The no-call on J-Rich's layup was mind-boggling. LeBron and Giannis would have gotten 10 free throws (plus the basket) on that amount of contact.
Analysis of Celtics Games, '21-'22 Season
- Thread starter Imbricus
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Yes, @DeJesus Built My Hotrod, Marcus ripping the ball out of Wagners hands and setting up the tying score at the end of regulation was a highlight. Forgot to mention it before.
From highlights (linked below because why not?) in beginning of game it looked like ORL was in zone. Then JB was scoring off of Harris and Wagner andin transition. Wagner tried hard but looked particularly overmatched.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_mm0FQZDE
There was a quote from Jaylen the other day on how having to step up and carry a team was a new experience for him and he was adjusting to that role. Nice to see him have some success doing that, even if it's against the Magic.
thanks for posting
I haven't seen the shot chart but it looks like 5 threes + 12-13 fgm in the paint (no long 2s?)
The floor was spread nicely, lane was open for Jaylen to attack the rim in the halfcourt. He made some excellent cuts to the rim with little resistance. A combination of Orlando defense + a lack of 2BIGz on the floor?
Incredible shooting efficiency, a career-high in pointz (50), season-high in rebounds (11) but a bump in usage led to a high in turnovers (7) for Jaylen this season. As has been stated here 100X before, if this team had a +ballhandler/penetrator/distributor (PG) that could feed the JAYs while they cut (instead of forcing them to create for others) or for spot-up 3s, this team would improve their halfcourt offense (& make the JAYs more efficient). Even when Marcus attacks the lane, & kicks their offense works better.
While I usually don't care for ultimate small ball (DS/PP together) it was their 4 wings (Grant/Brown/Marcus/JRich) + Schroder that led the Q4 - 4minute comeback.
48mins of perimeter ball pressure would make this team much better, make it happen IME
Nobody extirpos la pelota from Franz Wagner like Marcus Effing Smart. Wow. You might even say it's his leitmotif.
What's interesting a bit to me is that earlier in the game I felt like Brown seemed somewhat invisible. Maybe it was 2Q or so, but I remember commenting it felt like Brown had hardly touched the ball. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like some of Tatum's huge games have also come about as a result of huge 4th quarters.
I think both Scal and Grande (I listened to both calls yesterday - tv on the follow) observed that Smart sees this stuff earlier in games and then effectively stalks his prey. Wagner effectively walked right into a trap both literally and figuratively.
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What I got out of the game, and this article seems to agree, is that the ball movement has been better the last couple of games. Jaylen got a lot of great looks, Smart and Schroder had 7 assists each. Jaylen even had a couple sweet assists in OT. Maybe we've got the distributors we need all through the lineup and don't need a primary. Maybe not. If we trade Schroder, then most likely not.
View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1478483692410617861
Brodric Thomas is fitting in perfectly as a Celtic. As soon he flashes some promise, he gets hurt/sick.
Brodric Thomas is fitting in perfectly as a Celtic. As soon he flashes some promise, he gets hurt/sick.
What a frustrating loss. With Tatum and Rob back, they had their regular (but rarely seen) starting lineup with Schroder, Richardson, Langford, Grant as the 4 man bench. In some ways this was good. No needing to white knuckle it through late 3rd/early 4th with the likes of Bruno Fernando and Jabari Parker out there. For this reason, the Celtcs should have won, but because they have to be one of the least disciplend teams in the NBA, it stayed close throughout and the Spurs knocked them out at the end.
During the first half, their offense looked good and defense poor. Ball was moving. Smart racked up 6 assists and Tatum (who was not shooting well) 3. 12 first half assists. Brown was on fire offensively.
In the third quarter, the Celtics tightended up their defense, except for rebounding and second chance points. Spurs only outscored them by a point, 22-21, but a few of their key buckets were of the second chance variety.
They entered the fourth down by three, and the Celtics offense literally consisted of either Brown driving into 4 guys, which happened multiple times with no success, Tatum dribbling most of the clock away before getting a good shot off, or occasionally someone else doing the same thing. Nothing else. I think you could on one hand the number of 4th quarter plays that involved any passes at all except when a player got shit down on a drive and bailed out with a pass.
Brown led the team with 30 points, but only 5 in the fourth quarter and a lot of failures. Multiple dricves into 4 guys that led to turnovers, jump balls, or missed shots. The one time he got a transition oportunity, he picked up an offensive foul for charing. He almost never get a charge called on him because he is usually in control on his drivres, but he did here. Then in the final seconds, the Celtics forced a turnover, Brown picked off the inbounds pass, drove for the kind of layup in traffic that he routinely hits, and he missed it. He must have just been in his own head, because he screwed up a lot of things that should be routine for him.
The lineup Ime went with in crunch time was Brown, Tatum, and 3 non-shooters (Rob, Schroder, Smart). Stupid. Having Schroder out there and not Grant - who could at least have gone to the corner and drawn some attention - was a bad idea. I'll bet Pop saw that and knew that all his defense needed to do was collapse on whichever of Tatum and Brown had the ball and he's likely win.
Getting rid of Schroder makes this a better team because he is a square peg in a round hole.
During the first half, their offense looked good and defense poor. Ball was moving. Smart racked up 6 assists and Tatum (who was not shooting well) 3. 12 first half assists. Brown was on fire offensively.
In the third quarter, the Celtics tightended up their defense, except for rebounding and second chance points. Spurs only outscored them by a point, 22-21, but a few of their key buckets were of the second chance variety.
They entered the fourth down by three, and the Celtics offense literally consisted of either Brown driving into 4 guys, which happened multiple times with no success, Tatum dribbling most of the clock away before getting a good shot off, or occasionally someone else doing the same thing. Nothing else. I think you could on one hand the number of 4th quarter plays that involved any passes at all except when a player got shit down on a drive and bailed out with a pass.
Brown led the team with 30 points, but only 5 in the fourth quarter and a lot of failures. Multiple dricves into 4 guys that led to turnovers, jump balls, or missed shots. The one time he got a transition oportunity, he picked up an offensive foul for charing. He almost never get a charge called on him because he is usually in control on his drivres, but he did here. Then in the final seconds, the Celtics forced a turnover, Brown picked off the inbounds pass, drove for the kind of layup in traffic that he routinely hits, and he missed it. He must have just been in his own head, because he screwed up a lot of things that should be routine for him.
The lineup Ime went with in crunch time was Brown, Tatum, and 3 non-shooters (Rob, Schroder, Smart). Stupid. Having Schroder out there and not Grant - who could at least have gone to the corner and drawn some attention - was a bad idea. I'll bet Pop saw that and knew that all his defense needed to do was collapse on whichever of Tatum and Brown had the ball and he's likely win.
Getting rid of Schroder makes this a better team because he is a square peg in a round hole.
Tatum has the 3rd most FGA in "clutch" situations with 53... he's shooting 34% on them and 12% from 3. It's the worst of the 22 players who have taken 30 or more clutch shots. He also has a -8.4 Net Rtg and more than twice as many TOV as AST
Hard to see this team going anywhere if he doesn't turn it around. With Tatum shooting poorly this team just has too many non-shooters among their key guys. Smart and Horford are below 30%, Tatum 32.5%, Timelord doesn't shoot. So you're starting one decent shooter in Brown. Their two best this year, Grant and JRich, combined for 3 attempts tonight.
JT hasn't been right all season, his shooting stroke has been bad from day 1. He had one great week otherwise it's been consistently below-average shooting nightly.
Grant has disappeared over the last 2 games. He looks unenthused.
IME continued to let Tatum go into ISO genius coma mode, which includes long-challenged 2pt jumpers.
And IME continues to run Horford/TL into the ground by overlapping their minutes.
The perfect combination of their star sucking & rookie head coaching.
Schroder is the Celtics faster player or at least fastest ballhandler. But he plays with zero pace whatsoever. Very rarely does he bring ti up fast. He's all about walking it up every single time, especially late.
Rajon Rondo started the whole 'walk the dog' thing year ago, but what he did made sense. If you are trailing, late in a close game, every second matters and you can save a few by not picking the ball up. With Schroder is is just an affectation. He does it every single time, and the Celtics have no offensive rhythm.
His line looks decent but if the Celtics had given some of his fourth quarter minutes to Grant or Richardson, I think they would have won. For everything he does that helps (and he does do things that help), he offsets it with something that hurts. He's the primary defensive offender when it comes to helping off of a shooter, leading to wide open threes. He helped off of known Celtic killer Terrence Ross in the Orlando game, for example. In this one, he basically let Dejounte Murray have his way with the Celtic bigs.
Trading Schroder, for whatever comes back in return, is addition by subtraction.
Rajon Rondo started the whole 'walk the dog' thing year ago, but what he did made sense. If you are trailing, late in a close game, every second matters and you can save a few by not picking the ball up. With Schroder is is just an affectation. He does it every single time, and the Celtics have no offensive rhythm.
His line looks decent but if the Celtics had given some of his fourth quarter minutes to Grant or Richardson, I think they would have won. For everything he does that helps (and he does do things that help), he offsets it with something that hurts. He's the primary defensive offender when it comes to helping off of a shooter, leading to wide open threes. He helped off of known Celtic killer Terrence Ross in the Orlando game, for example. In this one, he basically let Dejounte Murray have his way with the Celtic bigs.
Trading Schroder, for whatever comes back in return, is addition by subtraction.
From this article:
Ime has his work cut out for him.
Jaylen Brown continues to score at will, and Jayson Tatum's return undoubtedly will benefit the C's going forward, but one glaring stat from Wednesday's loss was impossible to ignore.
Out of the Celtics' 19 total assists, zero of them involved Brown to Tatum or Tatum to Brown. Not a single one.
This has been a trend in the 20 games Boston has had its All-Star duo on the floor this season. Tatum has made 301 shots this season and Brown has assisted on only four of them.
Entering the campaign, the main critique of both Brown and Tatum was that they need to get their teammates more involved. The numbers show that not only do they need to lean more on their supporting cast, but they also need to improve their playmaking when it comes to maximizing one another's talents. Those assist numbers just aren't going to cut it.
Ime has his work cut out for him.
I would speculate that playing two bigs and having only one of Smart/Schroder on the floor against one of the quickest and fastest paced teams was the game plan from the get go. Our advantages vs Spurs is in the individual half court matchups and our deficiencies are in speed/quickness and the open floor against them so making this a halfcourt game seems like the logical idea.
Watching the games, particularly late 3rd into 4th quarter, it's like the Celtics are trapped in a maze. There's good ball movement, maybe ok defense, and they are either close or leading. Then a few things don't go their way, like a miss and transition three for the other team or an unlucky bounce or a non-call on a drive to the basket. Whatever it is, it's not really a big deal but very quickly the team switches to giving the ball to Brown and/or Tatum and the rest of the team stands around while they try and drive to the basket or take jumpers. And that's basically what happens all the way to the end of the game, live or die by it. They don't regroup and go back to what they do best.
I'm not saying it's the worst plan - Brown and Tatum are really good players and they draw contact and score this way. But watching it unfold, with Brown last night charging into 3-4 defenders when there are wide open teammates on the perimeter, I just see it and think, "This is Plan B? This is Celtics basketball now?" It just seems so...rudimentary...like there should be another style of play the offense can go to between what they initially try to do and what they end up settling for.
I realize you are Mr. "The best NBA offense is a start player taking a contested shot after dribbling the clock down," but you offer a false choice here. If Schroder pushes the ball, there's no rule that says he can't pull it back out and play slowly if there is no good opportunity to exploit. If he walks it up from the beginning, then the defense gets to set exactly the way it wants to, maybe after a quick sideline huddle with Pop and a water break (OK I'm exagerrating on the water break), and the Celtics offensive players are asked to do something that they have consistently failed to do all season long, esepcially in late game situations.
I’m all for pace when it is to your advantage. The Spurs advantages against our lineups are in the open court……why would you want to create an open court game?
If Schroder can push the ball for a layup, I'd like to see him do it. If he pushes the ball and sees nothing, I have no issue with setting up the half court. I don't a that half court offense gains any advantage by running time off the clock while accomplishing nothing, which is the Celtics 4th quarter M.O. If the Celtics half court offense was a work of art, as opposed to the monstrosity that scored 41 points in a half, I'd be more comfortable abandoning pace.
I agree with that---the Celtics tend to either run or slow down to set up in half-court....and when tehy do the latter their lack of an overall approach leads to a lot of ISO and bad shots especially when the defense is dialed in. I'd like to see them trying to play a bit more into the secondary break and try to attack in 3-3 and 4-4 setups.
That isn’t how you control pace though when you theoretically have such enormous matchup advantages with Tatum and Jaylen in the halfcourt against one of the worst halfcourt defensive teams in the league particularly against wings. Schroder did probe for opportunities in the 4Q as well once game pace was less of a focus since its slowing down naturally anyway as possessions gain value.
Right. But this Spurs half court defense is generally horrific with only Bates/Diop and Keldon as wings who can physically matchup so it’s easy to create switches against the rest of the lineup.
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Jaylen has his major deficiencies as a playmaker. I don't expect him to improve much in that department at this stage in his career. We can gripe about that all we want, but no one should really expect more from him. He's a shooter and a scorer, and he's very good at that. That should be enough.
Teamwide, lots of things looked good: they held the Spurs to under 100, they had a good AST:TO ratio, Smart shot well, Horford had a ton of assists, etc.
But when Tatum is shooting 1-6 on 3's and 6-20 on the night, it's going to be awfully hard for anyone to assist him. They need him to play better. There's your bottom line. He's got a worse FG% than Jordan Clarkson's career average on enormous volume. It's unacceptable and they're going to continue to be a middling team until he gets it together or something else changes.
I think this team needs a third star. That much is obvious. But it's never more glaringly obvious than when your young superstar plays like over-the-hill Kobe for nearly half the season. I hope it doesn't go on much longer.
Teamwide, lots of things looked good: they held the Spurs to under 100, they had a good AST:TO ratio, Smart shot well, Horford had a ton of assists, etc.
But when Tatum is shooting 1-6 on 3's and 6-20 on the night, it's going to be awfully hard for anyone to assist him. They need him to play better. There's your bottom line. He's got a worse FG% than Jordan Clarkson's career average on enormous volume. It's unacceptable and they're going to continue to be a middling team until he gets it together or something else changes.
I think this team needs a third star. That much is obvious. But it's never more glaringly obvious than when your young superstar plays like over-the-hill Kobe for nearly half the season. I hope it doesn't go on much longer.
To me, yeah there are a lot of problems with this team, but the one probably contributing most to our losses is......
Our star has been absolutely terrible late in games. We can fudge around the margins with things like too much double big, or Schroder's pace, or any of these other things, but in the NBA most games are relatively close with 5 minutes left, and you need your stars to perform. Tatum is not doing that, and not doing that at really high volumes, and as long as that is the case this team is gonna struggle.
Our star has been absolutely terrible late in games. We can fudge around the margins with things like too much double big, or Schroder's pace, or any of these other things, but in the NBA most games are relatively close with 5 minutes left, and you need your stars to perform. Tatum is not doing that, and not doing that at really high volumes, and as long as that is the case this team is gonna struggle.
Agree with this and to take it a step further Schroder and to a lesser extent Richardson were the only bench players that even showed up last night. Grant Williams and Romeo were nearly invisible in 29 combined minutes.
Tatum shooting 30% from the floor and 17% from three played an outsized role in the loss. For a variety of reasons he has been unable to consistently perform as the team's alpha this season.
Getting rid of Schroder as addition by subtraction is a really odd take. Frankly I don't want to see increased minutes for Smart or Richardson at the point. Smart is better at the two and I don't think Richardson can effectively be a primary facilitator.
And Romeo cannot do anything with the minutes he gets. Increasing his workload seems like a bad idea.
I liked the offense running through the big men when Time Lord got his triple double a few days ago however I guess that approach is match up specific.
Moving Schroder as a piece in a bigger trade makes sense to me as the team as currently comprised is a .500 club. Moving him just to move him seems silly to me.
That or a different 2nd star. Either way, the team needs a non big who can pass and shoot the ball.
In a couple of situations (end of quarters/games) letting the ball burn clock or stall clock makes sense. It's been going on for over 20yrs, the strategy is sound under certain circumstances.
BUT during the majority of the games, I agree, I'd like to see Schroder or Smart push pace. Further HRB is correct that IME's 2BIGZzz rotation dictates a slow-it-down halfcourt game. That's really the bigger issue.
Brad needs to get a young, dynamic PG that is on the rise this summer. He needs to spot the future DeJounte Murray's, Haliburtons'...The Kemba signing worked for 4mths and has had a negative impact for 3 seasons now.
But by far the biggest problem this season can be narrowed down to Tatum's shooting. Even if they added a good 3rd wheel/ballhandler, Tatum will demand the ball late/clutch and his efficiency there is killing them this season.
+1
The one glimmer of hope on this season is for Tatum to turn it around and go supernova. Barring that we have ourselves a .500 play-in game team
Agreed, I am overall a big Tatum fan but without a true third scorer they are not well positioned to win if Tatum or Brown is really off. And Tatum was last night.
It really hurts them that there is not anyone else who can reliably create---Schroder is the third-best creator but that's not saying much. A Bogdanovich/Fournier type would really help even acknowledging limitations of those guys. Someone who can take a little of the load off and provide another option.
Frankly, Kanter (with all his limitations and matchup questions) sometimes is useful as he's at least as efficient a creator as Schroder.
It really hurts them that there is not anyone else who can reliably create---Schroder is the third-best creator but that's not saying much. A Bogdanovich/Fournier type would really help even acknowledging limitations of those guys. Someone who can take a little of the load off and provide another option.
Frankly, Kanter (with all his limitations and matchup questions) sometimes is useful as he's at least as efficient a creator as Schroder.
It doesn't help that Time Lord often refuses to even look at the basket when the ball comes to him. He's a gifted passer and an incredible athlete, but he makes things easier on opposing defenses.
Pushing the ball vs halfcourt offense is being discussed as a binary choice when it isn't. It's OK to push the ball, see what is there, then reset.
yea Agree, you should always push the ball unless manipulating the clock at the end of quarters/end of game situations
pushing the ball has several advantages and Tommy was a huge proponent of it. Sometimes you get a fast-break layup, but you can also create a defensive mismatch or get the other team in rotation which benefits a halfcourt offense
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Is Tatum off because he's both sick & has been playing too many minutes over the years?
He hasn't gotten the rest days other superstars have gotten.
Maybe he needs some breaks? He's having a bad shooting year, but he's not a bad shooter. He seems to have a lot on his shoulders with this team
I'm sticking with him, the Celtics aren't doing anything without him getting straight, or trading him and rebuilding.
Man, I just think he can make the jump like Pierce did.
He hasn't gotten the rest days other superstars have gotten.
Maybe he needs some breaks? He's having a bad shooting year, but he's not a bad shooter. He seems to have a lot on his shoulders with this team
I'm sticking with him, the Celtics aren't doing anything without him getting straight, or trading him and rebuilding.
Man, I just think he can make the jump like Pierce did.
I don't think anyone is suggesting moving on from Tatum, but it's not rest, he started the year really poorly after ending on fire, then he started to pick up some in December.
If anything I wonder if part of it was he put on so much muscle his shot doesn't feel the same to him and he's slightly off on his consistency.
He missed several wide-open 3-pointers last nite, but in general he takes a lot of difficult shots. That doesn't help his percentages.
yeah, but he always did.
This year he is shooting, 35.3% on 1 wide open 3PA per game, and 34.7% on 5.1 open 3PA per game
Last year he shot 52.4% on 1 wide open 3PA per game and 38.2% on 4.1 open 3PA per game
2019-20 he shot 46.2% on 1.4 wide open 3PA per game and 41% on 3.6 open 3PA per game
He's bricking a lot of open and wide open shots
If anyone wants a glimmer of hope (and that's all it is at this point), this is what it looks like. 
Last night was unique though. Pushing the ball to create mismatches at the risk of turnovers or executing in the halfcourt with this particular games two best scorers in also in advantageous matchups without the risk of turnovers?
To me this goes back to what I said about people being more results-oriented as every fan cheered the 4Q and OT iso baskets when shots were made by Jaylen in the created mismatches……if Tatum and/or Jaylen made their shots, or if Jaylen finished at the buzzer would anyone here be complaining about pace and Schroder? In both games we shot the shots we wanted against the matchups we wanted…..one game Jaylen made them and the other we didn’t. It’s a make or miss league.
That's pretty heavily influenced by 2 things:
1. He played WAY more pre-break minutes, so his supernova post-break run on 550 minutes in 19-20 has a big effect on his post-break numbers.
2. He's played 1250 minutes pre-break this year and is having by far his worst shooting half season of his career
Absolutely. And past performance isn't indicative of yada, yada. The only point is that there is a precedent for him improving into the latter half of the season.
I think the better case for him improving is.... he's got a long track record at this point of being a good shooter, guys don't usually just lose it like that
He has improved in the second half over the past two seasons - you can chalk that up to coincidence etc. It might be but it looks a bit like a pattern too.