Post-Game Thread, Pelicans

[bobheckler]

I think that Stevens kid is starting to get the hang of that 'coaching thing'.  Another well-coached game by Brad.  We went on the road to visit a team that had two excellent defending, shot blocking big men and handled it well.  Make no mistake about it, New Orleans is not a bad team.  Their record going into last night was 33-28 in the much tougher WC, were 21-10 at home and 20-15 against Western Conference teams and had won 6 of their last 7 games, going 3-0 in home games in that 7 game stretch.  Not a great team but a winning team on a decent roll and facing us in the first game of a back-to-back with the 44-17 Memphis Grizzlies coming to the Big Easy tonight, so beating us ensured at least breakeven on the back-to-back.  If they were in the EC, they would be #6, only 1/2 game behind Washington for #5.  Furthermore, by virtue of owning the tie-breaker against OKC, if they won last night they would have taken over the #8 playoff spot in the WC, so this was a very meaningful game for them.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  This was a good challenge for us because they are better than us, playing and winning in a tougher conference and this was a big game for them.

We fought them to a 47-47 draw at halftime and then won the next 2 quarters by 3 points each.  Nice, solid workmanlike effort.  Just ground it out.

Last night the New Orleans uniforms had "Los Pelicans" on them.  That's ridiculous, almost comical to the point of caricature.  It's like an American speaking English to a latino and thinking that, if all he does is add "a" or "o" to the end of words that makes them Spanish.  "Excuse me-o, but no Smoke-a in the toilette-o".  Last night was "Noches", meaning "night", which is the name the NBA uses for the nights when they do Hispanic fan outreach by "Spanglifying" the names of the teams.  As long as you're being so blatantly patronizing about it why not just hammer the final nail into it and call it "Nachos"?  Hey Commish!  If you want to attract Hispanic fans, and I know you do, maybe you should have the teams use words that show some respect to the demographic you are trying to appeal to?  If someone doesn't know what "Los Alcatraz" means all they have to do is look at the team that's wearing it and they should be able to figure it out, and if they can't they're too stupid for you to waste your time worrying about.  Los Alcatraz, Los Sols, Los Toros, El Caliente.  You can hire people to give you the correct words, nobody expects you to do it yourself and it will create a job and good will in the latino community.

1.  I know who is getting my vote for 6th Man of the Year.  Brad's strategy in the 1st half of the year wasn't working well because we couldn't shoot 3s.  Now we can.  27 points for Mighty Mouse in 29 minutes off the bench.  When your top scorer, by far, is coming off your bench, that is your 6th Man of the Year.  He just slices defenses up.  Like most shooters he has his 3-12 nights too but last night he was 8-13, including 4-6 from 3.  He has been getting away with that leg kick on his 3s and getting to the line.  Sneaky little bastard, using that to make the defenders give him a little more space.  He strikes fear into opposing coach's hearts.




2.  Another solid game from Steady Eddie.  He had the very unenviable job of guarding The Brow.  I would never have thought that having your man scoring 29 on 11-21 and grabbing 14 rebounds would be considered good effort, but it was.  He played absolutely amazing defense in one baseline defense against Davis, not letting him get past him, forcing him into a baseline fallaway and was even right up there on his shooting hand on that.  For himself, Bass had 17 points on 7-13.  He took, and missed, a 3pt fgas but it wasn't in the deep corner, it was actually about 12' away from the baseline.  A new shot for the man who works like a dog on his game year-round.  The NOP announcers, including their roving Abby Chin equivalent, were very complimentary about Bass, repeatedly mentioning the high school he went to in Baton Rouge and how he went to LSU.  Loving their hometown boy made good.  Nobody in Nwalins gives a damn about Tulane sports, probably including Tulane students, but the whole state is Tiger-crazy.  LSU is college sports heaven in Louisiana.  Football, of course, the response is pure Pavlovian "Who Dat Nation".

3.  Davis is something else.  Not that good an outside shooter, his game is more like Bass'.  Solid mid-range shooter and, if you come out to him, will blow past you for a Sportcenter moment.  Good things come to owners who buy their franchises directly from the league, like #1 picks.  It has taken a few years, but The Brow is now fearsome.

4.  Another high energy game from Crowdah.  11 points on 5-9 and 9 rebounds.  He has been rebounding VERY well lately. averaging 7.6 rpg over his last 5 games.  Not too shabby for a player that has a career average of only 2.6rpg and was only grabbing 3.0rpg this year.  4 steals.  Bradley's absence was his opportunity as Brad went big by starting Turner at SG and Jae at SF.  We can all talk about how we like this player and hope Danny re-signs that player, but we have no influence over it.  Brad does, based upon how he uses his players and whether, and how well, they buy in and perform in his system.  Jae has got to be thrilled with the Celtics, his coach and the prospect of staying here.  He wasn't getting his chance in Dallas, for whatever reason, but he is here and he is making the most of it.  I hope he appreciates it all and sticks around, because he's The Glue Man.

5.  Another night where Tyler Zeller held his own against a bigger center.  Omer Asik is never going to be confused with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (for a number of reasons) but he is big and he is a defensive force.  In 22 minutes Asik was able to score 10 points, grab 7 rebounds and go 4-4 from the line (astounding for a 55% career free throw shooter, only hitting 60% this year.  His mechanics are not smooth, but they were consistent last night and that's 90% of it).  Zeller played 14 minutes and had 6 points and 4 rebounds so, on a per minute basis, he played even with Asik.  Where Asik usually shows his strength, but did not last night, is on the defensive end.  No blocked shots, didn't change many and didn't do such a great job of intimidation or baseline defense.  Just one game, but an underwhelming one from a player many of us coveted last year.  Zeller, on the other hand, has gotten a second wind.  He was looking tired and worn down a few weeks ago, but he has found new life after our near-death experience with Cleveland.

6.  Kelly doesn't have his game rhythm.  Not good shooting, is lazy in his layups.  He just came off of a long injury outage, so I'm not going to make a bigger deal out of this, but he needs to get it together.  There's a new sheriff in town, and his name is Jonas Jerebko.

7.  Another "why is James Young out there?" night.  I'm trying to be patient, I really am, but I'm not seeing it.  All I'm seeing is a one-trick pony, the 3.  He is showing no ability or interest in doing anything else.  If I want to keep track of him on defense, all I have to do is look for his man at or near the rim.

8.  Another game where our opponents are turning the ball over at higher than their season average.  18 TOs last night from a team that was averaging 13.3, for the 7th lowest in the league.  The Celtics are just a little behind them at 13.9, good for 9th, but we only had 11 last night.  22 TOs in the last three games.  Brad has said that reducing turnovers is a "high priority" and it looks like his focus is paying off.

9.  We had 16 points in the paint at the half, they had 28 with Davis killing us with 16 points.  We had only 2 fast break points in the half, they had 10.  By the end, though, we had 42 paint points and 16 fast break points and they had 46 and 12.  We outplayed them, both in the paint and running.  We looked good.  

10.  Tyreke the Freak had a good game.  He's a more athletic version of Evan Turner.  Like Turner, he has to have the ball in his hands to feel comfortable and be effective.  His 11 points on 5-13 shooting (1-4 from 3), 7 rebounds (3 offensive) and 5 assist boxscore was very Turner-like.  So were his 7 turnovers.  As far as the real McCoy went, he had a better than usual night.  6/6/16, with only 4 TOs and 6-11 shooting.  He has been playing better the past few weeks.  As I've said before I think it's because, with the arrival of Thomas, the ball isn't in Turner's hands as much anymore.  That is fine, just fine, with me.  His high dribble into traffic gives me agita.

We won 3 out of 4 quarters, and the one we lost we only lost by 2 points.  We scored 20 points or more in all 4 quarters.  5 TOs at the 1st half means only 6 in the 2nd half.  We took 25 ftas and only gave up 15.  Even taking Thomas' 4-6 out of the equation we still shot 6-17 for 35% from 3.  8 steals vs 6 for them.  The only categories where we seem to consistently lose in is fg% and blocks.  We know why we're not blocking shots, that's job 1 for Danny this off-season, but we're usually offsetting the lower fg% with a league leading  88.4fgas/game and, contrary to what our guts are telling us, we are not even close to being #1 in 3pt fgas.  We are, in fact, 12th and the 23 we took last night actually drags our 24.2/game average down.

Brad's dart-throwing, seat-of-the-pants, "just how much lemonade can I get out of this" system seems to be working now that Danny has swapped out a few pieces and brought in a few new ones.  A work-in-progress, but there is definitely progress.  They look coherent.  They look like they know what they're supposed to be doing, where they are supposed to be and very aware of offensive and defensive spacing.  We're starting to look like a team that other teams should be worried about.

Unfortunately, Indy beat Chicago and Charlotte beat Toronto.  The good news is that Detroit and Brooklyn lost.  We are 1 1/2 games out of the playoffs, and we're playing well.


bob


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[international]

Bob,
I see nothing strange in the use of the word Los by Latin people.In our countries we use to call the teams that way...for example Los Yankees,Los Celtics.In music we say Los Eagles,Los Doobie Brothers,we don't like to use the word in Spanish like Los Celtas,Los aguilas,.

[bobheckler]

Bob,
I see nothing strange in the use of the word Los by Latin people.In our countries we use to call the teams that way...for example Los Yankees,Los Celtics.In music we say Los Eagles,Los Doobie Brothers,we don't like to use the word in Spanish like Los Celtas,Los aguilas,.

international,

I will bow to your judgement, as a latino it's your call, I just thought that if there was a word in Spanish for the name of the team, they should use it.



bob



.

[Sam]

Bob, isn't it "Los Alcatraces?"  And isn't the original name of Alcatraz Island "La Isla de los Alcatraces?"

Sam

[bobheckler]

Bob, isn't it "Los Alcatraces?"  And isn't the original name of Alcatraz Island "La Isla de los Alcatraces?"

Sam

sam,

Don't ask me, I'm just a blogger trying to inject some humor into an otherwise dull diatribe.


bob


.

[Sam]

I was one of the biggest boosters of Asik last year.  I hadn't seen him play a lot, and I based my comments very largely on what I read.

It was very, very tempting to fall off the Asik bandwagon last night.  Tom Heinsohn expressed it thusly in his game wrapup (and I paraphrase just a bit): If this team (the Pelicans) is going to get anywhere and get most out of Davis, they're going to have to find a center who doesn't trip over his own feet."  (Last 10 words a direct quote.)

As Tommy was making that statement, the video showed three Celtics possessions that ended in layups.  In all three, Asik was within one foot of the slashers.  He didn't move a muscle.  He didn't raise a hand.  He just watched.  I was happy to see the points go on the board for the Celtics, but I was sickened by the fact that Omer gave the word "statuesque" new meaning.

That doesn't mean he couldn't become Mr. Intimidator for the Celtics.  But it does mean that, if he were ever to join the Green, Brad would have to do his best Pygmalion act yet.  (It has arguably been his biggest accomplishment yet, so I wouldn't doubt his ability to make Asik fit.  But the raw material isn't as appealing as I'd hoped.

Sam

[bobheckler]

I was one of the biggest boosters of Asik last year.  I hadn't seen him play a lot, and I based my comments very largely on what I read.

It was very, very tempting to fall off the Asik bandwagon last night.  Tom Heinsohn expressed it thusly in his game wrapup (and I paraphrase just a bit): If this team (the Pelicans) is going to get anywhere and get most out of Davis, they're going to have to find a center who doesn't trip over his own feet."  (Last 10 words a direct quote.)

As Tommy was making that statement, the video showed three Celtics possessions that ended in layups.  In all three, Asik was within one foot of the slashers.  He didn't move a muscle.  He didn't raise a hand.  He just watched.  I was happy to see the points go on the board for the Celtics, but I was sickened by the fact that Omer gave the word "statuesque" new meaning.

That doesn't mean he couldn't become Mr. Intimidator for the Celtics.  But it does mean that, if he were ever to join the Green, Brad would have to do his best Pygmalion act yet.  (It has arguably been his biggest accomplishment yet, so I wouldn't doubt his ability to make Asik fit.  But the raw material isn't as appealing as I'd hoped.

Sam

sam,

Think you're second-guessing yourself now?  Watch this short video from the game last night as Asik blows a dunk because he was being guarded by


5'9", in high heels, Isaiah Thomas....



http://www.sbnation.com/2015/3/6/8165069/59-isaiah-thomas-successfully-prevented-70-omer-asik-from-dunking

bob



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[sinus007]

Hi,
One of the rare games that I was sure Celtics'd win.
BTW, can we get Davis?

AK

[dboss]

I was going to join the game on thread last night but I missed that opportunity.

I have no idea where this team is going or where they will end up this year but if you do not love this team there is something wrong with you.

NO is fighting for the 8th spot in a very competitive Western Conference.  They were at home poised to smack the Celtics down and they were dead flat.

My game ball goes to Brandon Bass.  If we voted for a Celtics MVP, Bass would be that guy.  At both ends of the court he has been the most consistent contributor on this team.  He quietly goes about his business.  Put him on the bench or in the starting lineup.... It does not matter.  Bass is one hellava basketball player.

With the win last night the Celtics tied their win total for the 2013-14 season.  

Great job fighting through adversity and gutting our tough wins.

dboss

[Sam]

Dboss,

I could easily live with Bass as the Celtics MVP for this season.  He's better than the ideal player.  He's and ideal Celtic!

Isn't this a lot better than when most of us were struggling to find glimmers in the 2014-15 season?

Which reminds me to remind all members.  Don't forget the glimmer thread.  Perhaps there are a lot of entries that might be a trifle premature.  But that's one things about glimmers.  It's okay if they're premature as long as they're sincere.  A glimmer is decidedly NOT a prediction, or I never would have started the Glimmer Thread.  A glimmer is simply a really good feeling you're developing about what's transpiring....a feeling that, IF it continues into the future, could contribute to the betterment of the team.

Sam

[Sam]

By the way, I continue to be impressed with the combination of poise under pressure and performance under pressure that have permeated this team.  Whereas, for several months, I was seeing a sense of panic or anxiety seize the team as close games wound down.  Their execution, which would have been so encouraging in forging or creating a lead, would sort of evaporate in contrast to that of the other team.

Now, it's as those these guys are becoming cold-hearted assassins with a bucket full of reassurance bordering on self-expectations.  And, instead of the execution evaporating, it's becoming solidified at the end.

Every guy in the rotation deserves credit in creating this development.  But, if I had to select just four who have made the greatest difference in the past month or so, I'd select Brad, Isaiah, Crowder and Bass.

Brad is showing us that all he needed was a reasonably adept bunch of decent, complementary players to make Bob's lemonade from lemons.  Isaiah on offense and Crowder all over the floor have become bona fide catalysts, which was precisely what this team was most lacking.  Bass isn't a newbee, but he's alway been prepared to submit his reliable brand of effort at whatever stage the team is going through.  And Steady Eddie has become one of their best defensive players.

So often, during these past two seasons, whenever they'd put together a modest winning streak, I haven't really dared to hope that it was anything more than an aberration.  But now, I'm getting pretty hopeful.

Go Celtics!

Sam

[mrkleen09]

Stop the presses. Brad Stevens is a good coach and Danny Ainge has made some good moves as GM. LOL.

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