Trail Blazers (35-28) at Celtics (34-30) Game #65 5/2/21

[tenn_smoothie]

I really don’t get the logic of this play in format. Penalizes the 7th and 8th seeds. I mean all NBA teams played under the same circumstances, why not jus stick to the top 8 format?

There is no logic. It's a money grab.

[Tr1boy]

I really don’t get the logic of this play in format. Penalizes the 7th and 8th seeds. I mean all NBA teams played under the same circumstances, why not jus stick to the top 8 format?

There is no logic. It's a money grab.

Prevent tanking

7th/8th team do get rewarded by an extra game chance

Losing 4 games to the 1st seed

Or losing 2 in the play in...

Still lose

[radiohead]

I really don’t get the logic of this play in format. Penalizes the 7th and 8th seeds. I mean all NBA teams played under the same circumstances, why not jus stick to the top 8 format?

There is no logic. It's a money grab.

Prevent tanking

7th/8th team do get rewarded by an extra game chance

Losing 4 games to the 1st seed

Or losing 2 in the play in...

Still lose

I honestly think that if a team decides to tank, they will do that no matter what. You can give them all the chances in the world and they could just “conveniently lose” each time to maintain their draft/lottery positions.

[Sophomore]

I blame this loss on the refs horrid offensive Goaltending call---Because the Blazers bench screamed, and the ref reacted to their scream and called it....We would have been down ONE freaking Point on the TT put back---Of course, no replay (ridiculous)--and Blazers hit 2 3-pointers after this Nonsense....What is the use of a coaches challenge, when you cannot use it on goaltending calls--???

It wasn't even close to an offensive basket interference....AWFUL

The refs made a lot of really bad calls in this game but I put the main blame on Smart, Thompson and Brown shooting a putrid 11-42 when the rest of the Celtics were all on fire shooting. Even with Brown and Smart shooting 4-18 from 3 the Celtics still shot 51% from 3. We wasted the best shooting night we've had all year.

The team shot very close to the same %age as Portland, and scored 119 in regulation. That should be good enough to win!

But our defense didn’t bother them much, and once again we had trouble with turnovers and fouls. We had 8 more turnovers than they did (Tatum and Brown by themselves turned it over 9 times. The Blazers *as a team* had 10.) they took 11 more free throws than we did. You give the other team that many points it’s hard to make it up.

[Ogaju]

Cs fans should storm the court ManU style

American fans do not care that much.

Oh really ?

You probably weren't around for game 5 finals in 1976. Celtic fan even assaulted Richife Powers.

The fact that you had to go back to 1976 makes my point.

[Ogaju]

I blame this loss on the refs horrid offensive Goaltending call---Because the Blazers bench screamed, and the ref reacted to their scream and called it....We would have been down ONE freaking Point on the TT put back---Of course, no replay (ridiculous)--and Blazers hit 2 3-pointers after this Nonsense....What is the use of a coaches challenge, when you cannot use it on goaltending calls--???

It wasn't even close to an offensive basket interference....AWFUL

The refs made a lot of really bad calls in this game but I put the main blame on Smart, Thompson and Brown shooting a putrid 11-42 when the rest of the Celtics were all on fire shooting. Even with Brown and Smart shooting 4-18 from 3 the Celtics still shot 51% from 3. We wasted the best shooting night we've had all year.

These players need to learn some basics..feed the hot hand, play extraordinary defense when your shot is not falling.

[Tr1boy]

I blame this loss on the refs horrid offensive Goaltending call---Because the Blazers bench screamed, and the ref reacted to their scream and called it....We would have been down ONE freaking Point on the TT put back---Of course, no replay (ridiculous)--and Blazers hit 2 3-pointers after this Nonsense....What is the use of a coaches challenge, when you cannot use it on goaltending calls--???

It wasn't even close to an offensive basket interference....AWFUL

The refs made a lot of really bad calls in this game but I put the main blame on Smart, Thompson and Brown shooting a putrid 11-42 when the rest of the Celtics were all on fire shooting. Even with Brown and Smart shooting 4-18 from 3 the Celtics still shot 51% from 3. We wasted the best shooting night we've had all year.

These players need to learn some basics..feed the hot hand, play extraordinary defense when your shot is not falling.

Agreed

Maybe its the Kobe craze?

I much rather they model their games to Jimmy Butler

[liam]

I blame this loss on the refs horrid offensive Goaltending call---Because the Blazers bench screamed, and the ref reacted to their scream and called it....We would have been down ONE freaking Point on the TT put back---Of course, no replay (ridiculous)--and Blazers hit 2 3-pointers after this Nonsense....What is the use of a coaches challenge, when you cannot use it on goaltending calls--???

It wasn't even close to an offensive basket interference....AWFUL

The refs made a lot of really bad calls in this game but I put the main blame on Smart, Thompson and Brown shooting a putrid 11-42 when the rest of the Celtics were all on fire shooting. Even with Brown and Smart shooting 4-18 from 3 the Celtics still shot 51% from 3. We wasted the best shooting night we've had all year.

These players need to learn some basics..feed the hot hand, play extraordinary defense when your shot is not falling.

Amen!

[footey]

I know we lost this game last night, but I'm actually okay with it.

The Trail Blazers are red hot right now.  They were shooting unbelievably well.  It wasn't that our defense was bad.

Fournier is really returning to his Orlando form. 

Nesmith continues to play great.

Jaylen was hurt, and tried hard to contribute.

Kemba was absent.

Pritchard continues to play solid.

Rob was decent.

Langford actually looked pretty decent.

I am pretty confident we will finish in top 6 and avoid play in.  If we don't, then I am very confident that we will get the 7th or 8th seed, and make the playoffs. Then, anything can happen.

[Who]

It is interesting to see how much smaller teams like Portland are getting. Their lineup has a PG (Lillard), a combo guard at SG (McCollum), an undersized SG at SF (Norman Powell) and a SF at PF (Melo). Alongside a traditional center.

The SF at PF has been more and more common but I see teams having more SGs at SF now as well. Smaller again. Less length defensively, less defensive size. More speed. More shooting on offense. More ball-handling and passing for more dynamic offense.

And of course combo guards are more successful today as well than in the past as they do not get beaten up by bigger SGs (like Kobe, MJ) as they once did.

The continued focus on higher skill offensive weapons over superior size & defensive impact as offense continues to take more importance over defense (contrary to NBA history).

----------------------

Does this have an impact on the Celtics? Maybe

It might be telling us not to focus so much on getting a PF to slide Tatum back to SF and Jaylen back to SG. To go smaller with those two at forward alongside a higher skill SG.

That this is the way the league is heading.

I'd still love to see a high level shooting SG like Buddy Hield next to those two at SG. That would take our team's offense to a whole other level.

[footey]

It is interesting to see how much smaller teams like Portland are getting. Their lineup has a PG (Lillard), a combo guard at SG (McCollum), an undersized SG at SF (Norman Powell) and a SF at PF (Melo). Alongside a traditional center.

The SF at PF has been more and more common but I see teams having more SGs at SF now as well. Smaller again. Less length defensively, less defensive size. More speed. More shooting on offense. More ball-handling and passing for more dynamic offense.

And of course combo guards are more successful today as well than in the past as they do not get beaten up by bigger SGs (like Kobe, MJ) as they once did.

The continued focus on higher skill offensive weapons over superior size & defensive impact as offense continues to take more importance over defense (contrary to NBA history).

----------------------

Does this have an impact on the Celtics? Maybe

It might be telling us not to focus so much on getting a PF to slide Tatum back to SF and Jaylen back to SG. To go smaller with those two at forward alongside a higher skill SG.

That this is the way the league is heading.

I'd still love to see a high level shooting SG like Buddy Hield next to those two at SG. That would take our team's offense to a whole other level.

Yes, and it seems we are trending that way too, which may serve us well in the playoffs, if we can hit our 3s at a good clip.  Tatum and Brown can continue to attack the hoop.

[Somebody]

It is interesting to see how much smaller teams like Portland are getting. Their lineup has a PG (Lillard), a combo guard at SG (McCollum), an undersized SG at SF (Norman Powell) and a SF at PF (Melo). Alongside a traditional center.

The SF at PF has been more and more common but I see teams having more SGs at SF now as well. Smaller again. Less length defensively, less defensive size. More speed. More shooting on offense. More ball-handling and passing for more dynamic offense.

And of course combo guards are more successful today as well than in the past as they do not get beaten up by bigger SGs (like Kobe, MJ) as they once did.

The continued focus on higher skill offensive weapons over superior size & defensive impact as offense continues to take more importance over defense (contrary to NBA history).

----------------------

Does this have an impact on the Celtics? Maybe

It might be telling us not to focus so much on getting a PF to slide Tatum back to SF and Jaylen back to SG. To go smaller with those two at forward alongside a higher skill SG.

That this is the way the league is heading.

I'd still love to see a high level shooting SG like Buddy Hield next to those two at SG. That would take our team's offense to a whole other level.

I think there's value in loading the SG and SF positions with skilled size like Brown and Tatum as they're way better than the guards teams play in those positions defensively without losing anything on offence. Moreoever, Brown and Tatum can take advantage of having smaller defenders on them if they play SG and SF in a league that is trending smaller and smaller - we should zig when everyone else is zagging imo. Now that doesn't mean that we should get a traditional PF to be Robert's partner in the frontcourt, we can get a 3 and D swing to play that role (obviously teams can hide one of their smaller wings on that player, but we can easily run a PnR to force a switch if needed).

But yeah I'm open to getting a skilled combo guard as long as his game is scalable next to better and better teammates, our offence would absolutely explode while our defence won't take much of a hit thanks to us having two All-Defensive wings starting and another one coming off the bench (Smart's pretty much a guard/wing hybrid on defence).

[Celtics4ever]

 We are playing more athletes and that helps too.  These guys now can stay in front of their man and rotate to help.