Celtics vs Da Culture - Round 1 (FIGHT!)
- Thread starter Ed Hillel
- Start date
I caught myself wondering if Pritchard should start over Holiday. Jrue looks slow and can't finish at the hoop.
Great win otherwise.
Man a guy is team-high +23 and 6 assists can't get any respect?
I know Jrue makes a couple of ugly looking plays on both ends of the court but he's our primary on-ball defender and MIA only scored 84 points - think he has at least a little to do with that.
Eh, he's shot 7-25 (.280) for 18 points in 3 games, hasn't been able to punish the smaller Heat defenders (maybe because all of the hacking that isn't getting called, in fairness). I think it's fair to say he's been pretty bad on that end.Man a guy is team-high +23 and 6 assists can't get any respect?
I know Jrue makes a couple of ugly looking plays on both ends of the court but he's our primary on-ball defender and MIA only scored 84 points - think he has at least a little to do with that.
Edit: I was going to say that his defense was good-not-great, but watching the clip in the Exasperated Guy thread convinced me that it was more subtly excellent than I realized in real time.
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Game 1:
KP alone: +18 in 22 minutes
Al : +3 in 14 minutes
One big lineups: +21 in 36 minutes
Two bigs: -1 in 12 minutes
Game 2:
KP alone: -18 in 25 minutes
Al alone: +22 in 18 minutes
One big: +4 in 43 minutes
Two bigs: -14 in 5 minutes
Game 3:
KP alone: +14 in 24 minutes
Al alone: +16 in 16 minutes
Luke alone: -3 in 2 minutes
KP/Al: -2 in 3 minutes
Luke/Al: -3 in 3 minutes
One big: +27 in 42 minutes
Two bigs: -5 in 6 minutes
For the series:
One big: +52 in 121 minutes
Two bigs: -20 in 23 minutes
KP alone: +18 in 22 minutes
Al : +3 in 14 minutes
One big lineups: +21 in 36 minutes
Two bigs: -1 in 12 minutes
Game 2:
KP alone: -18 in 25 minutes
Al alone: +22 in 18 minutes
One big: +4 in 43 minutes
Two bigs: -14 in 5 minutes
Game 3:
KP alone: +14 in 24 minutes
Al alone: +16 in 16 minutes
Luke alone: -3 in 2 minutes
KP/Al: -2 in 3 minutes
Luke/Al: -3 in 3 minutes
One big: +27 in 42 minutes
Two bigs: -5 in 6 minutes
For the series:
One big: +52 in 121 minutes
Two bigs: -20 in 23 minutes
I have no idea why CJM brought in Luke Q1 instead of Hauser last night. But he went out of his way to play 2BIGz, which is sub-optimal against this Heat team for numerous reasons (besides the SSS numbers reflected above)
Kornet came in after KP's second foul during a stretch where the Heat had 3 points in the game's opening 6+ minutes, which is pretty insane. I think they had scored once in their first 15 possessions. So, I guess CJM liked the look he was getting with KP protecting the rim and wanted to emulate that as much as possible with Kornet. But, I agree, it seemed odd in the moment.
6 total minutes doesn't seem "went of his way", especially playing the entire 2nd half with a big lead.
Herro knocked down at least two Celtics in a way that could have earned a tech. When Hauser flattened him when the Cs had a foul to give, he petulantly threw the ball at Sam’s feet and complained. This Heat team’s culture is to grab and hold, knowing the refs can’t call everything. They have been practicing jujutsu on KP this series, and mostly getting away with it.
Boston’s defensive effort the first eight minutes of game three was incredible. Hopefully they can replicate it in game 4. The. Celts must be homebodies, since the distractions of South Beach don’t seem to affect them. 11-3 the past four seasons at Miami.
Scal said this more or less verbatim in the 4th last night. I missed game 2, was watching the B's, so I have no idea how that one was officiated. But if the refs call it anything close to straight up, the Heat have zero chance.
When this team is locked in on defense, nobody can touch them in the East. Great response. Now, the real test to see if they’ve matured is to not have a regression in Game 4.
It was a rotation of about 6-7 possessions after KP got into foul trouble as to not disrupt the rotational matchups that they had gameplanned for G3. It was caused by KP’s foul trouble and not going out of his way to play them together.
He's been running Hauser out in the middle of Q1 for the entire season, so playing their 9th or 10th man, Luke Kornet, in that spot seemed "out of his way". I guess Joe wanted to continue with his 2BIGz approach for the last half of Q1, but it failed, so Joe wisely adjusted to Hauser to start Q2 for Luke.
Hauser provides more offense and better perimeter defense than Luke. 2BIGz may be more effective against bigger teams like the Cavs, Wolves, or Nuggets, but it's a bad approach against the Heat.
It's a nothing burger when you win by 20 anyway.
Joe adjusted to start Q2 after 2BIGz, against the Heat, flopped again
Game planning for 2BIGz against the Heat to start with seems sub-optimal
This. The Heat are playing mid-90s style clutch-and-grab and daring the refs to do something about it. All the while, the level of bitching and complaining by Miami on every foul call is a sad attempt to tip the scales even further in their direction. Infuriatingly awful basketball but this Celtics team is too mentally tough and talented to fall into the trap.
I can’t wait to bury these whiny douchebags.
Unless you want to play deeper into your bench with someone like Brissett he seems to want to keep that certain part of the game eating a few minutes with 2bigZ to keep those same 2nd unit minutes together with all of the shooters that the Heat have to deal with in the 2Q.
Jared Weiss's piece this morning highlights KP's game. Good look at how they used Miami's physicality pushing Porzingis farther out in the post to their advantage, opening up space inside for backcuts by the guards. Great adjustment.
PP gets a nice shout out for his defense as well.
https://theathletic.com/5454783/2024/04/27/celtics-porzingis-pritchard-heat-game-3-win/
PP gets a nice shout out for his defense as well.
https://theathletic.com/5454783/2024/04/27/celtics-porzingis-pritchard-heat-game-3-win/
Brisset would never need to see the light of day when KP gets into foul trouble. Hauser could have easily played 25 minutes instead of 20 yesterday, pretty simple math. They should have gone with Hauser, Horford, PP, White, Brown.
My overall point is if Joe wants to run KP/Al together for a few minutes a half, fine, but there is zero reason to force Kornet/Horford (2BIGz) when Hauser can easily play those KP-foul trouble minutes. Joe quickly stopped it, so not much harm.
I'm not sure how anybody watching, looking at these match-ups, or seeing the follow-up #s would think Kornet + Horford would be a clever way to play the Jimmy-less Miami Heat. Losing their Alpha Hunter, makes PP & Hauser very playable in this series.
As we have noted numerous times before, Joe has been excellent with his rotations all season, so I don't see the need to turn apologist for the small gaff yesterday.
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I feel like game 3 was kind of the apogee of Miami being able to get results from this style of play - it was very well done and was impressive seeing the Celtics break it not with smooth offense but by countering with tough play early on (PP, White on the free throw put back, etc). I think ramping it up on Spo's part will yield diminishing returns. The refs gave them their shot at it and they lost, hopefully they call it a bit cleaner early on. It will be gratifying to see Bam called for a moving screen and see his shocked reaction.
I don’t think it was a gaff at all. He wanted to keep Hauser at his regular rotation with the second unit without extending him into longer rotations than he’s played all season especially now at playoff intensity.
PP was really good last night defensively. His best playoff game of his career to date. Hauser’s defense has also risen to playoff-level as well.
Spoelstra was an assistant for Riley on those mid-90's Heat teams. Riley, in turn, coached Alonzo Mourning and Patrick Ewing, who played that clutch-and-grab style at Georgetown. So "Heat Culture" can be traced back to "Hoya Paranoia."
Man, starting PP over Jrue would be bat shit. Like, completely lose the locker room with one simple move level of bat shittery. Something about Jrue's game seems to grind people's gears. There's a couple people in the game threads who get apoplectic at anything less than 100% mistake-free play from Jrue.
Yes, I was kind of stunned reading the game thread after last night’s game and seeing people dumping on Jrue. The perimeter defense was excellent last night. Whatever Jrue gives on the other end is a bonus.
So as far as the 2 bigs thing is concerned, I shoukld first point out that I think this is a "narcissism of small differences" thing, as long as the Celtics bring the focus and intensity that they did last night. I also don't think there's an issue with the Celtics using 2 bigs lineups generally - those lineups have been used all season long as well as in previous playoff runs and they can and have been effective. If the Celtics advance, maybe maximing the 2 bigs minutes may be a good idea against some opponents in some series.
I just think that 2 bigs is a bad matchup in this series because Miami is most readily able to play the way it wants to, and Boston is more limited in how it can respond, with 2 bigs on the floor.
Also, I think that in this series, KP is obviously the big you want on the floor for offensive purposes (for any series really), but Al is the guy you'd rather have guarding Bam. (Although Scal pointed out in the second half that KP had made some adjustments in how he was guarding Bam that seemed to be effective), so I can see Joe wanting to have them both out there because they are each best for one needed task.
But it doesn't work, or at least hasn't worked yet.
We know that Miami succeeds defensively against the Celtics by pressuring Celtics ballhandlers, manhandling them because not every foul can be called, trying to force turnovers, getting into passing lanes. Against their defense, you'd rather the Celtics offense have more ballhandling and motion on the floor, and adding a second big makes them relatively weaker at ballhandling and more stagnant. I think it plays into Miami's hands.
On the other side of the ball, Miami wants movement and to find open shooters. Having an extra big instead of a wing or guard makes it easier for Miami to do that. Miami has the weakness of lacking a true PG. That means the Celtics should be (and did with great success yesterday) treating their ballhandlers the same way Miami treats ours. Pressure, be physical, force turnovers and don't let them get where they want. Again, to do that you would rather have an extra wing or guard on the floor than a second big.
Minute averages through 3 games for the top 8:
'
Tatum, 40.3 (up 4.6 from reg season)
Holiday, 35.0 (up 2.2)
Brown, 34.7 (up 1.2)
White, 33.3 (up 0.7)
KP, 30.7 (up 1.1)
Horford, 23.7 (down 2.9)
Pritchard, 23.0 (up 0.7)
Hauser, 16.3 (down 5.7)
This all basically looks fine, but I'd like to take the 5 or so (it was more in game 1) double big minutes away and give those minutes to Pritchard, even if it means a handful of minutes with Holiday at the 3. I think that's the best way to go after Miami. If Spo has an adjustment for that let him adjust and then try something else.
I just think that 2 bigs is a bad matchup in this series because Miami is most readily able to play the way it wants to, and Boston is more limited in how it can respond, with 2 bigs on the floor.
Also, I think that in this series, KP is obviously the big you want on the floor for offensive purposes (for any series really), but Al is the guy you'd rather have guarding Bam. (Although Scal pointed out in the second half that KP had made some adjustments in how he was guarding Bam that seemed to be effective), so I can see Joe wanting to have them both out there because they are each best for one needed task.
But it doesn't work, or at least hasn't worked yet.
We know that Miami succeeds defensively against the Celtics by pressuring Celtics ballhandlers, manhandling them because not every foul can be called, trying to force turnovers, getting into passing lanes. Against their defense, you'd rather the Celtics offense have more ballhandling and motion on the floor, and adding a second big makes them relatively weaker at ballhandling and more stagnant. I think it plays into Miami's hands.
On the other side of the ball, Miami wants movement and to find open shooters. Having an extra big instead of a wing or guard makes it easier for Miami to do that. Miami has the weakness of lacking a true PG. That means the Celtics should be (and did with great success yesterday) treating their ballhandlers the same way Miami treats ours. Pressure, be physical, force turnovers and don't let them get where they want. Again, to do that you would rather have an extra wing or guard on the floor than a second big.
Minute averages through 3 games for the top 8:
'
Tatum, 40.3 (up 4.6 from reg season)
Holiday, 35.0 (up 2.2)
Brown, 34.7 (up 1.2)
White, 33.3 (up 0.7)
KP, 30.7 (up 1.1)
Horford, 23.7 (down 2.9)
Pritchard, 23.0 (up 0.7)
Hauser, 16.3 (down 5.7)
This all basically looks fine, but I'd like to take the 5 or so (it was more in game 1) double big minutes away and give those minutes to Pritchard, even if it means a handful of minutes with Holiday at the 3. I think that's the best way to go after Miami. If Spo has an adjustment for that let him adjust and then try something else.
Starting Pritchard over Jrue would be all kinds of stupid, but Jrue really has just been awful on offense so far.
When we had the big lead in the 4th quarter, I was a little surprised he didn't take out KP and instead just use one of our bench bigs instead. Seems like at that point the strategy could have been simply to try and lock up Miami on defense as well as just prevent any risk of KP getting injured. They also could have played small to prevent Miami trying to claw their way back into it with threes. It's pretty clear that Miami's #1 weapon is to try and get Bam matched up against KP. Once we have a sizeable lead, let's not let them do that.
Yeah, I don't think he's been amazing or anything but in my observation he has the type of game where so many of his positive attributes that he brings to any given game tend to fly under the radar, so it's super easy to get up in arms if he misses a layup (just like the J's have both done in this series) or gets blown by. Maybe it's anxiety over 'Playoff' Jrue or something?
I wasn't actually suggesting that PP should start over Jrue. That would indeed be insane and stupid. My comment was only that PP was so much more active on the offensive end of the floor while also being good on defense that the thought did fleetingly cross my mind. But I have little doubt that Jrue will have a bounce-back game at some point.
I haven't ventured into the game thread so can't comment on what sentiments are lurking there.
If I had to guess, one issue with Hauser is that he isn't remotely as good at being physical on the perimeter as other guys on the team. Like, PP is light-years ahead in this regard.
This makes him marginally less attractive in this type of series, to the point that maybe the team wants to try perimeter maulers+bigs.
As you said, these are marginal differences that look better or worse depending on how Hauser's 3s fall.
I really do think they would help themselves with more Pritchard minutes. Surely they can take 5 total minutes away from a mix of KP, Horford, and Hauser and give them to PP. Not in every series but absolutely in this one.
PP has been great, and he's showing how good the new NBA will be for him. Just manhandling guys out there.
I don't recall anyone suggesting or even implying PP should start over Jrue anywhere around here?
Maybe I missed it?
BUT that kind of suggestion is usually fodder for game thread snark, & that poster would have (justifiably) been hung, drawn, & quartered.
Jrue's defense is subtly physical, he effectively moves/leans on Guards with his hands & body. By Q4 those Guards are usually spent/beat up.
Yeah I can't speak to the game thread either, but there's nothing wrong with admitting that a crazy idea popped into your head. Honestly I saw your fleeting thought as a reflection of how far PP has come, more so than an indictment on Jrue.
Jrue seems to have a WTF moment or two every game, and PP seems to have a "since when can he do that at this level" moment. It's understandable.
They did a really nice job of frustrating Bam. He got his 20 but the camera flashed to him a couple of times where he looked like he didn’t want to be there.
Celtics still had a propensity to fall into that one on one dribble the clock down isolation offense, but the difference was they scored on the one on one stuff or drew fouls on jump shots. There were several times when I said out loud, knock off this iso bullshit only to see the ball go in the net.
Celtics still had a propensity to fall into that one on one dribble the clock down isolation offense, but the difference was they scored on the one on one stuff or drew fouls on jump shots. There were several times when I said out loud, knock off this iso bullshit only to see the ball go in the net.
Bam's offensive game is garbage. Those midrangers are pretty when they fall, but he's at 39% on them (10-14 feet) this season and shooting a lot of em. That is really bad offense. Even in the 5-9 foot range he is at 51% and again, good half court offense will be giving you more than that and no one is coming to double for that bullshit.
It's not that Jrue has had a WTF moment or two, for me. It's that he is 7-25 and missing from everywhere on the floor.
Not to be a broken record, but the real problem is that he has very very little additional equity from those midrangers. Teams don't double them (as you said), he barely has counters, and they don't lead to high-value passes or many FTs.
There's a reason Miami's offense hasn't been good for awhile.
MD walked his statement back, which is fine, but upon initial reading it like (at least to me) that he was intimating (at least) that Jrue should be benched.
maybe I was overly influenced by the game thread.
I mean, I think the reason we have a sizeable lead in the first place is because it's far better to get Bam on KP and have their offense stagnate (since he doesn't pass well enough or is efficient enough or has enough gravity to pull people into doubling him) than to let someone open for 3's.
So why not let them keep doing that? It's less likely to create those open threes.
Butler is the only guy who forces you to double or adjust to him. So when he's out, it's a real issue.
Rozier and Herro can create their own, but not at a level you need to double. Bam can in small doses, but he's limited - he's only a bit better as an off-ball guy than Martin or Highsmith and probably a bit behind Jacquez (who would be a nice third scorer, but can't handle more now and possible won't ever be able to)
They badly need (and have needed) a second creator and they just haven't found, or been willing to pay?, for one. And it shows.
It’s the return of the space cowboy. Highly unlikely that he can dance or hold a tune like Jay Kay but I hope to see him try in G4.
No way he should be benched…but Jrue hasn’t been good this series. He was bad on defense in Game 2 and had a few very noticeable mistakes yesrerday.
No ones expecting perfect but I am expecting better than what he’s shown so far
