Warriors (34-14) at Celtics (30-18) GAme #49 1/26/19

[gpap]

Kyrie was good but he made some costly turnovers and that air ball was a killer.

No one getting the rebound after Green's 2 missed free throws also killed our chances.

I agree with the fan who posted that dumping Hayward would be addition by subtraction. And we need a center. Baynes is okay as a back-up.

Tatum, Morrris, Smart and Horford all played really well.

Not sure where to go from here. I thought this would be a quiet trade deadline but I am not so sure. After losses like tonight, I feel Ainge could do something that surprises alot of people.

This is a good team, but it may not be ready to contend for a championship.

Uhhh, what? Morris sucked majorly on offence, and hurt our chances massively with his ice cold ball-stopping ways

I just don't think he cost us the game or really hurt us. We just failed to execute down the stretch as a team.

[nickagneta]

Lots of things can be said about tonight's game, but I'll just point out this:

GSW top 3 (Durant / Curry / Thompson) = 78 points

BOS top 3 (Irving / Horford / Tatum) = 74 points

Final margin (115- 111) = 4 points




Boston is right there with GSW

I’ll also point this out:
Hayward -8
Brown -8
Rozier -4
Baynes -11

Looney +13
Iguodala +7
Livingston +2
McKinnie +11

Our starters can hold their own against GSW but our bench got killed tonight AT HOME!

The bench in the first half had Durant go off for 10 straight Warrior points in just a couple minutes before the end of the 1st. That was with Brown playing some tough defense on Durant. Then to start the 2nd quarter Curry went off for 12 straight with 4 straight 3's.

The numbers say the bench was pretty bad but the context and other numbers show you the bench scored only one point less than the GS bench and had most of their bad +/- happen while 2 off the best shooters of all-time got red hot against them.

Bench should have helped win the game but they really aren't the reason they lost the game.

This was a 2 point game with 10 seconds left. When the starters returned for Boston at the 6 minute mark of the 4th it was a 1 point game 99-98. So no bench player did anything to lose the game in the final 6 minutes. Morris, a starter had a wide open three with 10 seconds left to go up by 1 but missed. Had to foul Green. He missed both and the bounce on the second miss was a bad one. Warriors win.

This game has convinced me that once everyone is playing their best in the playoffs, even beating the Warriors is very possible.

[gouki88]

Kyrie was good but he made some costly turnovers and that air ball was a killer.

No one getting the rebound after Green's 2 missed free throws also killed our chances.

I agree with the fan who posted that dumping Hayward would be addition by subtraction. And we need a center. Baynes is okay as a back-up.

Tatum, Morrris, Smart and Horford all played really well.

Not sure where to go from here. I thought this would be a quiet trade deadline but I am not so sure. After losses like tonight, I feel Ainge could do something that surprises alot of people.

This is a good team, but it may not be ready to contend for a championship.

Uhhh, what? Morris sucked majorly on offence, and hurt our chances massively with his ice cold ball-stopping ways

I just don't think he cost us the game or really hurt us. We just failed to execute down the stretch as a team.

Well he missed 2 open 3's that I can vividly remember, including one with 10 seconds left, and we lost by 4. That definitely hurt us IMO

[CelticsElite]

Its really not fair to criticize the Celtics for this game

They literally played against the Western all star team tonight. 5 all stars in their prime and a stud bench. Wrap your head around that

[celtics4ever33]

Its really not fair to criticize the Celtics for this game

They literally played against the Western all star team tonight. 5 all stars in their prime and a stud bench. Wrap your head around that

It is fair , they have barely beaten playoff teams as well. So it's not like the Celtics are trying to beat a 40-2 team.

It would have been nice is Celtics showed they can win by 15 against a great team at home.

They failed.

[keevsnick]

Regarding Brown:  I actually think it's time to ramp up his usage off the bench.  Give him some of the playmaking duties that are currently going to Hayward.  Let's see what he does with them.  He's a lesser passer than Hayward, but I do think he's shown some progress in that department.  And he's much more of an scoring threat than either Hayward or Rozier this season.  His ability to force the issue in the paint is something we otherwise lack on our roster. 

I'm all but done with the Rozier-off-the-bench experiment.  I don't know why he sucks off the bench, but it's nonetheless the case.  He made one play all night.  And while I still believe in Hayward long-term, I don't think he's going to return to form this season.  So let's put the ball in the hands of the guy who is occasionally able to do something positive with it.

Agree. If your offensive initiator can't get into the paint, can't beat anybody and is afraid to shoot at times your offense is gonna be bad. that's what we saw tonight. Brown can't give you worse than nothing in that department, let him run some stuff, make some mistakes, and see where it goes.

I guess giving Brown some more chances in PnR, and running a few more plays for him can't really hurt.  I mean Gordon isn't really trying to get his, we might as well put Jaylen in as many positions as possible to exploit a good matchup.  Thing is, having a more pass first point guard on the 2nd team might help that process as well.

Stevens has a play he has been using for Brown out of timeouts and game stoppage where they get him isolated right side of court with just him and his defender and Brown goes right to the baseline, curling to the basket for the jam or layin. Been working great. Need more stuff like that for Brown to use his ability to go quick past people he has on his hip and get to the basket.

And get him more looks in the paint for that fall away jumper. That's been deadly for Jaylen.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like something that worked well for us last year was dribble hand offs to Jaylen coming out of the corner. Gets him a head of steam to attack the paint. I feel like we've seen like none of that this year. Maybe try some of that. Again, I'd like to see him run more than 1 PnR a week, but if not at least start out small with some sets plays. I just can't stand watching him in the corner without any touches for 4-5 minute stretches while Rozier and Hayward turn it over, take a bad shot, or generally play awful.

[LilRip]

Lots of things can be said about tonight's game, but I'll just point out this:

GSW top 3 (Durant / Curry / Thompson) = 78 points

BOS top 3 (Irving / Horford / Tatum) = 74 points

Final margin (115- 111) = 4 points




Boston is right there with GSW

I’ll also point this out:
Hayward -8
Brown -8
Rozier -4
Baynes -11

Looney +13
Iguodala +7
Livingston +2
McKinnie +11

Our starters can hold their own against GSW but our bench got killed tonight AT HOME!

The bench in the first half had Durant go off for 10 straight Warrior points in just a couple minutes before the end of the 1st. That was with Brown playing some tough defense on Durant. Then to start the 2nd quarter Curry went off for 12 straight with 4 straight 3's.

The numbers say the bench was pretty bad but the context and other numbers show you the bench scored only one point less than the GS bench and had most of their bad +/- happen while 2 off the best shooters of all-time got red hot against them.

Bench should have helped win the game but they really aren't the reason they lost the game.

This was a 2 point game with 10 seconds left. When the starters returned for Boston at the 6 minute mark of the 4th it was a 1 point game 99-98. So no bench player did anything to lose the game in the final 6 minutes. Morris, a starter had a wide open three with 10 seconds left to go up by 1 but missed. Had to foul Green. He missed both and the bounce on the second miss was a bad one. Warriors win.

This game has convinced me that once everyone is playing their best in the playoffs, even beating the Warriors is very possible.

The numbers say the bench was bad because they were bad. Even CBS said in the ESPN interview between quarters that the offense stalled. Iirc, “they’ll go on their runs and what you need to do is respond.” The bench unit didn’t.

Our starters played amazing (i think they outplayed GSW starters even) and some of those Morris misses, I’d take because they were wide open. Down the stretch, GSW won the game and that Draymond miss was a lucky bounce that didn’t go our way. But Kyrie and co. had to “claw back” from 8-9 point deficits which I know doesn’t sound like much but against elite teams (and in tight games with so many lead changes), an 8 point differential matters.

[tstorey_97]

The Celtics sort of have "answers" for Curry, Green and you just get Boogie into foul trouble.

There are no answers to be found for Durant....none.
If Thompson goes off, not many answers for him either.

The Celtics can beat GS, they just have to play above their heads and they almost did.




 

[Celtics4ever]

I think we did quite well considering we are not even close to playing with all cylinders going.  So it we can get there, we may be able to beat them.

[slamtheking]

not seeing the reason behind gloom and doom from that game.  the loss was disappointing but it wasn't completely disheartening.

only player who really had a great game for the C's -- Horford.  everyone else could have either shot better, defended better, turned it over less or in general, not made as many mistakes or bad plays as they did.   many could have had much better games.  of course GSW made some bad plays as well but in looking at what could have been done better, and we're just talking playing to their regular level better, C's can not only hang with the Warriors but beat them as well. 

C's still have to improve their consistency to get to the finals this year and win but it's not as much of a stretch as many would think

[Phantom255x]

The one thing that did irritate me was when we'd be down 1 or 2 but we'd still be looking to take a 3. Like really, we can't just try and create an open-look 2? It has to be a 3 even if it's contested or taken by someone like Smart or a struggling Morris??

Meanwhile on the other end, you see KD taking a bunch of mid-range jumpers and knocking them down while we're making things difficult for ourselves on offense. Face it, we're not a team full of Curry's and Klay's. We're down 113-111 and IIRC we took two 3-point attempts (one contested) when we should have tried to go inside or looked for an open jumper (the Warriors played the perimeter and paint well but not the area surrounding it).

[Fierce1]

The one thing that did irritate me was when we'd be down 1 or 2 but we'd still be looking to take a 3. Like really, we can't just try and create an open-look 2? It has to be a 3 even if it's contested or taken by someone like Smart or a struggling Morris??

Meanwhile on the other end, you see KD taking a bunch of mid-range jumpers and knocking them down while we're making things difficult for ourselves on offense. Face it, we're not a team full of Curry's and Klay's. We're down 113-111 and IIRC we took two 3-point attempts (one contested) when we should have tried to go inside or looked for an open jumper (the Warriors played the perimeter and paint well but not the area surrounding it).

True.

But what can we do, the Celts have 3-point shooters on the court.
That's what they do best, shoot 3s.

This is what I mean by diversity on offense.
Celts are very predictable this season.
It's Kyrie and 3-point shots.
I think Ainge needs to get a big man like Vucevic.

Give the ball to Vucevic and he will try to score inside.
He's not going to shoot 3s.

But if you give the ball to Morris, it's either a step back 3 or a pull up jumper.

Celts need a big man who can score inside to keep the defense honest.

[nickagneta]

The one thing that did irritate me was when we'd be down 1 or 2 but we'd still be looking to take a 3. Like really, we can't just try and create an open-look 2? It has to be a 3 even if it's contested or taken by someone like Smart or a struggling Morris??

Meanwhile on the other end, you see KD taking a bunch of mid-range jumpers and knocking them down while we're making things difficult for ourselves on offense. Face it, we're not a team full of Curry's and Klay's. We're down 113-111 and IIRC we took two 3-point attempts (one contested) when we should have tried to go inside or looked for an open jumper (the Warriors played the perimeter and paint well but not the area surrounding it).

True.

But what can we do, the Celts have 3-point shooters on the court.
That's what they do best, shoot 3s.

This is what I mean by diversity on offense.
Celts are very predictable this season.
It's Kyrie and 3-point shots.
I think Ainge needs to get a big man like Vucevic.

Give the ball to Vucevic and he will try to score inside.
He's not going to shoot 3s.

But if you give the ball to Morris, it's either a step back 3 or a pull up jumper.

Celts need a big man who can score inside to keep the defense honest.

Please....do us all a favor. Start a thread about trading for Vucevic and make a thread to talk about how to get Hayward, Brown and others more shots. That way you can talk about those things there instead of mentioning it in every thread you post in, trying to get people to talk about those subjects instead of the subject at hand.

[Kuberski33]

NBA admitted the refs blew call when Curry travelled right after that play where Smart missed the box-out on Green's missed FT. C's should have had the ball down 2.

https://twitter.com/AdamHimmelsbach/status/1089634210644672513

[celticinorlando]

NBA admitted the refs blew call when Curry travelled right after that play where Smart missed the box-out on Green's missed FT. C's should have had the ball down 2.

https://twitter.com/AdamHimmelsbach/status/1089634210644672513

Ugh. So freaking close...