Round 1 Discussion: Celtics - Pacers

Captaincoop

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We should have this thread by now.

Some good history in this series (Bird's last playoff heroics in 1991); some bad (Paul Pierce's insane face bandage press conference).

I will be watching cautiously, having burned multiple times by this frustrating Celtics group, thinking they had turned the corner, and finding out they had...not.

Bottom line is, if they can't beat Indiana with home court advantage, they weren't beating anyone. Hopefully Brad has a playoff rotation ready to go, and the C's send a message in round one.
 

Red Averages

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I will be watching cautiously, having burned multiple times by this frustrating Celtics group, thinking they had turned the corner, and finding out they had...not.

Bottom line is, if they can't beat Indiana with home court advantage, they weren't beating anyone. Hopefully Brad has a playoff rotation ready to go, and the C's send a message in round one.

Glad we can start this thread off with fear and negativity already. Great reminder to avoid the game threads so that we can actually enjoy the games instead of being surrounded by this.

This will be the easiest series the Celtics have had in years. They'll be favored in every game. Enjoy it.
 

ifmanis5

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Pacers are 3-9 in their last 12 going into tonight so, a team on the downswing after the Oladipo injury. Their length is a problem and allowing only a league best 104.3 ppg.
Still, if you limit Bojan offensively then I don't see them outscoring Boston. It'll be an ugly series but I like Boston in 5 or 6.
 

lovegtm

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Pacers are 3-9 in their last 12 going into tonight so, a team on the downswing after the Oladipo injury. Their length is a problem and allowing only a league best 104.3 ppg.
Still, if you limit Bojan offensively then I don't see them outscoring Boston. It'll be an ugly series but I like Boston in 5 or 6.
Between Smart and Brown, the Celtics have some of the best personnel in the league for doing just this.
 

RedOctober3829

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The MO of this year's Celtics is to not make things easy on themselves. I envision this series to go 6 games if not 7 because there will be at least 1 game where the Celtics are a complete no-show. The situation with Smart is very key. They need him in the lineup ready to go because they are a much better team with him.
 

DJnVa

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The MO of this year's Celtics is to not make things easy on themselves. I envision this series to go 6 games if not 7 because there will be at least 1 game where the Celtics are a complete no-show. The situation with Smart is very key. They need him in the lineup ready to go because they are a much better team with him.
They will never be a COMPLETE no-show. They may no-show for the first 2.5 quarters and make it a futile run though.

Speaking of Smart--any word today?
 

Red Averages

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I think we should assume Game 1 is Sunday and Game 2 is Tuesday/Wednesday, so he still has about a week.
 

mostman

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Well, shit. Hopefully it wasn’t made worse by not taking him out immediately.
 

DJnVa

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It says "could". I'm gonna be optimistic. Maybe we get him back during that series.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Jeez, the one good thing about this disappointment of a season has been player health, other than Baynes missing some time. This sucks.
 

bigq

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Celtics can get past the Pacers without Smart. Second round will be more difficult but do-able.
 

tims4wins

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Jeez, the one good thing about this disappointment of a season has been player health, other than Baynes missing some time. This sucks.
Sounds kind of familiar to another local team that recently completed its season... disappointing regular season despite good health, low fan expectations headed into the playoffs...
 

Red Averages

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They will get past Indy fine without him. Milwaukee will obviously be more of a challenge, but Semi should be given more run with his ability to slow down the Greek freak.

Thankfully they are a much deeper team this year with the ability to bring in Brown/Hayward and still have a good bench. Ultimately we can just shorten to an 8 man rotation and run Hayward at the point.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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11/3 - Pacers 102 Cs 101 @ Indiana
1/9 - Cs 135, Pacers 108 @Bos
3/29 - Cs 114, Pacers 112 @ Bos
4/5 - Cs 117, Pacers 97 @ Indiana

More stats later this evening but this series shouldn't go more than six games even without Smart. In short, the C's are a tough match-up for the Pacers even with Oladipo.
 

Auger34

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It’s absolutely unbelievable that Smart was allowed to go back into that game
 

DJnVa

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Yeah that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. No idea what Brad was thinking there or in that game overall
I mean, guys get banged up, limp around a bit, and go back in games all the time. Unless we know exactly what Smart and the the medical guys told the coach, perhaps we should assume that no one screwed up.
 

JCizzle

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I mean, guys get banged up, limp around a bit, and go back in games all the time. Unless we know exactly what Smart and the the medical guys told the coach, perhaps we should assume that no one screwed up.
But in this case, the game was entirely meaningless. I agree with you in just about any other case, especially with Smart.
 

DJnVa

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But in this case, the game was entirely meaningless. I agree with you in just about any other case, especially with Smart.
Yeah, I'm not telling Smart he's done. Point taken about meaningless game though.
 

Captaincoop

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Glad we can start this thread off with fear and negativity already. Great reminder to avoid the game threads so that we can actually enjoy the games instead of being surrounded by this.

This will be the easiest series the Celtics have had in years. They'll be favored in every game. Enjoy it.
That would be great, but did you happen to watch any Celtics games this year?
 

amarshal2

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I’d we take a leap and assume that Brad was going to be aggressive with shortening the rotation (eg Rozier was playing 0 mins in a close game) and that Tatum wasn’t playing more than ~15 mins a game at the 4, then this isn’t that huge of a deal. It’s something like Rozier picks up 10 mins, brown picks up 10 mins, Hayward 5, Tatum 5, Kyrie 5. Unless you think there’s a big drop in performance in those marginal minutes they’ll cover it okay save for the Rozier 10 minutes. I think the loss is more his leadership.

If you assume Brad was going back to October and Tatum was playing 30 mins at the 4 then this is a loss in that Morris is picking up 15 mins that could’ve gone to Smart. So 25 or Smarts 30-35 mins are being filled by Rozier and Morris. That’s tough.
 

RoDaddy

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but Semi should be given more run with his ability to slow down the Greek freak .
It would be interesting to see TL cover Giannis as well, even if it's for a short stretch. It's probably pretty unlikely although I seem to remember this happening for a short time one game this year
 

benhogan

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No Marcus means more Rozier. Ugh

Indy won't be a problem but Milwaukee will feast when Rozier and Irving are on the floor together
 

joe dokes

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I mean, guys get banged up, limp around a bit, and go back in games all the time. Unless we know exactly what Smart and the the medical guys told the coach, perhaps we should assume that no one screwed up.
Fuck that noise. Medical staff? Feh! A player who probably said he thinks he just bangedbinto aaguy and that hes good to go? Un possible.
Brad only sees smarts injury as a way to get more PT for his binkies, Morris and rozier. He's actually glad it happened.
 

amarshal2

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No Marcus means more Rozier. Ugh

Indy won't be a problem but Milwaukee will feast when Rozier and Irving are on the floor together
That’s on Brad. No reason to play them together in the playoffs, ever. You can play Kyrie 38 minutes a night and Rozier 10 and be done. Every minute that Rozier plays at the 2 is a minute. Brown/Hayward/Tatum don’t play. If you assume Brown/Hayward max out around 35 mins in playoffs and you want to play Tatum 35-40 while minimizing his time at the 4 then Brown/Hayward cover 70 of 96 mins at the 2/3, Tatum picks up 26 mins at the 3 and then ~10 at the 4.

You end up adding time for Morris/Theis as bigs which is better than Rozier at the 2 I think and not a huge trade off from Tatum at the 4.

Of course you’re right that Brad will play Rozier at the 2 but that’s his choice.
 
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Light-Tower-Power

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They’re a lot better this year but we did beat Milwaukee twice last year without Smart, Kyrie, and Hayward. We’re going to need a hefty dose of playoff Jaylen.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Assessing blame for Smart's injury is probably better served in the Stevens or Smart threads - he is out for the series and while his absence impacts rotations etc, hindsight criticisms aren't relevant to this match-up imho. YRMV.

That said, here are the averages for the four head-to-head games played by these two teams.

FG%: Boston 50.8%, Indiana 43.2%
3P%: Boston 40.2%, Indiana 38.2%
Rebounds: Boston 46.25, Indiana 42.5
Assists: Boston 27.25, Indiana 25
Steals: Boston 7, Indiana 7.5
Blocks: Boston 6.5, Indiana: 1.75

As you can see, the C's had the edge in every category save for steals and the averages include two games where Oladipo was playing. Note there was no clear pattern in the data for either team pre or post-Oladipo injury (e.g. Indiana actually shot better from deep the two games where 'Dipo was out).

In any event, the data suggests what many of us already suspect - the C's should handle the Pacers fairly easily. That doesn't mean they will but if anyone is worried, the results and game stats ought to assuage some concerns.
 

Eddie Jurak

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They will get past Indy fine without him. Milwaukee will obviously be more of a challenge, but Semi should be given more run with his ability to slow down the Greek freak.

Thankfully they are a much deeper team this year with the ability to bring in Brown/Hayward and still have a good bench. Ultimately we can just shorten to an 8 man rotation and run Hayward at the point.
Yes. As long Rozier's role is mostly spelling Kyrie, this should be manageable.
That’s on Brad. No reason to play them together in the playoffs, ever. You can play Kyrie 38 minutes a night and Rozier 10 and be done.
Correct.
 

lovegtm

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Didn't Brown have success guarding Bogdanovic in the Wizards series as a rookie? My guess is they match him up on Bojan most of the game.
 

BaseballJones

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The Smart injury is a problem. Think it won't likely matter for this series, but the next one? Ugh. Well, let's worry about that later. For now, Celtics in 5 but it will still be a grind.