Just finished watching the SAC game on replay. When I saw the score, I thought I was going to be pissed off the whole time watching them be the shitty Celtics, but this was actually a pretty good game by them.
The early deficit was almost purely makes vs. misses, with a couple miscommunications allowing easy buckets and some horrific officiating mixed in. The main thing was that they didn't start playing hero ball, and they kept trying to stay engaged defensively. When they were down 15, their body language looked like it was a 4 point lead. Much, much mentally tougher effort.
I was at the game and witnessed the complete opposite for over 30 minutes of this game. Brad was forced to call one non-TV timeout in each of the first three quarters following multiple possessions of not even faking effort and/or miscommunication by disengaged players as the crowd was either silent, moaned, or sprinkled them with some boos as they walked to the huddle. Not sure if the television caught it but following a super lazy TO near halfcourt in the 3rd quarter by Hayward that resulted in a Kings layup while 3 Celtics barely made it to halfcourt…..Gordon and MaMo remained under the basket both with palms up explaining to the other what they did wrong. This included on the sideline as, of all people, TimeLord came between them to "send them to their corners" as neither was backing down off their claim of the other screwing up.
The Celtics came out flat while settling for jumper after jumper as they clanged one after another.....Kyrie finally set the tone by repeatedly taking it to the rim versus whichever overmatched defender attempted to check him but those first 8-9 minutes were as bad from a pure effort perspective as we've had all year. First game back from West Coast trips? I'm sure this played a factor as we've seen in the past and it is easy to fall into the trap of settling for jumpers when they really aren't contested. If not for Kyrie recognizing that a double digit deficit put them in the danger zone of several occasions prior to him taking the game over for stretches we don't win a game with this type of preparation and/or effort. The win belongs to Kyrie for re-setting the tone at critical points in the game and to Jaylen for his 2nd half shooting spree which seemed to take the wind out of the Kings sail.
Defensively was much the same as I saw offensively.....no urgency on closeouts, a step or two behind on rotations for literally every possession in the first quarter (and again first part of second half) as the Kings put up 38 on us in those first 12 minutes. For 3 quarters it was "fake hustle" closeouts allowing Hield clean looks (in fairness, he also drilled a few contested ones) and Fox to get wherever he pleased with the ball. Again, Brad responded by calling 3 non-TV timeouts to get his team to regroup after being lackadaisical during Kings runs.
The other thing that stood out was how much it helps to subtract Rozier. Suddenly all of the rotations made sense and felt cohesive. They could play the Kyrie/Smart lineups, the huge wing-heavy lineups, the 2-big lineups--it all suddenly clicks, and the depth starts to feel like an advantage, rather than a burden. There were other nice spillover effects too: no Terryball to break the offensive rhythm (they stayed in the offense basically the entire game), and Morris stayed in the team concept a lot better.
If Danny wants to keep Kyrie happy and have a deep playoff run, Rozier shouldn't play anymore except in really specific situations against quick guards.
I actually felt we missed Terry's energy a lot in the late 1st/early 2nd quarters when the game slowed to a standstill from foul trouble/arguing with officials, etc. I always said I felt we play better without 1-2 of our regular rotation players allowing one of our wings to get minutes/touches/rhythm that they wouldn't otherwise......last night it was Jaylen as the beneficiary with Hayward replacing Terry as our second unit PG but he didn't provide much energy while looking slow without any burst off the dribble. The problem is that Brad doesn't have a Ouija board to tell him which equally skilled rotation player is going to bring it/not bring it on any given night. I suspect in the playoffs we'll see one of these guys not see action in the 2nd half of these games based on their effort/energy during their first half minutes. Baynes was another guy who was a step behind on rotations causing him to foul out in a game he would have gotten 25 min due to the Kings big lineup but it did result in the crowd chanting "Time-Lord!" as he checked into the scorers table. Per usual he was lost offensively and made a slow closeout on a Hield 3 but used his looooong arms to intercept a wing entry bounce pass that was arguable our best defensively play of the night.
A couple other things I noticed live that may/may not be visible from the couch...…….
1. Baynes is really really lean. If someone asked you who was skinnier between Baynes and Cauley-Stein our initial response would almost universally be "Obv WCS"...….but that isn't the case at all.
2. The crowd seemed to feel Hayward was being jobbed by the officials at the end of the 1st or 2nd quarter (I forget which) with 3-4 consecutive calls going against him but I felt the refs did a great job in this game imo. Fox (I believe) missed a jumper with the replay showing Hayward didn't hit his arm as the crowd booed and cursed the ref but the call was that Gordon didn't allow Fox his space to land which was correct......it still amazes me that fans don't understand this rule and how it is an auto-whistle especially when the shooter can sell it. The next time down the floor Hayward scored at the rim while being knocked to the floor but the player, I believe it was Barnes, defended it perfectly by remaining vertical in his challenge at the rim which keeping his arms straight up as opposed to slamming down on the player which would have resulted in a 3-point play. A couple other times on penetrations there was some contact however with Gordon lacking explosion it allowed the defender to remain in position.
I was really impressed by the zebras last night and there was another piece of great officiating that largely went unnoticed by the crowd. Earlier in the game a double T was issued involving Harry Giles......then in the 2nd half, Baynes and Giles got into a brief skirmish and one official came in and issued Baynes a T prior to going to do same to Giles when another official intervened with his whistle, huddled with the official and zero T's were ultimately called rather than tossing Giles for simply being tangled up with Baynes. That is some great teamwork right there.
3. I posted a few weeks ago questioning Tatum's upside as he fades out of the game for long stretches of time. Last night was an example of what I was referring to......as I was thinking about each player and their performance I had almost forgotten that Tatum had played in this game. Virtually zero impact.
4. The couch is cheap. 2 tickets in Sec 111 are not. Maybe this is why I don't go to more live Celtics games at home.....between tickets, parking, and food/drink the tab nearly touched the $800 mark. Crazy.