Celtics (20-13) at Rockets (18-15) Game #34 12/27/18

[blink]

Harden sure has gotten a lot of these calls from the 3 point line.

refs completely baby him

Yes but far less in the playoffs. That's why he chokes every year. Houston and Harden are just for the regular season, not for the playoffs...

Is that supposed to make me feel better?
lol

[Vox_Populi]

Kyrie and Morris are the only guys who ever show up on offense every night. Horford is at least injured.

Theis with a performance so poor, you almost felt bad for the guy at how hopeless he looked at doing anything useful.

[SparzWizard]

Hayward played like Jeff Green again or what?

[blink]

at least we can root for the Jazz against Philly tonight

[hpantazo]

The continued wussification of the NBA is making it hard to watch. It was basically illegal for any of our guys to attempt to defend Harden behind the 3 point line tonight.

Meanwhile Harden was allowed to sidestep defenders after already stopping his dribble and pulling up. If the refs let Kyrie do that sort of stuff he'd be going for 60+ regularly.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Kyrie and Morris are the only guys who ever show up on offense every night. Horford is at least injured.

Theis with a performance so poor, you almost felt bad for the guy at how hopeless he looked at doing anything useful.

said it before and i will say it again

kyrie and morris are our best two players RIGHT NOW

[Atzar]

At some point, this team will have to make a serious, sustained effort to take care of the boards every night.  You cannot lose the rebounding battle by 15 and expect to beat good teams. 

We do it occasionally, but not with nearly enough consistency.

[footey]

This loss did not bother me because we played hard. Houston made a lot of 3 pointers.

The one deficiency that still hasn’t been addressed is poor rebounding. 10 more offensive boards by Houston really hurt.

[hpantazo]

At some point, this team will have to make a serious, sustained effort to take care of the boards every night.  You cannot lose the rebounding battle by 15 and expect to beat good teams. 

We do it occasionally, but not with nearly enough consistency.

I give them a pass on the boards tonight with Horford on a minutes limit and Baynes and Williams out.

[Kuberski33]

Brutal officiating.  Rockets were the victim of it the first half, Celtics were the victim - and then some - the 2nd half.  The offensive call on Morris which resulted in him getting tossed was total BS.

As far as the team, Brown showed some signs of life.  He was engaged and made decent decisions and ended up scoring 18. Theiss killed them offensively and was at -27 for the game.  Baynes loss is huge - at least until Al can get back to normal minutes.  If I'm an opposing team I will let Smart, Rozier and Theiss shoot as much as they want - the more shots those guys take, the better.  Tatum played 29 minutes and scored 4 points.  Poor. 

The numbers between the teams were fairly even except for the rebounding.  16 OR for Houston and how many of those turned into made 3's?

Danny needs to make a move to improve the offensive production of the bench.  They need to find a guy who can make 3s and not hurt them defensively. 

I'm starting to think Hayward doesn't make it back to starter level at all this season.  He barely deserves to be one of the first 9 the way he's going.

[hpantazo]

3 positives from this game:

Horford looked much better tonight, looked a lot more like himself.

Hayward finally made some strong moves going to the basket late in this game without hesitation. As Reggie said during the broadcast, that's what he has to start doing instinctively to forget about the injury and get back to his old self.

Also Jaylen played well tonight, looked a lot more comfortable and confident on offense.

[Bobshot]

Capela 24 pts, 18 rebounds (9 offensive). Way above his averages.

The Celtics are getting killed by centers.

[Kuberski33]

3 positives from this game:

Horford looked much better tonight, looked a lot more like himself.

Hayward finally made some strong moves going to the basket late in this game without hesitation. As Reggie said during the broadcast, that's what he has to start doing instinctively to forget about the injury and get back to his old self.

Also Jaylen played well tonight, looked a lot more comfortable and confident on offense.

Al has been fine and I have no issue with limiting his minutes.  He's one the one guy this team can't lose.  The problem is, with Baynes down, there isn't much left at the 4/5.  To me its a perfect time to work in Yabu - to see if he's ever going to be able to help this team - but Brad chooses not to play him.

[manl_lui]

the 3 3point fouls oin Harden was frustrating, I've never seen ONE player got fouled at the 3 point line that many times in one game. The technical fouls are all over the place

[ozgod]

3 positives from this game:

Horford looked much better tonight, looked a lot more like himself.

Hayward finally made some strong moves going to the basket late in this game without hesitation. As Reggie said during the broadcast, that's what he has to start doing instinctively to forget about the injury and get back to his old self.

Also Jaylen played well tonight, looked a lot more comfortable and confident on offense.

The fact that Hayward only started to look for his own shot when it was garbage time makes me more convinced than ever that they want him to be a facilitator and passer. Either that or he is overly sensitive to his teammates resenting him for taking shots way from them and so keeps passing it up and being excessively unselfish.

Btw I think that was Chris Webber not Reggie who said that...Reggie is nowhere near as insightful and has a more annoying voice than Chris