I think Snyder is gonna bench Trae at some point. He has gotta be fed up with the indifference and lack of even pretending on defense
Celtics vs Hawks, Round 1 Discussion
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I don’t disagree with the idea, but I’ll believe it when I see it. This is the NBA, and he’s the face of their franchise.
50 points on 29 shots for White in the first two wins versus the Hawks. He has played some of the best all around basketball, rebounding, defending, blocking shots, setting up others, and changing momentum with big buckets and defensive plays whenever the Hawks show some life.
He also needs his playmaking. I'm not sure they'd get far with Murray or Bogdan trying to create on their own. That's why Young is such a frustrating player.
Snyder is going to have to ride out this series, and then retrench in the off-season and come up with a plan to make his team more than a .500 team and easy playoff out. Play more zone and hope the Celtics miss badly from three is his only shot defensively with Trae on the court.
Moving off Huerter and Gallinari made the Hawks into a poor three point scoring team. When playoff defenses don’t have to defend to the line, it’s less driving room for Trae
Dejounte was the Hawk's best player tonight
so far in the series, Murray 53pts vs White 50pts
of course, Dejounte has shot the ball 20 more times...
Murray is a really good player. Last year there were plenty of folks who worried that the Celtics got the wrong Spurs guard. I think White is better, and also a better fit for the Celtics, but Murray is a damned good player.
Trea feels kind of like Kyrie or Luka in that so much of the offense has to go threw him... but he's not nearly as good as either of those guys.
Trea feels kind of like Kyrie or Luka in that so much of the offense has to go threw him... but he's not nearly as good as either of those guys.
Oh thank god, I thought the same thing, then he made it easily and thought I might be insane
I actually thought Murray has been extremely mediocre in this series, and just looked good last night because of a completely out of character 3 point heater.
He has been attackable on defense, and doesn't put the D in rotation on offense.
Not many fouls called, good flow.
Although the teams have such a wide disparity that no one really had to force the issue, which made it much easier to officiate than other games are.
This was my big takeaway, too.....though they got lazy for stretches, for most of the game they were dialed-in and showing the defensive skill and discipline they had last year. There were multiple times the Hawks got penetration and then the Celts had collapsed the paint and without fouling, prevented a shot. They allowed very, very few open looks anywhere, and got a bunch of deflections/steals.
Only real 'gap' at that end was the defensive rebounding was iffy for the lineups that didn't combine Al/TL
Agree re the lazy at times.....and then, with about 7 minutes left, you could see them decide "ok, this ends here", and the intensity went up to a ridiculous level, just like that.
It's funny, given that they swept 3 of their prior 4 1st round series, but this is the first time they've been THIS much better than a playoff opponent in as long as I can remember.
This C's offense in the half-court goes up a notch when White initiates. Players move, the ball pops, lots of penetration.
Brogdron has not exactly been shooting great in these 2 games (5 of 17 from the floor and 1 for 7 from three), though his game 2 contributions on the glass and with 8 assists were notable. But I like the it didn't take the Celtics long to let him initiate when the offense started to bog down in the 4th. He had an amazing short feed to White on a drive, and, of course, the one three he hit was a halfcourt buzzer beater at the half.
He consistently puts pressure on the defense by pushing the ball up the court with pace. Smart does the same but perhaps not with the frequency that White does. You see Horford do it as well when he collects a long rebound and has a lane to dribble. When either of the Jays brings the ball up the court they are often walking it up. There are different approaches for different game situations. I would not consistently advocate for running the ball up the court late in the game when protecting a large lead and I know Tatum and Brown can identify and execute mismatches when they initiate the offense but put me in the camp of generally having White, Smart or Brogdon bring the ball up the court because they are really good at it and they operate with a higher level of urgency.
It's hard to complain when we're up 2-0, but it didn't feel like a great team performance last night:
- Lost the possession battle--Hawks put up 101 shots to our 86. A better team than ATL scorches us with that differential.
- In spite of a dreadful Hawks defense, we had 19 turnovers
- Gave up 19 offensive boards while only getting 5 (thankfully only gave up five baskets off of this, but still not a great number).
The turnovers are really frustrating (and boy are there some dumb ones), but I'll push back a bit on the shots and the offensive boards. Atlanta shot 43/33/50 and the Cs shot 56/45/80. The Celtics made 5 more baskets while taking 15 less shots. You can't get offensive rebounds when the ball goes in the hoop.
The return of Deputy Marcus for the playoffs was as predictable as the sun rising in the east. This year Boston had one goal, reach the playoffs rested and healthy. And Marcus had his DPOTY hardware. No need for him to play every minute of every game like it was a playoff elimination game. I was actually impressed during the season at his ability to dial the act back.
Regarding the bolded TO stat, I do think it's worth noting they had a whopping 4 in the last two minutes after the tatum dunk that put them up 22. I realize Im cherry picking a bit here but a 28 assist/15 turnover game puts them pretty close in line with their season long ratio.
Fair point on the bolded, especially when you consider the percentage differential on made shots. But even if you don't juxtapose it with the Celtics number, and you account for @jezza1918's valid point about when some of the boards occurred, I think giving up 19 offensive boards against a play-in team is an alarming sign even if they're winning. Not hair on fire of course, but concerning.
Yeah, it's not a great look, but Atlanta does emphasize offensive rebounding (8th in the league this year) and the league's average OReb rate is 26.8%, which means you'd expect them to grab 15.5 offensive rebounds instead of 19, which isn't that great of a difference.
A lot of those seemed to be on long rebounds because the shot was missed so badly. Not sure that's going to repeat or sustain.
It's not cherry picking. It's effectively impossible to come back from a 22 point deficit in that time, and so the Cs stopped trying, which is appropriate and normal.
The offensive boards...meh. The process was good, with lots of guys gang rebounding. Sometimes it happens; we forget that rebounding has a lot of sample size variance too.
I think the Celtics just left a lot on the table because every time the Hawks got the lead down to single digits, it was pretty easy for the Celtics to respond and put up a quick six points again. I thought for most of the second half Hawks had a small lineup in and the Celtics could move the ball up the floor quickly (before the defense got set) and basically score at will at the basket. But I think they took their foot off the gas with an eye towards saving energy and not risking injury.
Yeah the shine has more or less fallen off of him for me completely. He looked like a guy who was Kawhi-in-training a couple of years ago. Now he looks like a taller Terry Rozier. No effort on D whatsoever despite having the tools. Can create a bad shot for himself any time that he wants. Unconstrained selfishness, absent Pop's system and oversight.
Sure, if he could shoot like that every night, guy would be a stud even with matador defense. But it was an extreme outlier.
Oooof, wrt the bolded. Things I can never unsee now...
At least T Rozzay can shoot the 3.
Yeah, we're not even trying hard and we're leading playoff games by 20-30 before coasting. Spotted 'em an 11 point lead last night and then ran off a 20-point run. It's kinda nuts. Even a few games of the Brooklyn series last year were at least close. The sequence beginning when we were down 22-11 till mid 2Q was frankly amazing on both ends, I was literally laughing at some points. Aww, you almost had it!
Speaking of trying hard, I didn't really see what you saw with Marcus. I did see him make a couple of good plays on offense, but it seemed to me like his usual handsiness was muted if not absent, I didn't see a lot of creative passing, and I did see some plays where he kinda set up a teammate to get the ball stripped in traffic (though he only had one turnover credited to him). Like honestly I thought Hauser played better 1v1 defense in his 14 minutes than Smart did in his 32 minutes.
Playing Al Horford for 32 minutes may have been excessive, too. First half, whatever, but we probably didn't need to bring him in with 9:19 remaining up by 14, and definitely didn't need to keep him in there until 2:16 remaining and up by 22. Likewise, when he was pulled, it was for Timelord - I think Blake or Kornet could've finished off the game. The coaching challenge of this series is "minimize odometer on our two primary bigs", imo, while still being sure that we sweep. Like if we need to play both of them 35' on Friday in order to ensure we win a close one, that's clearly worth it because it saves having to play an entire additional game. But if not, CJM should be shaving minutes out there.
The next 2 rounds (and the rest of this one) have an every-other-day cadence, so no more extra days off. Every bit of mileage saved is mileage earned when the season comes down to the wire.
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Yeah I started counting those by the second half. Shot goes up, we have 4 guys in position around the basket and boxing out, and the rebound goes 10-15 feet from the basket and is grabbed by a perimeter Hawk. Very frustrating, but also kinda "what can ya do".
Obviously some of those happen in every game, but it did feel like a fluky high number were of that category last night.
One adjustment we could make is to keep 3 players back for the near-basket positioning when the jumper goes up, and send two players downcourt (usually the guards), so that they're in useful spots to contest for longer-distance rebounds. I didn't see very many spray that far out to the corners.
ATL sold out a lot of transition defense in order to get those offensive rebounds. I can live with giving up a half dozen extra offensive boards if it results in a few easy transition baskets
Smart was jumping passing lanes and being a general pain in the ass for the two games. Agreed that he's not doing anything particularly special on ball, but he's anticipating and doing that instinctive stuff that nobody else does except occasionally White. I'm probably running the games together in my mind, but examples are a corner three pass that he basically stole without looking as the ball whizzed by him and the interception of what should have been an easy lob conversion to Capela. Most guys don't easily make those plays. He has been one play ahead of everyone else on the court so far defensively IMO.
The funniest part of Brogdon's half-court shot is that all season he has been letting them go a second after the buzzer goes off or passing the ball just before the buzzer (ostensibly so it wouldn't count as a shot). I remember one game (Milwaukee?) where he hit the shot just after the buzzer went off so it didn't count.
I'll never know but I swear that as he was bringing up the ball into shooting position, he was thinking about waiting again and then just decided, "WTF" and it went in. And counted.
Playoff basketball baby!
When White is starting and putting up efficient 20+ scoring, Smart only needs to take a lunch pail role. I don’t know if White can be a 20 ppg guy throughout the playoffs, but if he can, it’s going to be difficult for any team to beat the Celtics.
The starting lineup of White, Smart, the Jays, and AL pretty much guarantees a fast start on offense, and maximum switchability on defense to frustrate any offense. As a reward for the other team, the Cs then sub in a game changing rim defender and a versatile, starting quality PG who happens to be one of the most accurate three point shooter in the league. They also roll out a quick trigger three point shooter who can put up nine points when touching the ball for like four total seconds on three or four possessions. Feeding TL deep in the paint late in the first quarter, after spreading out the defense to start the game, has been easy money these first two games.
Mazzulla has found the right rotation mix for this series, which happens to allow White to build his confidence after a very shaky last five games of last year’s Finals.
The starting lineup of White, Smart, the Jays, and AL pretty much guarantees a fast start on offense, and maximum switchability on defense to frustrate any offense. As a reward for the other team, the Cs then sub in a game changing rim defender and a versatile, starting quality PG who happens to be one of the most accurate three point shooter in the league. They also roll out a quick trigger three point shooter who can put up nine points when touching the ball for like four total seconds on three or four possessions. Feeding TL deep in the paint late in the first quarter, after spreading out the defense to start the game, has been easy money these first two games.
Mazzulla has found the right rotation mix for this series, which happens to allow White to build his confidence after a very shaky last five games of last year’s Finals.
This screen grab is one of many, but it really sums up the problem the Hawks (and most teams) have when defending the Celtics. The Celtics have gotten to the rim at will, but when Tatum puts the ball down, they consistently collapse on him, sometimes he’s able to beat it and get to the rim anyways, but then this is what the floor looks like for everyone else.
When the players are spaced out and making quick decisions, this offense is close to unstoppable.
When the players are spaced out and making quick decisions, this offense is close to unstoppable.
Jesus. He has 5 options there. From best to worst they would be
1) Al in the right corner for an open three (45% from that spot)
2) Smart in the left corner for an open three
3) Kick back to Jaylen for an above the break three
4) Throw one up to TL
5) Contested floater
1) Al in the right corner for an open three (45% from that spot)
2) Smart in the left corner for an open three
3) Kick back to Jaylen for an above the break three
4) Throw one up to TL
5) Contested floater
More specifically, ATL missed 58 shots (BOS missed 38) of which 32 were 3PA. Given that ORbng is a stretch, it's not surprising that they retrieved a few more boards than league average but to me, it doesn't look as bad as just saying "ATL had 19 ORnds and BOS had 5)."
The first and third points are directly correlated to the Celtics' EFG% advantage of 64.5 to 50.5%. Another influencing factor is that the Celtics drew a few more fouls per possession.
The turnovers were annoying but no one is going to win a game with an ~50% eFG%. League average for the regular season was 54.5%. And it wasn't like the Hawks were chucking, the Celtics ran them off their spots and made them work. Even the offensive boards didn't lead to a lot of easy putbacks.
Do you think this is what Mazzulla intends for the default playoff rotation, or just for Atlanta? Timelord for 22 minutes off the bench is certainly good for keeping TL's minutes down (and he's thus often going against bench bigs), but I'd be a bit surprised if he's not put up to starting role / minutes coming up. Since he returned from his 2 weeks off on 3/21, he played 5 games where he didn't start (minutes: 15' - 20'), 2 games off, then 2 games starting (31' and 25'), then took game 82 off. Wasn't sure if that was ramping up, or just prepping 2 different roles.
I think some of this criticism of Murray is a little harsh. Murray is a good player in a less than ideal situation for his skillset. He's going against the best team in the league when they're healthy and fresh. He is probably the Hawks' best defender too. It's hard to look good in that situation no matter how well you play.
It’s also become an entirely overrated statistic in the day of defensive transition. There is a reason why teams have been getting runouts on the Hawks all season….that’s the price they pay for being a good offensive rebounding team. For the Hawks it’s tricky bc you want to take advantage of Collins and Capelas length but when you do they you get numbers the other way…..against Trae Young.
Give them all the offensive boards they want, within reason, and we’ll continue destroying them with our secondary break.
In addition to the long rebounds on 3 pointers (The Hawks put up 48 3's last night, by far their highest total of the season if I'm not mistaken.), in which the C's were in a prime position to get the board, but the brick was so loud, it bounced to half court, there was another aspect in play here last night.
The C's were absolutely selling out last night for blocked shots. They had 12 of them.
Something most folks don't realize, a blocked shot gather still counts as a rebound. Of the 12 blocked shots the C's had, 4 of them were gathered by the Hawks which qualify as offensive rebounds in the stats.
If I were JMazz and we get PHI in the next series, I'm starting GW and bringing TL off the bench. I would think that would be the best use of TL's minutes and fouls.