The Celtics Had Every Opportunity To Beat The Sixers And They Ultimately Choked It Away
Mitchell Leff. Getty Images.
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There are two ways to look at last night's loss to the Sixers. The first, is to be somewhat encouraged. Playing without their best player, the Celts competed. You could argue they played better in this loss as a team for long stretches than they did in some of their wins. Kemba looks great. The fact that it was close at all is a positive.
The second way, which is more how I tend to feel at the moment, is frustration. This was a very winnable game that the Celts were in control of heading into the fourth quarter. To me, they choked. Even without Tatum, even with the whistle they got, they were in a position to win and did not execute down the stretch. Their best players didn't come through while the Sixers did. Pretty simple. I couldn't help but be more annoyed with the Knicks loss than this, and if you take a step back for a second, the Celts are now 1-3 to begin the season in their division. When you have bad losses like NYK and then tough losses like last night, that's how things can snowball.
This game wasn't all too different from previous Sixers matchups in terms of how the game went, so I'm not really sure why people are so bent out of shape about the Embiid stuff which we'll get to in a minute. Hold this team to a higher standard. Despite all that bullshit, the Celtics had every opportunity to win this game. It's not like they were blown out from the jump or anything like that. In that regard, they failed.
OK, let's dive in.
The Good
- The biggest takeaway from last night that has to be the biggest deal moving forward is how good Kemba looks. I think we were all wondering how his knee would respond to his season debut, and yeah this is a version of Kemba we can all get behind
His shot looked great, his quickness is back, his burst looks like he never had a knee injury in the first place, and it's pretty obvious that at no point in the bubble last year did Kemba look like this. The hope was that he would respond from his 3-13 performance or whatever in his debut, and he wasted no time. I think that's another reason why I'm not overly worked up about this loss. Kemba only played 21 minutes. If he's healthy in a potential playoff series, he's going to double that. This is just something we all have to accept as Brad and the team navigate this season. There are going to be games where it really sucks that Kemba is on a minutes restriction, but you have to keep the bigger picture in mind.
The next level I want to see Kemba get back to is getting to the line. Just 2 FTA for him in this game, I feel confident that his game is back in terms of his pull ups and outside shooting. Now I want to see him use his explosiveness to draw fouls. That's how I'll know he's fully back.
- Just like he has all season, Jaylen Brown continues to carry this team offensively
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The efficiency wasn't exactly what we're used to as he went 10-24 (3-10), but it was Jaylen's offense that kept this team competitive for the majority of this game.
Here's the encouraging part. Ben Simmons guarded Jaylen the most out of anybody, a total of 18 possessions. Jaylen scored 15 points against Simmons on 5-7 shooting. Considering Ben Simmons is an All NBA defender, that's pretty impressive. Almost every #1 option gets shut down by Simmons defensively, you can look it up. So for Jaylen to be that effective against an elite on ball defender was great to see. He went deep into his bag and showed us just how much he's improved as an individual scorer and that's going to be very important moving forward.
- Hard to complain about Daniel Theis' 27 minutes. The guy goes 10-11 from the floor and drops 23/10 off the bench and what more could you ask from a reserve big
Not only did he do something no reserve has done for this team in over a decade
but it's also the first time any reserve has done this in the entire NBA so far this season. He got absolutely manhandled on the defensive end, but everything else? Easily Theis' best game of the season.
- The same can be said for what we saw from Marcus, mostly in the second half
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To start the game? Marcus was a disaster. It's not that he shoots, he has to with Tatum out, but it always comes down to the types of shots he takes. Early in the game, his shot selection was piss poor and his 2-8 start reflected that. In the second half I thought he played much more in control, his shots came as a result of good ball movement, and he was aggressive. As a result, he was 8-11 with 17 points in the second half, which was production that his offense very much needed considering nobody else was hitting a shot over the final 24 minutes.
I thought he held his own defensively with no Sixer scoring more than 3 points against him, and they are going to need that consistent defense way more than his offense moving forward.
- Shoutout to Brad for being much better with his timeouts in this game. There was no 20-2 Sixers run or anything like that like we've seen so many times before. It felt like he did a much better job of knowing the flow of the game and when things were maybe getting a little out of hand. Always nice to see that because it doesn't always happen.
The Bad
- My guess is they held Robert Williams out for conditioning the same way the Sixers did with Seth Curry as both come back from their quarantine, which is fine with me. What wasn't fine was the fact that the players that did play decided to not really give a shit about defensive rebounding. It started early in the first with PHI getting 4 OREB leading to 7 second chance points. It's what allowed them to build that first quarter lead.
Then there was more where that came from in the second quarter, with 5 more OREB. When it came time for the biggest defensive stop of the game with about 1:30 left, this happened
That shit is inexcusable. Somebody for the love of god box out! Who knows what happens if they secure the rebound, but to give up an OREB like that, in that spot, and then to foul is such a massive swing. This was sneaky one of the biggest factors in the game. The Sixers finished with 10 OREB and 14 second chance points. Embiid had 0 by the way so it's not like he was the one crushing the glass.
- Here's what we learned. Tristan Thompson cannot handle Joel Embiid by himself and Daniel Theis cannot handle Embiid by himself. He's too massive. Guess what, Myles Turner wouldn't be able to handle this version of Embiid by himself either. It's OK to tip your cap to a player that is just too big and finally locked in.
The Tristan matchup though, woah man did it stink. A total of 18 possessions, Embiid finished with 23 points on 7-7 shooting. Just a complete and utter ass whooping. How else can you say it? It was as if Embiid was playing against nobody. There was no resistance. He drew 10 FTA against Thompson as well.
With Theis, it was slightly better in his 12 possessions with just 6 points on 2-05 shooting and only 3 FTA, but that's still not a matchup that you're going to win consistently. Again, Embiid is too big.
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That's why I bet on Friday we see a whole lot more double teams. Some times it worked, like when it was Thybulle that was the one taking the threes, sometimes it didn't with that guy being Danny Green. But what we do know doesn't work is letting Thompson try and defend this man by himself. That was bad.
- It was also unfortunate that the Celts didn't really make any of their big momentum threes. Whether it was Kemba's to end the 3rd or Pritchard's with about 6 mintues to go that would have put them up by 6, the biggest difference down the stretch was the Sixers hit theirs. That Danny Green three from the corner with 3:53 left is what I'm talking about.
- I have no problem with Brad's handling of Kemba's minutes and saving him for the fourth quarter. I know he was in a rhythym, but this game had the feel of one that would be close at the end, and that's when I want Kemba available.
What I have a problem with is the fact that Jeff Teague cannot be the Jeff Teague we need him to be. I don't need much, just give me an efficient 8-12 points in the non Kemba minutes. Instead, we got a version of Teague that is basically unplayable. He was sloppy with the ball, he couldn't score, and he couldn't defend. His minutes to start the third quarter were so goddamn frustrating. We're at the point where if this is the Teague we are going to get, then Pritchard needs to be playing way more than 19 minutes. It has to be a quick hook too. If Brad can see that Teague doesn't have it offensively, that needs to be addressed immediately, I don't care if he's a veteran player.
The Ugly
- I know a lot of people are going to want to talk about the 45-20 FTA difference and the fact that Embiid took more FTAs (21) than the Celtics did as a team. I know that a 17-0 FTA difference in the fourth quarter probably makes you mad. It's rather outrageous I think we can all agree there, but it's also not the first time this has happened.
You should know by now that when the Sixers play this team at home, there is going to be a huge Embiid FTA game. There just is.
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But I cannot stress enough how much this was not the primary reason the Celtics lost this game. That was their own doing. Their play in the fourth quarter was for lack of a better word….pathetic. It had nothing to do with the fouls either. Calling fouls isn't what forced the Celtics to shoot 8-22 (1-9) from the floor in the quarter. Calling fouls wasn't what forced the Celtics to have 6 TOs in the quarter. Calling fouls isn't what forced Kemba/Jaylen to go a combined 1-11 in the quarter.
So yes, FTs may have been an obstacle, but the Celtics lost this game because of self-inflicted wounds. Because they didn't run an offense at any point in the final 12 minutes. Because they couldn't defend without fouling. I get there was no Tatum to close, but we can't have it both ways. We can't talk up Jaylen's great year and how he should be talked about as an All Star, and then turn the other way when he doesn't close games. Same with Kemba. Remember, they had a 6 point lead heading into the fourth quarter and two of their three best players. That should be enough to win, period. All the previous PHI FTA didn't seem to prevent them from building a 6 point lead right? So then it can't be an excuse as to why they lost. They lose because they pooped their pants again in the fourth quarter.
When this offense has nearly the same amount of TOs as FGM, they aren't going to win. When they do nothing but settle for threes or long twos and are not aggressive, they are not going to win. They only made their problems worse by not being able to defend without fouling, but it's not like suddenly in the fourth the refs started calling fouls. I expect this team to win a game like this. They had enough, they just did not execute and that's on them, not the officials.
I'm not going to suddenly change my tune due to the outcome either. I said yesterday all these games matter and are important, and that is still true. Division games and H2H games against teams close to you in the standings matter whether they happen in January or March. It'll be interesting to see how these teams match up if both Tatum and Seth Curry both play on Friday night, and it'll be interesting to see what type of whistle there is, but none of that matters if this team is going to play like they did to close this game. Tatum or no Tatum, that has to be much, much better.