Celtics (15-15) at Mavericks (13-15) Game #31 2/23/21

[RJ87]

Scal alluding to the fact that sometimes some of the Celtics play with “agendas” instead of just moving the ball around and making plays and looking to be aggressive

we figured this out too Scal. It doesn’t take an expert to see that the ball is not moving.

If we wanted to play this way we may as well have gone after Harden.  He's the best at this style.  It now seems like Brown and Tatum are pretty much taking turns going 1 on 5.  At least when Smart is around he breaks up the monotony by chucking up his own share of bad shots.  Last night the guy they drafted to be a sniper- Nesmith- played 22 minutes and had zero shot attempts.  They couldn't run one or two plays for the guy???

Part of the problem is also I’m seeing some selfishness outta brown and Tatum.  They barely look for nesmith.  Wide open guys are standing around and they and even Kemba would rather drive the lane.  A coach needs to step up and yell at these guys about what they are doing.  Don’t like it, get stepping.  You want players on your team that are gonna play team ball.  Ball has to be fair but firm.  I think yesterday was the first time I heard him yell about backing up on bongovodich.  Too late to yell now brad, your team doesn’t listen.

I really think this analysis is unfair to Brown. He's scoring almost the exact same amount as Tatum, but has a total time of possession around half of Tatum's, and his assists are way up in the last month or so. His progression as a passer is outstanding. He's really not the problem here.

On a podcast recent, Jay King mentioned a specific play down the stretch of the Pelicans game where Jaylen could've passed it to Nesmith in the corner for a wide open 3, but he didn't even look at him. So I think they're both guilty of this, despite both of their assist numbers looking better. It's not happening all game, but in key moments. To be clear, I don't think either of the Jays are selfish, but it's obvious they don't trust their teammates to make plays when it matters at this point.