Analysis of Celtics Games, '21-'22 Season
- Thread starter Imbricus
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The block was OK (wouldnt call it amazing or absurd). But even more impressive were two things: (a) keeping the ball in play after the block, as Bill Russell preached and (b) the behind the back pass as he collected the ball to start the break. The latter was particularly next level.
The best thing about the block is that he didn't blast in into the seats. Retrieving the loose ball and knowing where Marcus was and executing that behind the back pass were next level. Those are the skills that set Rob apart from a guy like Capela.
That sequence speaks to how far Time Lord has come, because for much of his NBA career he's been the guy who smacks the blocked shot into the stands, allowing the opponent to retain possession.
Great summary @Eddie Jurak
Thanks for posting these. They are a fun way to relive the games regardless of outcome.
Winners of seven in a row and nine of their last ten, the Celtics along with Toronto and Phoenix are among the hottest teams in the NBA.
I didn’t think Marcus at the point was going to work but he has been really good. This team has a really strong starting five and with White, Grant Williams and Theis they are eight deep in defensive excellence and not too shabby offensively as well. This team will still go as far as the Jays take them but their supporting cast appears to have improved significantly over night.
Thanks for posting these. They are a fun way to relive the games regardless of outcome.
Winners of seven in a row and nine of their last ten, the Celtics along with Toronto and Phoenix are among the hottest teams in the NBA.
I didn’t think Marcus at the point was going to work but he has been really good. This team has a really strong starting five and with White, Grant Williams and Theis they are eight deep in defensive excellence and not too shabby offensively as well. This team will still go as far as the Jays take them but their supporting cast appears to have improved significantly over night.
Truly amazing how everything has seemed to come together for this team. Sometimes everything goes wrong for a team, and then boom, the opposite happens. Feel a lot better about this team than a few weeks ago. White is a player and it will be great to have Theis back. Seems like the roles are much more defined now.
Think I'm going to fall in love with them all over again, flaws and all. It's fun now.
Tatum’s advanced stats are getting ridiculous, in that next grouping behind the absolute best . Even shooting 32% from three, he’s been incredible, and his impact is crazy. His on/off is +12.7, the next closest is Smart at +8.8.
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Grant’s minutes were huge because he gave Time Lord a break from guarding Jokic. Jokic posted him up successfully on one possession, but Grant was able to hold his own in those minutes.
Maybe craziest on-off guy in the league is Nikola Jokic. More than +10 on and more than -10 off, for a net rating of +21. Cleaning the glass which removes garbage time has him at +25.6. They have Tatum leading the Celtics at +15.4 followed by Smart at +11.0.
Once Tatum fixes his 3pt shooting this summer we'll see him and the team compete for the top of the East. His work/skill around the rim has jumped
Brad is wisely surrounding the JAYS with complementary players. No more weak links defensively 1-8. More consolidation coming this summer with Horford + picks + young guys on the block next.
This summer really feels like a big S&T using the Horford contract is coming. Brad has shown that he's fine to use draft capital to get things across the finish line, so the odds are a lot higher something will happen than with Ainge.
The offseason flexibility reset was always interesting because we immediately had the makings of a better effort and better defense team in addition to a moderate improvement in potential for future moves.
The effort/D came to fruition, it’s finally resulting inconsistent wins, meanwhile the salary side is already paying dividends with both player upgrades and additional flexibility with the right mix of top end talent, salary filler, and affordable depth to put some final pieces in place. Plus Begarin, the secret x-factor.
Am I getting rationally excited about this Celtics team? Perhaps. +5000 looks juicy for a futures bet on a championship if I were a betting man though.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nba-predictions/celtics/
538's RAPTOR isn't my favorite advanced stat, but for what's its worth, it loves Derrick White (21st ranked player overall). Especially his D. Again, I don't think RAPTOR is a particularly great all-in one stat, but its also not totally out of whack with most of the others.
They have the Celtics as a 16% chance to win the title this year. Our top 5 players are above average on both offense and defense. Our top 7 are above average on D (top 8 if you include Theis).
Our projected win total with this current roster is 61 wins.
Side note, Jokic's advanced stats are insanity.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nba-predictions/celtics/
538's RAPTOR isn't my favorite advanced stat, but for what's its worth, it loves Derrick White (21st ranked player overall). Especially his D. Again, I don't think RAPTOR is a particularly great all-in one stat, but its also not totally out of whack with most of the others.
They have the Celtics as a 16% chance to win the title this year. Our top 5 players are above average on both offense and defense. Our top 7 are above average on D (top 8 if you include Theis).
Our projected win total with this current roster is 61 wins.
Side note, Jokic's advanced stats are insanity.
Turning FREE options JRich/DS into controllable contract/solid players is high-level GMing compared to recent seasons.
The CAP will jump after it being flattish for a few years, having those contracts will be good value.
At this stage of the JAYs, moving draft picks is the right move. PLUS the team has young controllable players left in Begarin/Mader
TL has popped big time. Grant is starting to pop. Romeo, Nesmith, Pritchard didn't take advantage of their opportunities. PP/AN get until the first half of next season until getting jettisoned. No reason to fall in love with them.
A super early Summer pipe dream target list: LaVine, Beal, Collins, Barnes, PJ Washington
Not even sure how many TPE's Brad rolled over for next season? BUT when they are vying for a top spot in the EC, expect them to go over the cap and aggressively use those TPEs
I’m holding out hope for the stretch of days off after the all star game. Think him and Hanlen will get at it hard and try to fix whatever it is. Definitely is me being hopeful as much as anything, though.
I had always thought Tatum would likely max out as more of a consistent second team all nba guy. But this season has me optimistic that he can be even better than that, considering the impact he’s had despite his best weapon failing him.
The defense has been the best of his career over the last two months (IMO), and you can see it reflected in how much his defensive impact stats have been steadily rising.
Pretty amazing how well this team is performing despite Brown and Tatum together averaging about 33% on their threes. The defense has been out of this world. I think the offense has improved with White and will really pop if those two start making their threes.
It’s even crazier over the last 15 games, too. We’ve went 11-4 with Jaylen averaging just 22 a game on 27% shooting from three, and a 54% TS. Tatum averaging 25 on 31% from three, and a surprisingly not bad 57% TS. Him being automatic at the rim and getting to the line a lot has been huge.
Jaylen has averaged 3.6 assists a game over that time though, 5.1 for Tatum.
White and Smart are better for the offense than their 3-pt %s would indicate, since they both demand closeouts (they're fine shooters on open 3s), and then can make quality decisions in space when driving.
I didn't realize that Smart was shooting over 50% this year from 2, without many easy layups in those looks. He's developed a nice little 10-foot jumper when he gets his shoulder into the defender and fades away.
I was looking through some old Robert Williams posts I had made to see how they've aged (spoiler alert: not great), but I came across this post by @Big McCorkle which seems almost prescient.
Everyone on this roster is fucking trying. You can see it. Clear as day this team looks like it wants to win. Which, to be honest, was the biggest reason I stopped watching earlier in the season. Couldn't have picked a better time to flip the switch.
What makes me incredibly optimistic about this stretch run is how incredible this team is playing, dominating teams, feels ridiculously sustainable. This doesn't feel like a team playing above its' talent level. About the only negative thing you can point to is career-worst shooting from Tatum and Horford or Idoka's riding the starters. I would guess that the shooting is only likely to stay where it is, or improve significantly. Williams and Smart have been revelations, both playing probably the best brand of basketball they've literally ever played in a Celtic uniform, and its backbone is in defensive prowess and effort.
Everyone on this roster is fucking trying. You can see it. Clear as day this team looks like it wants to win. Which, to be honest, was the biggest reason I stopped watching earlier in the season. Couldn't have picked a better time to flip the switch.
Yeah if I were a betting man I would be tempted to throw some on Boston....and some on Denver given Scal saying Murray looked like he’s coming back soon.
Yeah, I noticed that too -- he's like on an island all by himself, at the top. People talk about Embiid as an MVP, but I don't see how the NBA doesn't give the award to Jokic every year. He was making some crazy good passes last night (yeah, he did have a problem with turnovers). How is Embiid better than Jokic? Jokic plays so smart, has a good shot ... I'd take him on my team 10 times out of 10 over Embiid.
Separately, I was really impressed with White's elite court vision and quick reaction time. He can thread the needle with the passes and snaps them off fast -- if Grant hadn't blown two easy layups off White passes, White would've had four assists easily. Not sure yet how much I want him shooting -- would rather he focus on distribution -- but he was a very effective shooter last night.
So what do the Celtics need now (on the buyout market presumably)? I think tops on my list would be a marksman who can nail threes, and those aren't as hard to find as a good point guard. Second might be a big body who can bang down low against the larger NBA centers; Rob has a great leap, but he can be pushed around by guys like Embiid and Jokic, and we don't want to wear him out that way anyway. Big beefcake centers should be cheap and freely available, so that shouldn't be a problem. Though I guess the question is do we want to be carrying four centers ... eh. I suppose we could use some wing depth too, since Brad traded away like a third of the team.
If I were anywhere near a sports book, I'd drop some money on Cs to win it all at +5000. The Cs can currently play with anyone with their defense, and if a couple of injuries/new teammates not being intergrated well, and maybe the Cs become legit contenders.
That's why I thought the White deal is a no-brainer, even with the dreaded pick swap - taking a not-very-valuable asset like a TPE and turning it into a better asset (JRich) and then turning it into an even better asset (White) is a classic GM way of building teams. And maybe POBOBS can turn White into an even better asset (or maybe adding White allows another asset to be turned into a better asset). That's how DA built his first contender.
And one of the reasons why DA couldn't do that in recent years is that he didn't have the roster space due to all of the draft picks he ended up making.
The Cs played 4 lineups more than 3 minutes last night. The starting lineup played the most - 19 minutes - and was a net -2.3, which I presume was mostly due to the 1Q. The closing lineup played 8 minutes had a NRtg of 44.4 (ORtg = 122.2; DRtg = 77.8). After Jokic hit his contested 3P at 5:28 remaining, DEN did not score again except for 1 Barton FT until the game was out of reach.
The other two lineups were: Al, JT, DW, PP, and GW = 6 minutes, NRtg = 68.9 (ORtg = 127.3; DRtg = 58.3) and MS, JB, DW, TL, and GW = 6 minutes, NRtg = 9.0 (ORtg = 116.7 and DRtg = 107.7).
DEN used 3 lineups that played over 2 minutes. They were:
Green, Barton, Jokic, Gordon, and Hyland = 18 minutes, 7.3 NRtg (ORtg = 97.5; DRtg = 90.2);
Barton, Gordon, Jokic, Nnaji, and Campazzo = 13 minutes, -26.1 NRtg (ORtg 89.3; DRtg = 115.4); and
Rivers, Green, Forbes, Nnaji, and Campazzo = 12 minutes, -11.5 NRtg (ORtg 88.5; DRtg = 100.0).
Looking forward to watching the Cs new closing lineup just shut down other teams.
I was a hair concerned Marcus, the PG!, would be looking over his shoulder with the White addition. BUT sounds like they will feed off each other. What a difference a year (& new GM) makes. We've gone from Kemba/Fournier backcourt to Smart/White juggernaut. Look for White to draw plenty of charges (hello Giannis)
HRB always claims that POINTz gets players PAID... if that's true, good defense is probably underpaid.
JRich on TPE, extended on the cheap then sell for a longer-dated better player
Schroder on MLE. Package w/mins to get a longer-dated more complementary player
The GMing velocity is also impressive. In 8 months he has cleaned up some bad contracts, didn't foolishly overpay for Fournier, extended key players, stayed under the CAP, added 3 better rotation players, added an interesting draft pick & a new end of the roster. Look forward to Brad's summer work.
We all hate the pick swap, but it feels like that was the cost of every NBA team knowing Boston was desperate for the right ballhandler.
This is in response to your game write-up (I didn’t want to quote it because it was too long) but both potential assists that White lost due to missed layups were from Grant Williams. Smoked two bunnies, and they were both pretty early in the game
Also the cost of outbidding other teams. Presumably White was on the market and the Celtics weren't the only interested team.
No reason to assume Brad was automatically bidding against himself here, I'm sure White had value around the league.
Also, a mid to late 2022 first rounder and a top 1 protected 2028 pick swap honestly isn't a huge price. JRich and Romeo just to balance out the $.
The Celtics get themselves a nice 10 point win over Atlanta after a truly dogshit first quarter where it looked for a bit like Atlanta was going to run them out of the Garden. This game was a story of 4 quarters.
First quarter: Celtics are just bad. Taking a lot of shots and missing them. Marcus Smart shot 2 for 6 in the quarter, the Celtics missed all of their threes (and some free throws), and fell behind 28-13 before scoring 4 points at the end of the quarter to cut it to 11. Nothing good to say about this quarter, from a Celtic perspective. 28-17.
Second Quarter: The Celtics began this quarter with a nice run that included a pair of Derrick White threes (White was the best Celtic in the first half), then Horford executed a give and go with White leading to a layup the cut the Hawk lead to 3 (30-27). But then Atlanta got going again and eventually built their lead up to 14 points (55-41) with a minute left before the Celtics again scored 4 points to close out the quarter down 10, 55-45.
White was the best Celtic with 10 in the half. A big problem for the Celtics was Trae Young who scored 17 in the half and added a bunch of assists. The Celtics were playing a kind of switching defense that let Young do repeated isos against Rob, and that was... not a good matchup for Rob. That went away in the second half.
Third Quarter: Boom! Celtics came out hot and sustained their momentum through the full quarter, outscoring the Hawks 42-23, to go from down 10 to up 9. The guy who carried the load for the C's in this quarter was Jayson Tatum, with 16. He actually only had 5 points in the first 8 minutes of the quarter, then he exploded for 11 in the last 4.
Fourth quarter: The Celtics went back into offensive struggle mode, but the defense help them hanf on to win the quarter by a point, 18-17. Denver cut the Celtic lead to 5, the Celtics went on a Tatum-fueled 8-0 run (Tatum his a two, then a three, then assists on a Grant three) to build the lead back to 13 before the Hawks scored 7 straight to cut it to 6. The Celtic who must struggled in this quarter was Jaylen Brown. Didn't score, and a couple of times he did his "drive into traffic and cought it up" thing. Then, with just over a minute left, Celtics up 8, Bogdanovic missed an open three and Rob tacked down the rebiund and got it to Brown. Brown... fell asleep? He just... stood there with it doing nothing in particular until Hunter closed from behind and just took the ball away from him. But Hunter drove and missed his layup, and the Hawks got no closer.
White looked like the best C in the first half, but he bricked a lot of threes in the second. In 29 minutes, he scored 14 points on 4 for 14 shooting, 2 of 10 from three, I think 0 for 6 in the second half. He did add 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and a block and only turned it over once. It looked like he had sealed off the win by drawing a charge against Trae Young with less then 2 minutes remaining in the 4th, but the Hawks won a challenge (which was the right call - after Young went up, White shuffled his feet a bit to get into position to take the charge). Aside from his many missed threes he had a good game.
Tatum was the man for the C's in this one, scoring 25 second half points to finish with 38 for the game, on 13 of 27 shooting (4 of 10 from three, 8 of 9 from the line). Added 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and a steal, and only 2 turnovers.
Horford played his secondary offensive role to perfection, scoring 8 points on 3 for 3 shooting, including a key pair of 3rd quarrter threes. Also 6 rebounds and a block in 24 minutes.
Rob had the usual double-double (10 and 14), an assist, and 2 blocks but he was also a turnover machine, with 5. And when the Celtics defense was letting him get switched onto Trae, Trae abused him.
Jaylen shot 6 of 16, 2 of 6 from 3, for 17 points. Added 9 rebounds and 3 assists, but turned it over 4 times, including the end of game one that could have hurt them. Scoreless in the 4th.
Marcus had a weird start to the game: kind of came out firing, putting up 6 shots in the 1st quarter (hitting 2). Only scored as attempting 5 more the rest of the way, for 11 total, one of which was a clock-beating missed three where he had no choice. But he had some scoring success by driving and getting fouled. Overall he shot 3 of 11 from the field (missing all 5 of his threes), but went 7 of 9 from the line for 13 points. Added 7 assists, 6 rebounds - including a key late one - and a steal and did not turn the ball over.
Grant didn't shoot well (2 of 5, 1 of 3 from 3) with 4 rebounds, an assist, and a steal.
Pritchard missed everything 0-3 in 11 minutes, but the Celtics played well when he was in the game, so he was a +10.
Edit: Trae dropped 30 to lead the Hawks, and added 10 assists and 4 rebounds. But he turned it over 4 times and had a poor shooting night: 9-26 (4-12 from 3) and finished a -5. Much better in the first half than the second, probably because the Celtics stopped letting him go one on one against Rob.
This is a good visual of how the Celtics managed their 42-point 3rd quarter:
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1492976806386823170?s=20&t=9w4CUWYt7KqrxRSdiVxODw
John Karalis: Celtics 3rd quarter shot chart looks like a bowl of fruit loops at the rim
First quarter: Celtics are just bad. Taking a lot of shots and missing them. Marcus Smart shot 2 for 6 in the quarter, the Celtics missed all of their threes (and some free throws), and fell behind 28-13 before scoring 4 points at the end of the quarter to cut it to 11. Nothing good to say about this quarter, from a Celtic perspective. 28-17.
Second Quarter: The Celtics began this quarter with a nice run that included a pair of Derrick White threes (White was the best Celtic in the first half), then Horford executed a give and go with White leading to a layup the cut the Hawk lead to 3 (30-27). But then Atlanta got going again and eventually built their lead up to 14 points (55-41) with a minute left before the Celtics again scored 4 points to close out the quarter down 10, 55-45.
White was the best Celtic with 10 in the half. A big problem for the Celtics was Trae Young who scored 17 in the half and added a bunch of assists. The Celtics were playing a kind of switching defense that let Young do repeated isos against Rob, and that was... not a good matchup for Rob. That went away in the second half.
Third Quarter: Boom! Celtics came out hot and sustained their momentum through the full quarter, outscoring the Hawks 42-23, to go from down 10 to up 9. The guy who carried the load for the C's in this quarter was Jayson Tatum, with 16. He actually only had 5 points in the first 8 minutes of the quarter, then he exploded for 11 in the last 4.
Fourth quarter: The Celtics went back into offensive struggle mode, but the defense help them hanf on to win the quarter by a point, 18-17. Denver cut the Celtic lead to 5, the Celtics went on a Tatum-fueled 8-0 run (Tatum his a two, then a three, then assists on a Grant three) to build the lead back to 13 before the Hawks scored 7 straight to cut it to 6. The Celtic who must struggled in this quarter was Jaylen Brown. Didn't score, and a couple of times he did his "drive into traffic and cought it up" thing. Then, with just over a minute left, Celtics up 8, Bogdanovic missed an open three and Rob tacked down the rebiund and got it to Brown. Brown... fell asleep? He just... stood there with it doing nothing in particular until Hunter closed from behind and just took the ball away from him. But Hunter drove and missed his layup, and the Hawks got no closer.
White looked like the best C in the first half, but he bricked a lot of threes in the second. In 29 minutes, he scored 14 points on 4 for 14 shooting, 2 of 10 from three, I think 0 for 6 in the second half. He did add 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and a block and only turned it over once. It looked like he had sealed off the win by drawing a charge against Trae Young with less then 2 minutes remaining in the 4th, but the Hawks won a challenge (which was the right call - after Young went up, White shuffled his feet a bit to get into position to take the charge). Aside from his many missed threes he had a good game.
Tatum was the man for the C's in this one, scoring 25 second half points to finish with 38 for the game, on 13 of 27 shooting (4 of 10 from three, 8 of 9 from the line). Added 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and a steal, and only 2 turnovers.
Horford played his secondary offensive role to perfection, scoring 8 points on 3 for 3 shooting, including a key pair of 3rd quarrter threes. Also 6 rebounds and a block in 24 minutes.
Rob had the usual double-double (10 and 14), an assist, and 2 blocks but he was also a turnover machine, with 5. And when the Celtics defense was letting him get switched onto Trae, Trae abused him.
Jaylen shot 6 of 16, 2 of 6 from 3, for 17 points. Added 9 rebounds and 3 assists, but turned it over 4 times, including the end of game one that could have hurt them. Scoreless in the 4th.
Marcus had a weird start to the game: kind of came out firing, putting up 6 shots in the 1st quarter (hitting 2). Only scored as attempting 5 more the rest of the way, for 11 total, one of which was a clock-beating missed three where he had no choice. But he had some scoring success by driving and getting fouled. Overall he shot 3 of 11 from the field (missing all 5 of his threes), but went 7 of 9 from the line for 13 points. Added 7 assists, 6 rebounds - including a key late one - and a steal and did not turn the ball over.
Grant didn't shoot well (2 of 5, 1 of 3 from 3) with 4 rebounds, an assist, and a steal.
Pritchard missed everything 0-3 in 11 minutes, but the Celtics played well when he was in the game, so he was a +10.
Edit: Trae dropped 30 to lead the Hawks, and added 10 assists and 4 rebounds. But he turned it over 4 times and had a poor shooting night: 9-26 (4-12 from 3) and finished a -5. Much better in the first half than the second, probably because the Celtics stopped letting him go one on one against Rob.
This is a good visual of how the Celtics managed their 42-point 3rd quarter:
View: https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1492976806386823170?s=20&t=9w4CUWYt7KqrxRSdiVxODw
John Karalis: Celtics 3rd quarter shot chart looks like a bowl of fruit loops at the rim
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Here’s one of those subtle Marcus Smart things that won’t show up in the box score but had a huge impact. Early in the 3rd, DeAndre Hunter, who had done a pretty good job on Tatum, got called for illegal screens on successive Hawks offensive possessions - his second and third fouls. One of them was drawn by Marcus, both were borderline calls. Obviously frustrating to Hunter. On the Celtics possession after the second offensive foul, Smart baited Hunter into his 4th foul, sending Hunter the bench with Celts trailing 57-53. When he checked back in seven minutes later, the Celts were up 78-71 and Tatum had gotten loose.
Karalis had this interesting take about White in his game summary
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2022/02/13/bsj-game-report-boston-celtics-105-atlanta-hawks-95-jayson-tatums-25-point-half-leads-aggressive-cs-to-comeback-win?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2022/02/13/bsj-game-report-boston-celtics-105-atlanta-hawks-95-jayson-tatums-25-point-half-leads-aggressive-cs-to-comeback-win?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
It’s encouraging to see them winning games when one of the Jays doesn’t play well. They seem like much more of a team now, not just a collection of guys .
Yes.
I love that the defense doesn't completely fucking fall apart when one or both is bricklaying and/or not getting calls. That has really improved from the beginning of the year. Hell a month ago, it was basically game over when JT had a bad shooting game. Now, they can shut people down and score enough to win. And other guys are stepping up. Fun team to watch.
Maybe a not this thread question but here goes. I think when Brad moved from the sidelines to the front office this past summer, it was the Celts who essentially mandated the move to the front office because they had recently signed him to a long extension and they knew another team would offer him a coaching position immediately. My thought was that they were terrified Philly would drop Doc after the Philly meltdown and go after Brad.
Anyways, I still think of Brad as a coach and my money would be on him being on someone else’s sidelines next year, but do most on this board think he has taken to being a GM, and will be a long timer here?
Anyways, I still think of Brad as a coach and my money would be on him being on someone else’s sidelines next year, but do most on this board think he has taken to being a GM, and will be a long timer here?
Interesting take though Ian Thomsen made the same analogy ("a very poor man's Gordan Heyward") on the Celtics Beat podcast after the trade deadline.
Around the 23:30 mark here if you're interested: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkUl3asX9V8
The defence has been so much better during this streak. I will praise an unlikley guy, Grant Williams. I never liked the draft pick, but he is getting to be a really solid team defender, and avoids a lot of breakdowns.
I am not going to judge the trade so quicklly but the price of another ball handler not being Kemba or Shroeder's D is pretty nice.
I am not going to judge the trade so quicklly but the price of another ball handler not being Kemba or Shroeder's D is pretty nice.
I like the Hayward comparison for his role on the Celtics.....definitely something this team has been lacking since GH left. An all around player who can make the right play, initiate the offense, etc. The difference between guys like Romeo and Nesmith playing next to the Jays and guys like Hayward and White is startling to watch.
White lacks the upside and scoring Gordon had when he left the Jazz (hence the max contract for Gordon) but otherwise their overall value isn't very different. I certainly wouldn't call White currently a very poor man's Gordon Hayward.
Yeah, that really sounds like an undersell on White's value. Also, I don't see the White/Hayward comparison, except on a broader, more abstract level (I guess the "mister do-it-all" part). They both have the ability to make the teammates around them better. Hayward was a smart passer; White is an elite passer. Their offensive games look a lot different, which is what you'd expect anyway when there are 4 inches separating them. I think they both have an ability to blend in and improve a team.
The sudden transactions (Ainge out, Brad moving upstairs) seemed weird, for sure. But I don't think the Celtics make that move to keep Brad for taking a different coaching job - indeed, if they are thinking about the money on Brad's extension, they would want him to return to the coaching ranks since they could get out from under some/all of that salary and - if he stays in the NBA - perhaps get a draft asset back for him (as the did with Doc).
I think they decided that they wanted him to take over the basketball operation, and in the short time that he has been here he has shown that he is more than capable.
I think the bolded was obviously part of the intent. The most successful Celtic team of the Brad Stevens era was the one that took Cleveland to 7 in the ECF in Tatum's rookie year, after Kyrie went out injured - and that team had Smart and Rozier as the ballhandlers.
Right. The two players aren't really comparable that way, except in the sense that they both fill a similar need on the Celtics' roster.
A while back, I said that the Celtics had a glass jaw. They were capable of playing well but tended to crumble when their opponent went on a run.
They have less of one now. I think they have more confidence in their ability to withstand a run and to play effedtively down the stretch than they did before.
I won't say the glass jaw is gone, because they have yet to be tested against top competition. But they have taken some steps forward.
They have less of one now. I think they have more confidence in their ability to withstand a run and to play effedtively down the stretch than they did before.
I won't say the glass jaw is gone, because they have yet to be tested against top competition. But they have taken some steps forward.
One of the things that stuck out yesterday was that once they got the lead, the forced Young off the 3point line a few times and just generaly played him tight and dared him to drive. It appeared to be a concerted effort at "2 is better than 3," that they didn't abandon after Young made a couple of nice plays. To me, that's where the "falling apart" had been -- they would sort of give up after something "didn't work" once or twice.