12/31--C's at San Antonio

Rookie year Avery Bradley didn't miss a jumper as badly as that last one by Rozier.

 

That's sports/life. Shit doesn't always go perfectly, things you thought would be easy are a struggle, and you have to find a way.

 

This game is NOT OVER.

 

I will be optimistic heading into 2019. I will be optimistic heading into 2019. I will be optimistic heading into 2019.

 

Ehhhhhh

 

For fuck's sake.

 

Not a shooting foul for Kyrie? Harden goes to the line 100 times out of 100 on that play.

 

Lol. Someone finally fucking closed out a shooter hard and he had no idea what to do.

 

Jaylen should start over Tatum

 

These guys just refuse to let Jaylen touch the ball on offense. He's been their best player all night, and they don't even look for him. That's on Brad.

 

I do love Jaylen

 

Fucking infuriating performance.

 

That's a foul on Al? Really? What did he do?

 

Jaylen having a game, I'll take whatever outcome.

 

Al can barely move. He read that hand off and couldn't get anywhere near challenging the shot

 

Sweet goose egg by Hayward tonight.

 

Well, if you want to write the epitaph for this game, you might as well say it's gonna be hard to beat a team shooting 56% from three.

 

Every big being hurt at once is having a massive impact. People need to chill, and just hope Jaylen builds on this.

 

goodbye 2018

 

I really wish Kobe had spent some time teaching Tatum how to not get stripped when he goes to the hoop and goes up for the shot. Oh, and how to use his left hand. That would have been good too.

 

that sucked & blew

but I love jaylen as much as I loathe Terry Rozier

and I bet he'll carry on carrying on so that will be enjoyable to see.

Happy New Years everyone. Be safe.

 

On the bright side, the Spurs are pushing Sacramento farther from the #8 playoff seed in the West.

 

In other news, Harden is now 20/25 from the line. LOL

 

Tough to win on the road against the Spurs when they don't miss. The C's defense wasn't great in the second half but the Spurs were also hitting everything.

 

Watched after the third quarter. Haven't watched them a lot this year. Every time i see the Spurs, I am always impressed by the fluidity of their offense; tonight they were doing it with guys I ve never heard before. Who the hell is Bertans? In contrast, seemingly every Celtics offense involved one pass and hero ball. It wasn't like this last year. You can't win basketball games if you don't move the ball and try to create open shots.

 

Good luck to us all in 2019.

 

I hope Danny drafts someone who's 7' 4" and about 310 lbs. with a 9' wingspan.

 

Almost halfway through the season and they still can’t play a complete game against a good team. I thought the effort and game plan on both ends was excellent in the first half and then they looked like a completely different team in the second half. I don’t get it and at this point I don’t think there is an explanation other than they just aren’t very good.

 

Too bad Jaylen is so out of shape. If he could have played more than 31 minutes, he might have kept us in the game.

Edit: Same with Morris and his 28 minutes

And Kyrie and his 26 minutes

And Marcus Smart and his 27 minutes.

Instead, we got a solid 35 minutes from Tatum so he could go 6/15 and 0/5 from deep, and 22 minutes and 0/6 from Gordon, etc.

It's time to stop playing guys who aren't getting it done that night, and play guys who are. It's that simple. Yeah, yeah, it's just the regular season, these games don't matter, guys need to rest, etc.

 

Love seeing Jaylen play like this. Something to build on and give him a confidence boost

 

In the first quarter, the Spurs were like 2 for 9 from 3 point range. The rest of the game they were like 12 for 17. Brutal.

 

The way this season is going, I expect him to go 0-7 on Wednesday

 

cool

 

+1 except for the aren't very good part.

 

Schedule looks very favorable for the Celtics in January. Only 4 road games - vs Heat, Magic. Nets, Hawks. Need to go on a run.

 

I certainly hope you're right!

 

Jaylen is almost too cerebral for his own good. I think he internalizes the bad way too much. Similarly, I'm hopeful/optimistic that a night like this gets his head in a good place.

 

Jaylen's best game by far. That's huge for several reasons.

Hopefully next month we'll see 20mins/game for Baynes. I'm going to stay optimistic and think the fascination with going small will have worn off.

Not sure Brad will go there.

 

That's dramatic but I really am at a loss. They were winning tough games both home and road against playoff teams last season with skeleton crews yet they can't buy those kind of wins at full strength this season. This whole season has just seemed really off and I didn't expect it. Growing pains to start, sure, but not mediocrity and major quarter-long lapses halfway through. I disagree with the idea that this team goes as far as Kyrie takes them. I think they go as far as the Jays and Hayward take them. Can't continue to have games where at least one of the three are complete zeros.

 

I'm not sure why you're so eager to see them play wings fewer minutes. If Baynes were healthy, we'd be seeing him for 25ish/game during this stretch where Horford is limited, and he'd be near his own minutes max.

The problem isn't "going small," it's that Baynes and TL are hurt, Horford is limited, and Theis is sucking.

 

Benching guys rarely gets them to play better, especially when they are coming off missing an entire season. Tatum was likely to have some struggles this season, but trying to play like Kobe has made those struggles worse. Hayward has good games and bad, but both of them need to play if the Celtics have any hope of doing anything in the playoffs.

 

How far do you think the Celtics go in the playoffs as the 4 or 5 seed?

 

And just to be clear, I'm not talking about benching anyone. When it's clear to the entire viewing public very early in the game that Jaylen Brown is the best player on the floor, PLAY HIM. When Gordon misses 4 consecutive wide open 3's, and he's getting abused on defense, maybe you only play him 15 minutes instead of 22, and you give Morris 35 minutes instead of 28.

Why do we have to stick with the same substitution pattern in the first like 16 minutes of every half, regardless of what's happening on the court? I don't understand it. Kyrie and the starters play 6-8 minutes, then the ride the bench for 6-8 minutes, and then Brad plays the matchups from there. Lather, rinse, repeat...How about if things are getting out of hand, you call a timeout and bring a guy like Kyrie or Morris back in after 3-4 minutes instead? Stop the runs once in a while, instead of hoping they stop on their own.

I know, I know, we're only 35 games in, it's only January, yada, yada...I'm just wondering when we're supposed to worry. I I remember people saying, "if we're playing like this after Thanksgiving, I'll be worried," and then they pushed it to Christmas and then New Year's, what's next, the all star break? Valentine's Day? Maybe St. Patty's? Eventually, they have to figure it out, I guess, unless they don't.

 

It would be nice if the Celtics won every game. Boston lost this one in the 3rd quarter when the Spurs scored 46 points. Nonetheless some good developments in this one particularly Jaylen and Rozier’s offense. If this team can figure out how to fire on all cylinders on offense and play stout defense as well they will be tough to beat.

 

the real problem is that Horford has aged in a hurry

 

3 rebounds in 25 minutes. That’s your 5. 3 rebounds. Only Rozier and Yabu had fewer. He also got absolutely torched on defense. He’s a major liability right now. Problem is, it’s him or Theis. Baynes needs to hurry back.

 

That was his 5th game in 8 nights after coming back from an injury. He's clearly gutting it out right now.

 

The other night someone threw Al a pass that was maybe 2 feet away from him. He moved like he was Robert Parish. I don’t mean 1990 Robert Parish, I mean 2018 Robert. Dude needs to go to Germany or something. He needs to get his body better.

 

I think I first mentioned my concerns with how Al looked around the 3rd game of the season, and of course, the Al defenders were out in force. Yeah, he's hurting, but is there any reason to believe that there will come a time when he's not hurting anymore? He's 32 years old, has almost 30,000 NBA minutes under his belt including the playoffs, and has a bad knee. I think we may soon have to just hope we get a game from him every week or two where he gets hot from outside and buries 4-5 shots from deep, and maybe he makes the right pass a few times, but aside from that, I'm not sure what else folks can realistically expect. Maybe a block here and there, a couple rebounds, but on a nightly basis, we're going to get severely outplayed by the opponents big men, and unless Baynes comes back really, really strong, I'm not sure this team is built to do much about it. And when he's not covering the opponents big man, he's switching off onto a guard at the arc, who just blows by him, and there's nobody behind him protecting the rim...

Uggh, forget it, I'm going to be optimistic. 2019 will be awesome. 2019 will be awesome.

 

At the end of the day I think they’ll end up beating anyone in the playoffs but will get reamed by the Raptors unless they have really turned things around or play a perfect series. Teams that know how to get the ball to their shooters (and who have a number of shooters) have given this D a ton of trouble. They aren’t playing with the same intensity/aggression. Crazy amount of open looks for opponents this year.

Tatum is shooting well overall on the year but my god his shot selection leaves so much to be desired. It’s like he can’t shoot without pumpfaking first no matter what.