Post-Game Thread, Jazz

[bobheckler]

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4718165/celtics-85-jazz-84-zellers-buzzer-beater-lifts-boston



Celtics 85, Jazz 84: Zeller buzzer-beater
March, 4, 2015
MAR 4  10:00 PM ET
By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com



BOSTON -- Tyler Zeller took an inbounds feed from Marcus Smart under the basket and beat the buzzer to lift the Celtics to an 85-84 triumph over the Jazz on Wednesday.

Zeller had just watched Gordon Hayward sink a 14-foot pull-up jumper over him with 1.7 seconds remaining to put the Jazz in front. Unfazed, Smart -- who had 7-foot-1 Rudy Gobert defending the inbounds pass -- lobbed the ball to Zeller, who calmly maneuvered in traffic and released it right before time expired to lift Boston to victory.

While Celtics players swarmed Zeller, coach Brad Stevens calmly walked to center court to hug former Butler standout Hayward. Jae Crowder followed to swarm Stevens, the architect of the final play.

Isaiah Thomas scored 19 of his game-high 21 points in the second half to propel Boston's offense. Crowder added 18 points in 33 minutes and started the second half for the Celtics.

Gobert had 10 points and 16 rebounds for Utah, which got 16 points from both Derrick Favors and Trey Burke.

• Olynyk's return: Second-year big man Kelly Olynyk returned after missing 18 straight games with a right ankle injury. He played seven first-half minutes, misfiring on all three shots he took, and went scoreless.

• Loose balls: With Olynyk back, the Celtics went 10 deep with their rotation, but condensed it to eight players in the second half. Luigi Datome, Phil Pressey and Gerald Wallace were healthy DNPs. ... Shavlik Randolph landed on the inactive list with Olynyk back. ... Tony Brothers, the ref who tossed Thomas from his Boston debut last month in Los Angeles, was one of the game officials. ... Avery Bradley missed a few first-half minutes while returning to the locker room with a left elbow contusion.

• What it means: The Celtics snapped a two-game losing streak and improved to 24-36. The Jazz fell to 24-36. Boston heads out on a three-game road trip starting Friday in New Orleans before a Florida back-to-back against the Magic and Heat.

[beat]

STAT OF THE NIGHT

only 3 turnovers...which led to us getting about 10 more shots than Utah got, and when your not shooting well getting more shots is important, only needed 1 of them to go in to win this one.

Also a quick check of the 13 games played last evening showed that 22 PLAYERS had more turnovers than the entire Celtic team did.

beat

[bobheckler]

Maybe the sky isn't falling after all.

The Utah Jazz were 7-3 in their last 10 games coming into TD Garden last night.  They are a team that has been playing very well since the Enes Kanter trade (I'm sure it has nothing to do with that defensively-challenged prima donna).  They have an excellent PF in Derrick Favors and Gobzilla to defend the rim.  They have Gordon Hayward, who has increased his scoring average by at least 2 points for 3 straight season.  They have Dante Exum and Trey Burke for the back court.  They have the makings of a team.  

Congratulations to Tyler Zeller on his first career game-winning shot.  Kudos also to Marcus Smart for an absolutely perfect over-the-top-of-Gobzilla pass to Zeller.  Putting Gobert on the inbound pass by a 6'4" guard should have made that almost impossible but the pass was right on the money.  Once the pass was completed, though, there was no way for Gobert to get there in time to change the shot.  Brad will no doubt point to all the missed opportunities on offense and defense that put the Celtics in a position where they needed a perfect pass but big plays are morale-builders and this was a HUGE play.

The Jazz hurt themselves with turnovers in the 1st half.  As Rosalie said on the Game On Thread, "4 traveling calls?  You could go a month without hearing that call!".  We needed those breaks because we couldn't spit in the toilet bowl if we were standing directly over it.

1.  Except for Jae Crowder.  I don't even want to think about where we'd be if he hadn't had the half he had.  Ok, I will think about it.  At the end of the 1st quarter the Celtics scored 18 points by shooting 39% from the floor.  Crowder, in 6 minutes, had 8 points on 4-6 shooting.  Take Crowder out of that and we score 10 points in the quarter on 5-17 shooting.  Only Zeller, at 2-4 with 1 block, provided any help.  At the half he had 13 of Boston's 34 points on 6-8 shooting.  The team shot 33%.  It was ugly but, somehow, we were up by one.  How they only scored 33 points in a half is beyond me.

2.  Of course, it might have something to do with the fact they were 2-12 from 3 for the half.  We weren't any better, we shot 2-12 from 3 in the half, but we had a healthy 46fgas while they only had 35.  It got worse for them too.  They ended the game at 3-19, 15.8%, from 3.  We shot 8-27, which is pretty crappy too, 29.6%, but you would have thought with Gobert, Favors and Booker for a frontline and Trey Burke and Gordon Hayward penetrating at will they'd have changed their game plan.  Yeah, they fed Favors in the low post more but, man, give up on the 3s and keep feeding him until we prove we can stop it!

2.  If you just watched the game you'd think that Trey Burke was just eating Isaiah Thomas alive.  Burke went anywhere he wanted and seemingly scored at will.  His penetrations caused all kinds of problems for us while Isaiah was throwing up some bricks.  Before I started writing this I asked myself "who would I rather have?  Burke or Thomas?".  Then, I looked at the boxscore.  Burke with 16 points on 7-17, 8 assists and 2 turnovers in 32 minutes but Isaiah with 21 points on 6-12, 1 steal, 7 assists and only 1 turnover in 26 minutes.  Gotta give it to Burke, though.  He really upped the energy for the Jazz.  Over the long haul I don't know what the answer to my question will be but appearances can be deceiving.  At least, they were last night.

3.  Very good game by Tyler Zeller.  He actually led Gobert in blocks until he made two big blocks in the 4th quarter, blocking Zeller's layup with 1:57 left and Crowder's layup with :28 left.  Those blocks were the reason why we needed the Hail Mary.  If either of those shots not been blocked we would have been up one and not down one.  Still, 2 blocks by Zeller is quite acceptable.  We have finally found an NBA center Tyler Zeller can out-muscle.  Gobert tried to back Zeller down and couldn't.  Gobert can run (he outran Zeller down court for a fast break dunk) and he sure as hell can block and intimidate shots, but his strength is suspect, especially in his lower body.  Zeller just held his ground and Gobert, being still offensively raw, couldn't make a shot.  Excellent man-to-man defense by Tyler Zeller all night on Gobert.  Where Gobert got his 10 points was on that fast break and on alley oops and passes off of Jazz penetrations.  Our perimeter defense, the past few games, has been more porous than earlier this year.  Did Gobert win the battle, overall?  Yes, but Zeller kept it close enough for the rest of the team to push us to a victory.  Know how we keep calling for Brad to go more inside and not rely so much on 3s?  First, it's easy for us to say that, but you have to have inside players to give the ball to and, with Sully gone, that is one helluva short list for us.  Gobert did not cover himself in glory trying to take the shorter Zeller in the low post.  Tyler Zeller, bull center?  Last night, he was.

4.  The matchup a lot of people were talking about was between #5 pick Dante Exum and #6 Marcus Smart.  We'll never know what Danny would have done if we had won the coin toss with Utah and got the #5 pick, but so far it's looking like Danny's choice was the better one.  Aside from Smart being named Rookie of the Month, he just has a better all-round game.  His shot selection is suspect, he was 3-14 for 7 points last night and 0-6 from 3, but his defense is tenacious and he rebounds.  Exum had 3 points on 1-4, so not much better and only 2 assists.  His shot selections didn't look so hot either.  I am having trouble with Smart's shooting.  His mechanics are not, in my opinion, going to allow him to break through to the next level.  Way too much motion.  Too much knee bend, too much arm and not enough wrist means a lot of variation from shot-to-shot.  The rest of his game, though is NBA-ready.  He defends better than most veterans, rebounds better than most 6'4" guards, his assist-to-turnover is a very respectable 2.58:1 (not a natural point guard, not a lot of assists/game, but he isn't careless with the ball either) and averages more steals/36mpg than ballhawk Avery Bradley.  He dishes out more assists than natural point guard Dante Exum and has a better assist-to-turnover ratio.  Other than his shot selections it's easy to forget he is a rookie whose total career is only 45 games.  With the departure of Rondo we are no longer a point guard-driven offense.  It is important, therefore, that the guards do other things well.  Enter, Mr. Smart.

5.  If Crowder kept us alive in the first half Avery Bradley came out hot in the 3rd.  He had 2 points on 1-5 shooting in the first half but went 4-7 for another 11 points in the 3rd.  3-4 in the 3rd from beyond the much-maligned 3 pt line.  He cooled off in the 4th but his spark in the 3rd nudged us into a more comfortable lead.  Before that we were hanging by spit.

6.  The other Energizer Bunny, Jonas Jerebko, showed up last night too.  His boxscore is nothing to write home about but he got his hands on A LOT of balls, keeping them alive so someone else could grab them or to disrupt the Jazz's rhythm and fast break opportunities.  This is another good reason why you need eyeballs on the game to really know what happened.  If you didn't see it, if you only looked at the boxscore, you'd roll your eyes and think he had a bad game.  He gave us a lot of intangibles last night.

7.  Who usually wins if one team shoots 45% and the other shoots 38%?  45%, right?  Who usually wins when the rebound score is 51-39?  The team with 51 rebounds.  However, if one team takes 13 more fgas AND has 10 fewer turnovers, then you are either looking at a complete blowout or a squeaker, depending upon which team has those advantages.  3 turnovers is the lowest number of turnovers by a Celtics team since 1985.  As usual, we outshot our opponent.  Volume shooting.  According to 82games.com, 41% of the Celtics' fgas this season came with less than 10 seconds gone int he shot clock.  So, that means with more than 14 seconds left.  Another 29% are taken with 11-15 seconds left.  70% of our shots are taken with lots of time left on the clock.  http://www.82games.com/1415/1415BOS3.HTM.  We are 12th in the league in fast break points per game.  We are 4th in the league in possessions/48mins.  We need a shot blocker (maybe McGee is on the way), we're not a bulky team neither with Sully gone.  We need to win with pace, and we are.  


Helluva game, helluva game.  It wasn't pretty, in fact it was butt-ugly, but it was exciting.

And fun.


bob


.

[Sam]

A few random comments:
 
• One thing’s for sure.  Not knocking any of the players who have been dealt away, but it’s obvious that this young Celtics team is listening to Brad.  The main tipoff, from my point of view, is the poise they now exhibit—almost a complete turnaround in that department from as few as three weeks ago.  Reading Crowder’s comments about answering what Brad was talking about (responding to adversity) and watching how cooly they called a second timeout and executed a very difficult play perfectly in the clutch, I have to attribute a lot of that presence of mind to the influence of the coach.  He's inflappable, and that's what the team is becoming.  He excels in creating opportunities, and the team's most prominent current trait is opportunism.  I couldn't care less about Coach of the Year awards, and there are other coaches who fit the criteria more than Brad.  But, at this point in time, there's no other coach I'd rather have at the helm of this team.  And I'd bet the farm that his players feel exactly the same way.  By the time this season's over, how many players will have been given major career boosts by being on this team coached by Brad?  Zeller?  Smart?  Crowder?  Thomas?  Bradley?  Turner?  And the season still has at least two months to go.  JaVale?  Jerebko?
 
• I’ve been hoping that Isaiah would start to realize that being a legitimate catalyst involves more than just throwing up hero balls.  In this game, he took better shots (6-12), and he also passed the ball around, rather than over-dribbling it, and he wound up with 7 assists with only one turnover.
 
• Crowder said the original iteration of the last play was drawn up for him to receive the pass and shoot the jumper.  But the coach, during the second timeout, reasoned that Gorbert would be guarding the inbounder, the Jazz would be switching, and the Celtics might get a mismatch near the hoop.  And that's precisely what happened.


•  Sounds easy, doesn't it?  Far from it.  With Man Mountain Dean in front of him, Smart had to arc the ball over Gorbert's reach and yet have it descend rapidly over the two defenders who wound up doubling Zeller—sort of like a plane trip nose dive over the mountains to the St. Barth's landing strip.


Smart's pass was perfect, and I'm still not sure how Zeller had time to bobble the ball slightly with his outstretched arms, corral the ball, outwait the two jumping defenders, and shoot the ball.  Nice to see Tyler hit a game-winner.  He may be in line for the Celtics' unsung hero of the season award.
 
• Smart led the team with 39 minutes, Bradley was second at 36, and Crowder was third with 33.  I believe it’s not a coincidence that the three guys who are arguably the Celts’ best defenders received the most minutes.
 
• If I had to pick a team song for this group, it would be the Beach Boys’ “Fun Fun Fun” (till her daddy takes the T-bird away).
 
• Of course, there’s always Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of JaVale."



• My man crush on Crowder continues.  Yes, he kept them in the game with his first quarter scoring (including two shots worthy of a Ringling Brothers matinee).  But, in the next game, it could be his suffocating coverage of the other team's leading scorer, or a huge steal, or a putback, or whatever.  It might be headline stuff, or it might fly completely under the radar.  The only predictability is that it would be something the Celtics sorely needed.  I realize that his like are littered throughout the league.  But, somehow, as I watch the rest of the league play the Celtics, I'm not spotting anyone quite like Jae Crowder.

Go Celtics
 
Sam

[bobheckler]

A few random comments:
 
• One thing’s for sure.  Not knocking any of the players who have been dealt away, but it’s obvious that this young Celtics team is listening to Brad.  The main tipoff, from my point of view, is the poise they now exhibit—almost a complete turnaround in that department from as few as three weeks ago.  Reading Crowder’s comments about answering what Brad was talking about (responding to adversity) and watching how cooly they called a second timeout and executed a very difficult play perfectly, I have to attribute a lot of that presence of mind to the coach.
 
• I’ve been hoping that Isaiah would start to realize that being a catalyst involves more than just throwing up hero balls.  In this game, he took better shots (6-12), and he also passed the ball around, rather than over-dribbling it around, so he wound up with 7 assists.
 
• Crowder said the original iteration of the last play was drawn up for him to receive the pass and shoot the jumper.  But the coach, during the second timeout, reasoned that Gorbert would be guarding the inbounder, the Jazz would be switching, and the Celtics might get a mismatch near the hoop.  And that's precisely what happened.


•  Sounds easy, doesn't it?  Far from it.  With Man Mountain Dean in front of him, Smart had to arc the ball over Gorbert's reach and yet have it descend rapidly over the two defenders who wound up doubling Zeller—sort of like a plane trip nose dive over the mountains to the St. Barth's landing strip.


Smart's pass was perfect, and I'm still not sure how Zeller had time to bobble the ball slightly with his outstretched arms, corral the ball, outwait the two jumping defenders, and shoot the ball.  Nice to see Tyler hit a game-winner.  He may be in line for the Celtics' unsung hero of the season award.
 
• Smart led the team with 39 minutes, Bradley was second at 36, and Crowder was third with 33.  I believe it’s not a coincidence that the three guys who are arguably the Celts’ best defenders received the most minutes.
 
• If I had to pick a team song for this group, it would be the Beach Boys’ “Fun Fun Fun” (till her daddy takes the T-bird away).
 
• Of course, there’s always Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of JaVale."



• My man crush on Crowder continues.  Yes, he kept them in the game with his first quarter scoring (including two shots worthy of a Ringling Brothers matinee).  But, in the next game, it could be his suffocating coverage of the other team's leading scorer, or a huge steal, or a putback, or whatever.  It might be headline stuff, or it might fly completely under the radar.  The only predictability is that it would be something the Celtics sorely needed.  I realize that his like are littered throughout the league.  But, somehow, as I watch the rest of the league play the Celtics, I'm not spotting anyone quite like Jae Crowder.

Go Celtics
 
Sam

sam,

I noticed that, in Crowder's comments about the final play, he referred to Stevens as "coach". Not Brad. Considering Brad isn't that much older than Crowder, and has less NBA experience, that's respect. And buying in whole hog.


bob


.

[Sam]

Bob,

I think "buying in" has been one of the strongest elements of the unification that seems to have become a hallmark of this team.  Brad is proving to be a unique blend of basketball acumen and people skills.

Sam

[worcester]

Bob, In a prior life, I had the pleasure of reading Charles Dickens on a regular basis. Then in the late 1800's it was Mark Twain's writings which kept my going. This lifetime I've found you and Sam. Thanks a lot.

[wide clyde]

There is no question that Stevens has won over his team with all the positive things that he does for the team.

He and his staff have made every player who has been around for more than just a couple of weeks better skilled players. He seems to be able to find some success for each player in his system. He has adapted well to the NBA where he is no longer a rookie himself, etc. How much more can anyone ask of this guy at this time?

I am sure that other players in the league can also see the improvements the team and its players have made, and it may turn out to get them a free agent or two along the way.

And, is there any one doubting that all of the work Stevens has put in has been much more beneficial since Rondo has not been around. All of the Celtics progress that has happened since Rondo left makes me even more sure that trading him was a GREAT move. Even addition by subtraction.

[Sam]

Worcester,

Thanks for the nice words.  I can't speak for Bob (he does a great job of the himself), but I know I couldn't carry Mark Twain's Speedo (or whatever they wore instead of jocks in those days).  One of my heroes is E.B. White, who was my first mentor up in Brooklin, Maine.  He's also responsible for my most enduring torment—the persistent inability to replicate his concise yet eloquent style.  He's been gone for many years now, but this quote is still a beacon in my life: "Words still count with me."

Sam

[bobheckler]

Bob, In a prior life, I had the pleasure of reading Charles Dickens on a regular basis. Then in the late 1800's it was Mark Twain's writings which kept my going. This lifetime I've found you and Sam. Thanks a lot.

worcester,

You were alive in the late 1800's? Looking good, big guy, lookin' good.



bob


.

[worcester]

The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition Paperback  – Picture Book, August 2, 1999
by William Strunk Jr. (Author),    E. B. White (Author),    Test Editor (Editor),    Roger Angell (Foreword)    
          #1 Best Seller in Words, Language & Grammar Reference  
ISBN-13: 978-0205309023  ISBN-10: 020530902X  Edition: 4th

I knew you'd had a brush with greatness somewhere off the court as well.

[Sam]

A man of many lives and loves.

Sam

[worcester]

Ray Bradbury has a book about a gal who lived thousands of years - which made for an interesting romantic life...

[Sam]

W,

No joke.  I have a copy of that book in every room of our house.  Required bathroom reading for guests.  And a copy will be joining me when I depart this earth.

Sam

[beat]

Sam Bob et all,

If you can open this  (its the Celtics Facebook page, scroll down to the POSTGAME report from last night, it's not too far down, (don't get it mixed up with the Celtic minute it's below that)

At about the 50 second mark they are interviewing IT, behind him is a sign and unfortunately it is blocked some what but what you can see are all defensive principals with #1 SPRINT to set up our Defense.

Sort of noteworthy....

https://www.facebook.com/bostonceltics

beat

[cowens/oldschool]

Sam, bob missed the game thanks for such accurate and in depth posts as always.

I like Crowder too he reminds me of a stronger Paul Pierce without the shot creating ability.

Well if we make the playoffs we'll probably lose out on Cauley-Stein, but hopefully Robert Upshaw or Dakari Johnson could be there.

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