Gordon starting to turn the corner?

[Ogaju]

Last night was the best Hayward looked physically so far this season. The alley pop fast break dunk from Rozier showed lift we saw in Utah. His shot will come around.

His teammates on 2nd unit seem to enjoy playing with him. He’s such an unselfish player. I root so hard for the guy to get back to 💯

I really want this team to stay together .. I hate all this superstar stuff. We can win with this team by  just adding a big and a knock down three point shooter.

[tstorey_97]

It's like Belichick...

He "saves" a top player for the playoffs....playin' possum.

Gordon just needs to keep up the aggression. He decided to stop passing the ball away and start making plays. The bench has become legit as Brown, Hayward and Rozier start to play better.

He is better around the rim, but, has a ways to go. Couldn't pick a better time to start feeling it.

[JBcat]

Last night was the best Hayward looked physically so far this season. The alley pop fast break dunk from Rozier showed lift we saw in Utah. His shot will come around.

His teammates on 2nd unit seem to enjoy playing with him. He’s such an unselfish player. I root so hard for the guy to get back to 💯

I really want this team to stay together .. I hate all this superstar stuff. We can win with this team by  just adding a big and a knock down three point shooter.

I’ve seen this a few different times from people from wanting to add a big.  I’m pretty satisfied for this season having the Horford Baynes combo with on occasion play together, and Theis is a pretty good 3rd string center.  I think it would hard to upgrade this unit. 

[gpap]

Last night was the best Hayward looked physically so far this season. The alley pop fast break dunk from Rozier showed lift we saw in Utah. His shot will come around.

His teammates on 2nd unit seem to enjoy playing with him. He’s such an unselfish player. I root so hard for the guy to get back to 💯

I really want this team to stay together .. I hate all this superstar stuff. We can win with this team by  just adding a big and a knock down three point shooter.

I’ve seen this a few different times from people from wanting to add a big.  I’m pretty satisfied for this season having the Horford Baynes combo with on occasion play together, and Theis is a pretty good 3rd string center.  I think it would hard to upgrade this unit.

I think we need an upgrade at center. Moving Horford from center to power forward will reduce the wear and tear on his body, and I feel Baynes is a very average (sometimes below average) center. He's okay, but he's not great.

If the Knicks buy out Deandre Jordan, someone like that would be perfect. Also, I don't understand why Baynes is taking those ridiculous 3-point shots. He looks so awkward taking them.

That's one thing I hate about today's NBA. Literally everyone is chucking 3s from point guards to centers.

[LarBrd33]

Yeah I spent 45 minutes arguing with KG LIving Legend about this on Monday:  https://youtu.be/1vWsLHiDzZ4

My take: 

- Hayward actually played fairly well last month all things considered.  11.5 points, 3.3 assists, 3.9 rebounds, 1 steal with .465/.319/.743 in 24.2mpg.

- Give him 36 minutes and he put up 17 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5 assists... not far from his typical stats

- I imagine it's difficult for him to have proper rhythm when he's playing 20 minutes off the bench and taking 5 shots... the guy needs a larger role before we can demand him to put up star-level stats. 

- He's shown consistent progress, but remains inconsistent.  A month ago he admitted he's still dealing with soreness in his ankle and set April/May as a time he personally expects/hopes he'll have improvement. 

- I suspect his up-and-down play could have something to do with that on/off soreness.  Some days looks comfortable, fluid, and aggressive... other days he looks slow and unwilling to attack the basket.  He's still rehabbing so it could be that some days he's just playing with soreness and it's limiting him.

- I expected his recovery could take 12-18 months and we're still within that window - ESPECIALLY if you remember that he had a second off-season surgery.  It makes sense for him to be at this point.


Fwiw, I'm Team Hayward.  Last couple games he's looked really solid.  He's gonna be Eastern Conference Player of the Month in the month of March... let's speak it into existence.  He spends this month ramping up his minutes, takes a leap sometime after the all-star weekend, and has a huge month of March.  Lol.  Here's hoping. 

[Kuberski33]

Last night was the best Hayward looked physically so far this season. The alley pop fast break dunk from Rozier showed lift we saw in Utah. His shot will come around.

His teammates on 2nd unit seem to enjoy playing with him. He’s such an unselfish player. I root so hard for the guy to get back to 💯

I really want this team to stay together .. I hate all this superstar stuff. We can win with this team by  just adding a big and a knock down three point shooter.

I'm perfectly fine with keeping the current unit intact - just hopefully with an upgrade on Rosier.  I think there's enough talent as is to win.  This of course requires keeping Horford and Kyrie around. 

[ozgod]

I moderated my expectations on Gordon from the start of the season, he's coming along at about where I expected he would be - inconsistent, with some great games, some terrible games, but a growing amount of decent games. Unless someone gets injured and he gets more touches and playing time, he's not going to be a 20-5-5 player this year with his usage being 18% and playing 22-24 mins but by April he should be a solid and more reliable contributor with games like what we saw the last couple of nights. People will complain that we should expect more from a max contract player but that's what it is, there are only 3 max contract players with a usage below 20% in the league and we have 2 of them (Gordon and Al).

[Silky]

Team needs a bigman.

Like true bigman. Williams is still 1 years out and that is too long to wait...need someone that allows horford to move to the pf spot and morris to the bench.

And terry can be the trade bait for him, if hayward is going to keep running the second unit then a true pg is not needed there. Aomeone like beverly wpuld be a great add to replace rozier.

Imo rozier and morris and yabu for vucevic and roll out the season.  Grab beverly as well which ahould be a cheap pickup

Then see what happens

Irving/beverly
Smart/brown
Tatum/hayward
Horford/theis
Vucevic/baynes

[Fierce1]

Team needs a bigman.

Like true bigman. Williams is still 1 years out and that is too long to wait...need someone that allows horford to move to the pf spot and morris to the bench.

And terry can be the trade bait for him, if hayward is going to keep running the second unit then a true pg is not needed there. Aomeone like beverly wpuld be a great add to replace rozier.

Imo rozier and morris and yabu for vucevic and roll put the season.

Then see what happens

Rozier, Baynes, and Yabu for Vucevic will be my trade proposal.

But I don't think Ainge will make any moves until he gets AD in the summer.

Vucevic would really help the Celts in the playoffs.
His rebounding and inside scoring is what's missing from this current Celtics team.

[satch]

Does anyone have stats for Gordon his three previous years before joining C's?

[Fierce1]

Does anyone have stats for Gordon his three previous years before joining C's?

http://www.espn.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/4249/gordon-hayward

[cman88]

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2019/02/boston-celtics-gordon-hayward-is-feeling-his-athleticism-slowly-starting-to-come-back.html

Interview from after the Knicks game. Gordon says he feels his athleticism is coming back.  Kind of confirms what I thought I saw in the Knicks game. if he can even get to 80% of Utah hayward by the playoffs its a whole new ball-game with this celtics team, even without Home court advantage

Hopefully he can string together another solid game today to build upon his progress

[csfansince60s]

Getting Hayward back will go a long way to getting KI to stay and for AD to embrace being here.

Given the size of his contract and how it straps us, Hayward’s progress is critical to our immediate AND long-term success.

[JBcat]

Team needs a bigman.

Like true bigman. Williams is still 1 years out and that is too long to wait...need someone that allows horford to move to the pf spot and morris to the bench.

And terry can be the trade bait for him, if hayward is going to keep running the second unit then a true pg is not needed there. Aomeone like beverly wpuld be a great add to replace rozier.

Imo rozier and morris and yabu for vucevic and roll put the season.

Then see what happens

Rozier, Baynes, and Yabu for Vucevic will be my trade proposal.

But I don't think Ainge will make any moves until he gets AD in the summer.

Vucevic would really help the Celts in the playoffs.
His rebounding and inside scoring is what's missing from this current Celtics team.

I really don’t think we need a big man upgrade right now.  Horford and Baynes (and Theis as 3rd string) are rock solid defensively as well as their role on offense.

What I do think could take our team to another level without any outside moves is flipping minutes and starting role from Morris to Hayward once Hayward seems very close to all the way back(some encouraging signs the last couple games).  I hope to see that happen as we get closer to the playoffs. 

[Emmette Bryant]

The Celtics will go as far in the playoffs as Gordon Hayward and Jaylen Brown take them.