Celtics in 18-19

DJnVa

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Per Brad on radio pregame, if Kyrie is cleared he has no problem with him playing in All Star Game. Would prefer he gets some court time after missing a few games.
 

RetractableRoof

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As is stated in other places on SoSH, humans are complex. Could it be as simple as primacy / recency theory? Maybe some refs get immune to it over time, or tune out some coaches and their theatrics, who knows.

It's not a stretch to see a coach/ref shake hands or greet each other before the game and have someone say "good to see you Bob, how's the family? Ask your guys to keep an eye on Embid - he's been doing x all season long." Or, "you guys have been playing well. Yeah we're doing ok, but the young guys are getting killed by moving screens lately and no one is calling them. Lol" That puts the idea in the refs head at the get go, and as the game goes on, the constant harping on it just reinforces it and leads to being in the forefront of the refs minds and it gets called a bit more. Primacy/recency.

Just a thought. Spoelstra was mentioned up thread and his boss is Pat Riley one of the all time ref workers - including in the media before and after games. Doesn't surprise me a bit that Spoelstra carries the same approach.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Per Brad on radio pregame, if Kyrie is cleared he has no problem with him playing in All Star Game. Would prefer he gets some court time after missing a few games.
Kyrie would need an ACL popping to miss the ASG on that worldwide platform. He's going to play in that game you can book it.
 

Average Game James

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Anyone who has played or coached basketball at any level knows you draw fouls by taking the ball strong to the basket. I’m not aware of a metric that measures that. FWIW, the C’s are 25th in points in the paint this year and were 29th last year — which isn’t a perfect measure, because the C’s are penalized for not playing much post-up ball (even by contemporary NBA standards), but I don’t think any of us would dispute that the C’s go strong to the hole less often than your average NBA team. That’s what’s driving the C’s modest FTA stats, not anything Brad is doing or failing to do with the refs.
It’s not perfect, by any means, but I posted some stuff in a game thread a while back where I looked at the NBA advanced stats on drives. If I’m remembering right, Celtics were something like 23rd in FTA/drive to the hoop and 15% below league average. And if you strip out Kyrie under the assumption he’s uniquely skilled at avoiding concept they jumped all the way up to 21st. There’s definitely a style of play element to it, but they also don’t seem to get a lot of calls.
 

HomeRunBaker

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It’s not perfect, by any means, but I posted some stuff in a game thread a while back where I looked at the NBA advanced stats on drives. If I’m remembering right, Celtics were something like 23rd in FTA/drive to the hoop and 15% below league average. And if you strip out Kyrie under the assumption he’s uniquely skilled at avoiding concept they jumped all the way up to 21st. There’s definitely a style of play element to it, but they also don’t seem to get a lot of calls.
It's funny to me that we are still complaining about not getting calls and officiating when there was a blatant foul on Horford down the stretch on Embiid last night as the refs swallowed their whistles in what could have cost the Sixers the game.
 

sime

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It's funny to me that we are still complaining about not getting calls and officiating when there was a blatant foul on Horford down the stretch on Embiid last night as the refs swallowed their whistles in what could have cost the Sixers the game.
One blown call does not offset a season's worth of shitty ones against us (no, not every game, but enough that it seems to be a trend).

Especially tonight, this seems like the wrong stance to take.
 

DJnVa

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It's funny to me that we are still complaining about not getting calls and officiating when there was a blatant foul on Horford down the stretch on Embiid last night as the refs swallowed their whistles in what could have cost the Sixers the game.
"What do you mean JBJ is in a month long slump? He homered last night!"

Two possessions before that he plowed into Horford and they called Horford and Embiid had 3 point play.
 

sime

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Just about every teams fans think the same. Seriously.
This is true and something I’ve noticed I do, primarily because of the perspective many posters here provide. That said, the numbers show the Celtics get screwed in this regard more than most teams.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Its almost as if people either missed or ignored mauf's post. Style of play has something to do with how often teams draw fouls.

Another way to look at this:

— 9 teams have attempted at least 1 FT/gm more than the league average — the Clippers, Sixers, Mavericks, Thunder, Rockets, Jazz, Nets, Timberwolves and Pelicans.

— 10 teams have attempted at least 1 FT/gm less than the league average — the Magic, Celtics, Bulls, Pacers, Cavs, Nuggets, Suns, Spurs, Warriors and Grizzlies.

A few of the league’s worst teams are conspicuously on that second list, but I’d be hard-pressed to say the second list is not as well coached as the first — you’ve got three of the consensus top 4 coaches in the league coming into this season (Kerr, Pop, Brad — D’Antoni being the fourth), plus this year’s likely coach of the year (Malone) and another guy who is generally regarded as having gotten results outstripping his team’s talent level (McMillan).

Edit: Also, 4 of the league’s top 5 teams in assists per possession are in that bottom 10 for FT/gm — the Warriors, Nuggets, Pacers and Celtics. Probably not a coincidence.
Its also worth noting that two of the 10 teams with less than 1 FT/gm are in the top 10 for 3pA (it will interesting to see if the Warriors FT/gm increases now that Cousins is playing decent minutes)

Now if someone wants to complain about the quality of officiating overall, I am all ears though as others have observed, its a tough game to officiate in any way shape or form. But Dirty Scott Foster is still a stain on the sport and maybe humanity.
 

Deathofthebambino

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I don't care what team you're a fan of, I would like someone to coherently explain to me how tonight's game against the Pistons resulted in a 34-15 discrepancy from the foul line? Were the C's that much more physical defensively than Detroit was? Were the C's settling for more jumpers than Detroit? If either of those things were happening, then I didn't notice it, but I can be convinced.

This one reminded me of the Thunder game recently, in which the C's were outshot 34-17 from the line, and the Golden State game when they were outshot, coincidentally, 34-15. Those were also games where it felt like the calls should have been fairly even on both sides, and just weren't for whatever reason.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Its almost as if people either missed or ignored mauf's post. Style of play has something to do with how often teams draw fouls.



Its also worth noting that two of the 10 teams with less than 1 FT/gm are in the top 10 for 3pA (it will interesting to see if the Warriors FT/gm increases now that Cousins is playing decent minutes)

Now if someone wants to complain about the quality of officiating overall, I am all ears though as others have observed, its a tough game to officiate in any way shape or form. But Dirty Scott Foster is still a stain on the sport and maybe humanity.
The Celtics had 22 fouls, the Pistons 18. It is pretty weird. Not sure how many offensive fouls there were. Maybe they are drawing fouls in less optimal ways.
 

Deathofthebambino

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The Celtics had 22 fouls, the Pistons 18. It is pretty weird. Not sure how many offensive fouls there were. Maybe they are drawing fouls in less optimal ways.
This is something we've joked about in the game threads for a while. The C's are the best at getting fouls called that don't result in free throws, so the actual numbers of fouls tend to square up, even when the number of free throws are so disparate. Just tonight, Jaylen had a couple opportunities where they easily could have given him a continuation call and/or shooting fouls, and they said he wasn't shooting. There was another stretch where they called 3 consecutive off-ball fouls on Detroit on one possession, none of which resulted in free throws because they weren't in the penalty yet.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I don't care what team you're a fan of, I would like someone to coherently explain to me how tonight's game against the Pistons resulted in a 34-15 discrepancy from the foul line? Were the C's that much more physical defensively than Detroit was? Were the C's settling for more jumpers than Detroit? If either of those things were happening, then I didn't notice it, but I can be convinced.

This one reminded me of the Thunder game recently, in which the C's were outshot 34-17 from the line, and the Golden State game when they were outshot, coincidentally, 34-15. Those were also games where it felt like the calls should have been fairly even on both sides, and just weren't for whatever reason.
20 of those FT's came from Griffin and Drummond. Blake gets to the line 8x per game and Drummond 5x while nobody on the Celtics are at 4x and I don't think any Celtic aside from pre-injury Hayward have ever reached 5 FTA/g in any season during their career......this is more of a skillset thing than anything else. I can't recall any calls that made me think the refs bailed these guys out.
 
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NomarsFool

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They probably should have called 4 (somebody got knocked to the ground, maybe Horford?), but I think the refs probably felt that would be ridiculous to have 4 off ball fouls on a single possession.
 

Big John

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The play in which Drummond threw and elbow at Theis and then flopped was hilarious.You'd think it was 90's basketball except that it was false physicality. Then there was the play where Griffin barely brushed against Hayward's heel (if there was any contact at all-- it was hard to tell from the replay) and went down as though someone had punched him in the gut.
 

HomeRunBaker

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The play in which Drummond threw and elbow at Theis and then flopped was hilarious.You'd think it was 90's basketball except that it was false physicality. Then there was the play where Griffin barely brushed against Hayward's heel (if there was any contact at all-- it was hard to tell from the replay) and went down as though someone had punched him in the gut.
On the Hayward play there was contact and Blake went down. That is going to be (correctly) called a tripping foul 100% of the time.
 

Eddie Jurak

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It's funny to me that we are still complaining about not getting calls and officiating when there was a blatant foul on Horford down the stretch on Embiid last night as the refs swallowed their whistles in what could have cost the Sixers the game.
I saw that, but my overall take on that game is that the refs were in "let 'em play" mode, but weren't favoring (deliberately or otherwise) either team. I didn't do any deep analysis, that was just my overall impression of the game.
 

Jimbodandy

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I think that the star treatment and seniority is also a factor, not just for the players either.

The skill to draw fouls, play style, working the refs for a call here and there--all clearly influence the outcomes to varying degrees.

However, Doc has been in and around the league since before Brad had his training wheels removed from his bicycle literally. Tatum and Brown have been old enough to vote in exactly one presidential election. We have zero top ten overall players.

Zero street cred with officials, compared to top 10 guys or guys with a decade of experience. Doc will get a couple of calls that Brad won't. Brown won't get calls that Giannis or Kawhi get.
 

Cesar Crespo

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I think that the star treatment and seniority is also a factor, not just for the players either.

The skill to draw fouls, play style, working the refs for a call here and there--all clearly influence the outcomes to varying degrees.

However, Doc has been in and around the league since before Brad had his training wheels removed from his bicycle literally. Tatum and Brown have been old enough to vote in exactly one presidential election. We have zero top ten overall players.

Zero street cred with officials, compared to top 10 guys or guys with a decade of experience. Doc will get a couple of calls that Brad won't. Brown won't get calls that Giannis or Kawhi get.
Luka Doncic and Ben Simmons get to the line plenty. I guess they are also bigger stars than Tatum and Brown. Devin Booker lived at the line, Brandon Ingram gets to the line. De'Aaron Fox. Trae Young is getting to the line 4.5 times a game. More than any Celtic.
 

Jimbodandy

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Luka Doncic and Ben Simmons get to the line plenty. I guess they are also bigger stars than Tatum and Brown. Devin Booker lived at the line, Brandon Ingram gets to the line. De'Aaron Fox. Trae Young is getting to the line 4.5 times a game. More than any Celtic.
Yeah skill at initiating contact is still primary, without question. More than any other factor.

My point is that guys get more calls with reputation points. Some of that is time served, and some is star credit.

Harden is by far top fta dog because all of the stars are aligned, but of course his skill in drawing fouls is the biggest factor.

I expect Tatum and Brown to get there more often as they get into their 20s. Part of that will be acquiring the skills, which Tatum is clearly working on. Part of that will be these 50-something refs getting to know them better at a personal level. Brad too.
 
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wade boggs chicken dinner

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Without looking at numbers, here are two things I'd theorize.

(1) We have said in the past that BOS is among the league leaders in getting 3Ps that are open or wide-open as defined by NBA stats. My theory is that BOS shoots more open shots on offense but contests more shots on defense. The more contests, the more missed shots but the more chances for fouls.

Plus, I thknk the Cs shoot more fadeaways than any other team I've seen this year.

(2) Our two most frequent drivers are Kyrie and JT. Both of them more often try to get around defenders than initiate and finish through contact. The only guy on the Cs who regularly seems to try to initiate and finish through contact regularly is JB.

I think style of play and personnel matter most. Some players hunt down FTs. The Cs don't have anyone like that and I think Brad would rather his guys get an open shot than pound the ball inside and try to draw a foul.
 

DJnVa

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Kyrie is great at avoiding contact and finishing.

Tatum is great at scoring and asking why he isn't getting an "and 1" opportunity.
 

DJnVa

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How times have changed--at the All Star Break, Marcus Smart is only 8 three pointers away from tying the most Larry Bird ever hit in a season.
 

RedOctober3829

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Without looking at numbers, here are two things I'd theorize.

(1) We have said in the past that BOS is among the league leaders in getting 3Ps that are open or wide-open as defined by NBA stats. My theory is that BOS shoots more open shots on offense but contests more shots on defense. The more contests, the more missed shots but the more chances for fouls.

Plus, I thknk the Cs shoot more fadeaways than any other team I've seen this year.

(2) Our two most frequent drivers are Kyrie and JT. Both of them more often try to get around defenders than initiate and finish through contact. The only guy on the Cs who regularly seems to try to initiate and finish through contact regularly is JB.

I think style of play and personnel matter most. Some players hunt down FTs. The Cs don't have anyone like that and I think Brad would rather his guys get an open shot than pound the ball inside and try to draw a foul.
Agreed on all points here WBCD. Excellent post. The C's don't get as many foul shots as other teams because they are a primarily jump shooting team.
 

lovegtm

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double post.
Sure, although, as I've said before, it makes no sense to take out the Bulls game--if you wanted to adjust, you put the margin down to 30 or so.

Every good team in the league has huge wins this year: you can't just take out one team's if you want an apples-to-apples comparison.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Sure, although, as I've said before, it makes no sense to take out the Bulls game--if you wanted to adjust, you put the margin down to 30 or so.

Every good team in the league has huge wins this year: you can't just take out one team's if you want an apples-to-apples comparison.
I know, but I figured someone would bring it up.
 

Cesar Crespo

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It's also possible for some players that trying to get to the line actually hurts them overall. Less focused on making the shot and trying to get contact.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I think its marginally interesting to discuss FT disparity. I am just not sure what it means.

Per chilidawg above, some of the top teams in basketball don't get to the line as often as worse teams. Is there a reason that fans of the Warriors or Bucks should be concerned that their teams don't get to the line as often as some other squads?
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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The Bucks are interesting because Giannis is 3rd in the league in FTA/G.
It makes sense given his style of play and yet the Bucks being in the bottom half of the league in FTs also makes sense given that the rest of the team is a collection of jumpshooters.

That said, its hard to argue that their relatively low FTs are costing them anything.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Celticsblog recap of the Bulls farce:

Let’s start with Kyrie Irving’s effort level on the defensive end of the floor. It just wasn’t there. He spent a lot of the night jogging through plays, causing his teammates to execute low-resistance switches (when there was no real screen or cut to force a switch) and simply not getting back. This play is a good example. Irving took the prior shot at the rim and missed. Lauri Markkanenrebounded and brought the ball up himself. Four Celtics got back. Who didn’t? Irving. You can see him right at the end, jogging back and pointing at someone to pick up Robin Lopez, as Lopez ran to the rim unencumbered.
Jayson Tatum got Boston off to a great start. He outscored Chicago 7-0 on the first three possessions. He hit 4-of-5 shots in the first quarter, as the Celtics outscored the Bulls 33-28 to open the game. Tatum saw just four field goal attempts the rest of the game, including only three in the second half. It wasn’t as if Tatum was simply running up and down the floor and going through the motions. He just didn’t get the ball in scoring positions the rest of the night. And that’s unacceptable on the part of his teammates, but mostly on the part of Stevens.
Boston had 12 assists on 15 baskets in the first quarter. They recorded just 14 on the final 30 buckets. The game denigrated into the worst type of hero-ball imaginable. Several trips featured players grabbing a rebound or coming up with a loose ball, dribbling down and launching a shot without the thought of a pass even crossing their minds.
One of the worst practitioners of hero-ball was Terry Rozier. ... As it stands today, Rozier is a worse version of Jordan Clarkson.
Chicago’s bench outworked the Celtics reserves for the entirety of the first half.
Irving’s defense was termed as lackadaisical, but the rest of the defense is best termed as bad. Not sure which is really worse.
Postgame Brad Stevens said “I’ve said this before: I’m disappointed in myself. I’ve got to do a lot better.” He’s not wrong. Rarely is the coach the reason a team loses a game, and Stevens doesn’t shoulder all of that blame himself for this train-wreck in Chicago, but he does have to carry a lot of it.
Marcus Smart took umbrage with the team’s effort and let everyone know: “The way our effort is, it’s just embarrassing.”

When asked how he and the team can look at past Celtics teams, ones that had to fight for everything, for an answer, Smart was very candid in saying “Our toughness. Our will to fight. Our will to do everything. It’s just like, we don’t got the will to do it anymore. I don’t know how you teach effort, will, want-to. I don’t think you can.”

Those are eye-opening quotes and very on-the-nose. And they don’t point fingers at anyone specifically, but instead at the team as a whole. Smart is including himself in these quotes, when he’s clearly the one player that isn’t a problem in this facet of the game. That’s real leadership.
On the other end of the spectrum, Kyrie Irving was asked if he’s worried about the team’s struggles and he said “No, it’ll be fine.” When asked why, Irving answered “Because I’m here.”

He later expounded on that by saying “I don’t get frustrated by this stuff anymore. It’s just part of the regular season. In the playoffs, plan for a team, prepare for a team, I still don’t see anybody beating us in seven games.”

This is a departure from Irving previously laying blame with others lack of understanding of what it takes to be a championship-level team following bad losses. This confidence or “swagger”, as many put it, was a different look.
 

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I don't have any more words for how bad Rozier was last night on both ends. He's like an anchor around the team. He checks in and everything falls apart. Even when his forced shots are falling, he's giving it up on the other end. I will celebrate when he is gone.
 

nighthob

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I suspect that he’s gone either way. If Irving leaves I expect that they’ll arrange a sign & trade to move Rozier on and try to find a 3&D player to replace him.
 

lovegtm

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I keep coming back to Danny. It's been obvious since the first couple weeks of the year that the team had major issues with redundancy, playing time, and Rozier-suckage. Now Kyrie seems like he's checking out mentally, and may even have already decided that he's gone. I don't even totally blame him, tbh.

I get what Danny is going for (pair AD with Kyrie while maximizing other assets), but a lot of this rebuild was predicated on the team having a strong identity that got players (Horford, Hayward) to want to come play. That identity also nearly got them to the finals with just Horford + young guys. Now they're blowtorching the team's culture seemingly overnight.

Someday, hopefully, we'll get the backstory of what was going on behind the scenes between players, coaches, agents, and management. There are clearly massive, crippling disconnects right now.
 

reggiecleveland

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I don't have any more words for how bad Rozier was last night on both ends. He's like an anchor around the team. He checks in and everything falls apart. Even when his forced shots are falling, he's giving it up on the other end. I will celebrate when he is gone.
I didn't watch the game but looking at the box score, yikes. Getting out rebounded almost 2-1 is terrible, bu Rozier's line is ghastly.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Now Kyrie seems like he's checking out mentally, and may even have already decided that he's gone..
I don't know how anyone who watched Kyrie in the 4th quarter last night of a game he put up a 37/10/5 line while attempting to singlehandedly lead a late comeback could feel that he "seems like he's checking out mentally." Kyrie, like the rest of the team, thought they would fly into Chicago in between the Milwaukee and Toronto games expecting the Bulls to lay down for them. This is the NBA where scheduling traps happen.
 

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lovegtm

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I don't know how anyone who watched Kyrie in the 4th quarter last night of a game he put up a 37/10/5 line while attempting to singlehandedly lead a late comeback could feel that he "seems like he's checking out mentally." Kyrie, like the rest of the team, thought they would fly into Chicago in between the Milwaukee and Toronto games expecting the Bulls to lay down for them. This is the NBA where scheduling traps happen.
Yeah, I only watched the first part of the game and was too disgusted with what I saw to keep going. I'm glad he singlehandedly tried to lead a late comeback.

Trap games are a real thing, but this team has issues way beyond that.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Yeah, I only watched the first part of the game and was too disgusted with what I saw to keep going. I'm glad he singlehandedly tried to lead a late comeback.

Trap games are a real thing, but this team has issues way beyond that.
Totally agree. I've been saying this about the Celtics since Ainge put this roster together.