Celtics (49-22) at Jazz (33-36) Game #72 3/18/23

[Kuberski33]

Against the Kessler/Olynyk tandem who played 27.6 minutes together the Celtics were....

Outscored 78-55

Outrebounded 42-18

Offensive rebounds outrebounded 15-3

2 point FG's:  Utah 20-36  Boston 5-15
 

This is the reason White couldn't be on the floor to close the game - unless you wanted to sit Brogdon. Tatum by the way got 3 total rebounds all night.

[Phantom255x]

Muscala barely plays but even when he did last night, things looked noticeably better as Muscala hit some shots (8 points) and was actually one of our best rebounders in his short stint.

Instead we opted to go with Kornet most of the 4th 

And don't let the 7 rebounds fool you, Kornet should have had more than 11 but he either froze or didn't grab the board while Utah players are hustling around him to grab it. He didn't grab any critical boards in the 4th when we truly needed it. A 7'2" guy that practically looks like a stationary lamp post out there

This really infuriates me. White and Moose are both good players who Mazz benches all the time. His rotations are very dumb sometimes. His stubbornness in the face of evidence reminds me of CBS at the end of his coaching tenure.

Yeah, the White thing has been going on for some time, but the whole Moose thing now is just as infuriating. Especially last night when Kornet was getting abused, why you don’t go to Moose there is beyond me, who was actually playing well and seemingly holding his own on the boards unlike Kornet.

Yeah, and Kornet is also limited on offense. The only way he can score is from a wide open pass leading to an open dunk/layup. At least White can give you some offense even if he's not rebounding (which btw, Kornet couldn't do either in the 4th anyways)

I just don't understand why Kornet is even on this roster. Even guys like Hauser, Muscala, Pritchard and Griffin can probably give you some playoff minutes. Kornet can't, and if he does get minutes in a close playoff game then that's probably not a good sign at all.

[slamtheking]

Against the Kessler/Olynyk tandem who played 27.6 minutes together the Celtics were....

Outscored 78-55

Outrebounded 42-18

Offensive rebounds outrebounded 15-3

2 point FG's:  Utah 20-36  Boston 5-15
 

This is the reason White couldn't be on the floor to close the game - unless you wanted to sit Brogdon. Tatum by the way got 3 total rebounds all night.

Tatum led the team far and away with the worst +/- --> -13.  White had the best figure for the starters at -1.   Considering the night Tatum was having, having him in the game over Tatum wouldn't have hard to justify.  would have made for a better option to make the inbounds pass to than Grant particularly for what should have been the last play.

[ozgod]

https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1637300627213565953

All this postgame talk about trusting your best player to make a play is nice, but Jaylen Brown shot fairly well in this game. Why not run something with Tatum off ball to occupy the defense and try to get Brown a shot in the mid-range where he's been a killer?

Unbelievable. Just no in-game awareness whatsoever. Tatum has looked like crap since the ASB, and tonight a lot of it wasn't even his fault because they were legitimately double teaming him almost every time down the court.

But you expect him to make the play in that situation, when he just screwed us over the previous two possessions with awful shots that didn't go in? Just mind-numbingly dumb. So green and incompetent and not fit to be an NBA coach, let alone the Celtics.

Hate to say it but this kind of stuff is also how you can alienate Jaylen from the C’s.

And sorry to bring it up, but again, in last years Finals Jaylen was the one who showed up while Tatum laid a huge egg.

The warriors make it work with Steph and Klay but Kerr and the organization regards Klay very highly still and trust him in those clutch moments. Mazz for whatever reason doesn’t seem to trust Jaylen in these spots even in games where Jaylen is better than Tatum

I’m not sure that’s true. Wasn’t it just the other game that they ran a last second play for JAylen for a layup thst missed?

Sometimes we think that players are just automatically going to be open…the other team is going to be all over your gun players like a rash, especially someone like hardy who probably knows e a of what Jaylen and jaysons tendencies are, do they go their right or left, do they take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back etc.

but end of day Joe gets paid the big bucks to develop plays to outsmart the opposition, and the players get paid to execute and we judge them by results. And during the playoffs it could go down to one or two plays

Do you mean the Rockets game? Because that was Tatum who whiffed on two layups late in a game Jaylen scored 43

But honestly we’ll see. I’m not feeling too good about the coach regardless. He seems clueless on what his rotations are, when to call timeouts, and his explanations and reasoning for stuff is also mindboggling. “Layups are harder than 3s” please 

And Mazz can keep talking about the “margins” but guess what, they continue to suck in that category too

Just looking at the replay of thst last play again, I didn’t see much movement from Jayson at the top of the key or jaylen in the corner. So maybe they are using Tatum as a decoy at the top..but The jazz switched with markannen going on to GWill from defending Brogdon so it gave GWill an opening to catch the ball in the paint. So hardy was able to manipulate our play to force GWill to make a play at the rim which wasn’t his strength

Now think about that. Some posters on here and Hardy understand what to do, but Mazzulla himself can’t adjust or prepare for the adjustment and then postgame says “yeah he ran the opposite way”

I mean boy… 10 games left in the season and we’re reeling 

Still 10 games to go, put the razor away til at least the first round buddy 

I’m just curious- does what you do for a living involve any degree of speculation? Because it’s more than just your typical overreacters and doom & groomers who are trending toward pessimism.

I could be way off base here, but you seem like you might tell people they are overreacting until they are very possibly proven right, but then move on very quickly from that fact and mainly focus on the off-season and following year.

I run my own business, so I guess there's not many occupations that can be more speculative in the sense that I have no guarantee that my business will be around this time next year. I guess I just have a calmer mindset than most. I'm not someone who gets extremely excited when the team goes on a 20 game winning streak, and at the same time when the team is losing I don't get too cut up about it.

Also I try not to tell people how to feel - if you look at my posts they're mostly about how *I* feel - everyone else can feel how they like. I don't rub things in when I'm right or flagellate myself for being wrong. And you're right - I do move on quickly from things. No point dwelling on could have beens.

I was just trying to lighten the mood with Phantom and cheer him up a bit. But everyone can feel how they like, whether that's positive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic or whatever. That's the beauty of a fan forum isn't it 

[Phantom255x]

https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1637300627213565953

All this postgame talk about trusting your best player to make a play is nice, but Jaylen Brown shot fairly well in this game. Why not run something with Tatum off ball to occupy the defense and try to get Brown a shot in the mid-range where he's been a killer?

Unbelievable. Just no in-game awareness whatsoever. Tatum has looked like crap since the ASB, and tonight a lot of it wasn't even his fault because they were legitimately double teaming him almost every time down the court.

But you expect him to make the play in that situation, when he just screwed us over the previous two possessions with awful shots that didn't go in? Just mind-numbingly dumb. So green and incompetent and not fit to be an NBA coach, let alone the Celtics.

Hate to say it but this kind of stuff is also how you can alienate Jaylen from the C’s.

And sorry to bring it up, but again, in last years Finals Jaylen was the one who showed up while Tatum laid a huge egg.

The warriors make it work with Steph and Klay but Kerr and the organization regards Klay very highly still and trust him in those clutch moments. Mazz for whatever reason doesn’t seem to trust Jaylen in these spots even in games where Jaylen is better than Tatum

I’m not sure that’s true. Wasn’t it just the other game that they ran a last second play for JAylen for a layup thst missed?

Sometimes we think that players are just automatically going to be open…the other team is going to be all over your gun players like a rash, especially someone like hardy who probably knows e a of what Jaylen and jaysons tendencies are, do they go their right or left, do they take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back etc.

but end of day Joe gets paid the big bucks to develop plays to outsmart the opposition, and the players get paid to execute and we judge them by results. And during the playoffs it could go down to one or two plays

Do you mean the Rockets game? Because that was Tatum who whiffed on two layups late in a game Jaylen scored 43

But honestly we’ll see. I’m not feeling too good about the coach regardless. He seems clueless on what his rotations are, when to call timeouts, and his explanations and reasoning for stuff is also mindboggling. “Layups are harder than 3s” please 

And Mazz can keep talking about the “margins” but guess what, they continue to suck in that category too

Just looking at the replay of thst last play again, I didn’t see much movement from Jayson at the top of the key or jaylen in the corner. So maybe they are using Tatum as a decoy at the top..but The jazz switched with markannen going on to GWill from defending Brogdon so it gave GWill an opening to catch the ball in the paint. So hardy was able to manipulate our play to force GWill to make a play at the rim which wasn’t his strength

Now think about that. Some posters on here and Hardy understand what to do, but Mazzulla himself can’t adjust or prepare for the adjustment and then postgame says “yeah he ran the opposite way”

I mean boy… 10 games left in the season and we’re reeling 

Still 10 games to go, put the razor away til at least the first round buddy 

I’m just curious- does what you do for a living involve any degree of speculation? Because it’s more than just your typical overreacters and doom & groomers who are trending toward pessimism.

I could be way off base here, but you seem like you might tell people they are overreacting until they are very possibly proven right, but then move on very quickly from that fact and mainly focus on the off-season and following year.

I run my own business, so I guess there's not many occupations that can be more speculative in the sense that I have no guarantee that my business will be around this time next year. I guess I just have a calmer mindset than most. I'm not someone who gets extremely excited when the team goes on a 20 game winning streak, and at the same time when the team is losing I don't get too cut up about it.

Also I try not to tell people how to feel - if you look at my posts they're mostly about how *I* feel - everyone else can feel how they like. I don't rub things in when I'm right or flagellate myself for being wrong. And you're right - I do move on quickly from things. No point dwelling on could have beens.

I was just trying to lighten the mood with Phantom and cheer him up a bit. But everyone can feel how they like, whether that's positive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic or whatever. That's the beauty of a fan forum isn't it 

Nah you're good ozgod, and I definitely appreciate your efforts to lighten the mood around here. I consider myself an optimist but I also tend to be realistic too (meaning I'm not a complete homer who always claims everything is fine - not that it's a bad thing to be). I won't be acting all "rosey" even when things go really bad lol, but I'm sure as sports fans we can all be reactionary (not just our own fanbase) 

So idk, maybe in that way I'm also a pessimist (or a mix of both optimist + pessimist given the situation). For me, it's just super frustrating because I really don't think these other teams are better, I think the C's are just shooting themselves in the foot constantly. And to me, that feels worse than if the C's were simply not talented or "completely overachieving"

[Phantom255x]

Yeah it's just me listening to some sports radio and national media talk, but the biggest question a lot of people still have from that game is why Derrick White didn't play at all in the 4th, even with Smart out. He's been arguably your 3rd best/most consistent player this whole season but the coach doesn't seem to use him as much for some reason. He treats White like he's a 7th or 8th man off the bench some nights. There's no excuse as to why White didn't play any minutes in the 4th, especially in possessions where they actually needed some offense

[Roy H.]

Yeah it's just me listening to some sports radio and national media talk, but the biggest question a lot of people still have from that game is why Derrick White didn't play at all in the 4th, even with Smart out. He's been arguably your 3rd best/most consistent player this whole season but the coach doesn't seem to use him as much for some reason. He treats White like he's a 7th or 8th man off the bench some nights. There's no excuse as to why White didn't play any minutes in the 4th, especially in possessions where they actually needed some offense

I think that I am more concerned that our coach thinks that a pull up three pointer shot at a full sprint is the best possible shot we could have gotten out of a time out.

[Phantom255x]

Yeah it's just me listening to some sports radio and national media talk, but the biggest question a lot of people still have from that game is why Derrick White didn't play at all in the 4th, even with Smart out. He's been arguably your 3rd best/most consistent player this whole season but the coach doesn't seem to use him as much for some reason. He treats White like he's a 7th or 8th man off the bench some nights. There's no excuse as to why White didn't play any minutes in the 4th, especially in possessions where they actually needed some offense

I think that I am more concerned that our coach thinks that a pull up three pointer shot at a full sprint is the best possible shot we could have gotten out of a time out.

Well yeah that's the overall thing we're worried about lol. He thinks a layup is harder than a 3 lol. I mean contested layup vs. open 3? Sure, but Mazz didn't say it like that, he straight up said a layup is harder than a 3 and then used Tatum missing the last second layup against the Rockets as an example of his point to the media postgame even though Tatum whiffed that himself, and the C's shot something like 11-42 from 3 that night (oof)

[Who]

Boston would be something like a 45 win team without Horford and without Timelord. Those guys are so important to our interior play and with the way our team is setup with two star wings, three combo guards and a combo forward we just are not able to have high quality replacement players at the big man spots when they are out.

So not only do we lose the individual talent of Timelord and Horford but we are replacing them with low level talent such as 3rd string Kornet, old man Blake Griffin, end of rotation player Muscala.

I do not think this loss is so bad. We should expect to lose a fair number of games without these guys. Yes, we were more talented than Utah but Utah were at home and had big matchup advantages at the big man spots. It is not that bad a loss.

[ozgod]

Yeah it's just me listening to some sports radio and national media talk, but the biggest question a lot of people still have from that game is why Derrick White didn't play at all in the 4th, even with Smart out. He's been arguably your 3rd best/most consistent player this whole season but the coach doesn't seem to use him as much for some reason. He treats White like he's a 7th or 8th man off the bench some nights. There's no excuse as to why White didn't play any minutes in the 4th, especially in possessions where they actually needed some offense

I think that I am more concerned that our coach thinks that a pull up three pointer shot at a full sprint is the best possible shot we could have gotten out of a time out.

I thought he was trolling when he said that...he's been trolling journalists lately when they press him about three pointers. I do think this whole "rush a shot off to get another possession" is overdone though - I can see it happening earlier in games but at the end of the fourth quarter you should be aiming to get the best shot, instead of trying to get a dodgy shot off to get another possession. But undoubtedly the stats nerds on the team have produced statistics that say I am wrong and that it is statistically better to get a 2 for 1 no matter how bad the first shot is 

[#1P4P]

Tatum is second in the entire NBA in Post Up PPP at 1.29 (among qualified players), he’s also tied for 58th out of the top 60 in frequency. Which means that he’s an elite post player that rarely posts up relative to his peers.

It’s tough to double team him on post ups because opponents have to leave their assignment before the catch (leaving them wide open) or risk being too late (and be left in no man’s land). Without the double, he gets to the rim and is either fouled or they take the chance of him taking a point blank layup.

With the amount of double teams the Jazz used and zone defense they played, it was a great game to post JT up often. Horford, Muscala, and Hauser, specifically, are elite spot up shooters (while the entire team is solid in that department) and the team is full of players that are particularly good in several play types.

Running Jayson with momentum into a set defense with awaiting defenders clogging driving lanes like he’s Lebron is asinine. Spread out the shooters, get him the ball in the post, and let him go to work.

The stats aren’t a secret; anyone can find who does well in certain situations. Mazzulla has to lean into his best players strengths and put them in a better position to win.

[smokeablount]

https://twitter.com/John_Karalis/status/1637300627213565953

All this postgame talk about trusting your best player to make a play is nice, but Jaylen Brown shot fairly well in this game. Why not run something with Tatum off ball to occupy the defense and try to get Brown a shot in the mid-range where he's been a killer?

Unbelievable. Just no in-game awareness whatsoever. Tatum has looked like crap since the ASB, and tonight a lot of it wasn't even his fault because they were legitimately double teaming him almost every time down the court.

But you expect him to make the play in that situation, when he just screwed us over the previous two possessions with awful shots that didn't go in? Just mind-numbingly dumb. So green and incompetent and not fit to be an NBA coach, let alone the Celtics.

Hate to say it but this kind of stuff is also how you can alienate Jaylen from the C’s.

And sorry to bring it up, but again, in last years Finals Jaylen was the one who showed up while Tatum laid a huge egg.

The warriors make it work with Steph and Klay but Kerr and the organization regards Klay very highly still and trust him in those clutch moments. Mazz for whatever reason doesn’t seem to trust Jaylen in these spots even in games where Jaylen is better than Tatum

I’m not sure that’s true. Wasn’t it just the other game that they ran a last second play for JAylen for a layup thst missed?

Sometimes we think that players are just automatically going to be open…the other team is going to be all over your gun players like a rash, especially someone like hardy who probably knows e a of what Jaylen and jaysons tendencies are, do they go their right or left, do they take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back etc.

but end of day Joe gets paid the big bucks to develop plays to outsmart the opposition, and the players get paid to execute and we judge them by results. And during the playoffs it could go down to one or two plays

Do you mean the Rockets game? Because that was Tatum who whiffed on two layups late in a game Jaylen scored 43

But honestly we’ll see. I’m not feeling too good about the coach regardless. He seems clueless on what his rotations are, when to call timeouts, and his explanations and reasoning for stuff is also mindboggling. “Layups are harder than 3s” please 

And Mazz can keep talking about the “margins” but guess what, they continue to suck in that category too

Just looking at the replay of thst last play again, I didn’t see much movement from Jayson at the top of the key or jaylen in the corner. So maybe they are using Tatum as a decoy at the top..but The jazz switched with markannen going on to GWill from defending Brogdon so it gave GWill an opening to catch the ball in the paint. So hardy was able to manipulate our play to force GWill to make a play at the rim which wasn’t his strength

Now think about that. Some posters on here and Hardy understand what to do, but Mazzulla himself can’t adjust or prepare for the adjustment and then postgame says “yeah he ran the opposite way”

I mean boy… 10 games left in the season and we’re reeling 

Still 10 games to go, put the razor away til at least the first round buddy 

I’m just curious- does what you do for a living involve any degree of speculation? Because it’s more than just your typical overreacters and doom & groomers who are trending toward pessimism.

I could be way off base here, but you seem like you might tell people they are overreacting until they are very possibly proven right, but then move on very quickly from that fact and mainly focus on the off-season and following year.

I run my own business, so I guess there's not many occupations that can be more speculative in the sense that I have no guarantee that my business will be around this time next year. I guess I just have a calmer mindset than most. I'm not someone who gets extremely excited when the team goes on a 20 game winning streak, and at the same time when the team is losing I don't get too cut up about it.

Also I try not to tell people how to feel - if you look at my posts they're mostly about how *I* feel - everyone else can feel how they like. I don't rub things in when I'm right or flagellate myself for being wrong. And you're right - I do move on quickly from things. No point dwelling on could have beens.

I was just trying to lighten the mood with Phantom and cheer him up a bit. But everyone can feel how they like, whether that's positive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic or whatever. That's the beauty of a fan forum isn't it 

Thanks for the reply. I enjoy your contributions here. I don’t consider myself a premature panicker but I feel I have been ahead of the curve on some of the Celtics bad times since 2016 or so. I don’t post as much anymore and I usually come out when we are facing adversity more than when things are good. Sometimes reading the wrist slitting of others prevents the slitting of one’s own wrists.

Ultimately however, I think there are serious causes for concern. I think that anything can happen and I think there are alternate interpretations of Joe’s actions that don’t look so ominous. But there is more evidence than you want to see where the simplest explanation is that Joe isn’t ready to coach a championship team.

No team can afford to waste a year where it has the most talented roster in the league for anyone reason, but especially because they are waiting on the development of a rookie head coach.

[gouki88]

Tatum is second in the entire NBA in Post Up PPP at 1.29 (among qualified players), he’s also tied for 58th out of the top 60 in frequency. Which means that he’s an elite post player that rarely posts up relative to his peers.

It’s tough to double team him on post ups because opponents have to leave their assignment before the catch (leaving them wide open) or risk being too late (and be left in no man’s land). Without the double, he gets to the rim and is either fouled or they take the chance of him taking a point blank layup.

With the amount of double teams the Jazz used and zone defense they played, it was a great game to post JT up often. Horford, Muscala, and Hauser, specifically, are elite spot up shooters (while the entire team is solid in that department) and the team is full of players that are particularly good in several play types.

Running Jayson with momentum into a set defense with awaiting defenders clogging driving lanes like he’s Lebron is asinine. Spread out the shooters, get him the ball in the post, and let him go to work.

The stats aren’t a secret; anyone can find who does well in certain situations. Mazzulla has to lean into his best players strengths and put them in a better position to win.

I find it incredibly irritating that we don't run our offence through Tatum & Smart in the post more frequently

[LilRip]

Grant finally has a good game and puts a stain on it with that dispicable final play. We already know by now that he completely wets the bed in clutch time so why was he even out there as a facilitator on a crucial play?? He shouldve kept his happy butt in the corner and used brogdon or JB to initiate the play and use JT as a decoy

Did anybody ask about that horrific play after the game?  What was Grant supposed to do there?  Taking it up against two talker defenders can’t have been the primary option?

Thats my issue with it. Not so much that he made the play he did which was for some reason to drive right into 2 7footers and eat a complete Wilsonburger, but the fact that Joe designed an ATO play for basically the worst player on the court who struggles handling the ball and driving to the hoop. There's no way you put Grant in that position

Joe can say all he wants that the play was designed for Grant to hand off to Tatum or Brown, but Tatum was all the way in the backcourt and never moved, and Brown was stationed on the other side of the floor and didn't move either. It was either drive, shoot, or try a tough pass to Hauser in the corner. Those were Grant's options.

Yeah, People blaming Grant didn't watch the replay..he had no choice. Only 5 seconds on the clock--maybe he could have shot a floater? nobody was open, cause they all just stood there. Blame Joe for not having White in the game.

Just caught the game. And I think Grant called his own number on the last play.

He came from baseline and headed down the court like he was gonna set a screen for Tatum. You can see that as soon as the ref inbounds the ball, Tatum’s body language changes too and he leans forward like he’s ready to go. His eyes are on Grant and he takes a step forward when Grant gets nearer. Instead, Grant curls and shakes his man to get the pass. Then unlike Smart, Grant doesn’t wait for any cuts. He immediately takes a power dribble and takes an early shot which gets blocked with 3 seconds to go. Ball game.

Even if we put the Cleveland game aside, Grant’s always wanted the limelight in crunch time this year. He always calls for the ball when it’s time for crunch time FT’s and the other team is fouling. He rarely gets it but you can see how much he wants the ball in those situations.

[Celtics4ever]

Grant, should have never been put in this position to take a last shot.  If that was drawn up play, it was absurd.      You go to your stars in this situation.  Grant was hot, but a driver he is not!