Celtics vs Hawks, Round 1 Discussion
- Thread starter DGreenwood
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He done.
I don't think he head-butted him BUT he absolutely made contact. DM's chest into the unsuspecting Ref's upper right arm, while putting his face in the ref's face with emphasis. A bench player & Asst coach directed DM away as he was yelling at the Ref
Honestly, my reaction after this game was to think that the Celtics will probably lose in the next round or two. That the are struggling as much as they are with an 8 seed just doesn't bode well going forward IMO. They struggle to get stops against Atlanta and, as often when they are under pressure, they revert to "one guy at a time" ball and have long scorign droughts. Rarely does Joe try to address this by giving Brogdon the ball.
I think Joe Mazzulla is overmatched when it comes to in game decision making. Maybe just an experience thing, but I think on net, he'll be outcoached in that part of the job. Just as Atlanta has been doing, teams will adjust to what the Celtics are doing well, stop runs, etc., more quickly than the Celtics will do the same to them. I'm not saying Mazzulla is the wrong coach for this team but he is a rookie coach without a ton of NBA experience, and I think it shows. Also, WTF was he doing with Muscala and not Grant in the game?
On the more positive side, ditching the mask made a shockingly huge difference in Brown's play (shocking because he's looked fine with the mask for a couple of months). Rob Willams was all over this game in a good way: 13 points, 15 rebounds, 5-6 from the line (playoff Rob is a good FT shooter), 3 assists, 2 blocks, 2 steals, and the dive for a loose ball late that helped stymie a late comeback. Down the stretch the Celtics got the offense they needed.
But that they need to wrk this hard to beat an 8 seed just doesn't feel like it bodes all that well to me.
How did you feel about San Antonio in 2014 and Boston in 2008? This stuff happens all the time.
I don't think the defense was much different than in game 1 or 2 -- if anything, it might have been better. Atlanta just made a ton of shots they had been missing, and Trae figured some stuff out, because he's a talented offensive player.
The Celtics’ competition is the following:
Sixers with banged up Embiid
Bucks with banged up Giannis
Heat with banged up Butler
Knicks
Cavs
Quite frankly, I’ll be pretty disappointed if they don’t make the finals again and I don’t think the Hawks series tells us much. Honestly, Knicks could be the hardest test. They handled us in regular season and could definitely win next round.
Sixers with banged up Embiid
Bucks with banged up Giannis
Heat with banged up Butler
Knicks
Cavs
Quite frankly, I’ll be pretty disappointed if they don’t make the finals again and I don’t think the Hawks series tells us much. Honestly, Knicks could be the hardest test. They handled us in regular season and could definitely win next round.
Things are lining up really well for the Knicks. I think that locked-in Celtics can completely stifle NY's offense, but it would be a fun, physical series.
The East is more fun when NYK are good.
Yeah, unless Giannis makes a swift recovery, I think Knicks are in ECF. This team is legit.
Wait, they’re struggling? What about being up 3-1 with two home blowouts and a road split is struggling? Hawks may be the 7 seed, but they’re still a playoff team, so it’s not unexpected that they won game 3 at home. I think we all expect the Celtics to close this out tomorrow, so I’m not seeing how winning this in 5 is a black mark on them.
Am the only
The other guys are on scholarship, too. Atlanta, for all of its flaws, has some seriously talented offensive players.
Do you remember the C's postseason run in 2008? Boston has already won one more road game than it did in the first two rounds that year.
The other guys are on scholarship, too. Atlanta, for all of its flaws, has some seriously talented offensive players.
I applaud your dedication to the bit.
ATL has a top-something (2? 3?) offense so it's no surprise that they can score (finally). However, as for the last game, I took a quick look and am unable to find any stretch of 3 minutes or greater that the Cs went without scoring so they certainly didn't have a "long scoring drought" during G4.
In another thread, someone pointed out that BRK was like on a 35 win pace after KD was traded. Just because PHI swept a team that probably wouldn't have made the play-in if they had an entire season with this roster doesn't meant that they are better than BOS. ATL is a .500 team but they are clearly worse than BOS. BOS will win this series and as we know, they match up really well against PHI. I would think that BOS will be the favorite and if I were a betting man, I'd take that.
The "long scoring drought" part is laughable. They pulled away in the 4th by consistently scoring, and the game only looked (kinda) close because the Hawks hit a few 3s in the last 2 minutes when the game was already over.
Well, I gave a range of decent to terrible. He hasn't been exclusively terrible the whole series. Last night he was pretty bad which I think was reflected in Joe giving him the quick hook.
That was in response to someone saying he's been "great" which if he had been great he might have gotten a block or a steal and not been relentlessly hunted. I don't think there's any evidence he's been great.
Anyway, the main point is I think given Grant's history of post-season success and Hauser's meh D + being a near total zero on offense it'd be great if Grant could claw back his relevance as the playoffs proceed.
Right. I'm not sure the ref has any power at that point to issue a T.
Also, if any part of it at all is accidental, any player every might say or give an indication of "sorry, my bad," or somesuch.
Yeah, that was about as comfortable of a playoff road win as you’ll ever see. The reasoning for not using Grant had already been discussed as he’s a terrible tweener matchup against a team with agile perimeter players and long bigs.
G5 will likely be similar with even larger spread and longer runs being at home……while unlike our future opponents we have remained healthy in R1. Hard to even squint and see how we aren’t in better shape today than we were at the start of the playoffs.
Honestly have no idea what you think should be happening in these games.
They have won games by 13, 13, and 8 (11 before a pointless late three) and I believe they have not trailed in the 2nd half of any of them. The other team is in the NBA and gets to try hard too. So they lost a close one on the road, so what.
I mean, yeah, they have too many possessions where there are zero passes, but Malcolm B is high on the list of those possessions. They also salted away the game with some nifty penetrate and dish work by Jalen which for all we know could have been a coaching directive from JM.
By pbpstats shot quality, Celtics' game 4 performance was the best offensive performance by any team so far in the playoffs. 86.2% rim or 3, with 41.6% of shots at the rim. They had an expected efg% of 62%, which is quite high. The average over the course of a season is about 54% by the best teams. The highest single game eefg% by the Celtics in the regular season was 59% against Portland.
Didn't you try to pull a similar version of this in the Bruins Round 1 thread?
My guy, maybe try some new material.
If this is an argument for more Grant, you're about to look like a very persuasive person when Grant takes most of Hauser's minutes against Philly. Grant's beef will be needed there, and his suddenly slow feet won't be as much of a hindrance.
That said, Hauser wouldn't be getting any minutes at all if he was giving meh D and being a near total zero on offense. With the actions the Hawks are running and the guys that they're using to do it, Hauser has provided better coverage than Grant would have.
Tl:dr; you'll be getting your wish in the next round
I was at a bar without sound so no clue what announcers were saying about the reffing, but it also felt like they did an exceptional job at letting Hawks hang around in first half of 4th...by my count they went to the line 9 times in first 6 minutes. I felt like the refs called things a little too tightly most of the night, but really stood out first part of the 4th.
Exactly. I mean, a four game sweep is just not something you should reasonably expect. That's playing 1.000 basketball against a playoff team. Even playing .800 basketball against a playoff team (when the Celtics "only" were a .695 team during the season) is a pretty significant achievement.
Back on April 12 I posted this:
When Atlanta has the ball:
Atlanta offense: 118.4 points scored
Boston defense: 111.4 points allowed
AVERAGE: 114.9 points expected
When Boston has the ball:
Atlanta defense: 118.1 points allowed
Boston offense: 117.9 points scored
AVERAGE: 118.0 points expected
Which I said wasn't really scientific but it gave me at least some sort of baseline for expectations. So far here's how it's shaken out in terms of points scored per game:
Boston: 112, 119, 122, 129 = average of 120.5
Atlanta: 99, 106, 130, 121 = average of 114.0
So I'm not too far off the mark so far. Boston's defense has been a tick better than the baseline above, and their offense has been a couple points per game better than that baseline expectation.
The Nuggets just dropped a game to the freakin' Timberwolves. The talent in the NBA is lights-out right now, so it shouldn't be surprising that a 7 seed grabs a game at home. And they had to have a complete outlier of a shooting game to do it.
I thought Joe's timeout usage last night was phenomenal. Like he's been doing all year, he let them play when things on a little tight, and Marcus and TimeLord rewarded him with great defense and finishing that took all the air out of the arena without having to burn the timeout. Then, when they had a turnover and Al was galloping up the floor leading the break, Joe called a timeout to calm things down and make sure a real ballhandler was in charge of things, leading to a score.
Was the Muscala thing a headscratcher? For sure. But I don't mind a little experimentation and a quick hook when it's clear it was the wrong move.
I thought Joe's timeout usage last night was phenomenal. Like he's been doing all year, he let them play when things on a little tight, and Marcus and TimeLord rewarded him with great defense and finishing that took all the air out of the arena without having to burn the timeout. Then, when they had a turnover and Al was galloping up the floor leading the break, Joe called a timeout to calm things down and make sure a real ballhandler was in charge of things, leading to a score.
Was the Muscala thing a headscratcher? For sure. But I don't mind a little experimentation and a quick hook when it's clear it was the wrong move.
I honestly can't get too worked up over them losing a playoff game to the Hawks. It was the first home game in Atlanta after the Celtics did a number on them in Boston, of course they were going to come out swinging and they caught fire for a game. Then the Celtics came right back and beat them.
My biggest thought so far this series is that I am happy to see that Rob Williams is looking progressively better out there. Would have been nice if Hauser could have kept up his play (he does one thing well and wasn't doing it well this series) but I imagine Grant will take over that role in Philly and be more than capable. And maybe Joe could cycle in some of the reserves a bit more to soak up some minutes. But really, a pretty good series for the Cs so far and I hope they can close it out tomorrow.
My biggest thought so far this series is that I am happy to see that Rob Williams is looking progressively better out there. Would have been nice if Hauser could have kept up his play (he does one thing well and wasn't doing it well this series) but I imagine Grant will take over that role in Philly and be more than capable. And maybe Joe could cycle in some of the reserves a bit more to soak up some minutes. But really, a pretty good series for the Cs so far and I hope they can close it out tomorrow.
Mrs O was watching this part of the game with me and was thoroughly confused when I stood up and clapped for that timeout. Galloping Al is a great summary. He wanted to consume a soul.
It was a Zach Zarba game. I was surprised that it wasn't stranger. Guy is pretty damn unpredictable, and his whole crew is pretty weird usually. Honestly may have been the best-officiated Zach Zarba game that I've ever seen. It was still weird at times. They let a lot go though, which was fine by me. Some of the players didn't like that (Tatum at times, Murray, Young), but some did.
Some of the shit people have been writing about Trae on here has been nuts. The guy is a real weapon, despite his limitations, and it’s a testament to the Celtics that they can absorb the damage even when he’s on.
I like this aspect of Joe's style, especially in the first round. Yeah we're all peeing our pants at the idea that this could go six games but the reality is everybody knows the Celtics are winning this series and it's a good time to see what the bench players have in a playoff sandbox. Give guys some rope according to their current stature - Hauser gets a bit more, Williams a bit more, Muscala and PP less so. You need to know what you have in order to prevent last year's playoff situation of overreliance on Tatum and Brown to the point where they were exhausted.
Guy is a real weapon. He's a top-15 offensive player in the world.
Unfortunately he is also a bottom-15 defensive player in the NBA. And that matters.
Another vote for not concerned with dropping a game in Atlanta. If they had lost last night, then it would have shown an alarming lack of urgency. But they didn't, they did everything they had to do to finish the game, and they did so without Atlanta ever having possession with a chance to tie in the 4th. You can't ask much more than that on the road. The Celts will win by 15+ on Tuesday and end this.
I don't know how much they factor in intent etc. but that was pretty menacing and if I was running any kind of association that would have to be punished, full stop. That's the kind of body language you see right before one guy decks another. There's no comparison with the Tatum thing, he was clearly rushing past the ref to exchange ideas with Trae.
Rob's impact on the defensive boards was awesome last night. Also, just his level of activity all over the place was great.
A very satisfying win. There were only two things I didn't like:
1) Marcus Smart took a lot of open 3s that missed. I know he somehow ended up 3-8, but it sure didn't feel like it.
2) The Muscala part of the game was a little weird. I don't if he was confused as to what he was supposed to do on defense, or that was the intention, but it seemed like they were using him to double whomever had the ball - but it didn't seem effective at all. It seemed like he was just frantically moving around the court, getting there too late to be impactful, and just leaving his guy open.
A very satisfying win. There were only two things I didn't like:
1) Marcus Smart took a lot of open 3s that missed. I know he somehow ended up 3-8, but it sure didn't feel like it.
2) The Muscala part of the game was a little weird. I don't if he was confused as to what he was supposed to do on defense, or that was the intention, but it seemed like they were using him to double whomever had the ball - but it didn't seem effective at all. It seemed like he was just frantically moving around the court, getting there too late to be impactful, and just leaving his guy open.
Same as game 3, really. He went 5-12 in game 3, so a combined 8-20 in the 2 games in Atlanta. In theory Marcus hitting 40% from 3 is AWESOME. In practice it doesn't always work out like that.
I think that folks are reading too much into the Muscala experiment. Mike isn't going to get any kind of real minutes in any series. Joe and staff have their rotations planned out and sometimes you just need a body to throw out there for a minute or two. Maybe they pulled someone out a hair earlier than they expected, and the guy that they were planning to send back in had his shoes off or had run off to take a leak. Or maybe Joe figured that getting a guy one minute in a game might help keep him 1% engaged in the series so that he might be a tad more ready when we need to milk a few minutes of injury/foul-trouble replacement in game 4 against Philly. It's not like he started the guy in the second half. He was 1 minute in the postseason stats, same as Kornet. It doesn't mean anything.
Add me to the group that’s confused about any Celtics concern at the moment…
Rob looks bouncy (let’s hope he doesn’t use up his bullets early), Trae continues to shoot poorly from outside, Murray quite likely will be suspended next game, the Jays just both went over 30 to win a road playoff game, and they’re headed home for a potential game 5 clincher.
Certainly plenty of reasons to be concerned in a general sense as always (Phi and Mil, if healthy, are both really good).
But as far as what’s happened the past week? I see a lot more positive than negative. Let’s just hope it continues.
Rob looks bouncy (let’s hope he doesn’t use up his bullets early), Trae continues to shoot poorly from outside, Murray quite likely will be suspended next game, the Jays just both went over 30 to win a road playoff game, and they’re headed home for a potential game 5 clincher.
Certainly plenty of reasons to be concerned in a general sense as always (Phi and Mil, if healthy, are both really good).
But as far as what’s happened the past week? I see a lot more positive than negative. Let’s just hope it continues.
My guess is Muscala was all about size---they had a foul issue with TL, but didn't want to go as small as Grant as limiting offensive rebounds was a pillar of the game strategy. So they tried Muscala to preserve the size for a few minutes. And yeah---I don't think it really worked, but the theory made some sense.
I like that CJM has shown flexibility on rotations: Grant didn't play first two, which made sense; he played well in game 3, but offensive rebounding was an issue so he tried Muscala instead in game 4. He's subbed out Smart for Brogdon/White on offense late at times, which is tough for a quasi-captain but also the right move. Those tough calls are critical for a coach and he's been willing to make them.
I think it's because he's missing WIDE OPEN threes, and it just feels like he should be making those. Here's some notable names in the NBA on wide open threes (defender 6+ feet from the shooter), minimum of 82 attempts:
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/shots-closest-defender-10?CloseDefDistRange=6++Feet+-+Wide+Open
Powell: 53.5%
Crowder: 52.6%
Kennard: 51.5%
Joe Harris: 48.3%
Hield: 47.6%
Steph: 47.5%
Klay: 46.6%
Beal: 46.0%
Brogdon: 45.7%
Horford: 44.4%
Haliburton: 43.7%
Kyrie: 42.9%
Tatum: 42.4%
Smart: 34.5%
So Smart is shooting better from three in the two games in Atlanta than he did during the season.
That, and at times it feels like the Celts can score at will at the rim, so it feels like "blown" opportunities.
He did this for the first defensive possession he was in for, doubled Young, who kicked out for an open 3 to Muscala's guy. Then Muscala got yelled at, and the very next possession he rotated around well.
He's not a plus defender, but he didn't make the same mistake repeatedly. I think you're over-indexing on the first play, where his mistake was obvious (but also, his teammates are supposed to help the helper, right?).
Brogdon does a million things well, so I'm really picking nits. But he does seem to be a bit of an iso black hole at times. He's strong like bull, so it usually works out well enough. But he occasionally miffs me.
Yep, while a player can take a play off on offense by dragging their man to the corner, they can't take a play off on defense.
POINTZ rule!
When not getting hunted, Trae usually floats around, screwing up any defensive discipline of his 4 teammates.
Thibs nephew at work again...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJh9PIlDwA
I'm going to miss these impotent-rage video breakdowns after tomorrow. Can we get this guy some Philly swag? Maybe a Simmons costume?