Nikola Jokic And The Nuggets Gave The Celtics A Taste Of Their Own Medicine To Start The New Year

Bart Young. Getty Images.

Welcome to 2023 everybody. I'll tell ya, we're only 2 days into this thing and I have to say it's not quite living up to 2022 when it comes to my favorite basketball team. Only 2 other teams have lost as much as the Celts have in 2023 and frankly I don't care for it one bit. Luckily, there's 363 days to turn this thing around so let's try to not get too worked up about a tough road loss to the best team in the West, but I certainly can understand if you're a little annoyed today. Last night was gross. I'd say conservatively that 75% of the roster didn't get off the plane which is an issue considering the Nuggets were 13-3 at home heading into last night. They also have this guy who should probably win 3 straight MVPs but people are losers and will hold his previous wins against him. When you're on the road, facing legit team with a legit MVP, you can't no show. When you do, results like this happen.

In some ways the Celts began 2023 getting a taste of their own medicine. I imagine this is how opposing fans felt when they played the Celts for the first 26 games, not really understanding how no one on the team missed a shot, whether it was inside the arc or behind it. I mean, when it had been nearly 15 years since the last time something like this happened

you sort of just chalk it up to one of those nights. Perhaps this is just all part of the championship journey like NBA history suggests. Who knows. But part of me doesn't just want to lump it into "one of those nights" because there were a lot of things the Celts did poorly that had nothing to do with the Nuggets hot shooting, or at the very least helped contribute to it. Sure maybe their insane 3P shooting may have been rare, but some of the issues that led to this loss are not new. We see them pretty much in every one of the Celts 11 losses. 

The loss does put a little bit of pressure on the rest of this trip as I think most people were hoping for a 3-1 stretch. I think you'd be silly to sleep on OKC since they seem to play everyone tough, the Mavs are red hot, and the Spurs scream trap game. It'll be interesting to see how the Celts respond given they started this trip with a dud, but before we get ahead of ourselves let's talk about the shit sandwich from last night.

The Good

- You know who I feel like I never have to worry about in terms of being ready and showing up for a big game? Jaylen Brown. He may not have the highest ceiling of any player on the team, but he's certainly becoming more and more reliable with each opportunity. You could make the case that he was one fo the few that even showed up in Denver

He finished 12-20 (4-8), led the team in reboudning, didn't turn it over and was essentially the only thing keeping the Celts alive in the first quarter after the Nuggets came out with a massive 66/75% start. If not for Jaylen, the Celts are down by 25+ early in this game simply because this is how everyone else started

It's hard to have too many complaints with Jaylen's night, maybe some closeouts could have been better (as we'll get to), but I'm not going to fault a guy who did everything in his power to try and snap his team out of their funk. This isn't a one off type game for Jaylen either which is nice to see. Over his last 5 (4-1) Jaylen is certainly looking like an All NBA talent with

32.6/5.6/2.8 on 52/34% with 3.6 3PM and 2.2 TOs

so if we could just find a way to get the guy some help, that would be great. In a game you needed your franchise guys to look like franchise guys, Jaylen rose to the occasion.

- Much like Jaylen recently, Derrick White has also found himself in a nice little stretch of impactful basketball. Anyone who watched him play in December could see what a rut he was in, but over the last 4-5 games we're back to getting the version of Derrick White that this team needs

One thing I've noticed during this stretch is how much better White seems to be at the rim/in the paint. Remember during his struggles how many layups/floaters he would miss? They'd be excruciating misses too where they would legit roll around every part of the rim and then spin out. That shit drove me mad. Well, over his last 5 we're seeing Derrick shoot 90% in the restricted are and 83% in the paint. That's….pretty good. Especially on a team that tends to miss a fuck ton of layups. Being able to rely on the Derrick floater again is a nice thing to have because as we all know the best version of Derrick is the one that gets to the paint. Once he sees a couple drop from that zone, his three point shoot looks so much better. That's the power of confidence.

My only real question is why only 23 minutes? Given how poor the other guards were last night, that number should have been much higher in my opinion. I get that Joe thought he needed to play with more size in the second half, but there's no real excuse for White only playing 8 second half minutes when he was arguably your best guard in this game. 

- The more I watch Rob play the more I start to think he's ready to increase whatever his limit is. That's not me saying the Celts should be stupid and play him as if he's never had an injury before. I'm just saying whatever the next level is in his recovery/activation plan, let's go there. This man is ready

Rob looks like Rob. That's what these 2ish weeks have told me. Whether it's in terms of the raw production

2021-22: 10/9.6/2.0 on 73.6% shooting in 29.6 minutes

2022-23: 8.3/7.3/1.1 on 83% in 18.9 minutes

or the eye test, use whatever you want. Rob is bouncey, his timing is getting better with each game, he's OREB% is the highest of his career, as his is total REB%, he's flying around like nothing happened, so let's see things bump up a little bit. He's such an impactful player on both ends, I think there's a way to get him closer to his old role while still being cautious and thinking big picture. A game like this is one where maybe I see if Rob can get over his 18 minutes, especially on a night where Al was struggling. I take out the final 6 minutes for Al because I had no problem not playing Rob after a 40 minute break, but before that moment it was Al at 24 minutes and Rob at 18. I'd maybe have switched those two.

What I love about Rob is I never have to question his energy or effort. Rob doesn't give a shit, he's willing to die for this team. I know Rob cares, which is why he's so awesome. I'm just saying let's let him loose a little bit, we know how good this team is when they do.

- I know we're all annoyed, but a game with 30 assists, especially whem you couldn't make a three, is more othen than not going to lead to a win. More often than not if the Celts hit that number, things are going to work out. So while last night their outside shooting let them down, it wasn't a result of a bad approach. The ball WAS moving last night, guys just couldn't stop chucking up bricks.

Compare that to other frustrating losses where the ball doesn't move and we see everyone fall into bad iso habits, I'm not so sure that was the case last night. Four guys with at least 4 AST, every starter with at least 3, ball movement was not an issue. What happened as a result of that ball movement was.

- Celts shot 46% from the floor, went to the line 27 times, won the rebounding battle by 6, only have up 1 OREB and only turned it over 13 times and had 60 points in the paint to the Nuggets 46.

That's basically every single box they usually need to check in order to win a game. That's why this shit is so annoying. It's not as if the Celts played terrible offensively, but three point shooting is important and that was nowhere to be found

The Bad

- You may disagree here, but I'm putting Tatum in this section. I know he had 25/7/6, but I didn't really think he was that great overall. Definitely more mid than MVP. The 5 TOs were tough, the 0-4 from 3 wasn't great, and he was a team worst -15 in his 35 minutes. Add in 3 more missed FTA and yeah I can't really say this was one of Tatum's better showings. Given that he's the best player, that's a bit of an issue. 

I just didn't like anything about Tatum's start. Nothing was aggressive, he was settling for threes, and I've seen that approach enough to know what comes next. All you have to do is compare that to his 2nd quarter, where he led the team with 13 points on 4-6 shooting. The difference? He was aggressive. In the 3rd quarter, it was the same thing. He was aggressive, got to the line, and again led the team with 11 points.

Unfortunately, he didn't score a single point in his 5:39 in the fourth. That seems bad. To start the way he did and then to fizzle like that in the fourth, if you want to have MVP expectations then I need an MVP level performance. The standards are higher, that's just how it goes. Not just for Tatum, but for every MVP candidate.

- Which brings me to Jokic. God is he terrifying. I'm not sure how you stop him. 

You can't double him like you can at times against someone like Embiid or Giannis. It doens't matter what type of double you use, Jokic is going to carve it up as if it didn't even happen. If you don't double, good luck handling that size. I think it's time to maybe cool it on the Batman shit with Grant, because after those few times last year where Grant was pretty good, Jokic has absolutely smoked him since

As someone who spends a lot of time pushing the Jayson Tatum MVP agenda, even I cannot deny that right now, the MVP of the league has to be Jokic. It just has to be. What he does makes no fucking sense. When he's also knocking down threes I'm not sure what the answer is. He's so good at taking his time and drawing contact there's no clear path to how to defend him. His efficiency is ridiculous but when you watch him play and see that he gets to wherever he wants on the floor, it makes more sense.

It didn't matter who the Celts tried. Grant had no shot, Jokic had his most points (9) against Al on 4-6 shooting, and we only saw Rob guard him on 3 possesions. Of his 30, 17 of it came against Al/Grant on 6-9 shooting. Jokic didn't miss against any other Celtics defender. What a monster.

- No, I do not think opponents will shoot 57/57% with 17 3PM against the Celts defense very often. However, if the Celts are going to be slow to closeouts like they were in this game, they certainly make it a possiblility. As we know by watching this team, everything comes back to confidence. When NBA players feel confident, they overachieve.

So when I see Bruce Brown score a season high 21 points and make 4 3PM in a single game when he had 4 3PM in his previous 4 games combined, it's because he was confident. Why was he confident? Because of lazy/poor rotations/defense. Stuff like this needs to be corrected

Sorry, not good enough. I guess maybe the only one that isn't completely terrible is the White play? Smart with the poor rotation/lazy contest, same thing with Jaylen. He didn't even put a hand up. Given the fact that the Celts just saw what a confident Bruce Brown can do in their playoff series last year, I found this to be very annoying. Those are little things that sway a game, especially on the road. If Jaylen actually closes out hard and contests there, maybe it's a miss and it starts a fastbreak. Now it's a 2 possession game with a ton of time left. 

Instead, a lazy closeout/challenge helped push it back to double digits and a confident player felt even better.

Over the course of this game, these mistakes were everywhere. 

Al loses his man in the corner, is slow to recover and doesn't really contest. In that pick and pop set, Derrick is able to stay with Bones because KCP literally makes no contact on the slip screen. Why Sam Hauser feels like he needs to guard Bones here is a little confusing because White has good position the entire way. What that does is it allows KCP to reset and take a clean look three. When Hauser runs over, he also doesn't even put a hand up, just like Jaylen.

Again, when you're on the road against a good team who is feeling it from three, these little mistakes snowball. A confident team feels even more confident and there's only so much you can do when you're bricking everything on the other end. 

So yes, while the Nuggets shooting 10-14 on "open" 3PA and 7-13 on "wide open" 3PA is a little outrageous, given how the Celtics were playing defense and the mistakes they were making, I'm not sure what you expect to happen. They contributed to the Nuggets shooting performance just as much as DEN did.

- There's nothing better than after you go through a quarter in which you couldn't force a miss and gave up 37 points, you decide that in the 2nd quarter you're going to take things up a notch and turn the ball over 7 times. The Celts simply love having these single quarter where they turn the ball over 5+ times. Even in the games they've been winning there always seems to be one problem quarter when it comes to TOs. On the year, things are pretty even with 3.2 TOs in the 1st quarter, 3.3 in the 2nd, 3.6 in the 3rd and 3.4 in the 4th, but if I look over the last 5 games the Celts are turning the ball over 4.2 times on average in the 2nd quarter.

Last night? 7.

When you're not making shots, it certainly doesn't help to turn the ball over. It's what prevented any sort of real comeback, and a large part of that was once again the 2nd unit was pretty dogshit in their first stint. Hauser missing wide open 3s, Malcolm Brogdon playing as if he's never played basketball before, that stuff is killer. Those are the guys who are supposed to come in and provide a spark when the starters maybe come out slow

- That offensive basket interference on Rob might have been the worst thing I've ever seen. The guy gets fouled and dunks through contact, and it's basket interference. OK. Cool.

- Of course a big part of last night was the 40 minute stoppage due to the Rob dunk. I'm sure people were maybe upset about the delay and all that, but not me. Not only because I found it hilarious, but also because I felt nothing but empathy for those two bros trying to fix that rim. No CHANCE they thought they'd have to do a single thing when they went into work that night let alone take 40 minutes to fix a rim with a billion people watching. 

If that guy is somehow reading this blog or you know that guy, let him know I feel for him. That pressure would crush me no doubt about it. I'd say after the 7th re-check seeing shit still wasn't even close to level would be enough for me to just end it all right there. Not my problem anymore. I can't ever remember seeing anything like it in an NBA game and the whole time I just felt so bad for the dudes who seemed to have no way to fix the rim without replacing it, and even that took forever once they got a new one.

I'm just happy nobody on either side got hurt, that would have been a disaster.

- You would think that the more rest the Celts get the better they look right? Wrong. How? I have no fucking idea

The Celts shoot something like 43/31% on 2 days rest. 2-7 while rested and you can't make a fucking shot? How can anyone explain that. On what planet does that make any sense? Mind you, in those 1 day or less that usually means without Al or Rob for a bunch of them. 

We all want rest for the players, but why is it making them worse? So bizarre.

The Ugly

- This was easily the worst Marcus Smart game of the season. Just really poor on either end. Offensively the 2-12 (0-4) certainly stands out, and it felt like Marcus was more concerned with the no calls than actually playing. A lot of point blank misses, he was short on a bunch of 3PA which makes me a little nervous about his hip, and it just felt that mentally he wasn't locked in. 

Defensively wasn't all that much better either, and this is another example of how important Smart is to the success of this team. This is a game where the Jays had nearly 60 points, but when Smart throws up a two way stink bomb like this, it's hard to overcome it even with that production from Tatum/Brown. Just like when Smart throws up a good performance they look unbeatable. There's a lot of truth to the idea that whatever version of Smart you get goes a long way in dictating what version of the Celtics you get.

Last night, he was horrible and the result isn't that surprising.

- The concerning part is Malcolm Brogdon also gave you nothing. That's the whole reason he's here right? That on the rare occasion Smart has one of these brutal stinkers, Brogdon can come in and there'd be no dropoff. Well, what do we do when he's also playing some brutal basketball? It's been this way for the last few weeks from Malcolm and given how important he is to that 2nd unit and to the team as that potential 3rd guy offensively, his poor play only compounds the issue when Smart struggles.

Have any of you felt like once Brogdon comes in the offense improves, things slow down and the Celts execute? Or has it been the opposite? I'm not just talking about the poor shooting slump he's in. I'm also talking about his decision making and how the offense seems stagnant. These are things Smart and Brogdon need to thrive at, and last night they were both brutal.

- It goes without saying that the 9-33 (27%) from deep can live here. The beauty of that number is 31 of that 33 were either open or wide open. Truly impressive how such a good shooting team can be so bad with clean looks. This is now the 6th time in their last 10 games the Celts have been under 30%, and I guarantee if you look up the splits in every one of those games you'll see all of them are open or wide open looks.

The issue isn't an approach thing. The Celts are generating clean looks for the most part. It's an execution problem. Just be below average and these are wins! That's all I ask. If you want to stink, fine! Shoot 32-33%! It's the sub-30%'s that absolutely kill you.

Good thing about the NBA is the Celts are right back at it tomorrow in OKC with a chance to snag their first win of 2023. I want to see a pissed off team that's annoyed with how they played last night. What I don't want to see is a team that thinks they can settle and OKC will cave because they don't have a ton of wins. You do that, SGA will end your life. Come focused and with the right energy on both ends, play a full 48, and let's forget all about what happened in the Mile High. Turn the page.