The Celtics Had Their Best Offensive Performance Of The Season To Stay Undefeated After The Break
If there is one thing this Celtics team has had a tough time doing this season, it’s blowing out bad teams. For whatever reason they think it’s more fun to give their loyal fans heart attacks and fuck around with lesser competition. Time after time here on the blog we had to try and understand how a team with this type of talent couldn’t blow teams out. Then in walked CHA, winners of 5 straight and playing some of their best basketball of the season. Granted they were tired, playing the night before and going through a 5 game in 7 night stretch it’s not all that surprising that CHA looked a little flat. But this blog isn’t about them, it’s about the Celtics. Undefeated since the All Star Break returned, now that they finally had a huge blowout win I heard a lot of the same chirps
“They haven’t played anybody, who cares”
It’s almost as if nobody read the blog from the other day, which is both insulting and sad. We all know the competition has been average at BEST during this four game winning streak. You shouldn’t be excited because they are beating bad teams. You should be excited because of how they are doing it. They are getting back to their defensive roots, while also putting up offensive performances we haven’t seen from them all year. Shit, the dominance we saw last night had not been done in YEARS
So yeah I’m going to enjoy this one a little bit. My heart needed an easy coast to coast win as we mentally prepare for the showdown in HOU and I’m happy there wasn’t any sort of lack of focus or looking ahead or anything like that. This team has come back from break with a completely different mindset, and that might be the most important thing for me.
With that said, let’s begin
The Good
– How could we possibly start anywhere else? Kyrie Irving is playing at an insane level right now. In fact calling it insane may be doing it an in justice. He played 24 minutes in this game and finished with 34/4/5 on 13-18 shooting (4-6 from deep) and just 1 TO. An unreal performance filled with Fuck You Threes and shots that break your brain
We all have heard the quotes about how he wanted to come back with a different mindset for the stretch run and get the guys ready, and he is doing that and more. This is the best stretch of basketball we’ve seen from Kyrie all year, and it’s coming at just the right time
Do I love the fact that he’s had to play over 29 minutes just once during this streak? You bet your ass I do. You could tell after his first few makes in the first quarter that he had no interest in playing the fourth
and guess what he played a total of 0:00 in that final frame. I also don’t want to sell Kyrie short, his impact can be found in other areas aside from his offense. He has shown a commitment to defense that looks a hell of a lot more like his effort in November when he was engaged than his December when he was clearly coasting. Last night opponents were 5-9 against him, and you can just tell by watching his effort level is where it needs to be. This is what I mean about leading my example. We all know this team relies on Kyrie to score the ball, but when he is also active on the defensive end it’s contagious. Will he have that same energy against good teams is the question, but I’d have to lean towards yes. Kyrie has been a complete player over this four game win streak, and that’s a dangerous thing.
– It’s comical really that a team that is so offensively challenged can have a performance like we saw last night. I mean 134 points on 62/60% splits is utter insanity. Put aside that this is an extremely small sample against bad teams for a second. How good has the offense been since the All Star Break? How about the best in the NBA?
Who on earth saw this coming? No, no you didn’t, you’re lying. Just looking at that chart makes my brain hurt. The Celts got off to the great start with 37 points and 60/75% splits and naturally we all expected them to plummet back down to earth. But that never happened. Then they scored 30 points in the second, a quarter which has plagued this team all year. That was followed up by a 36 point third quarter and a 31 point fourth. I really really hope they didn’t use all their makes last night and didn’t save any for Saturday but I was at the point last night where I was legit shocked when they missed. Boy let me tell you what a weird feeling that was.
Again, I urge you to not focus on the results, because we all know shooting 62/60% and dropping 134 is not sustainable. You know what is though, their ball movement. Another game with 30+ assists this is the type of approach that last year’s team had which was a top 5 offense. When the ball moves and guys get put in positions to succeed, this team looks entirely different. When you see 10 of the 12 players that played have an assist, right after 11 of 12 had an assist in the game before, it starts to make sense. Six players had at least 3 assists and it came from everywhere. From Horford to Jaylen to Kyrie to Smart to Rozier everyone was moving the ball. You know what they say, making the extra pass can be contagious and nights like this are what happens when this team doesn’t just hold onto the ball.
– I’m having a hard time deciding what was more enjoyable from Jaylen Brown’s performance.
Here are the candidates:
We have his shot selection
which if you read this blog you know is my exact formula that I want to see from him.
We have his 4 assists and 7-7 from the FT line, two things I most certainly did not think we’d ever see from him at the same time in the same game
And finally we have him in the open court
His 15 points on 4-7 shooting were the second most amongst the starters and for a guy that people want to me more consistent, that’s exactly what he’s been during this win streak. Last night was the second time in three games he’s been over 55% from the floor, and he only played 23 minutes last night. Love that.
– I know that role players play better at home, but let’s not ignore how lights out the second unit has been during this entire streak. Four guys in double figures last night, they combined for 61 points on 26-45 shooting. That’s 57% for those wondering. They also made half the team’s threes as well.
I’m not saying I need this every night moving forward, but if this unit can give the Celts like 60% of what we saw in this game, they are going to be extremely tough to beat. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite second unit performer, I mean on one hand there was Marcus Morris who led the bench with 15 points with some ridiculous shot making
but then there was also Rozier who is looking more and more like a Kyrie-Lite with every game
Rozier is on such a roll it’s crazy what a difference this version makes. I’ve been waiting for him to hit his usual valley for weeks now, and it’s not coming. Getting these two performances would be good enough for me any day of the week, but there was more. There was Greg Monroe having his best game as a Celtic by FAR
and then Marcus Smart doing Marcus Smart things, you know the guy who ended with a bench high +13 with 10/6 on 4-5 (2-2) shooting. Maybe now people will understand his value but probably not. That’s fine by me, you can’t fix stupid
– It’s also important that we give Aron Baynes a shoutout for completely dominating Dwight Howard. I thought his 12/10 on 6-7 shooting was the best he’s played in months, and anytime you hold Dwight to just 3 rebounds, that’s crazy impressive
Baynes gets a lot of flack for some reason, but this was a prime example of why he’s important. Not only can he body an opposing team’s big, but the work he does on the glass is beyond important. The reason the Celts were able to prevent second chance points and build a lead was because of the work he did on the glass. I’m talking about a 40% DREB% and 29% total REB%. Those are big time numbers.
– How many other players can take just 4 shots and be a +27? I dunno but I know Al Horford can. His offense was nonexistent but he was moving the ball and defending at a high level. He led the team in total net rating and this was a classic example of a game that people look at his box score and yell and scream on Twitter. Imagine thinking Horford played bad in this game? You must be running out of material.
On the defensive end Horford contested the second most FGAs and opponents were a combined 1-9 against him. But what the hell he only scored 5 points what a terrible contract!!!!!
– Biggest lead 32, 1 times tied and 0 lead changes. That’s domination folks.
The Bad
– I thought it was an interesting strategy early to not try and guard Kemba Walker. He started 7-7 (4-4) and matched Kyrie every step of the way, basically negating his 16 point start. I get that Kemba is a scorer, but some of the lapses in transition defense that led Kemba to step into a wide open transition three was a bit annoying.
Same could be said for Dwight. Relatively no resistance early.
– Is it me or does Frank The Tank always seem to have good games against the Celtics? Is it time to add him to the Celtics Killer list? Another 16 points on 50% shooting he appears to be one of those random NBA players that always plays the Celtics well.
– I’m sorry, but on a night where the entire team is shooting lights out and guys are getting FGA out of their assholes, a combined 10 FGA for Horford and Tatum isn’t enough for me. Both were 50% from the field so it’s not as if they were struggling, they just didn’t take any shots.
– 67 points is impressive on the offensive end in one half. Allowing 59 to a team playing on a B2B certainly was not good, some may call it bad. Brad mentioned postgame how he felt they didn’t really guard anybody in the first 24 minutes and I’m inclined to agree.
The Ugly
– HOW MANY MORE YABU WARRANTED SITUATIONS ARE WE GOING TO MISS OUT ON
I need less Abdel Nader jumpers and more Yabu dabs and I need it immediately.
– I’d try and force more in this section but come on, this was basically the best showing of the year so I’m a bit limited.
We now turn our focus to HOU, who you may have heard have won a few games in a row. After a controversial ending resulted in a 99-98 win at the Garden earlier in the year, something tells me this Rockets team will be motivated. I’m not sure who is going to step up and shut down Harden, so it’ll have to be a collective effort. Win that game and I don’t want to hear anything about the competition. The Celtics don’t make their schedule, they just have to take care of who is in front of them. I urge them to not try and get into an offensive shootout with HOU thinking that what we saw last night was the norm. Play good defense and rebound and you’ll sweep the team with the best record in the NBA. Let’s fucking GO
44 down 10 to go.