The Celtics Once Again Don't Play A Full 48 Minutes, Get Dominated By Anthony Davis
The Celtics are in a weird place right now. Given the fact that they are essentially locked into the 2 seed and really aren’t in jeopardy of dropping to the 3, it’s hard to argue these games really matter. With their whole team out, who is really surprised that they are not pulling these games out. But here’s the thing, I hate that way of thinking. I still think it’s OK to see this team collapse for 4 straight second halfs and be pretty annoyed with it. I get there’s a talent issue, but this team is rested and is losing to teams who are on B2Bs and it’s happening because of their second half effort. Guys like Horford, Tatum, Morris, Rozier, Monroe, Larkin, Baynes etc are ALL going to be rotation players come the playoffs, and their inability to play a full 48 minute game isn’t just something I’m going to ignore because guys are out.
The Celtics are in a funk there’s no doubting that, and the last thing you want is to be limping into the playoffs, both literally and figuratively. I’m not so concerned with the results as I am how the regular rotation players are looking over the last 15ish games and if you think things will magically turn around once Jaylen/Kyrie get back you’re living in a little bit of denial. If the Celtics play with the same sort of effort they have over the last 4 games even with those guys, they are going to be in trouble.
With that said, let’s get started
The Good
– One thing that was clear when guys went out was that Jayson Tatum was going to have to step up and be aggressive. Well after 23 FGA the other night, he finished with 14 last night (2nd on team) and a team high 23/5 on 9-14 shooting
This was the Jayson Tatum that gets me excited. We saw the full arsenal from him in this game, his one on one breakdown into his jumper, he attacked the rim, and once again he was comfortable being the go to guy within the offense. This was a much different effort than what we saw against ORL, where he was a little more hesitant and honestly played like shit.
I do have one problem though. Tatum had a great 3rd quarter going 3-4 from the field in his 9 minutes, and then was a non factor in the final quarter. Only 1 FGA and 3 minutes on the court in what was a 6 point game heading in seems a little bit weird. I don’t see a reason why your best starter plays the fewest minutes of any starter not named Aron Baynes. He only played 27 minutes on the night, and this wasn’t on a B2B so this confused me.
– Make it 19 games in a row Terry Rozier has finished in double figures. For a guy that hadn’t seemed to figure out the idea of consistency at any point of his career, it appears Rozier has figured it out and it couldn’t happen at a better time.
I will say this though. I’m getting a little nervous about his shooting. If you look at the big picture this month you see pretty respectable splits (for him) at 42/39%. But look closer, and he’s now had 4 straight games shooting under 39%. People LOVE to get on Smart about his FG%, but I don’t see the same sort of concern with Rozier, when he’s really been just as streaky. He’s also taking 7 3PA a game so far this month which feels a little high for him, I’d like to see him get back to slashing and finishing in the paint a little more. At the same time, who is going to complain about 13/7/5 in 31 minutes.
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– Nice recovery performance from Marcus Morris as well. Another guy who struggled against ORL, he was back to his not giving a fuck mentality and was the 2nd leading scorer with 17/6. He still isn’t efficient, but at this point the Celtics offense desperately needs points.
– Greg Monroe helps the Celtics in a lot of ways. The more we see him get in better shape the more things he is going to be able to do for this team on the offensive end. You want to make sure you ignore his defense and just focus on his offense, because that’s what he’s here for. Another double digit effort from him, this now makes 3 in a row and the 5th in his last 7 games. So far this month he’s shooting 65% from the field averaging 12/6/1.4 in 19.6 minutes. I think that’s along the lines of what Ainge thought he was getting when he brought him in
The Bad
– Well with so much to choose from it’s hard to go wrong here, but I’ll start with the offense. I thought the ORL game was brutal to watch, well this one wasn’t all that better. The final numbers aren’t pretty, 89 points on 40/34% with just 17 assists on 35 baskets. There was no movement, nobody was passing the ball, everything was iso and guess what it didn’t work. The bench, who had been reliable over the last few weeks stunk it up with a combined 30 points on 12-30 shooting with 8 of the team’s 12 turnovers.
It’s not as if NO is some defensive powerhouse either. They give up 111 points a night which is by FAR the worst of any playoff team in the West. Now this is where I concede that not having offensive players like Kyrie and Jaylen impact this area, but even without them we’ve seen the Celtics play better offensively so I can’t give it a complete pass.
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– The same can be said for the defense. I get it, Jaylen and Smart are key defenders, so without them you expect some regression. What bothers me is that the Celtics keep playing 24 minutes of good defense and then completely shitting their pants in the second half. Looking closer last night you have guys like Marcus Morris with a 125 Drtg, Terry Rozier with a 120 Drtg, Baynes with a 106 Drtg, for some reason the regular solid defenders just haven’t been showing up. If I had to choose which end of the court I expected the Celts to struggle with, it would be the offensive end. This team still has good defenders available, they’re just defending like shit.
Here’s what I mean. In the first half the Celtics held the Pelicans to 47 points on 44/25% splits while causing 7 TOs. To me that looks like good defense. They were guarding the perimeter well and making things as hard as you possibly could for Anthony Davis, holding him to 8-14 shooting. Then, once again, they came out in the third quarter and forgot how to play defense. They gave up 35 points on 60/50% splits. They no longer were defending the perimeter, and this wasn’t even a case of AD killing you. He was 3-7 in the 3rd, it was everyone else. This is what gets me mad. There is no excuse a rested team should come out in the third quarter with such pathetic defense, period. I don’t care who is missing.
Then once things got to the fourth quarter, nothing really improved. NO still shot 52% in that final quarter and ended the second half with 61 points and 56/40% splits. If this doesn’t bother you then I don’t know what to tell you.
– One thing that could really come back to bite the Celtics in a series is Greg Monroe’s inability to switch and stay with a guard on the perimeter. This isn’t really news, but we saw a few times where Monroe got switched onto a quicker player, and it was basically an open path to the lane. The playoffs are all about finding a weakness and exploiting it every single time (ex: Lebron pick & pop clear outs), and now that Theis isn’t available and Monroe will be getting more minutes, I see opposing teams guards foaming at the mouth.
The Ugly
– Quite simply, Al Horford needs to be better. A WHOLE lot better if we’re being honest. His 6/4/3 on 3-11 shooting is not going to cut it no matter who they play. Defensively he was nonexistent too, which made things feel even worse. He never seemed to get into a rhythm, and when he’s not giving you much offensively he needs to be doing everything else. In this game the only thing he was doing was getting worked by Anthony Davis. He was first to accept blame for this loss which is all well and good, but I’d prefer if he just played better instead.
A performance like this is unacceptable no matter how much Horford makes. Whether it’s his $27M now or if he was only making $5M. He stunk in this game and as one of the leaders of this team with guys out it’s not the time to go into a slump. I’d like to see him get back to operating more on the block and finding cutters than settling and ending up with a shot chart that looks like this
– We’ve seen enough Abdel Nader right? If his play alone wasn’t enough to convince you, how about his 2-8 performance from the FT line? Somehow he’s getting 20+ minutes a night and I know he means well, but it’s time to see what else the bench has to offer.
– What if I told you that over the last two games the Celtics have 30 total points in the fourth quarter? Last night was a stellar 13 point performance with 20/25% splits. They made 4 FGs and had 2 TOs, that’s a problem. There’s shitting your pants in a close game on the road, and then there’s whatever it was the Celtics decided to do in these final 12 minutes.
– Yabu played 4 minutes and shot 50% from the field and had 2/2. I don’t get it, you put him on the floor and he produces, yet we don’t see him at a time where Brad is literally throwing everything out there. For the love of God just give him 20 minutes and see what happens, why is this so hard?
With OKC coming to town riding high, I really hope at the very least we see Kyrie back, but probably not. Already dropping 3 out of their last 4, the Celts are about to get OKC/POR in their next two games, and while they aren’t at risk in terms of the standings, there is something to be said about playing good basketball this time of year. If this turns into a 1-5 stretch, I don’t know how you could be comfortable with that. It starts with playing a full 48 minutes, something we haven’t seen in about a week. Do that, and I bet things change.