Despite A Shaky Ending The Celtics Held On For A Big Christmas Win
I’d be lying if I said that playing on Christmas on the road didn’t make a me a little nervous. I mean it isn’t exactly a secret how much the Celts usually struggle on this day, and it being the first game of the day certainly didn’t help the nerves either. Say what you want about the Knicks, but they are a very solid team at home (11-4 heading in) and had won their previous two games at MSG. In his career Melo has thrived on Christmas, and now with a unicorn this very well could have been a disaster. In terms of the current standings NY has been better than I think a lot of people thought, so this game was big simply for the head-to-head factor once playoff season rolls around since I’m sure seeding in the East will be just as tight as it was last year. Yes, blowing that game against OKC hurts, but losing this game would have been more painful in my opinion. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
As we continue to see this healthy team play, and win, things are starting to round into shape. Think of where this team was a month ago compared to now, and it’s entirely different. Their energy is great, their defense even better, and it should be no surprise this group is now 12-4 when healthy. That’s a 75% winning percentage which would equate to 61.5 wins on the year. Small sample size sure, but the blueprint is there.
Fears of a tight game filled with bricks were quickly abandoned, and what we got was one of the more entertaining games of the entire season. Let’s relive it.
The Good
– Going with a bit of a curveball to start, because I’m starting with Brad Stevens and the entire Celtics team. Playing on the road in the NBA is hard, and more often than not, you don’t win when you play a good team at home. Well, safe to say Madison Square Garden may as well be considered TD Garden South. Since 2001 the Celts are 25-11 at MSG, which happens to be the most road wins of any team in that span. Brad is a solid 18-10 against the Knicks, by far his best winning percentage against an opponent. So far this year they are 2-0 and what’s key there is the Knicks have had Melo (sorta) and Porzingis for both. Guy can’t beat the Spurs to save his life, but give him a game against the Knicks and it’s no sweat
– As is tradition around here, when we begin to talk about what players had the best nights and did the most good, we start with Isaiah Thomas. On the big stage Isaiah rose to the challenge with another 27/4. While it certainly wasn’t one of his more efficient efforts, it was every bit as clutch as we’ve grown accustomed to. He basically matched Melo point for point which was big once the game started to get tight, and I did find it funny that in a game he had that type of performance and WON I found myself in the Twitter trenches defending him. Trolls be desperate man, I’ll tell ya.
See the Knicks new Derrick Rose in no way could defend Isaiah, so a majority of the game they had Courtney Lee on him. Lee has a reputation of being somewhat competent on the defensive end, and the result was a defensive rating of 135. Then at times when Rose lined him up, things didn’t get much better. His rating was 134. What makes Isaiah so tough to guard is a combination of his deadly crossover, his hesitation moves, but also how Brad gets him in space with a high screen. One offensive weapon we saw early in the second quarter might be my favorite Isaiah shot. The running one footed floater. He can do it from the paint, but also from the goddamn FT line
You might be thinking, Greenie, that was such a lucky shot there’s no way that’s an actual weapon. Well, explain this then. Looks pretty similar
Also it should be mentioned that yet again Isaiah showed up in the fourth quarter. Trolls will point to the last few minutes when Isaiah got a little three happy and try and use that as a negative. Well, he scored 9 points in the quarter to lead all Celts and again, they most likely lose this game without him.
– I have prayed, I have begged, I have tried absolutely everything to get any sort of positive production from the second unit, and wouldn’t you know it yesterday our prayers were answered. This was by FAR the best bench performance in God knows how long and they sure as shit needed it. Aggressive Kelly Olynyk had maybe his best game of the season (16 points 7-9 shooting) and what I loved was it consisted of a combination of inside and outside scoring. It’s almost as if he remembered he’s 7 feet or something. I haven’t seen Kelly go to the block that frequently so far this year, and I only counted maybe two or 3 meaningless pump fakes which is encouraging. He shot the ball with confidence, and his 10 points in the third quarter were absolutely huge considering that was when Melo decided to start making shots.
And what about Gerald Green! News to everyone, he’s not dead! Did you know that while he was on the floor he had the second highest usage rate on the team besides Isaiah? Not only that, but he actually did things! Where did 8 points (two threes) and four rebounds in 11 minutes come from? Who knows and who gives a fuck, because even if it’s sad to type, the Celtics needed every bit of it. Sure maybe he stole all of Jaylen’s minutes, but you need to play the hot hand and at a time when nobody could make a shot, somehow Gerald Green threes went in. Bizarre.
BUT, the story of the second unit was Marcus Smart. Tied for a team high +17, this was the type of performance that gives us Smart Believers hope. Take the shooting out of it (5-9, 2-4 from deep), yesterday was all about how Smart helps this team by being a floor general. His passing was legit off the charts, and his 7 assists and 1 turnover tell that story. I’ve talked at great length how much better Marcus is when Brad uses him at his intended position and allows him to be Marcus The Creator and not Marcus The Scorer. Part of why he was so successful in this game, was we got a heavy dose of Marcus in the post. When he does that, good things usually tend to happen. Time and time again we saw him either open things up for a teammate like a cutting Isaiah, or really just use his size to overpower his man for an easy bucket. If I were a betting man, I would say we see this a lot more moving forward
Also, Marcus did a fantastic job boxing out Porzingis on multiple occasions. The guy is a true Swiss Army knife. Oh and if you somehow missed this on Twitter yesterday, give it a watch.
– Sometimes you shoot a million threes to start a game and miss 99% of them. Those times can be frustrating, but like they say, shooters shoot. Then other times you have a gigantic run to take over the game because a guy like Jae Crowder is going to make a million threes right in your eyeballs in about 25 seconds. What a fucking second quarter that was, and we all have Jae Crowder to thank for it. I’m sure you, like me, were sick of seeing the threes up until that point, but once he started to make them, and then Smart hit that one in the corner, I couldn’t get enough. Give me all the threes. They ended up taking 36 which is a tad high, but not the the worst I’ve ever seen them do, and to me that second quarter was a great example of why this team sometimes falls in love with them. When you are making them, it’s intoxicating stuff.
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It was nice to see Jae bounce back from his terrible shooting performance against OKC with a solid 16 points on 5-9 shooting (3-6 from deep). That looked much more like the Jae we’ve seen for a majority of this season.
– I was really happy with how the Celtics defended Melo early in this game, whether it was Avery or Marcus or Jae. Melo is an offensive monster, and time and time again the Celts did a pretty good job defending him when he went to the block and tried those turnarounds. Holding him to 9-24 shooting is a good place to be when trying to win on the road, and while you knew he would get hot at some point, it was nice to see that the Celts can throw multiple guys out there and despite being much shorter, can still be effective.
– Ok I have to admit, I love Porzingis. It’s impossible not to, and if you don’t then you simply have a gigantic dump in your pants. Having said that, this made me irrationally happy
This is a level of aggression that many didn’t think Horford has, but it’s the second dunk in just a few days that have been BIG TIME. With another solid 15/7/5/3/2 Horford I’m not sure how you could still say you’re disappointed with what Horford is giving you, or that this was a bad signing. If the overall line doesn’t do it for you, may I ask when was the last time you ever saw Sullinger do this (goaltending be damned)
Oh and then throw in his two blocks to end the game and all that junk about how Horford can’t protect the rim seems pretty silly considering he’s 6th in the NBA in blocks per game. Worth every damn penny.
– Sequence of the night was without a doubt the Marcus three to put the Celts up 115-112 with 47 seconds left which was immediately followed up by Avery Bradley’s fantastic defense forcing the steal on Melo to ice the game with 18 seconds left. Threes and defense, that’s what the Boston Celtics do.
– Were you nervous when the Celtics were shooting like dogshit to start this game and were down after the first quarter? Well, you shouldn’t have been. I could not have been happier. The Theory struck again with a 32 point 3rd quarter on 65% shooting. Just another day at the office.
– Can we permanently replace the grey jerseys with these? Absolute white hot fire flames
The Bad
– I am all for my bigs running the break, if that big is Al Horford. I am not OK with my big doing it if my big is Amir Johnson like we saw in that first quarter. Please pass the ball to someone who can dribble.
– 9-23 from deep in the first half was clearly too many, and a lot of those misses were wide open and came early in the first, which you can 100% put on the Christmas 12pm start, but in a quarter in which the Celtics were struggling, it was definitely frustrating to see them jack those shots up when there was so much room for them to attack the basket instead. No surprise things calmed down in the second half and the Celts took off.
– As unguardable as Isaiah may have been, Derrick Rose gave the Celtics just as many issues. Avery for the most part was the primary defender, and it didn’t matter. We got vintage Rose and it gave me flashbacks to that BOS/CHI series where every time he touched the ball you knew he was going to score. Fortunately performances like this make me believe the Knicks will be crazy and offer him crazy money in an extension, and I am all for that.
– Why the hell can’t the Celtics go a game without fouling a player who is attempting a three. It’s going to happen one of these days I swear.
– That double tech on Melo and Horford was the weakest shit I have ever seen happen in an NBA game, and I watch a LOT of basketball. Melo clearly fouled him, fine, but a double tech because Horford smiled and shook his head? The NBA should be embarrassed. To be honest Melo didn’t even to anything to deserve the tech either.
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– Shame Jaylen only got 6 minutes and Terry was a DNP-CD because fuck the development of our young players right?
The Ugly
– Aside from the double tech, this was a horrific night for the officials, on both ends. Fortunately the Celts seemed to be the beneficiary of most of them, but holy hell. There was the Porzingis CLEAN BLOCK that they called a jump ball, and then on the tip the clock operator didn’t start the shot clock which enabled the Celts to get an easy bucket. There were maybe 5000 foul calls in the last 2 minutes of this basketball game. You never want to see the refs make a legit impact on a game, and even when it helps your team it’s still annoying.
– There’s no running away from it, that was one hell of a collapse. Up 9 with basically 2 minutes left, this should have been a breeze. Instead it was a complete disaster. Isaiah’s shot selection was what I would call not ideal, and his decision to try and block Porzingis on a fast break was not the best decision I’ve ever seen him make. While I admire his confidence that despite the almost 2 foot height difference that he thought he could get there, but it was a horrific foul to make. The fact that they pulled out the win helps a little, but this is a larger issue in my mind. The Celtics can’t keep fucking around at the end of these games, because more often than not, a game like that is one you lose.
At the end of the day though, a win is a win is a win. Now with the most road wins in the entire Eastern Conference, the Celtics are starting to play their best basketball at a great time. After two tough games against MEM/CLE in their next two, they return home for a LONG time and finally get to play teams like NO/WSH/PHI etc. They really need to figure their shit out at home if they want to go anywhere, and now that they’ve proven to me that they can beat good teams on the road, they now need to show me they can just beat ANY team at home. They are still a LONG ways away from being the team we feel they need to be come April, but at 18-13 and winners of 5 of their last 6 since Isaiah’s return, they are certainly headed in that direction.
18 down 34 to go