2022-2023 General Celtics thread

Van Everyman

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I am down with all of the Poetl talk except that I think people should be prepared for a hefty asking price from the Spurs.

Perhaps I am wrong but given the scarcity of players with his profile (size, experience, age, contract status), the cost will be expensive, whatever that means to folks here, rather than moderate - the Cs are probably up against a few teams who can offer Poetl more minutes too so that may be a factor. It feels like most contenders can use that skill set.

Given that it feels like folks here generally overvalue draft capital and my preference for banners over binkies, I am fine if the Cs have to "pay up" for Poetl. But I strongly suspect that more than a few people will be surprised at the price tag. Or maybe it will just be me.
So what do we think the price might be then? Who are the tradable pieces on this team that don’t blow up the rotation?
 

Jimbodandy

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So what do we think the price might be then? Who are the tradable pieces on this team that don’t blow up the rotation?
Gallo and Pritchard. Both essentially have replacements already on the team, and the latter has value to other teams (albeit not huge value). Neither blows up the rotation.

What's gonna hurt is the "other pieces", (e.g., multiple picks, Begarin).
 

HomeRunBaker

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I don't think you should be. The long search for bench shooter seems over. No more squinting at Nesmith through Rose colored glasses.
Hey I watched the Pacers tonight. Cut him some slack. He shot 0-4 from the field and two of those misses even hit the rim!
 

lovegtm

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Nesmith jokes aside, hitting on Hauser as an UDFA really helps with the whole "not making 1st round picks 3 years in a row" thing.

If either Davison or Begarin can add to that, it opens up the option to keep trading 1sts for quality vet help.
 

benhogan

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Hey I watched the Pacers tonight. Cut him some slack. He shot 0-4 from the field and two of those misses even hit the rim!
Just waiting for him to crash into the back of Haliburton or Mathurin's knee on a loose ball :eek:

You have to hand it to Nesmith, he turned 14 early-season NCAA games into a lottery selection.

Old man Hauser put up 4 straight seasons, in the Big East/ACC, of 40%+ 3pt shooting and was fortunate enough to get a 2-way invite.
Old man Bane was the same, lucky for him he just made the cut at 30
 

Eddie Jurak

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Amazing win last night, because Brown and Tatum were off their games - esepcially early, Marcus Smart and Malcolm Brogdon (PGs #1 and #2 on the depth chart) were out, and basically ever other guy on the team came through to lead the Celtics to an easy win. Seven players scored in double figures, and the one starter who did not, Al Horford, scored 7 points with 11 rebounds and 4 assists. Defensively, the Celtics have only held their opponent to <100 points one time all season - this would have been the second but for the large amount of garbage time at the end.

The beginning of the first quarter looked like it might be a rough game for the Celtics, because the score looked OK, but Tatum and Brown were taking and missing a lot of threes - they combined to shoot 4 of 16 from three in the game. I was worried about this game because of the Hawks rim protection (Collins and Capela), and it looked like the Celtics were, too, as a lot of their early offensive sets were resulting in early threes with the ball never touching the paint. But two things began to happen: the non Tatum and Brown three point shooters were hitting their threes (for the game, the other Celtic shooters went 17-30, led by 5-6 from Hauser, 4-6 from Pitchard, and 4-7 fro Grant), and Derrick White began to assert himself and find ways to drive and make plays. White had one of his best games as a Celtic, with 16 points, 10 assists, 5 rebounds, and a block in 31 minutes (with only 2 turnovers). Bu the end of the first, the Celtics were up by 12.

The Celtics also got some key first half contributions from Grant, Hauser, Kornet, and Pritchard. Grant showed continued offensive development in this game. He hit a couple of sidestep threes, including one where he received a pass in the corner and stepped further into the corner (any further and he would have been out of bounds) and knocked down the shot. Hauser was only 4-16 from three in his past 3 games, but he went 5-6 tonight, including going 3-3 in the first half. For the game, he also had 6 rebounds and was, incredibly, a +35 in 27 minutes. In terms of defense, I think he continues to be able to hold his own. The Hawks were able to get Dejounte Murray switched onto him a bunch of times and Hauser didn't "shut him down" or anything but he mostly made it difficult on Murray. The Hawks were working their way back into the game late in the second quarter, when the Celtics got a boost from Pritchard. With ~1 minute left, Pritchard hit a three to bring the Celtics lead back up to 10. Then Trae Young was fouled and hit his free throws (lead down to 8) and was fouled again with three second left and hit his free throws again (lead down to 6). In the final seconds, Pritchard got the ball got down the court in a couple of dribbles and got off a buzzer beating deep three to push the halftime lead to 9. The Celtics leading scorers at the half were Brown, Grant, White, Hauser, and Pritchard, each with 9 points.

Luke Kornet had his best game as a Celtic. He put up a stat line that looked a lot like a Rob WIlliams stat line. In 27 minutes, he was perfect from the field, scored 15 points, had 8 rebounds and 4 blocks. He scored on a couple of lobs, putbacks, reverse dunks and also hit a garbage time corner three. Unbelievably, one of his blocks came when he got out to contest a Trae Young corner three. I think part of the Celtics unlocking Atlanta's interior D was Derrick White and part of it was Kornet. His game is pure finesse, no thunderous dunks, but he was able to use his 7'2" pretty effectively.

In the second half, Tatum and Brown got going a bit and ended up as the leading scorers, but this game was really a team effort and my #1 star would be White.
 

Strike4

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Gallo and Pritchard. Both essentially have replacements already on the team, and the latter has value to other teams (albeit not huge value). Neither blows up the rotation.

What's gonna hurt is the "other pieces", (e.g., multiple picks, Begarin).
I was in this camp when the season started, i.e. that Pritchard is fungible, but given the way he's been playing and the fact that Brogdon and Smart both get banged up, might be good to hold onto him. Plus as others have mentioned the price for Poetl might be too high. Kornet being serviceable so far also helps.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I think Poetl would be intended as a long term replacement for Al, not Rob.
I would agree if we had some control but he’s an expiring contract. We don’t have to trade for him this year for him to be a long term Al replacement. I also don’t think Al is going anywhere for a couple years.
 

the moops

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I think that people are reacting to the talk of two firsts. I'd do Gallo/PP plus a first. Probably worth it. A second first? Probably not.
Pritchard has a role on this team. If any of the trio of guards go down (Smart, White, Brogdon) he will see the floor. He probably has more value to BOS than to SA.

The deal can be made with Gallo and any other small contract on the team. There is no way SA gets two firsts for a half year of Poeltl who is then an unrestricted free agent.

Gallo/Jackson/top 4 protected future first seems about right
 

bigq

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Seconded, that was great. I vaguely recall there used to be condensed games that we could watch the day after. Do those still exist?
Here is every scoring play from last night's game. Jaylen Brown was a beast last night. He is among the best in the NBA when he picks up a head of steam in the open court.
 

tims4wins

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Seconded, that was great. I vaguely recall there used to be condensed games that we could watch the day after. Do those still exist?
There are like 10 minute highlight videos on YouTube of every game. They're pretty good, you see a lot of stuff in 10 minutes. Same thing exists for NHL, MLB, and NFL.
 

joe dokes

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I think we knew this all along, but it's now obvious why Udoka rarely played more than 6-7 guys. He only had 6-7 guys that could play. Ainge may have built the foundation, but Stevens has really finished the house, filled it with furniture, and stocked the fridge. (If this sounds like a knock on both past and present coaches, it isn't meant that way).
 

PedroKsBambino

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Stevens' attention to depth does jump out relative to Ainge.

Part of that is where the team is in the 'competition lifecycle' and Ainge wasn't wholly wrong to have a lot of young guys who might pop....but I also believe he was a little too conservative about trading assets and utilizing veterans his last couple years as the team moved into a new, competitive phase.

Stevens has done a great job building roster. The one thing he needs to manage (and contracts like Hauser's help) is that without low-cost young players it will get very expensive especially when Jaylen's price goes up. But that's a world-class problem to have, and vet minimums and midtier TL/Smart/White contracts are already in place to avoid the "3-4 expensive players and a bunch of dreck" roster-building problem that (say) the Lakers have.
 

Jimbodandy

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I was in this camp when the season started, i.e. that Pritchard is fungible, but given the way he's been playing and the fact that Brogdon and Smart both get banged up, might be good to hold onto him. Plus as others have mentioned the price for Poetl might be too high. Kornet being serviceable so far also helps.
Pritchard has a role on this team. If any of the trio of guards go down (Smart, White, Brogdon) he will see the floor. He probably has more value to BOS than to SA.

The deal can be made with Gallo and any other small contract on the team. There is no way SA gets two firsts for a half year of Poeltl who is then an unrestricted free agent.

Gallo/Jackson/top 4 protected future first seems about right
I'm not saying that Pritchard doesn't have a role. I'd rather have him as emergency ballhandler than rely on Davison at this point, but he has only gotten in 8 of 14 games and only played 20 minutes last night when both Brogdon and Smart were out. He's not a rotation player anymore. The question was "how do you avoid impacting the rotation".

Gallo, Jackson, and a top 4 protected future first would be way better of course. I'm just saying, with Brogdon and White on the team and Hauser's shooting, both PP and Gallo are redundant now. Redundant isn't bad.
 

joe dokes

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Stevens' attention to depth does jump out relative to Ainge.

Part of that is where the team is in the 'competition lifecycle' and Ainge wasn't wholly wrong to have a lot of young guys who might pop....but I also believe he was a little too conservative about trading assets and utilizing veterans his last couple years as the team moved into a new, competitive phase.
Yeah. I dont want to come off as knocking Ainge. His contributions to this team are undeniable and indispensible.
 

lovegtm

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I think we knew this all along, but it's now obvious why Udoka rarely played more than 6-7 guys. He only had 6-7 guys that could play. Ainge may have built the foundation, but Stevens has really finished the house, filled it with furniture, and stocked the fridge. (If this sounds like a knock on both past and present coaches, it isn't meant that way).
?? Mazzulla has nearly exactly the same guys.

No Theis or (so far) TL for Mazzulla. No Brogdon for Ime. That's it.

Obviously Grant and Hauser getting another summer in helped them, but Brad didn't change a ton this year.
 

lexrageorge

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?? Mazzulla has nearly exactly the same guys.

No Theis or (so far) TL for Mazzulla. No Brogdon for Ime. That's it.

Obviously Grant and Hauser getting another summer in helped them, but Brad didn't change a ton this year.
Adding Brogdon could be called a ton, and certainly outweighs the impact of a washed up Theis. And Hauser's and White's improvements are a significant organic addition.
 

lovegtm

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Adding Brogdon could be called a ton, and certainly outweighs the impact of a washed up Theis. And Hauser's and White's improvements are a significant organic addition.
Does Brogdon outweigh no TL so far?

The organic improvements from Grant, Hauser, White (and even Tatum) are very real though.

Mazzulla has had a better roster, but I think his usage of it is also impacting our perception of its quality.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Nitpicking but what has White improved? He’s the same player I’ve seen in SA from a couple years ago except being in more of an off-guard/spot-up shooter role and less dribble penetration/creativity. As far as production I don’t see any difference.
 

lexrageorge

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Nitpicking but what has White improved? He’s the same player I’ve seen in SA from a couple years ago except being in more of an off-guard/spot-up shooter role and less dribble penetration/creativity. As far as production I don’t see any difference.
I see this season's White as being much better than the half season sample we got last year. Yes, hitting open 3's has helped him a lot, and his 40% rate is not sustainable. But he was simply bad at shooting last year with Boston in both the regular season and playoffs. And he has also cut down on his turnovers and seems in general more confident in the offense.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Seconded, that was great. I vaguely recall there used to be condensed games that we could watch the day after. Do those still exist?
NBA.com has condensed games. I presume one has to be a league pass subscriber to watch them though. I think it's pretty reasonable if you only want to watch Cs games.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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?? Mazzulla has nearly exactly the same guys.

No Theis or (so far) TL for Mazzulla. No Brogdon for Ime. That's it.

Obviously Grant and Hauser getting another summer in helped them, but Brad didn't change a ton this year.
I thought the original post was comparing this year's roster to last year's roster at this time, particularly when people were complaining about how much the Js were playing. (Ime played more people in 2nd half of last season because the Cs were blowing everyone out.)

Yes the rosters are very similar from end of last year to beginning of this year but that's expected.
 

benhogan

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Nitpicking but what has White improved? He’s the same player I’ve seen in SA from a couple years ago except being in more of an off-guard/spot-up shooter role and less dribble penetration/creativity. As far as production I don’t see any difference.
White is clearly shooting 3s with more confidence than last season. He was tentative and passed up wide-open 3s numerous times in the playoffs. After the finals, he said he was going to work on it. Seems like he did the work
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Despite the hand-wringing (including from me) about the Celtics' defense, it's now ranked #12, and only 2 points behind the #3 Suns' D. The C's #1 offense is 3 points better than #2 Denver's.

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/league/summary
You know this but defense, let alone the measuring of it, is kind of messy this time of the season. Teams are just now adjusting rotations to account for how the season has started out, plus you have the impact of rule changes as well as any officiating points of emphasis that may be impacting how teams can defend.

More to the point, defense doesn't really matter if you are outbucketing everyone in your path like Boston is at present. This team is so hard to defend. They create nothing but space and bad decisions for their opponents.
 

Mooch

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I thought the original post was comparing this year's roster to last year's roster at this time, particularly when people were complaining about how much the Js were playing. (Ime played more people in 2nd half of last season because the Cs were blowing everyone out.)

Yes the rosters are very similar from end of last year to beginning of this year but that's expected.
The difference to me is that guys like Hauser and PP are much more useful with Mazzula's up-tempo offense. With Udoka's grind-it-out half-court system, it was much more difficult for guys like that to get free. With this year's team pushing the pace and attacking the paint more, you suddenly free up these kinda one-dimensional offensive players to take advantage of that one dimension better. Same for White. The more free-flowing the offense, the more White's physicality and athleticism comes into play. He's a much better open-court player than a half-court guy. His shots this year are way more in rhythm and he's far more confident in the paint.
 

HomeRunBaker

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White is clearly shooting 3s with more confidence than last season. He was tentative and passed up wide-open 3s numerous times in the playoffs. After the finals, he said he was going to work on it. Seems like he did the work
I wouldn’t consider that “improvement” as much as he’s playing in non-pressure regular season games with an easy flow rather than being in a high-intensity halfcourt playoff grind.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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The Hawks were able to get Dejounte Murray switched onto him a bunch of times and Hauser didn't "shut him down" or anything but he mostly made it difficult on Murray.
Thanks for the recap.

With regards to Hauser, I'm sure someone on the Cs makes clips of all of Dougie's defensive plays and I wish I could see them just for fun (or someone would post them on the internet).

According to NBA.com, Murray went 1-2 against Hauser. Trae was 2-2 with a FT. AJ Griffin (who I thought played great in the 1H and terrible in the 2H) was 2-2. On the flip side, Hunter, Holiday, and Okongwu were each 0-1 and Jalen Johnson was 0-2.

Checking in on Monday's game, amazingly NBA.com has no OKC player making a basket against Hauser (Dort: 0-3 including 2 3P attempts; Poku was 0-1; Giddey was 0-1; SGA was 0-2. 7 shots attempts against Dougie when he only played 16 minutes. Very nice!
 

lexrageorge

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I wouldn’t consider that “improvement” as much as he’s playing in non-pressure regular season games with an easy flow rather than being in a high-intensity halfcourt playoff grind.
Except White struggled during the regular season last year, in both San Antonio (where there were no pressure games) and Boston. It's not a mirage; this season's Derrick White is the Derrick White we thought we were getting.
 

Fishy1

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Except White struggled during the regular season last year, in both San Antonio (where there were no pressure games) and Boston. It's not a mirage; this season's Derrick White is the Derrick White we thought we were getting.
Totally agree with you on this. I think he's taking tougher threes, and his shot looks less flat and has much more consistent arc. We'll see if it sticks, but I'm encouraged. This was true in the preseason, too, a lot of people noticed it right away.
 

joe dokes

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I thought the original post was comparing this year's roster to last year's roster at this time, particularly when people were complaining about how much the Js were playing. (Ime played more people in 2nd half of last season because the Cs were blowing everyone out.)

Yes the rosters are very similar from end of last year to beginning of this year but that's expected.
Mostly that. I look at Nov 17, 2021. Celtics lost in Atlanta, 110-99. Richardson, Langford, Freedom and Nesmith were the main subs. Schroder started because Brown was out.
Celtics vs Hawks, November 17, 2021 | Basketball-Reference.com
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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The difference to me is that guys like Hauser and PP are much more useful with Mazzula's up-tempo offense. With Udoka's grind-it-out half-court system, it was much more difficult for guys like that to get free. With this year's team pushing the pace and attacking the paint more, you suddenly free up these kinda one-dimensional offensive players to take advantage of that one dimension better. Same for White. The more free-flowing the offense, the more White's physicality and athleticism comes into play. He's a much better open-court player than a half-court guy. His shots this year are way more in rhythm and he's far more confident in the paint.
That's fair. I for one appreciate the movement that Mazzula installed. But Ime was preaching ball movement for all of the 1H of last year and it wasn't until the UT game to the PHO game where the Cs really figured out how much ball movement can help.

Here's an analysis of the Cs early collapse against CHI last year: Anatomy of a collapse: 10 Takeaways from Boston Celtics-Chicago Bulls - CelticsBlog If you look at the offensive clips, you'll see how clogged up the defenders could make the paint because they didn't respect the outside shooting of the Cs (GW wasn't the 40% shooter he was; Al started by shooting terribly; Schroder and Smart weren't respected either). The court looks like a lot different to JT and JB now that defenders have to take one (or more) steps towards all of the shooters the Cs have. Plus both JT and JB have improved at the rim too (JT was shooting like 43% of the rim at the time of the CHI game this year; Doris said last night IIRC he's up around 78% this year.

E.g., this play: https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2021/11/01/0022100098/497/6c01687d-e588-4211-bca3-260a22db1f78_1280x720.mp4
 

benhogan

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Despite the hand-wringing (including from me) about the Celtics' defense, it's now ranked #12, and only 2 points behind the #3 Suns' D. The C's #1 offense is 3 points better than #2 Denver's.

https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/league/summary
Boston had a sloppy defensive 2nd quarter last night but cleaned it up at the half.

Another solid 2nd half performance on D, especially in Q3 when the game was in question with Brown going to the bench with 4 fouls.

While SSS, I wouldn't mind looking at the defensive stats in 2nd halves or late/close. Something to watch moving forward.

Also, Hauser is a perfectly average defender. I actually like watching offenses spend shot clock trying to hunt him. Most of the time they end up with challenged mid-range jumpers with shot clock expiry on the mind. The dude isn't swiping with his hands and fouling like most bad defenders do at first. He shows hands and moves his man towards help in the middle while using his height to challenge (Tony Bennett season probably helped)
 

Jimbodandy

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The difference to me is that guys like Hauser and PP are much more useful with Mazzula's up-tempo offense. With Udoka's grind-it-out half-court system, it was much more difficult for guys like that to get free. With this year's team pushing the pace and attacking the paint more, you suddenly free up these kinda one-dimensional offensive players to take advantage of that one dimension better. Same for White. The more free-flowing the offense, the more White's physicality and athleticism comes into play. He's a much better open-court player than a half-court guy. His shots this year are way more in rhythm and he's far more confident in the paint.
FWIW, I think that this is a phenomenal observation. This team is downhill all of the time, and it liberates basically everyone. Aside from crunch time (when everything slows down), I've seen maybe a dozen possessions this year where the offense went into some ridiculous, hopelessly lost grind like we'd see for whole quarters last year. Even last year's fantastic run, there were lots of possessions where everyone stood around for like half of the shot clock trying to beat their guy off the dribble, no cutters, not even starting the offense until a poor shot was a fait accompli. Pace and movement have changed everything.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Except White struggled during the regular season last year, in both San Antonio (where there were no pressure games) and Boston. It's not a mirage; this season's Derrick White is the Derrick White we thought we were getting.
That’s 3-pt shooting though. There is always going to be short-term year-to year variance in this isolated area……I don’t call that an improvement. Last year he was a little below his career norm and so far this year a little higher. He could easily make 6 of his next 20 three’s then he’s back to last years “regression.”