To preserve my sanity, I just treat it as a 'building up energy' phase in a turn-based RPG and then 'release it' in the next round of attack.
2023-24 Celtics
- Thread starter 128
- Start date
It's possible that Jaylen has really leveled up in a way that seemed unlikely at this point. I'm not ready to declare victory yet, but the past few weeks, after the media noise reached its peak with him, there's been a marked difference to his approach on offense. He's moving better with and without the ball, looking to facilitate the offense, and become more decisive when receiving the ball from others. It's been maybe 8-10 games, which isn't a huge sample, but at the same time I don't really remember a stretch this long ever from him playing this way. May it continue.
Jaylen looks like a completely different player than he was earlier in the year. Get Jrue up to speed next and there isn't anyone that can stop this team but themselves.
47pts from the bench tonight without 2 of their TOP6 players
Guess the Celtic's lack of depth narrative will start to fade away
Guess the Celtic's lack of depth narrative will start to fade away
Brissett and Stevens are strong, athletic dudes. Unfortunately for them, they won’t be getting much run this year but it was great to see them step up when given the chance.
I expect to see quite a bit of then from now until at least the trade deadline. Now that we are heading into the dog days of the season the nights of an 8-man rotation are long gone. Combine that with occasional rest days for Horford/Porzingis, condensed road trips, and the expected games missed due to injury.....we should be seeing at least one of them in the 9-10 man rotation.
Luckily it was tonight.
Word. He's figuring it out. Having more pros on this team has slowed the game down for him materially. Porzingis is still figuring out where he fits (almost there). Jrue has a way to go, but he's the last guy that I'm worried about. He'll figure it out.
Weirdly, they've been awesome in 3rd quarters at home, and horrible on the road. Like +15 nrtg at home, -15 on the road type territory.
Like the early season weirdness with Tatum's on/off being massive, I expect this to just even out as the year goes on.
While we're at it...
Team 3PT%:
HOME- Celtics 40.5% — 2nd overall
AWAY- Celtics 32.6% — 26th overall
I agree on the eye test level. But, materially, what is he really doing wrong at this point? His FG% is noticeably down (44.7%), but the 3PT% is at a healthy 38.3% which feels like the most important thing for this team post-Marcus Smart Experience. AST are naturally down with White sharing ball-handling opportunities, but he's rebounding at a career high rate (6.8). Seems like a guy who's giving the team exactly what they need, notwithstanding slightly rough optics.
What's sneaky impressive about the team of late is that they've been winning while weathering a bad run of 3PT shooting from the Jays (and, for that matter, Porzingis). JT been around 27% since that outburst against Charlotte, JB not much better. In the past, I recall the team's offense going directly in the tank when those guys couldn't knock down the three.
Jrue was noticeably aggressive on defense last night; that's the first game I've seen this year where he's played with that much intensity. It bodes well for the playoffs.
Jaylen ... it's hard to know what to say. The level of physicality and the confidence was really impressive. It reminded me of how Lebron just imposes his will on the game at times.
Separately, I'm desperately hoping Brad finds a way to lock up Hauser after this season. I'm not sure what it will take, and there are a few big money contracts to be resolved, but Sam is just what they need for three-point shooting, plus he's become more than an average defender.
This is why I was a bit surprised when you were recently talking about a post-contract-year-lull for him. He seems to have gone the other direction: used the security of extreme generational wealth to focus on reaching another level as an all-around team player.
I was firmly on team "trade Jaylen in 2024 or 2025", but it's getting a lot tougher to stay there.
It's hard. They can't keep everyone, so Brad will have some hard decisions to make. But it's a long season, so he'll have a lot more time to evaluate. Even if they did decide to trade Jaylen, at this point, he would fetch a really high return. But how do you trade the Jaylen we saw last night? That guy was a beast.
The Hauser family was seated next to Wyc last night. I can't imagine it was by accident.
Hauser will get life-altering money, he'll be part of the Celtic family for a while, and the deal will be a steal for Boston.
Brad/Zarren got this.
The tax bills get a bit high, but probably not Warriors territory. The real test will be how they handle the locked draft picks.
Queta also brought some physicality under the rim, he didn't get swallowed up by the situation.
A nice under-the-radar two-way addition by Brad. Exactly how Boston should be using their two-ways IMO.
Queta, Stevens, and Brissett are the Celtics 4-6 Centers. The C's have enough skilled players around them to have an offensively deficient Center on the floor.
Hope Boston aggressively load-manages KP/Al until the playoffs. If there are fines, so be it
I guess they'll lose that trade currency? but they'll have 2nds & older two-way players to develop the deep bench.
Jaylen Brown, should he stay or should he go, will be the ultimate pivot and replenish draft capital if necessary
I think that Brown and Porzingis progressing are related. It's only been 20 games. Brown hasn't really played with a guy like Porzingis whose game is so complementary to things that Brown *could* do, (like sharp cuts, for example). The more he plays with Porzingis the more automatic it will become to give up the ball and move without it to the lane, instead of driving through traffic. And the more he does that, the more it opens up Brown for 1 one 1 drives, where he's still pretty effective (according to my eyeballs).
This has been an impressive 3-game stretch. It's all at home, which makes it eaiser, but after coming out flat against Cleveland they played a strong 4th quarter to get the win, and then played better in the second game. And the overall performance against Orlando while missing 3 centers was stellar. They looked uncomfortable in the opening minutes as they fell behind 11-4. Getting open looks but missing badly, overpassing, etc. But then they just locked in and blasted the Magic. These games suggest they are figuring some things out.
It wasn't one of the obscure bench players, but the bench as a whole had a great night. Was great to see.
There is some real on-court development going on here that we haven't witnessed for a while.
1. Last season's coaching situation with CJM having a staff with one foot out the door must have been tough behind the scenes/in the locker room.
2. I liked Smart and TL a lot, but they placed some limitations on what the Celtics are now doing.
Oh nothing. He's doing nothing wrong. I just mean that they're all finding their role within the offense, what works and what doesn't. Tatum is plug and play. Everyone else is figuring out what part of the transformer they are, like when 2007 came together. They're already almost there.
Tatum and Brown have been noticeably more aggressive attacking the rim. It's fun to seen them play with such physical force.
Since becoming really high usage guys
Jaylen’s previous high in dunk percentage was .52, he’s at .88 so far this season.
Tatum’s previous high was .65, he’s at .74 so far this season.
They’re dunking A LOT lol.
Having Porzingis and Holiday on the floor instead of Smart and TL has really opened things up. Tatum/Brown have had a lot more driving room, plus they keep getting stronger and so opposing teams can't knock them off their driving lines.
Speaking of Porzingis, he's at a career high in dunk % too. Previous career high was .124, up to .164 this year.
I can't imagine any team that is a legit contender is going to worry about the locked draft pick(s) years into the future. A team wins one championship and no one cares.
It's the teams that spend a lot but flame out early in the playoffs that will this as an excuse to tear down their teams I would guess.
The locking is about preventing them being tradable, so it reduces the assets that the rich can use to get / stay richer, isn't it?
Not quite: if you're over the 2nd apron for 3/5 years (iirc), that pick goes to back of the 1st round.
As I understand it, the first time you go over the second apron, the first round pick seven years out from that year becomes locked and untradable. If a team also exceeds it for 2 of the next 4 years, the frozen pick gets dropped down to the end of the 1st.
Yeah. Unless you're guaranteeing me a title, an auto drop to the end of the first that far out gives me the shivers.
20-5 for an even .800 winning percentages!
And all of that against mostly quality opponents.
Just checked some strength of schedule calculations:
Tankathon: Celtics with the easiest remaining schedule.
Powerrankingsguru: 5th hardest played; easiest remaining
ESPN: Hardest schedule played so far.
And most of them have today's win not yet included.
Just as a reminder before they drop a game or two on the west coast... the C's are really good!
And all of that against mostly quality opponents.
Just checked some strength of schedule calculations:
Tankathon: Celtics with the easiest remaining schedule.
Powerrankingsguru: 5th hardest played; easiest remaining
ESPN: Hardest schedule played so far.
And most of them have today's win not yet included.
Just as a reminder before they drop a game or two on the west coast... the C's are really good!
If this version of Jalen Brown is for real, I don’t think anyone can beat this team absent injury or insane variance. That includes Denver.
I’ve been a JB skeptic and could not be more delighted to be wrong.
I’ve been a JB skeptic and could not be more delighted to be wrong.
I was at the game today. After a slow start (Celtics scored only 6 points in the first 6 minutes), they got their shit together and won pretty easily.
They were up 11 at the half, and Orlando played what seemed like a good third quarter, capitaliing on a few sloppy Celtic turnovers at the top of the key. But by the end of the quarter, the Celtics lead had only been cut by 2 points. Orlando started well in the 4th quarter, but a Celtic lineup of Brown and 4 reserves (Pritchard Hauser Horford Queta) hung on until the starters came back and ran up a huge lead.
Brown led the team with 31 points, including 17 in the fourth. He also led the team with 6 assists and only turned it over twice.
Tatum picke dup his third foul with 8 minutes left in the second and sat out the rest of the half, which didn;t stop the Celtics from winning the quarter 34-19. Tatum had an odd game: 4-6 from three, but only 4-15 from two.
The bench was great in this one, not necessarily in scoring points but they were all plus. Horford in particular seems to have a knack for coming up big in key moments. He's not a typical 6th man but he's impactful.
Paolo Banchero led all scorers with 36. But he started the game 9-12, scored 24 of Orlando's 50 first half points, and looked like he was ob the way to a monster game. But he shot only 5-18 the rest of the way. Jrue was on him a good bit of the time.
They were up 11 at the half, and Orlando played what seemed like a good third quarter, capitaliing on a few sloppy Celtic turnovers at the top of the key. But by the end of the quarter, the Celtics lead had only been cut by 2 points. Orlando started well in the 4th quarter, but a Celtic lineup of Brown and 4 reserves (Pritchard Hauser Horford Queta) hung on until the starters came back and ran up a huge lead.
Brown led the team with 31 points, including 17 in the fourth. He also led the team with 6 assists and only turned it over twice.
Tatum picke dup his third foul with 8 minutes left in the second and sat out the rest of the half, which didn;t stop the Celtics from winning the quarter 34-19. Tatum had an odd game: 4-6 from three, but only 4-15 from two.
The bench was great in this one, not necessarily in scoring points but they were all plus. Horford in particular seems to have a knack for coming up big in key moments. He's not a typical 6th man but he's impactful.
Paolo Banchero led all scorers with 36. But he started the game 9-12, scored 24 of Orlando's 50 first half points, and looked like he was ob the way to a monster game. But he shot only 5-18 the rest of the way. Jrue was on him a good bit of the time.
The Celtics regular starting lineup is all players with single-digit numbers - the only 5 single digit numbers that are not retired. I doubt that has happened since before Bill Russell's day. (Russell played with Cousy #14, Heinsohn #15, Sharman #21, Sam Jones #24, KC Jones #25, Loscutoff #18, Havlicek #17, Ramsey #23, so he likely never started with 4 other single digit guys). Maybe you need to go back to the 1940s to find it.
You're probably right about a regular starting five.
Early 2000s were close to a starting five for a couple games - Walter McCarty (0), Tony Battie (4), Kedrick Brown (5), Kenny Anderson (7), Tony Delk (7 in 2003), Antoine Walker (8), Milt Palacio (9), J.R. Bremer (9, 2003)
Looking at the box scores for 2002 - 2003..
- a lineup of of Battie, Delk, McCarty, Pierce and Walker started on Dec. 9, 2002 (4 out of 5)
- another lineup of Battie, Bremer, Brown, Walker and Eric Williams started on March 7, 2003.. (4 out of 5)
One of Eric Williams or Pierce started ever game.. so it never happened with all 5... and obviously they were the regular starters.
On the Celts it's interesting how many numbers have been retired... combinations become more difficult... even in the single digits you have Walter Brown (1), Red (2), DJ, Garnett and Russell... so you really only have 0, 4, 7, 8, 9 after 2013 (as you said). As it is.. 00, 0, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are the only numbers that were ever used... and some of those numbers weren't used for decades.
It's gods work. Someone has to get the message to these guys!JB with 17 in the 4Q. We need HRB to call out more C's
EJ, what were your observations that are not visible from TV. Player interactions, defensive cohesion/communication, sideline meetings, etc…. Anything you noticed worth passing on?
The Celtics can't play themselves, so the schedule was about as tough as it could be.
With the quality depth and multiple ways to win they have, this seems likely to comfortably be a low 60s win team.
Last year's team was also 20-5, but they were shooting totally lights-out, and were noticeably not the same level defensively.
Fun game to be at.
And yeah, when they put Jrue on Banchero, the warmup 3s stopped, and that was the end of Paolo's big night. Over as fast as it started. Ended up at 54% TS with 1 assist and 4 turnovers.
Tough West Coast swing coming up: GSW (12-14), SAC (15-9), LAC (15-10), LAL (15-11).
The Celtics are 14-0 at home but only 6-5 on the road. This will be an interesting test. I doubt they sweep this, or get swept, but anything from 3-1 to 1-3 seems possible.
The Celtics are 14-0 at home but only 6-5 on the road. This will be an interesting test. I doubt they sweep this, or get swept, but anything from 3-1 to 1-3 seems possible.
I’ll share the numbers later on, but Joe and the staff have really figured out the rotations. Who to have out there with Jaylen, who to have out there with Tatum, etc.
Bodes incredibly well for keeping guys fresher for playoff time.
Bodes incredibly well for keeping guys fresher for playoff time.