The Celtics Easily Handle The Knicks To Advance To The Next Round Of The Vegas Tournament
Survive and advance, that’s the name of the game at this point of the Summer League season, and in their first taste of fake playoff basketball, the Celtics looked great. Of all the teams this summer the Knicks were one of the more hyped ones, and for good reasons. Their trio of rookies in Kevin Knox/Mitchell Robinson/Allonzo Trier had been fantastic in nearly every showing. Hell Knox has already been deemed the savior of all NY basketball, and as a Celtics fan even I can admit that because we have not been able to see our own young high ceiling big man rookie play, that I have been extremely jealous of the work that Mitchell Robinson has been putting in while in Vegas. But the Knicks and their fans that were watching this game were reminded of what we Celtics fans already knew. The Celts are a different beast. It wasn’t the least bit surprising to me that they made the Knicks look human by putting the clamps on a guy who had been tearing up everyone he played. That’s what this team does. It’s no slight to what NY has in store for the foreseeable future, again their young talent looked awesome this summer, but we’re at the point where it’s time to start competing for a banner and the Celtics have clearly flipped their switch after a disappointing loss to the Nuggets earlier in the group stage.
In what was basically a wire to wire win there was plenty to love from what we saw, so why wait any longer. Let’s dive in.
The Good
– Heading into the game there was one matchup I was excited to see above all the rest, and that was Semi vs Knox. Could Semi finally slow down this player who was showing star potential? How would he match him on the offensive end? Well my friends, to say it was complete and utter domination may be selling Semi sort
There will be people that will be quick to tell you not to overreact to Summer League performances. Those people are losers. After watching Semi throw up 21/6 on 8-16 shooting including 4 3PM, I am officially granting you permission to take your brain and go to wild places. I’ll just say this when it comes to Semi. So far in Vegas he’s averaging a respectable 13.3/4.3/2.3 on 46% shooting. Pretty good right? Well what if I told you that in the summer before his breakout year last year, Jaylen Brown averaged 10.3/5.3/1.7 on 30/25% splits. Am I saying that we could be in store for a similar breakout year from Semi given what we’ve seen so far? Remember, I’m allowing our brains to go to wild places, so I don’t see how we should be expecting anything less.
But yesterday was about more than just Semi’s offensive outburst. As the primary defender on Knox, Semi played a huge role in what was ultimately a 5-20 night for Knox, basically taking him out of the game from the jump. We knew Semi could already defend at an extremely high level so this wasn’t all that surprising, but it was still awesome to see the Celts like 8th man completely shut down the next Knicks savior. Wing depth fucking rules.
– As he has all summer, Yabu continued his strong play
on this way to a respectable 12/5 with 2 blocks and a second best +8 in his 26 minutes of action. To be honest his line would have looked even better if he didn’t miss multiple point blank layups, but that just tells me if he’s ready to start missing easy layups then he can definitely crack the rotation. That’s like a right of passage with this team. It was Yabu that got things off to that great start with this early dunk and three, and I am yet to see him have a bad defensive showing which is what I really care about. In his four games so far in Vegas he’s at 12.3/5.3/2.0 on 44% shooting, which is good for 3rd on the team in scoring and 2nd in rebounds. After his rough night against DEN Yabu has done a great job of responding in his expanded role on this Summer League team, and frankly the haters are sick to their stomachs over it.
Yabu rules, deal with it.
– I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I think we’re almost at the point where we might have to riot of the Celts don’t match whatever the RFA offer ends up being for Jabari Bird
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Listen it could be the Kool Aid still talking, but are we sure Jabari Bird doesn’t start on all 29 other teams in the NBA? Every team needs 6’6 two ways wings, and the Celtics are just sitting here with NBA talent on the Maine roster. God dammit I could kiss Danny Ainge. Yesterday Bird had probably his best all around game of the summer, with 13/10/4/3 on 6-11 shooting in his team high 31 minutes. What I loved is that of his 11 FGA, only one came from behind the arc. Everything was aggressive and at the rim, and even with an elite shot blocker like Mitchell protecting the rim, Bird was still able to be effective. I just don’t know how there could be any Celtics fan watching his summer and feel that Abdel Nader should still have a spot over him.
The best part is, we saw him do it at the NBA level too last year, so this isn’t just a case of Celtics fans cumming themselves over a few good performances in fake basketball games. OK so maybe we are, but there are legit reasons behind it.
– What if I told you the Celtics played a second quarter and didn’t completely shit their pants? I’m serious! That really happened! After they dropped 27 points in the first quarter we all rightfully prepared ourselves for a disastrous second quarter. Instead, they won it 19-17!
– In every opportunity he’s been given, Hassan Martin has stepped onto the court and been about as consistent as you could want. Another 8/6 in his 18 minutes, we’ve seen great energy from Martin on the offensive glass, nothing really too forced offensively, and again his jacked ass frame fits this team perfectly. If we were to pick the best surprise of the summer, I’d probably go with what I’ve seen from Martin after not really watching him in college. Keep this guy in Maine if you can, because I an extremely intrigued.
– One of the easiest ways to impress me is to take care of the basketball and make your FTs. Well the Celts finished with just 7 TOs and went 12-16 from the line. Throw in the fact that they also won the rebounding battle and it was nice to see them hit all the checkpoints.
– For the last few games we’ve really seen the Celtics defense show up which is always nice. The Knicks were held under 18 points in three of the first four quarters and that is the type of defense we all should be able to get behind. They were legit from the perimeter holding the Knicks to just 35% shooting from deep, and outside of a few easy Mitchell alley-oops the post defense wasn’t too shabby either.
The Bad
– Much like the NBA version, this team loves to jack up threes. Also much like the NBA version, it’s not always pretty. A total of 25% of their FGA came from behind the arc, and the Celts finished a stellar 6-25 which is a cool 24%. In my opinion the reason the Knicks were able to at times go on mini runs was simply due to the fact that there were long stretches where the Celtics refused to do anything but shoot threes. I know that’s how Brad wants them to play but you can’t deny it is at times a bit frustrating.
– I had a feeling that maybe Trey Davis would have one of those random breakout games, but sadly he finished just 1-8 from the field in his 11 minutes.
– Just a quick question, did no one suggest maybe using a pump fake when they notice Mitchell Robinson is anywhere close? The guy had 6 blocks including another great close out block on a Yabu three, so I’m going to have to ask where the scouting was on that one.
And like I said earlier, it was too bad that Robert Williams didn’t play, because I would have loved to see these two battle each other because the Celtics bigs really didn’t have the length to give him any issues.
– Also if you had a legit hot take about Kyrie being on the bench for a Summer League game but not Game 7, you are the worst person on the planet.
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The Ugly
– It wouldn’t be a Celtics game without them making you sweat, and that’s exactly what they did in that fourth quarter. Only an idiot would think the Celts wouldn’t find a way to blow their 20 point lead, and seeing it drop from 21 to 4 was less than fun in my opinion. It was almost like the Celtics were playing scared and were just hoping the clock ran out instead of playing with that same sort energy they had through the first three quarters. The fourth ended up being their lowest scoring quarter of the game (17 points), so while I respected their desire to stay on brand and never make things easy, I could have used a break on the stress.
With this win, the Celtics now advance to play MIA who should absolutely be a challenge. They’ve been great this summer and have 10 players who are averaging at least 9 points a nights so far in Vegas. The winner of this game on Saturday will play POR in the Quarter Finals, who just so happens to be undefeated. Nobody ever said winning a Summer League banner was going to be easy, and now that the Celts have gotten past the Knicks, things are only going to get tougher from here.