donny Marshall, now works in the Nets studio at halftime.  Thanks for taking him off our hands) remarked how Avery Bradley is one of the best on-the-ball defenders in the league but that the Celtics are talking about how Mahcus Smaht might even be better.  One game, it's just one game, but he sure is looking tougher than nails.  No rookie stars-in-his-eyes for him.

11.  Speaking of "the other Marcus" (it's like a computer hot-button.  I can just tab back and forth between them), Microwave had 10 points in 14 minutes on 4-6.  The Nets announcers would remark how he scored "like we wished he would have last year".  Yeah, well, maybe that's because you had Jason Kidd coaching him.  Thornton's defense was meh.  There was one play where he got beaten really, really badly on because he just was completely out of position, not in a defensive stance and his man just blew past him like he was standing still, which he was, but he had a few decent moments too.  Oh well, I can live with mediocre defense with moments of good defense if he continues to light them up like he has been.  All his shots last nights were good ones, including the ones that didn't go in.  In fact, his 3 non-3pt fgas were all in the paint, with 2 of them at the rim.


I wasn't really sure what we had after pre-season.  We beat Brooklyn without KG, so what does that tell us?  Not much.  We beat the Knicks.  So what, they'd beat themselves if they played 5-on-0.  We devastated the Sixers, so could the local YMCA team but we lost two to the pretty good Toronto Drakes.  Last night, though, the ball dropped for real and the game counted and, with the exception of our 20 point 4th quarter (and giving up 64 points in the 2nd half) all indicators were pointing towards...wait for it....the green.

Now, it gets harder.  We travel to Houston to play the 2-0 Rockets (ok, those wins were against the Lakers and the Jazz, but they still count as Ws). Kelly and Zeller vs Howard? Oy. Harden vs Bradley and Smart. I like that better. No Chandler Parsons anymore. I like that MUCH better.




bob




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Wallace was left out of yesterdays party........was it due to an injury....sickness......or is he part of a trade coming up?


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Bob

10. The other Marcus, the pit bull one, had a nice first NBA game too. 4 steals. He has a nose for the ball. 10 points on 3-7 but only 1-4 from 3. So, that means he was 2-3 from inside the arc.

2 of those 3 pt attempts were because the shot clock read 22-23 and he really had no choice but to chuck it.

beat

Thank's for all the info and opinion guys. I just returned from Spain and am getting NBA League Pass tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the game.
Berlin-T

Berlin-T wrote:Thank's for all the info and opinion guys. I just returned from Spain and am getting NBA League Pass tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the game.
Berlin-T

Hey Berlin!! Long time no speak. Where in Spain were you?

I think you deserve more credit than most people on this board because of the time of night/morning you have to be awake to watch the games. Same with swede, when he was still in Estonia.

I'll look forward to reading your opinions on the post game threads while I'm gone.



bob



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Hi,
Here is one more observation related to the game.
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Funny. I started to read the article without looking who's the author assuming it's Chris Forsberg and, after 2 or 3 sentences thought to myself "Wow, CF started to actually write and even expressed an opinion - must've smoked something good". Not so much - it's just Jackie Mac.

AK

Mike Lupica interviewed Nets coach Lionel Hollins on ESPN radio just now and asked him, "What happened last night?  The game kind of got away from you in the second quarter."

Hollins answered, "Well, we were able to get it down to 15 but then turned the ball over a few times and missed some shots."

I love it when an opposing coach thinks its an accomplishment to get the deficit "down to 15" in a game against us.  Pretty funny.  Seemed like the old days for a a minute.

It takes quite a bit of effort to cut deficits. It's good that the C's had the maturity to close out the game, despite allowing the Nets to get off to a 12-2 run to start the 4th.


KJ

Kelly Olynyk highlights from last night.







bob



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The pre-game video from the Gahden. Marcus' is better, to be honest, but this is what the peons got to watch.






bob



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bob


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