2023-24 Celtics

benhogan said:

Karalis discussed Celtic crunch-time production on his podcast yesterday. The Celtics rank last in PACE & 15th in production, during crunch time. Which is a 180-degree turn from how they play for the first 3.5 Quarters.

Click to expand...

Karalis's revelation that's he's north of 265 was the biggest revelation to me.

BTW, I think Karalis said the Cs are 15th in ORTg during crunch time; 12th in DRtg during crunch time; and 12th in NetRtg during crunch time.

Karalis mentioned that he's going to ask Joe about this during the homestand. It will be interesting to see if Karalis can be the impetus for the Cs playing at a faster pace during crunch time. There is no reason I can think of why the Cs should be playing at the league's slowest pace during crunch time, even if they are ahead. Even if they want to use more of the shot clock, they should still be trying to push the ball up and see if they can get easy baskets in the early offense IMO, so long as they don't turn the ball over.

Dunn is an interesting trade question - a plus-defense wing (albeit a small wing height wise--but with some bulk and a very long wingspan) who has hit 3s in the plus range for a year and a half now feels valuable. He can fit in on pretty much every competitor's rotation. On the other hand, though, he's down to 15 min/game for Utah this year and there is a lot of bad tape of him out there over the years, plus looming free agency, and 3s down at 36% rather than last year's 42%.

He to me is a guy where they are asking for a low/protected first and he may fetch that but more likely is two seconds, or something like that. Celtics can and perhaps should be in on that.

To me, Caruso is going to yield an asset and a 1st or a 1st plus a fake 1st/1 or more seconds. Celtics will struggle to get there both contract and value-wise, seems to me, and a team like Philly or Lakers is going to have more chips to make that move.

wade boggs chicken dinner said:

Karalis's revelation that's he's north of 265 was the biggest revelation to me.

BTW, I think Karalis said the Cs are 15th in ORTg during crunch time; 12th in DRtg during crunch time; and 12th in NetRtg during crunch time.

Karalis mentioned that he's going to ask Joe about this during the homestand. It will be interesting to see if Karalis can be the impetus for the Cs playing at a faster pace during crunch time. There is no reason I can think of why the Cs should be playing at the league's slowest pace during crunch time, even if they are ahead. Even if they want to use more of the shot clock, they should still be trying to push the ball up and see if they can get easy baskets in the early offense IMO, so long as they don't turn the ball over.

Click to expand...

Yeah. 265 and up for his Black Belt test Expecting YouTube comments to be kinder/gentler in the future.

Yes. 15th in OTRg which makes little sense for a team ranked 4th in OTRg.

Looks like Karalis is going to ask Joe, Brad and the JAYs those crunch-time questions.
BUT fully expect end-of-the-game happy talk, like nothing is changing and we have 100% confidence in the JAYs offense in ALL situations.

We'll just have to sit back and see if they expand White's role further in crunch time, as they did in the Lakers game.

wade boggs chicken dinner said:

Karalis's revelation that's he's north of 265 was the biggest revelation to me.

BTW, I think Karalis said the Cs are 15th in ORTg during crunch time; 12th in DRtg during crunch time; and 12th in NetRtg during crunch time.

Karalis mentioned that he's going to ask Joe about this during the homestand. It will be interesting to see if Karalis can be the impetus for the Cs playing at a faster pace during crunch time. There is no reason I can think of why the Cs should be playing at the league's slowest pace during crunch time, even if they are ahead. Even if they want to use more of the shot clock, they should still be trying to push the ball up and see if they can get easy baskets in the early offense IMO, so long as they don't turn the ball over.

Click to expand...

Do those numbers take into account garbage time? Can they be broken down to when the starting five are still in? And when they’re still in with less than a 10 point lead?

I guess the question is what amount of minutes are those numbers based on?

lars10 said:

Do those numbers take into account garbage time? Can they be broken down to when the starting five are still in? And when they’re still in with less than a 10 point lead?

I guess the question is what amount of minutes are those numbers based on?

Click to expand...

“Crunch Time” is defined as less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter or overtime with neither team ahead by more than five points

lars10 said:

Do those numbers take into account garbage time? Can they be broken down to when the starting five are still in? And when they’re still in with less than a 10 point lead?

I guess the question is what amount of minutes are those numbers based on?

Click to expand...

Karalis didn't mention what he was looking at but it looks like he used the NBA "Clutch Time" stats (which I think uses the definition as Ben Hogan mentions above).

According to NBA.com, BOS is 15th in ORtg, 12th in DRtg, and 11th in NetRtg during Clutch Time (+5.9, not 12th as Karalis said). This is based on 14 games and 55 minutes.

If anyone is interested, and to put that in context, GSW has played the most Clutch Time games and minutes (24 games and 82 minutes) and MIN + WAS have played the fewest Clutch Time games (10) and ORL has played the fewest clutch time minutes (30).

PBPstats.com does great with this kind of thing. You can filter possessions by period, time remaining, score, leverage (their custom stat based on win expectancy, score margin and time remaining), and player state (who is on the floor). Everyone will have a different opinion as to what counts as "crunchtime", and so you can fiddle around with the criteria and decide for yourself.

Just from watching the games, the problem seems obvious. They play too slowly and Tatum doesn't create enough good shots when he is on the ball. Porzingis helps solve that because they can just go to that two man game without having to actually think too much about it to create a good look or a trip to the line. If actual thought is required, I don't want Tatum or Brown on the ball at the end of games. They don't make correct decisions quickly enough. White generally does.

Edit: The Celtics have an Opace of 13.99 seconds excluding second shots overall.

On possessions where the Celtics margin is -2 to +5 with 300 or less seconds left in the 4th quarter/OT, the Opace is 15.47. In the same situation, Denver:13.99, Milwaukee: 13.07, Philly: 13.50, OKC: 13.17.

I'm surprised people are approaching this question theoretically when the Celtics have already shown empirically which direction they're going to go to try and solve crunchtime.

They're going to really work the Tatum/DWhite/KP 3-man game, and get a ton of reps with it, with many variations built in, and with the option to flow into secondary plays for JB and Jrue.

We already saw in crunchtime against the Lakers that they're not going to just hand JT the ball up top and let him go to work because he's a star, so why are we theorizing that they will be forced to do that?

PedroKsBambino said:

Dunn is an interesting trade question - a plus-defense wing (albeit a small wing height wise--but with some bulk and a very long wingspan) who has hit 3s in the plus range for a year and a half now feels valuable. He can fit in on pretty much every competitor's rotation. On the other hand, though, he's down to 15 min/game for Utah this year and there is a lot of bad tape of him out there over the years, plus looming free agency, and 3s down at 36% rather than last year's 42%.

He to me is a guy where they are asking for a low/protected first and he may fetch that but more likely is two seconds, or something like that. Celtics can and perhaps should be in on that.

To me, Caruso is going to yield an asset and a 1st or a 1st plus a fake 1st/1 or more seconds. Celtics will struggle to get there both contract and value-wise, seems to me, and a team like Philly or Lakers is going to have more chips to make that move.

Click to expand...

Nobody is as admittedly biased toward Dunn than myself and I'm pretty certain that he would fit more into that Svi, Brissett, Banton, Stevens group of throwing shit against the wall to see if anything sticks, which would have occurred last summer, rather than being an upgrade to a contender. His handle is still as loose as even and Dunn hasn't corrected his propensity for forcing passes which lead to turnovers.

wade boggs chicken dinner said:

Karalis's revelation that's he's north of 265 was the biggest revelation to me.

BTW, I think Karalis said the Cs are 15th in ORTg during crunch time; 12th in DRtg during crunch time; and 12th in NetRtg during crunch time.

Karalis mentioned that he's going to ask Joe about this during the homestand. It will be interesting to see if Karalis can be the impetus for the Cs playing at a faster pace during crunch time. There is no reason I can think of why the Cs should be playing at the league's slowest pace during crunch time, even if they are ahead. Even if they want to use more of the shot clock, they should still be trying to push the ball up and see if they can get easy baskets in the early offense IMO, so long as they don't turn the ball over.

Click to expand...

It's not that odd.

They play slow all the time.

I know most people here were convinced once they got that slowpoke Marcus Smart off the team and turned the keys over to Derrick White they were going to start running the ball up the floor.

They were 20th in pace last year, they're 25th in pace this year.

Jayson Tatum likes to play slow, so they're gonna play slow. You can't really run often when your best player is walking.

For a team that wants the bulk of their minutes to go to 6 guys, it's probably not a bad idea to play slow anyways.

lovegtm said:

I'm surprised people are approaching this question theoretically when the Celtics have already shown empirically which direction they're going to go to try and solve crunchtime.

They're going to really work the Tatum/DWhite/KP 3-man game, and get a ton of reps with it, with many variations built in, and with the option to flow into secondary plays for JB and Jrue.

We already saw in crunchtime against the Lakers that they're not going to just hand JT the ball up top and let him go to work because he's a star, so why are we theorizing that they will be forced to do that?

Click to expand...

There was no crunch time, by this definition, against the Lakers — the C's were up by 9 when the fourth quarter started, and were ahead by 10 or more for the final eight and a half minutes. I hope they play that way when the game is close, too, but the old habits have shown up once or twice already. Hopefully they'll be extinguished by the time the playoffs start.

Boston is actually 13th in Opace (13.99) and 29th (or, I suppose 2nd) in Dpace (14.44) in 2023-2024, excluding second chance opportunities. League average Opace is 13.99.
They were 19th in Opace (14.28) and 15th in Dpace (14.07) in 2022-2023. League average Opace was 14.05

So they are playing faster on offense this season generally, even relative to league.

Edit: Somewhat surprisingly, they play slightly faster on offense with Tatum on than off, but I'm not sure (i.e. don't) I trust that data without additional context.

I came across this the other day, pretty cool.

View: https://twitter.com/neuroticcity_/status/1737693024996524149

SteveF said:

Boston is actually 13th in Opace (13.99) and 29th (or, I suppose 2nd) in Dpace (14.44) in 2023-2024, excluding second chance opportunities. League average Opace is 13.99.
They were 19th in Opace (14.28) and 15th in Dpace (14.07) in 2022-2023. League average Opace was 14.05

So they are playing faster on offense this season generally, even relative to league.

Edit: Somewhat surprisingly, they play slightly faster on offense with Tatum on than off, but I'm not sure (i.e. don't) I trust that data without additional context.

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting. Where did you find the OPace and DPace numbers? Are they available for just Clutch Time?

While digging around, I found this site - http://stats.inpredictable.com/nba/ssnTeamPoss.php. I don't know anything about it, but it seems to say that BOS is #2 in the league with 1.19 points per possession after a made shot but #25 in the league as they hold the ball for an average of 17.6 seconds per possession after a made shot (which is 52% of all possessions and 25th in the league).

So at least during the regular game, seems like BOS is getting good scoring chances for holding the ball as long as they do (comparatively).

wade boggs chicken dinner said:

Thanks for posting. Where did you find the OPace and DPace numbers? Are they available for just Clutch Time?

Click to expand...

pbpstats.com. I'm not sure how NBA calculates clutch time. I understand 5 minutes or less, -5 to +5, but is that a trigger or is it a possession filter? If the teams are within 5 points at under 5, but then at 4 minutes it's a 7 point game, and then at 3 minutes a 10 point game, are all those possessions still clutch time possessions? Is it retroactive? What if the score difference is 10 at 5 minutes, but 5 at 3 minutes? Do all those previous possessions retroactively become clutch time?

You can get a weird situation where possessions with a score difference of 10 are clutch time and 7 aren't clutch time with the exact same time left on the clock just based on whether clutch time was 'triggered'.

I included an example of clutch time offensive possession Opace (as a filter) in a post above, and the Celtics have a very slow pace relative to other good offensive teams, and to their typical pace.

SteveF said:

pbpstats.com. I'm not sure how NBA calculates clutch time. I understand 5 minutes or less, -5 to +5, but is that a trigger or is it a possession filter? If the teams are within 5 points at under 5, but then at 4 minutes it's a 7 point game, and then at 3 minutes a 10 point game, are all those possessions still clutch time possessions? Is it retroactive? What if the score difference is 10 at 5 minutes, but 5 at 3 minutes? Do all those previous possessions retroactively become clutch time?

You can get a weird situation where possessions with a score difference of 10 are clutch time and 7 aren't clutch time with the exact same time left on the clock just based on whether clutch time was 'triggered'.

I included an example of clutch time offensive possession Opace (as a filter) in a post above, and the Celtics have a very slow pace relative to other good offensive teams, and to their typical pace.

Click to expand...

I don't know how NBA.com filters Clutch Time. Maybe someone else knows.

Thanks for sourcing pbpstats.com. Pretty interesting data. Just to add to your point above, I noticed that pbpstats.com can filter out OPace and DPace by "leveraged" situations, which it says means that the stat are "based on how each much possession impacts win probability. " (More explanation here.)

So in what pbpstats.com calls "very high leverage" possessions, the Cs are 5th last in pace but if you break it out, BOS is a respectable 12th in time of possessions on the offensive end but 1st (or last, depending on how you want to look at it) in time of possessions on the defensive end. BOS average 17.00 time of possession on the defensive end. At the other end of the spectrum is DEN, which average 7.71 seconds per possession.

So maybe BOS's pace of play is low because their defense is so good? I don't know a lot about how pace is calculated so this is just a guess and I'm sure someone will point out how I am wrong if I am.

Well, Boston has only had 11 very high leverage possessions (by pbpstats.com defninition) on offense, 3 of which started with 14 or less seconds left in the game. You'll probably want to expand the parameters a bit to high + very high leverage to get to 86 possessions, though that will start including possessions in 3rd quarters and such. You can use the possession finder tool to filter by quarter, time left in quarter, score margin, players on the court, and so on. But again, every time you add a filter you end up with fewer and fewer possessions. Maybe the stylistic stuff like Opace is still relevant at lowish possessions numbers, but I wouldn't put too much on Orating/Drating.

I have to admit to thinking that they slow down on offense at times because they spent a lot of energy playing defense, and sometimes one rating lags when they've just finished a long sequence on the other end of the court.

SteveF said:

Well, Boston has only had 11 very high leverage possessions (by pbpstats.com defninition) on offense, 3 of which started with 14 or less seconds left in the game. You'll probably want to expand the parameters a bit to high + very high leverage to get to 86 possessions, though that will start including possessions in 3rd quarters and such. You can use the possession finder tool to filter by quarter, time left in quarter, score margin, players on the court, and so on. But again, every time you add a filter you end up with fewer and fewer possessions. Maybe the stylistic stuff like Opace is still relevant at lowish possessions numbers, but I wouldn't put too much on Orating/Drating.

Click to expand...

Good idea.

If anyone cares, using High and Very High Leverage situations but excluding 2nd chance opportunities, BOS has the 8th longest possession time at 15.37 per possession and still has longest defensive possession time at 16.69.

I suspect there's a sampling bias issue with looking at crunch time possessions.

Suppose you are leading by 4 with 5 minutes to go and score, now you're up 6 and it's no longer crunch time. if you had instead given up 2 points you are now more likely to get even more crunch time possessions.

if you generally start 5 minutes to go with a lead then the definition of crunch time will tend to capture downward swings more often even if your play is of constant quality throughout a game. this means the best teams should all tend to look worse in crunch time compared to their full game net ratings.

tldr playing well in crunch time leads to fewer crunch time possessions, which could lead to a significant sample bias imo.

There seem to be significant tracking issues when a 2-possession game isn't considered crunch time. In todays game anything under 10 points or so should qualify.

If the Celtics play without focus and discipline, even 2-28 Detroit can whale on them for a half. This was a predictable letdown game, but let's see if they clean it up.

Just not a mentally tough team, these Celtics….

Time to bring back the old light switch JPG from the Rasheed Wallace days

they weren't playing a real nba team, but somewhat heartening to see them only have 2 turnovers in the 2nd half + overtime #SilverLinings

Eddie Jurak said:

If the Celtics play without focus and discipline, even 2-28 Detroit can whale on them for a half. This was a predictable letdown game, but let's see if they clean it up.

Click to expand...

Narrator: They pretty much did.

Tatum went full Kobe, 31 points on 31 shots (though 10 assists and 5 steals is pretty nice). Curious to see what kind of energy they have for tomorrow.

Dbl wrong post.

Nm

Euclis20 said:

Tatum went full Kobe, 31 points on 31 shots (though 10 assists and 5 steals is pretty nice). Curious to see what kind of energy they have for tomorrow.

Click to expand...

With Brown out, Tatum was asked to be a volume shooter but the combo of him being off as well as Detroit defending the C's at the perimeter made every almost every bucket a battle (poor little Isaiah Livers). With Jaylen, the threes may still not have fallen Detroit has to think about him attacking - Tatum gets more space too in that alternative universe game where he played. In any event, the C's got it done against what amounts to a wounded animal - and it says nothing about this team that Detroit played them close in this game except that the Pistons feel nearer to their next win.

Also, KP was awesome - if this is sustainable healthwise good luck.

slamminsammya said:

I suspect there's a sampling bias issue with looking at crunch time possessions.

Suppose you are leading by 4 with 5 minutes to go and score, now you're up 6 and it's no longer crunch time. if you had instead given up 2 points you are now more likely to get even more crunch time possessions.

if you generally start 5 minutes to go with a lead then the definition of crunch time will tend to capture downward swings more often even if your play is of constant quality throughout a game. this means the best teams should all tend to look worse in crunch time compared to their full game net ratings.

tldr playing well in crunch time leads to fewer crunch time possessions, which could lead to a significant sample bias imo.

Click to expand...

The same rules apply to all the teams.

I've watched every game this season. It's not surprising that they are last in PACE when it gets tight & 15th in offensive rtg

We're 30 games into the season, if you don't like a stat just pull the SSS card

That was actually a really fun game lol, though obviously frustrating.

@lovegtm is right, they’ve figured something out late in games with the KP/White/Tatum combo. Whether three man or two man games, it created a bunch of good looks late tonight, even if they didn’t convert on them all.

Euclis20 said:

Tatum went full Kobe, 31 points on 31 shots (though 10 assists and 5 steals is pretty nice). Curious to see what kind of energy they have for tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Or who dresses.

Fan of the game right here, anyone else see this one in real time and go "hey wait a sec"

InstaFace said:

Fan of the game right here, anyone else see this one in real time and go "hey wait a sec"

View attachment 75752

Click to expand...

Yep. Had people over and three of us burst out laughing. That's messed up.

HomeRunBaker said:

There seem to be significant tracking issues when a 2-possession game isn't considered crunch time. In todays game anything under 10 points or so should qualify.

Click to expand...

This is why it's funny when people nitpick the "crunchtime" offense against the Lakers: "it was an 8-10 point gap!"

Like, watch the game man. They were absolutely treating that as crunchtime offense, and so were the Lakers.

RorschachsMask said:

That was actually a really fun game lol, though obviously frustrating.

@lovegtm is right, they’ve figured something out late in games with the KP/White/Tatum combo. Whether three man or two man games, it created a bunch of good looks late tonight, even if they didn’t convert on them all.

Click to expand...

I know everyone wants them to win by 30 all the time, but it's probably more useful to occasionally face adversity and have to really execute. The offense down the stretch is looking better and better.

It does hurt to have Jaylen out in that situation. It's much more threatening for the defense to worry about him on the weakside than Horford, and that hurts the 3-man game some.

RorschachsMask said:

I came across this the other day, pretty cool.

View: https://twitter.com/neuroticcity_/status/1737693024996524149

Click to expand...

Wait a minute. The Kornet part of that tweet is crazy. How the hell did he manage that?

djbayko said:

Wait a minute. The Kornet part of that tweet is crazy. How the hell did he manage that?

Click to expand...

He came into the league as a very high-volume 3-point shooter. He was launching 8-9 3s per 36 at a 36% rate. Then he completely forgot how to make them in his age 24 and 25 seasons, and stopped altogether after that, reinventing himself as a traditional 5.

It's one of the odder NBA career trajectories I can remember.

lars10 said:

Narrator: They pretty much did.

Click to expand...

The second quarter and parts of the first were just terrible, the second half was more of a mixed bag. Tatum's game, too, was a mix of good and bad.

In the second quarter, they were beaten 36-20. They turned the ball over 8 times, and they shot 1-11 from three (vs. 7 for 10 from 2, but creating those shots required more work than the Celtics were willing to put in in the offensive end). KP only played 2 minutes in the second quarter because he piicked up his third foul, so that was a part of the problem.

In the third, they outscored Detriot 35-16. 13-20 shooting, just one turnover, while Detriot turned it over 5 times. Tatum and Porzingis were scoring, and Tatum was handing out dimes.

But then in the 4th, the Celtics let up again. Detroit dominated the 4th quarter on the boards. On Detroit missed shots, the Celtics managed only 10 rebounds vs Detroit's 8, nearly a 50/50 proposition.For their part, the Celtics had only one offensive rebound in the quarter. That continued into OT, when Detroit rebounded more of their own misses than the Celtics did, 3 to 2.

KP said this after the game:

“As like a fan and even when you’re on the bench, it looks bad,” Porzingis admitted after the game. “You’re like, ‘come on, guys. Just grab the rebound. Like what the hell.’ But they play chaotic and just (Jalen) Duren is a great offensive rebounder, really like physical guy and a lot of those guys like (Kevin) Knox and they’re long and they get in there and they’re always like running in, so it’s not that easy to box them out and so, it had to be a team effort.

Click to expand...

The Celtics are going to struggle against the energetic teams that force turnovers (as Detroit did in the 2nd quarter) and get offensive rebounds (as Detroit did in the 4th quarter).

Jayson Tatum had a terrible shooting game (11 of 31 and 2 of 11 from three) but he managed 10 assists and 5 steals, so the good and bad aspcts of his game were on full display.

They relied on KP in the second half. After a 12 minute, 6 point firs thalf marred by foul trouble, KP shot 10-14 in the second half and OT, scoring 29 points. (Tatum, by comparison, shot 6-17 in the second half and OT).

And they relied on Derrick White in the 4th quarter and OT. White had a rough first half: 1-5 for 2 points, 2 rebounds, 2 turnovers but was much better in the second and OT, scoring 21 points including 10 in the OT, on 8-10 shooting from the field, plus 5 assists and 2 blocks.

It was a good win in some ways, especially without JB (recovering from Lebron's knee to the back), but it also showed that they have more work to do.

I wonder if Brown will be back for the Raptors tonight. And I wonder if any other Celtics besides Horford will be out. This will be a tough one.

benhogan said:

The same rules apply to all the teams.

I've watched every game this season. It's not surprising that they are last in PACE when it gets tight & 15th in offensive rtg

We're 30 games into the season, if you don't like a stat just pull the SSS card

Click to expand...

not every team has the same distribution of average point spread though. the phenomenon I'm pointing out tends to punish teams that have leads and reward those that tend to trail.

Starters aside, this was a sub-par effort from the bench against the worst team in the NBA.
With Al sliding into the starter mix Hauser and Pritchard were 2-10 from 3 and Queta really looked overwhelmed for most of the game, getting bullied off the boards and logging only 2 rebounds in 19 mins to go with his 4 fouls.
Good team recovery in the 3rd but you’ve got Tatum logging 43 mins, Holiday 44, Al 37, Zinger 35 on the front end of a back to back.
These nights happen but feels like a missed opportunity for the bench to step up.

slamminsammya said:

not every team has the same distribution of average point spread though. the phenomenon I'm pointing out tends to punish teams that have leads and reward those that tend to trail.

Click to expand...

That's fair, it's a stat that's pretty flawed for many reasons.

Mostly because they've only played 30 games, and less than a 1/3 of the games have been close (or defined as close).

BUT it's not a stretch to say when the JAYs initiate in close games, over the last few seasons, they tend to take their time getting into sets & end up with suboptimal shots. The good thing is CJM is changing that approach.

k-factory said:

Starters aside, this was a sub-par effort from the bench against the worst team in the NBA.
With Al sliding into the starter mix Hauser and Pritchard were 2-10 from 3 and Queta really looked overwhelmed for most of the game, getting bullied off the boards and logging only 2 rebounds in 19 mins to go with his 4 fouls.
Good team recovery in the 3rd but you’ve got Tatum logging 43 mins, Holiday 44, Al 37, Zinger 35 on the front end of a back to back.
These nights happen but feels like a missed opportunity for the bench to step up.

Click to expand...

Yup, great opportunity for the bench to step up and they didn't.

k-factory said:

Starters aside, this was a sub-par effort from the bench against the worst team in the NBA.
With Al sliding into the starter mix Hauser and Pritchard were 2-10 from 3 and Queta really looked overwhelmed for most of the game, getting bullied off the boards and logging only 2 rebounds in 19 mins to go with his 4 fouls.
Good team recovery in the 3rd but you’ve got Tatum logging 43 mins, Holiday 44, Al 37, Zinger 35 on the front end of a back to back.
These nights happen but feels like a missed opportunity for the bench to step up.

Click to expand...

I think our bench players tend to thrive on fitting into the system. Teams that can be disruptive to the system are the ones who our bench will struggle against. Hauser is not a guy who creates, for example, and he won't thrive in chaos. Last year we had Malcolm Brogdon, who could create offense for himself and others better than anyone we have coming off the bench now. This year we have a better team overall (I don't think it is even close) but we don't have that element Brogdon did bring. I think that is why there is still some playoff risk here - both for the team as a whole and for the bench specifically.

On the other hand, part of why the Pistons were able to be as disruptive as the were is because Jaylen Brown was out of the lineup.

One interesting thing about the bench play from yesterday. In the first quarter, the Celtics played roughly the first 6 minutes with the starters and were down 3 points when Pritchard, Queta, and Hauser came in, joining KP and Tatum. Detroit responded with an 8-0 run to build their lead to 11. Then, with under 3 minutes left, Oshae Brissett came in for KP and the Celtics finished the quarter on an 8-0 run. Brissett stayed in for the first ~3 minutes of the second quarter, during which the Celtics outscored the Pistons 8-7. But after he left the game, the bottom fell out, with Detroit outscoring the Celtics 29-12 to take a 19 point lead into halftime - they actually had a 25-8 run in there before trading baskets in the last 2 minutes. Brissett ended up as a +9 in 6 minutes, although his line was nothing much - all he had was an offensive rebound.

But I did wonder whether Mazzulla should have given Brissett a look in the second half. The bench did not contribute a lot but was not as bad in the second half. Pritchard and Queta played 9 minutes in the second half and were even while the Celtics as a team were +25 (+19 in Q3 and +6 in OT). Hauser played 3 minutes and was a +5. But they didn't do much, combining to shoot 1-4 with 5 rebounds, an assist, and a turnover in 21 minutes.

k-factory said:

this was a sub-par effort from the bench against the worst team in the NBA.

These nights happen but feels like a missed opportunity for the bench to step up.

Click to expand...

They've had a number of over-par efforts against good teams. I think "these nights happen" is really as far as it should go in a dog-day game.

Great win - and really glad to see they rallied from falling quite behind to avoid getting emabarrassed at home by Detroit.

On the plus side, I was pleased to see that in the final minute we didn't resort to Tatum dribble, dribble step back 3. There was a KP low post action at ~50 seconds, a Tatum drive to the basket around 8 seconds, and then a Tatum mid-range at the end of regulation.

I would say, however, that I'm a little disappointed on neither of the last two possessions did they try and go back to KP. He was having an absolute monster half. Detroit could not guard him. Did Tatum really have to take the last two shots? Is it really not possible to let someone else take the last shot in a tie game? I know all the stuff about player's league and all that stuff, but these are also adults. Can CJM really not say "You know what, we are going to set something up for KP here"?

Thank god DWhite changed shoes. First half looked like he was on skates.

lovegtm said:

This is why it's funny when people nitpick the "crunchtime" offense against the Lakers: "it was an 8-10 point gap!"

Like, watch the game man. They were absolutely treating that as crunchtime offense, and so were the Lakers.

Click to expand...

Agree to disagree. I watched the Lakers game; the fourth quarter was never very close. Over the past few years, this team has struggled late (as in, the last few minutes) in *close* games — slowing down, going to Tatum isos, etc.

Now, last night, they mostly went to White and Porzingis late, and it worked. It was great. But there was a moment when, after a few successful possessions of that, Tatum came and got the ball, isolated on the wing, and proceeded to turn it over. On the next possession, the ball went to Holiday, who ran a pick and roll with Porzingis, who missed a shot. Maybe Joe called for the ball to go to Tatum; or maybe (and this is my assumption, but I have no idea), Tatum called for it. Either way, it seemed like a mistake both in the moment and afterward to go away from White/Porzingis. It's a mistake I hope they make less often going forward.