The Celtics Got Their Revenge Against The Cavs With A Very Ugly But Also Very Necessary Win

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As the games go on and we continue to learn about this team, I think we feel comfortable about saying a few things. First, this Celts team is still going to torture you both physically and emotionally. They're going to fuck up and do things that make you irrationally angry, like blowing 19 point leads in 15 minutes. That's never going to truly go away whether we are in November or March. But they're also going to immediately respond whenever they do. The 30 point blowout in the home opener? The Celts immediately won their next two. The Bulls collapse? They immediately won 4 of 5. The Cavs collapse? They got their revenge last night. Now it was an ugly ass win that was loaded with issues, but it was a win they had to have. 

When this team was 2-5, we all wanted to see them make a run and turn things around. It was never going to be perfect, but now 5-2 since the ineffective team meeting, the Celts have the best defense in the NBA. Their 5 wins are the 3rd most in the league over that span. The majority of this is coming without Jaylen Brown, who last time I checked was a pretty important part of the equation. At 7-7, that's still not great. It's .500, that's not exactly what should get the duckboats ready. The bigger deal though is the forward trend we're seeing. There are hiccups along the way, this team is not perfect, but what matters right now is stacking wins. Win ugly, blow a team out, I don't really care how they get them, they just need wins. 

But now comes the more difficult part. It's not about getting back to .500. It's about breaking through and getting over the hump. That is something we haven't seen the Celts been able to do so far. So while I will absolutely take any win I can get and there are a lot of positives to take away from an ugly win like last night, the Celts aren't out of the woods yet. Far from it. Their matchup tomorrow night against a Hawks team that is also trying to save their own season and currently won 2 straight putting up 120 points a night will be another great test. 

Last night was about relief. Coming off another 19 point blown lead, I think we all needed to see this team respond with a win, no matter how they were able to get it. So let's talk about it.

The Good

- Serious question to start us off. Do you think when Brad made the Horford/Kemba trade that he thought he was going to be getting THIS version of Al Horford? I mean when that trade went down we all had the same idea about it. Horford's skillset was going to be nice to have, he would be a great mentor for Rob and everything we saw in his limited time in OKC suggested that he wasn't washed up. A good, solid, veteran addition but set your expectations accordingly because this wasn't 2016.

But this? There's no way. Al Horford is having one of the best seasons of his life and easily the best of any of his previous Celtics seasons. He's playing at an All NBA Defensive level and I'm not really sure that's up for debate at the moment

He was really the only one who was super efficient with his 7-10 (3-4) and boy was it nice to see his three finally drop. He was shooting in the 20s percentage wise from deep which certainly is not the player he is. When the team needed a bucket, Al was there to deliver. Early, in high pressure fourth quarter situations, he showed up. It's a small thing but we also saw Al do a great job of moving the ball side to side when it looked like things were getting stagnant. A simple ball reversal doesn't seem like a big deal, but for a team with offensive issues at the moment having that awareness helps.

Then there was his defense. Al completely removed Evan Mobley from this game. A guy that killed them on Saturday night when Horford sat, finished with 1 point on 0-11 shooting. Horford matched up with Mobley for 27 possessions and held him to 0-3. Something tells me he probably makes an impact on Saturday night if he played. There's no shame in Mobley getting shut down by one of the best defensive bigs of the season, but if you're looking for reasons why the Celts have the leagues best defense right now, maybe start with what Al is doing on that end at age 35.

- About midway through the fourth quarter I put out this tweet

In an ugly game like that, when it came time to win the game I needed to see the Celts best players come through. Horford certainly responded, as did Marcus Smart. It was a wild ride for Smart, his early game offense was pretty disastrous. Not just the splits, but the types of shots he was taking. Then in the fourth quarter he changed his approach and it basically won them the game

14/4/5 on 6-13 shooting is something I think we'd all take, but I care more about his fourth quarter. Smart finished 2-3 with 3 assists and everything he took was at the rim. He finally drove with force and the Celts were able to take advantage of the Cavs not having a rim protector on the floor. Given what their fourth quarter offense tends to look like, that was a welcomed sight. 

There's also this

Seems like a pretty impactful player to me. There's no denying that his shooting is still mostly dogshit, but you also cannot deny that overall Smart is having a positive impact. 

- Speaking of someone who can't shoot the ball, it was a tough 7-20 night for Tatum, but if you watched this game you saw a player that was much more engaged, someone who was a willing passer and tried to find other areas to impact winning outside of scoring

Even with his brutal shooting Tatum still had the second highest +/- among the starters, and his 7 FTA were the most he's taken in a game in two weeks. He addressed his shooting postgame

and while ultimately this team is cooked if he's going to just shoot 30/25% the whole year it was good to see him stay engaged mentally and still make a positive impact. We'll get to his horrific fourth quarter in a bit, but last night was absolutely one of those games where Tatum's actual performance was better than the box score reads. You don't want that to become a habit, I'd prefer a great box score and a great engaged performance at the same time, but I thought Tatum was mostly good in this game outside of that brutal shooting.

- Listen, I can't figure Grant out. There are times he looks like the best shooter on the planet and then other times where he can't throw a pea in the ocean. But as I sit here this morning, I weirdly trust his open threes? Did you know Grant is flirting with a 50/40/90 season???? You know, something only like 8 players in the history of the NBA have done. He's at 50/41/85% through 14 games. The fact that I am even typing that sentence in the first place is rather outrageous, but it's the truth! 

I also don't feel like there are nearly as many boneheaded mistakes in his minutes. He's playing the same 18 minutes a night but has cut his fouls nearly in half. His TOV% has dropped from 17% to 10%. Given how rough things looked last year, Grant has weirdly been about as solid as you could ask for a reserve forward.

- The same is true for Dennis. At times, he puts this team on his back like he did to close out this game. A situation where they needed someone to step up in a huge late game moment and Schroder did not shy away from that pressure

But there are also times where he will drive you insane. Whether it's calling his own number too much, or fourth quarter turnovers, the Dennis Schroder Experience is for sure a wild ride. But there's no denying he has elevated his game with Jaylen out, and as long as he is going to continue to come through in these big moments late, I have few problems with him taking fourth quarter shots. A long as a possession doesn't end in a turnover, I'm good with whatever Dennis decides to do late in a game at the moment. He's earned that from me. 

- Another team under 95 points, I don't really care if a team is fully loaded or missing half their roster. It all counts the same. We know this team is going nowhere if their defense didn't vastly improve, no matter what the offense does. If this team doesn't defend, nothing matters. They started the season unable to hold a team that wasn't the Houston Rockets to under 115 points. Over these last 7 games, no team has scored 115 and they've kept teams to under 100 in 5 of the 7. The Celts are now 7th in opponent FG% and 7th in opponent 3P%. They've trimmed their opponents points from being the 29th worst to 14th in a blink of an eye.

This is the path to saving their season. Defense. Their offense is streaky, you can't rely on it on any given night. But we're starting to be able to rely on their defense and when you defend at a high level that helps open things up for you offensively. Sometimes the best offense really can be a good defense. 

- I thought all their reserve wings looked solid. Josh Richardson was making HUGE fourth quarter buckets, Romeo is filling this weird Avery Bradley role which seems to suit him, and Nesmith played with great energy and made an impact in his short 10 minutes. 

The same is true for Kanter. Lord knows there are going to be warts there, especially defensively, but Kanter was pretty important in his 8 minutes. He had a couple rebounds, a nice OREB putback and a solid screen for Tatum that opened him up for a three. He's a disaster in Ime's defensive scheme which is why he doesn't play, but what I saw last night tells me Ime should probably give him minutes over someone like Jabari who is going to be just as bad defensively. The Celts surviving those Kanter minutes was a huge reason why they were able to hold on.

- 23 AST on 36 FGM. Even on a night where the offense was struggling it was nice to see them continue to move the ball and not fall into isolation hell. No surprise they end up winning a game with that type of assist production. Almost like they should keep doing it!

- This team finally closed out a fourth quarter!! I didn't think it was possible, you didn't think it was possible, but they did it. A 1 point lead heading into the final 12 minutes, the worst fourth quarter team on the planet put up 33 and executed down the stretch. I didn't think they had it in them, but boy am I glad they did.

The Bad

- Well at least now we know the Celts have no answer for Spanish National Team Ricky Rubio. Holy shit did he torch this team in back to back games. That makes sense considering he torches the entire world when he morphs into Spanish National Team Ricky Rubio. That guy might be a top 5 player on the planet. The Celts also had no answer for Cedi goddamn Osman which was beyond frustrating. Combined they made 10 3PM. So while the Cavs didn't have basically half their roster, they also got 54 points from those two which isn't exactly normal. That includes gigantic fourth quarter threes. Rubio's coming right in Al's face after he played 23 seconds of perfect defense, Cedi's coming via 40 foot bombs. That was for sure frustrating.

- Obviously, this is where Tatum's 7-20 (2-8) will live. Where else could it possibly go? Since the DAL loss when he went 12-19, Tatum is currently shooting 36/30%. That's in no way shape or form anywhere close to being good enough. His FTA is at 5.0 which isn't awful, and I would argue most of these shots he's missing are open looks that we want him taking. 

Tatum was 0-5 on "open" threes and 1-8 overall from the floor on "open" looks. He actually did well in "tight" coverage going 4-6, but it's the open looks that remain a killer. That's encouraging because it gives you hope that things are able to turn around since these are quality looks, but it's also extremely frustrating because we sort of expect Tatum to make his clean looks. 

- I'll admit it, I am terrified about Rob's knee. How could you not be? You can tell me they were just being precautions and I don't care. I hear sharp pain and tightness and I get nervous. This is Rob we're talking about, we're always going to be nervous when he leaves a game with an injury. Seeing as how he's been one of their best all around players this year, that's a pretty big deal. Especially with ATL coming up tomorrow, I'd be shocked if he played. 

This was always the question. We know Rob's talent, but his availability was always anyone's guess. So far this season that had been great, but here is our first road bump. I am praying it's nothing serious but who the hell knows. It's all just a shame for a guy that was having a breakout career year.

The Ugly

- Not to pile on here, but Tatum's fourth quarter was an offensive disaster. Just 1-6 (1-3), I didn't love his shot selection and it got to the point where he basically stood in the corner and didn't touch the ball while Schroder closed it out. That feels wrong but at the same time if he's going to continue to throw up stinkers like this in huge moments in the fourth quarter then so be it. 

Ideally, this is not what you want from your franchise player, but I don't know what else they can do until he figures out a way to not be a total disaster in the final 12 minutes. Especially with all of these games being tight

He was still engaged defensively and on the glass which was nice, but there's no getting around the fact that Tatum's fourth quarter production is a big time issue. There's just no confidence right now that he's going to come through offensively in this final frame, and that is playing with fire. They need him in those moments. He was awesome in the fourth just last season, yet for some reason this year it's like his brain malfunctions and he loses all his talent. We'll continue to have these stressful fourths until he figures it out, and I'd prefer he does it rather quickly.

It was ugly, but it was a win this Celts team needed to get. Now it's about building momentum. The Hawks are going to be motivated tomorrow night and they gave this team fits last season. Let's see how they stack up with a team that should actually have their best players available and will be just as desperate as the Celts are to win. Show us that this team is actually on the right path, play a full 48 minutes and let's keep building.