Post-Game Thread, Knicks - Away

[bobheckler]

NOT the "statement win" I was expecting and hoping for, but a win is a win is a win.  I thought we'd come out like a bunch of starving wolves coming upon a flock of lambs with an incompetent shepherd, which could actually be a reasonable metaphor for the NY Knicks and Phil Jackson.  Sadly, we started the game like a pack of wolves that just had a nice meal and were feeling pretty good about their prospects.

They actually came out strong and, despite the lackluster effort against Miami, we didn't.  But, we eventually pulled our act together and built up a 10 point lead, which we squandered until it became a 1 point game.  Ugh.  The Knicks shot 57% in the 1st quarter, then we tightened up and they were down to 44% at the half.

Last night was "70 Years of Cool" night.  Walt Frazier's 70th birthday is Sunday and the Knicks made it into a party.  Why not?  It's not like they have any other reason to feel good this season.  The Four Tops sang the anthem and Happy Birthday to Clyde, it was fun.  Earl Monroe and Dick Barnett were courtside.  Barnett had a cane and didn't walk out to mid-court for the intros.  He's 78 years old.  Monroe is 70, but looked 78.  When interviewed courtside Barnett welcomed Frazier to the "70 club and what a great club it is".  Monroe grumped about how there weren't that many of them left.  Just goes to show, it's not the years, it's the mileage.  Barnett has 8 years on Monroe but has a much more youthful view of life despite being less physically capable.  Growing up in NY I was a Knick fan, until I woke up and saw the light, and Frazier was a big reason why I was a Knick fan.  He was a very, very tough defender who did everything else well too.  His clothing taste makes Craig Sager look like Giorgio Armani.  It was a splendiforous evening of dishing and swishing, shaking and baking, bounding and astounding, posting and toasting for Frazier and I'm happy for him.  Him, along with Jeter, are the most beloved living NY sports legends and both of them richly deserve it.

1.  While Breen was impressed, mostly, with Bradley's "improved shooting" Clyde kept talking about his defense.  He kept pointing out how Bradley was blowing his man up.  When Crowder got a tip and a steal, Frazier said "Crowder will get credit for that steal, but it was caused by Bradley".  What we saw was what Jameer Nelson saw everytime Orlando played Boston.  He saw his worst nightmare wearing number 0.  Bradley didn't have a great scoring night, but his defense was on for most of the game.  Unfortunately, in the 1st quarter, he dogtrotted back on defense after a Knick steal and the Knicks got an offensive rebound and putback on the missed layup that Bradley could have gotten if he had hustled.  Thankfully, that was the last time we saw that last night.

2.  A very big night for Crowder, whether he gets boxscore credit or not.  He was blowing things up too.  He was also sticking dagger after dagger into the Knicks with penetration layups and jump shots.  His 3ptr is still on hiatus, he was 0-3, but there were 2 straight plays where he got the ball out high right and just drove past his man to the rim.  Both times he was rewarded with a foul and a trip to the line, where he sunk all 4.  9 rebounds from our back up "small" forward" and his 17 points.  He guarded 7'0", 245# Knick center Andrea Barf-nani and 7'0", 245# Jason Smith at one time or another.  The man is a swiss army knife.  That's the good news.  

3.  The bad news is that the reason why Crowder was guarding them is because our centers, Zeller and Olynyk, couldn't.  No real surprise here, right?  I mean, we already know we have 2 back up centers and no real, honest-to-God starting NBA center.  Against a team that has the immortal Lou Amundson and Barf-nani as their starting front court our center and back up center played a total of 29 minutes.  Zeller couldn't even keep Amundson off the boards.

4.  Another solid effort from Steady Eddie.  16 points with half of those points from the line.  He was 8-10 from there.  He led the Celtics with 10 rebounds and tied Turner for most minutes with 36.  He's a work horse.  After Brad's experimentations early on with starting Kelly and bringing Bass off the bench I'm glad to see he finally realized what he has to work with (it didn't hurt that he doesn't have to worry about giving minutes to Sullinger).

5.  Back to Evan Turnover.  5 assists and 5 turnovers.  He has got his rhythm going on his mid-range shot, finally.  Stick to that, Evan, and forget about the 3ptr.  We have Bradley, Thomas, Gigi and even Crowder who are better at that than you.  I know I'm beating this to death, but his loose handle drives me crazy.  He dribbles like Tony Allen, up around his neck.  When he drives to the hoop it looks like he has to keep pinning the ball against his chest to gain control because his high, loose dribble doesn't bring it right up into his hands.  Son, you're goin' to drive me to drinkin' if you don't stop doing that high, loose dribblin'.  15 points on 5-10, and every one of them an adventure, even his ball-hugging, football-carrying layups.

6.  A better game by Thomas, but still 4-13 from the floor.  He got to the line a lot and, unlike against Miami, he hit 8-9.  He also had 6 assists and only one turnover.  He's more aggressive than last game, but that's understandable.  He just is an offense generator, a catalyst.  If he's not shooting a high percentage he's getting to the line.

42% against the Knicks?  Their season average is giving up points at 46%.  Man, our offense is struggling so badly we can't even tear the NY Knicks a new one.  Another indicator?  Only 69 fgas.  From a team that went over 100 fgas repeatedly this season.  We're defending well, fairly consistently, but we're not putting the ball in the peach basket.  What saved us from ignominy was our 43 ftas, of which we hit a very healthy 79%.  Credit to Breen and Frazier for not talking the disparity in ftas, they took only 14ftas, as being evidence of bad reffing but rather that the Knicks weren't playing defense with their feet (Frazier made that point a lot).  16 TOs.  We're holding teams' fg% down but other numbers of ours are trending in the wrong direction, mainly fg% and TOs.

After the game Brad chatted with D-Fish for a long time.  This might be the first time I've seen Brad do that.  Usually he just waves to the other coach, or maybe walks over for a quick word, including with his good friend Pacers coach Frank Vogel.  Last night, though, he stood there with Fisher for a while.  I have to believe that Fisher, given the horrible year he has gone through, appreciated having a coach who went through a terrible year last year, and had to juggle a few lineup cards himself this year, giving him some pleasant words.


Miami lost.  Charlotte lost.  We are 1/2 game ahead of Brooklyn and 1 game behind Miami.

Atlanta is in Charlotte tonight.  The LAL visit Brooklyn tomorrow while the LAC come to Boston and Detroit is in Miami.  This is a tough 2 days for us.  Charlotte has fallen back enough that we need not be too worried about them but Brooklyn is on our tails and the Lakers suck.  Detroit played well against us but they suck too.  With a loss to the Clippers and a victory over the Lakers we could be in 9th place at this time Monday.


bob


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[Sam]

I have to say that Turner may be getting roasted a little more than is appropriate:

• In his two most recent games, he has taken a total of exactly one three-pointer, and he's averaging 1.5 per game since the all-star break.

• Yes, he has a high dribble; but (1) it's his passes more than his dribble that lead to most of his turnovers and (2) he lowers the dribble when he penetrates.

• He had five turnovers last night, but he has averaged only 2.3 turnovers and 6.3 assists since the all-star break.

• Since the all-star break, he's averaging an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.7-to-1.  In comparison, Rondo is averaging 1.8-to-1.  So we could be doing worse.

• Evan's mid-range game has become more consistent, as he seems to be to be doing a better job of shot selection than even a few weeks ago.

• He's one of only three Celtics (Thomas and Crowder being the other two) who can attack the basket with a reasonable chance of scoring or getting fouled.

• While he'll never be a defensive specialist, his defense all season has been better than I had expected.  And he commits only 2.3 fouls per game.

• For someone shuttling between the "1," "2" and "3" positions, his 5.5 rpg since the all-star break have been very welcome.

I don't mean to imply that Turner is anywhere near perfect.  And I have doubts that he'll be in Boston for a long time.  For one thing, he's not a guy I like to see taking two free throws when they're two points down at the end of regulation.  But I think it's fair to say that he has been a positive factor in their "rebirth" over the past month-or-so.

In my opinion, the story with Thomas last night night was not his stats.  It's that (1) there were fewer instances than in his previous game when his shots fell short, suggesting that he's getting his legs under him and (2) he seemed to be getting into the lane with much greater success than in the previous game.  His one stat that was most encouraging to me involved the nine free throws he took (making eight).

I thought Bass had a relatively "quiet" monster game, with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and an aggressiveness that rewarded him with 10 fta.  Heck, he even had 2 assists.

The fact that the Celtics took only 69 shots is very largely due to the fact that they were fouled so often on shots that didn't count in the score sheet.  They're averaging only 20.4 fta per game.  If they had taken only 20 last night, the likelihood is that they would have had upwards of around 80 shot attempts.  Still not anywhere near the 88 they've been averaging this season, but sufficient to win last night mainly because they played very good defense for at least stretches of the game.

The main problem with this team right now is that they're putting far too much pressure on their defense with their poor shooting.  They're pretty much a 40% shooting team (at best), and that won't get the job done against most upper-echelon teams.  However, the number of free throws they attempted last night, coupled with "only" 20 threes attempted (six below their average) suggests that they're moving in the right direction in terms of being aggressive.

I am not impressed by their lack of pace recently.  I guess it could be assumed that Thomas got Pressey's minutes last night, and Isaiah only occasionally pushed the ball the way Pressey does (although Isaiah did some good things out there and seems well on the way back).  I'd be willing to bet that a more consistent push of the ball could improve their shooting percentage by a minimum of 5 percentage points.

Bradley's defense was really good last night.  But this team is now depending on him to be a high percentage gunner,and 4-10 in 34 minutes fall short in that department. I'm not necessarily faulting Avery because he still seems to be accurate on his favorite curl-and-jumper.  But they need to find a way to get him good shots; because, unless you count the curl, he's not a shot creator.

Smart's defense was also good (isn't it always?).  But, at some point, taking up 34 minutes of starting time while producing only 6 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal is going to spell problems.  The good news is that Marcus shot 66.7% last night; but the bad news was that he took only 3 shots in 34 minutes—and not because he was so aggressive that he was fouled a lot (only 3 fta).

Largely because of minimal point production from Zeller (2) and Smart (6), the starters last night played 63% of the minutes and scored only 51% of the points for the Celtics.  That discrepancy may be something the Celtics will have to live with, at least until the summer.  I don't like Crowder as a starter as much as coming off the bench.  I've suggested a couple of times that Thomas might start instead of Turner; but that wouldn't net a lot of points.

If the starters were making up for their offensive struggles with exception defense, it might not be so bad.  But, last night, they were a collective -4, and the points deficit has been much worse on several recent games.

Bottom line: They're careening along with a mixture of over-achieving and under-achieving that's producing wins against crummy teams and strong competition against better teams.  And I think that's just great—more than I could have hoped for this season.  But keep crediting Brad with get the most out of this group; and look forward to reinforcements in the post-season.

Right now, if someone held a gun to my head and asked who the keepers are, the only three I'd give a 100% endorsement to would be Thomas, Crowder and Bass.  I'd give about 80% to Smart and Bradley (consistency problems with both) and about 60% to Turner, Zeller, Jerebko, Olynyk, and Sully.  Pressey would get 40%.  I'd put Datome at 20%.  Wallace is a special case.  Randolph?  We have a Randolph on the team?  At present, I would make Young the Commissioner of the DL.

Anyway, I do love to watch this team because it's sort of like rooting for the underdog with better-than-underdog likelihood that they have a chance to win.

Go Celtics,

Sam

[bobheckler]

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2015/03/marcus_smart_submits_inspiring.html


Marcus Smart submits inspiring defensive possession as Boston Celtics top New York Knicks


Print Email Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com
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on March 28, 2015 at 12:30 AM




Despite a progressing offensive game, Marcus Smart's biggest contributions typically come on the other end of the court. The rookie will sometimes unleash an unexpected floater, a perfectly-delivered pass or a string of 3-pointers, but he is clearly more advanced when disrupting in a defensive stance.

During a 96-92 win Friday night against the New York Knicks, Smart submitted more evidence of his defensive capabilities:





In the span of three seconds, Smart forces the ball-handler, Ricky Ledo, to change direction three times. Ledo does manage to advance into the paint, but he is a bit off-balance when he gets there, and certainly doesn't have any good options. Ultimately, he decides to throw a lob pass to teammate Lance Thomas in the corner.

Jae Crowder makes a bit of a mistake, waving at the ball and falling a bit out of position. His gamble allows Thomas to drive baseline, but does not turn into an issue because Smart rotates, steps outside of the no-charge zone, and takes the contact to the chest. Thomas is whistled for the offensive foul.

Most rookies enter the NBA as major defensive minuses. Not Smart. He still has some issues to correct, but, barely 21, he's a potential monster at that end.



bob
MY NOTE:  We know about his offensive limitations but man oh man can this kid play NBA defense right out of the box or what!?


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[Sam]

No question whatsoever!

I bet he'll be working his butt off this summer on offensive moves.

Sam

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