Celtics Came Close To Blowing It Again....But This Time They Held On!
When you’re a team that going into last night’s game against CHA had lost 3 of their last 4, I don’t care how you do it, just win the game. Especially with a back to back against HOU on deck. Under no circumstances can you blow the first game of this back to back, and while the Celtics got DAMN CLOSE to doing just that, they held on. 1-0 in their last 1. Got back to their defensive roots, held a team to under .500, and even without Jaylen/Morris/Semi etc was able to pull off their East leading 14th road win.
This was the second time this season the Celtics held CHA to under 92 points, and they’ve now won the season series. Crazy what can happen when you have balanced scoring and play some defense isn’t it?
The Good
– Some legit competition for the top spot. After thinking about it, I decided it probably makes sense to celebrate someone’s first. Last night was the first 20/10 of Al Horford’s Celtic career. He finally did it for all those who think he can’t be worth the money unless he puts up 20/10. Well he just did it so there.
20/11 on 8-11 shooting including 4-6 from deep. He finished with the highest net rating of any starter at 17, had Drtg of 98 and made some huge stops/buckets down the stretch in that fourth quarter to help seal this win. He matched Tatum with 10 points in that final frame, playing all 12 minutes and going 3-5 from the floor.
When your team is struggling and you need to snap out of it, you turn to your best players. Al responded with one of his most efficient games of the year.
– But not far behind is our beloved Jayson Tatum. 18/5/0/2/2 on 50% from the floor in 35 minutes. He took the second most FGA of any starter (finally) with 12. This kid is going to be so fucking good it’s scary
As I said he had 10 points in the fourth, and is already closing out NBA games at 19. Just look at that highlight tape again and you see it all. His post-up into a stepnback. His isolation and ability to get to the rim off the dribble, his aggressiveness to not shy away from contact, it’s all there. Then on the defensive end we’re seeing his length be a real problem. He’s 6th in terms of rookies in steals per game and 7th in blocks. Did you know he actually averages more blocks per 48 minutes than Ben Simmons? I didn’t until I looked that up.
The more and more we see him, the more untouchable he becomes to me, and I don’t think I’m alone. Even Kyrie knows
– Speaking of Kyrie, despite his shooting, I felt like this was one of Kyrie’s better games. I can understand the FGA frustration but look at the overall production. He moved the ball great, which at times has been an issue during this skid. He took care of the ball with just 1 TO in his 30 minutes, and when they needed buckets to respond to that CHA run, he came through. He had some gigantic makes in that third/fourth quarter
Kyrie didn’t let his offensive struggles impact his effort defensively, with a rating of 93 he more than held his own. Personally I love his 50% assist% and the 62 passes on 84 touches. Even when you look closer at his shooting he did shoot 69.9% on uncontested shots, but just 11% on contested. That’s why it didn’t feel as off to me, because when he had an open look late, he made it.
– The Terry Rozier experience is all about peaks and valleys. Right now, we’re at a peak and it is glorious.
This Rozier is the version we as Celtics fans get so hopeful for. This is the version Ainge refuses to trade. He’s doing everything. Making threes, finishing at the rim, playing great defense, and carrying the second unit scoring load. I just want to warn you, his peaks come in clusters of around 3ish games. This was already game 2. Look at his game log and you’ll see this trend. Little groups of 3 or so games where Terry is thriving, and then he goes into a valley got a handful, and then another cluster. If he can ever figure out consistency, oh baby.
– Honest question. Shane Larkin is a top 15 franchise FA addition right? Too low?
– Do I find it a coincidence that Yabu was the first sub off the bench, immediately hit a three and it changed the entire flow of the game to the Celtics favor? No, no I am not
– I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure this was the first wire to wire Celtics win of the year. If it’s not the first it’s certainly rare. The Celts played fast, with 19 fast break points, and they were great at converting CHA’s turnovers into points. Watching them move defensively it looked more and more like the type of energy that they show when they are truly engaged. When you see CHA shot just 36/30% at home, the proof is in the pudding.
– I’m glad the Celtics went 15-34 from deep in this game, but then I’m immediately terrified that they blew their load too early heading into this game with HOU, a game in which they are definitely going to have to make a shit ton of threes.
– Baynes kept Dwight in check for the most part, and I was happy to see Baynes get 25 minutes. I know he may kill you offensively at times, but I feel better about things when he’s anchoring the paint. His 97 Drtg was the fourth lowest on the team. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this team’s defense was better the more Baynes played.
The Bad
– Another victim of being blocked by the rim, this time by Daniel Theis. This is something that’s so weird to be this bad at for an NBA team. Playing against 5 defenders is hard enough, can’t also be playing against the rim on easy buckets.
– 3 second half Yabu minutes should be an arrestable offense
– Things Al Horford is good at are things like shooting, defending his position, passing, etc. Things he is not good at are things like guarding Kemba Walker about 25 feet from the basket on an island. That’s a matchup he’s almost never going to win
– We’ve seen better halfs from Kyrie than his 4-10 second half and 2-7 third quarter.
– For what seems like it happens almost every game now, there was another huge FTA discrepancy. 29-13 is no joke, but it’s not all the refs. It’s the approach too. We didn’t really see the Celts attack all that much, with 34 of their 75 FGA coming from behind the arc. It is crazy that Dwight made as made FTs as the leader on the Celtics even took, and this is a trend we’re seeing lately that I’d like to see reversed.
The Ugly
– These motherfuckers. We’re now at the point where there is no lead big enough for us as Celtics fans to sit back and relax and just enjoy ourselves. Nope. That dream is now gone. Blowing a 20 point lead down to 1 because why? Because that’s what this team does. They make us as fans sweat way more than we should and it really is sad that I’m not developing trust issues with this team. Show me you can not blow massive leads against kinda shitty teams just one time.
They’ve also been doing this thing lately where they swap their shitty second quarters for shitty thirds instead. Coming out of halftime and dropping just 16 points? That wasn’t the second unit either, that was all the starters. That shit was frustrating as all hell
– The Celtics did get a little lucky, because not often do you get killed on the glass 52-43, give up 19 OREB and 17 second chance points with 15 TOs and still win. That usually spells disaster. Even with Baynes playing and getting 9 rebounds, Horford getting 11, they still had major rebounding issues.
Now comes the test. A motivated HOU team who has lost three straight and didn’t play last night comes to the Garden looking for blood. This is our first look at the Rockets, but they’re going to be without CP3, so the Celtics do catch a break there. Either way, they are going to have to play with this same sort of defensive energy and hope to contain Harden as best they can. HOU is no joke with or without Paul. In the meantime, that’s a few hours away so sit back and say it with me…
28 down 26 to go