Celtics (2-1) at Heat (1-2) Round 1 Game 4 4/29/24

[hpantazo]

Woj tweeted that it is NOT an Achilles injury.

The wording was they don't think it's an achilles injury but they will know more after the MRI.

They can be fairly confident with their standard tests in the locker room, but the imaging is the most accurate assessment and it could still reveal some degree of achilles damage, like a minor strain

[Mahk E Mahk]

i’m more concerned that not one celtic went after bam after that deliberately dirty play. soft.

Exactly. Big part of this team's problem. Lord, they are a passive bunch.

Horford went over and pushed Bam away from Tatum. Are you guys watching the game?

no, he didn’t. al brushed bam’s shoulder running to help up tatum. bam could have taken out our best player with that intentionally dirty play; someone should have sent a message.

And he got a tech for that. We're down Zinger already, what is the realistic outcome you wanted from that situation than stupid, macho violence?

I'd like to see some macho violence myself.

i’d like to see a celtic send a message to miami that their dirty play will have consequences, especially if they try to intentionally hurt a player. doesn’t mean a punch, but how about getting in bam’s face with some words of warning if he continues to play dirty ball. some of you guys are soft.

Yeah, some of you are jumping from one extreme (passive, no response) to another (punch the guy's lights out).
Jumping right into the Miami player's face, chest to chest, with some strong  words by more than one Celtic would be much better.

When was the last finesse team with such a passive personality win the title ?

Yeah, we need an enforcer like Jokic and Jamal Murray! Oh, wait… 

who said anything about an enforcer? the way you put words in folk’s posts in an attempt to make a point is hilarious. if you don’t think denver is a physical team, you don’t basketball. and if you don’t think jokic would send a clear message to bam if he intentionally tried to injure murray, you’ve clearly never been to serbia.

Yep, those Nuggets are just like the Bad Boy Pistons. Jokic is a rough rider. Don’t know how I didn’t see it before. 

this explains a lot.

[celticinorlando]

Bottom line is Boston needs to not take game 5 lightly like last season

[celticinorlando]

Other news Tatum said his ankle is fine

[Phantom255x]

Porzingis can take my ankle I don’t need it right now

[hpantazo]

Other news Tatum said his ankle is fine

He looked fine afterwards too. I think he sold it for the flagrant call.

[jpotter33]

Another interesting factoid for tonight - only 14 of 37 from three tonight. We were able to win again without taking/making a bunch of three pointers. Good development to do that the second game in a row.

Also, I think it highlights that the defense is the more important factor for us in this series. We're so much better than them offensively without Butler or Rozier that we can win offensively in a variety of ways, but the most important thing is to be solid defensively and make it difficult on their shooters and ball-handlers.

[Atzar]

For those of us with a tendency to cite single-game +/- as if it means anything, Jaylen Brown had a team-high +17 despite playing like absolute s*** all night. 

That's what that stat is worth.  Zilch.

man you beat me to it.   The +/- here gets a lot of love.  JB played like crap all night and had the highest +/-.

JT/JB need to get back to playing well, and soon.  We can't expect DWhite to turn into Curry every night.   JT/JB need to play a lot better.  I don't understand the effort and poor play tonight.

I don't have an issue with the effort really.  You don't hold a team to 88 on poor effort.  Agree that they didn't play well at the other end.  JT found other ways to contribute despite shooting poorly, JB just had a rough one in general, and we'll need more from them in G5. 

Also wouldn't hurt my feelings if we got a lift from somebody on the bench.  Al has been solid, not knocking him.  But PP and Hauser have each kicked in one solid game and have otherwise been silent this series.

i’m curious, if the opponent’s 88 points was due to good effort on D by the C’s, what was your position on miami’s game 2 shooting?poor D by the C’s?

not necessarily directed at you, but i don’t understand how some folks will shrug off a game two loss by saying miami shot lights out and there’s not much you can do when a team is in that zone, but then give the C’s credit when miami shoots poorly.

Doesn't need to be either/or. 

We gave up a ton of open looks in game 2 and need to be better than that (and have been since).  This is true.  Miami shot well beyond expectations on those looks, given that the players who shot many of them are typically poor-to-mediocre shooters.  This is also true. 

I don't think those two ideas are at odds with each other. 

[ozgod]

Other news Tatum said his ankle is fine

He looked fine afterwards too. I think he sold it for the flagrant call.

That's what I suspect too, which is why I wasn't too bothered nobody tried to pick a fight with Bam over it. It was definitely a Hollywood 

[Goldstar88]

Another interesting factoid for tonight - only 14 of 37 from three tonight. We were able to win again without taking/making a bunch of three pointers. Good development to do that the second game in a row.

Also, I think it highlights that the defense is the more important factor for us in this series. We're so much better than them offensively without Butler or Rozier that we can win offensively in a variety of ways, but the most important thing is to be solid defensively and make it difficult on their shooters and ball-handlers.

Completely agree. I wonder why the sudden change in strategy? Hopefully we see more of this going forward.

[ozgod]

Another interesting factoid for tonight - only 14 of 37 from three tonight. We were able to win again without taking/making a bunch of three pointers. Good development to do that the second game in a row.

Also, I think it highlights that the defense is the more important factor for us in this series. We're so much better than them offensively without Butler or Rozier that we can win offensively in a variety of ways, but the most important thing is to be solid defensively and make it difficult on their shooters and ball-handlers.

This is what I'm most happy about - they didn't let missing 3 point shots affect their defense. They were locked in to Miami all night and made it difficult for them, even though our own offense was far from perfect.

[celticinorlando]

Per KP:

good W tonight. DWhite is special!!

Thanks for all the support,  will be good 💪

[Goldstar88]

Per KP:

good W tonight. DWhite is special!!

Thanks for all the support,  will be good 💪

Excellent news! Tp

[jpotter33]

https://x.com/gameinjurydoc/status/1785108038116081773?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

This looks like a right “calf strain” for Kristaps Porziņģis

You can also see he has tape on the left calf so probably was dealing with some sort of tightness/soreness prior on that side

MRI will determine severity and healing time

Grade I: 1-2 weeks
Grade II: 3-6 weeks

Optimistically, there’s no strain and he’s day to day.

Realistically, it’s probably a strain and we’re hoping for a Grade 1.

[ozgod]

Woj tweeted that it is NOT an Achilles injury.

To be precise, this is what he said:


https://x.com/wojespn/status/1785112461454213619

Woj is very careful with his wording all the time. Which is fair because Woj or anyone else can't know exactly what it is without scans, like an ultrasound or an MRI...but they can certainly do some initial tests that would suggest it was unlikely to be an Achilles.

Let's keep our fingers crossed it's just a calf strain