Celtics (37-22) at Bulls (15-44) Game #60 2/23/19

[nickagneta]

I know so many love the guy but I think it's time to say that Smart needs to go back to the bench. Over the last five games he has been AWFUL.

7.5 points 3.5 rebounds 3.5 assists 2.4 TOs shooting 29.2/21.2/50 in 29 minutes

It's not much better over the last 10-14 games either. His shooting has been terrible.

And tonight, Smart has been as bad as Rozier

That's laughable.

Rozier is 1-9 for 3 pts, 3 rebs, 1 ast, and a -16 with his usual porous defense.

Smart is 2-3 for 6 pts, 6 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, and a -7 with solid defense (though not his usual elite defense)

Don't be fooled by Smart's last few minutes of the Fourth where he hit his two shots and had a rebound and an assist. When I started writing my post Smart had done nothing in the game and his defense was poor. Hell, he got his first foul with like 3 minutes left in the game. To me, that shows he was a bit more passive and not his usual bulldog self. And through most of 3 1/2 quarters it showed.

[mctyson]

Terrible. As frustrating of a Celtics season as I can remember.

Coaching staff should be getting ripped in the media (if not on the hot seat) for their utter failure to get this team going this year. That they can't even get them to play with consistent effort from game to game is beyond a failure. And this all stems from Brad failing to clarify the roles early in the season and letting this poor chemistry stew and get worse due to not holding players accountable.

Such a waste of our most talented team in a long, long time.

Yeah...but look they were basically out of the top 2 spots in the East after 20 games.  That was when Brad changed the starting lineup, and even with the latest series of frustrating losses (2-4 in last 6)...they are 27-13 since then...that is roughly 66% winning percentage and is a 55 win team for the season.

Is that good?  Yes.  Is that championship?  No.  But maybe this team just is not as good as people thought they would be, which happens in sports.

Having said all that, you cannot tell me if they are completely healthy come playoff time that they do not have a good shot at making the Finals.

[gpap]

Tonight Robert Williams was needed on the court

Cbs doesnt give him a lick of time

Or Ainge could've picked up Kanter for nothing. Instead he's sitting at home with his thumb up his ass while Aron Baynes is keeping the bench warm. I agreed with you that our interior game is non-existent. As the calendar is about to turn to March, we are looking at a 5th seed and a potential 1st round elimination in the playoffs. Would've never believed it.

[jpotter33]

I know so many love the guy but I think it's time to say that Smart needs to go back to the bench. Over the last five games he has been AWFUL.

7.5 points 3.5 rebounds 3.5 assists 2.4 TOs shooting 29.2/21.2/50 in 29 minutes

It's not much better over the last 10-14 games either. His shooting has been terrible.

And tonight, Smart has been as bad as Rozier

That's laughable.

Rozier is 1-9 for 3 pts, 3 rebs, 1 ast, and a -16 with his usual porous defense.

Smart is 2-3 for 6 pts, 6 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, and a -7 with solid defense (though not his usual elite defense)

Don't be fooled by Smart's last few minutes of the Fourth where he hit his two shots and had a rebound and an assist. When I started writing my post Smart had done nothing in the game and his defense was poor. Hell, he got his first foul with like 3 minutes left in the game. To me, that shows he was a bit more passive and not his usual bulldog self. And through most of 3 1/2 quarters it showed.

Sure, and even with all of that it still wasn't even close to who was hurting this team more out there. Rozier LITERALLY - not figuratively, mind you, LITERALLY - adds no value to this team when he's not scoring. For most of this year Rozier has been a net negative out  on the floor due to his inability to be a contributor in his role.

[Tr1boy]

Without home court

Celts are toast

[nickagneta]

You guys that want Stevens yelling and screaming are hilarious. Do you really think the man doesn't get angry and that the team doesn't know when he is angry?

My old Sicilian grandmother was 4'11" and maybe weighed 100 pounds. She was ALWAYS smiling and happy. But if she got mad at you, all it took was that look, the one where the smile disappears, the eyebrows furrow a bit and her eyes widen as she stared at you.

There's ways when you know certain people are angry. I think the players know when Stevens is steaming and I am sure the players hear it off court behind doors

[slamtheking]

Tonight Robert Williams was needed on the court

Cbs doesnt give him a lick of time

needed to do what?  he wasn't going to guard Lavine or Markkannen and he wasn't going to stop those perimeter shots the Bulls were making.

What were you watching?

You know how many pts they got inside the paint?

yeah, 56 to the C's 52.  If you think Williams would have made that much of a difference, you're fooling yourself.  defending his man he's ok.  help D, he needs work.  Bulls didn't have anyone working the post where he could have really helped.  he'd likely have been out of position trying to help on drives where his man would have received a pass or offensive rebound

Williams presence would have made levine, markennen, lopez think twice

Once you have the inside game (bulls)

The outside game is also there

Celtics running around like headless chickens with no inside presence

fooling yourself.  a lot of their paint points were off fast breaks which Williams wouldn't have impacted.

bottom line, C's had better players on the court and they didn't perform at the level they should have.

[SHAQATTACK]

trying to play with out centers is klling the celtics . im not sure Brad can coach a team with a good center.  He is not doing squat to get these guys on thevsame page and play like they should

[jpotter33]

https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1099509202849021952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1099509202849021952&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fboston-celtics

The Celtics defense was horrendous tonight, as Chicago shot over 53%.

But the next most unacceptable part of the loss? Jayson Tatum hit the game's first 3 shots. He finished with just 6 more FGAs.

In a big way, that's on Brad Stevens. He's got to make sure the guys go to Tatum.

This is another thing I was wondering about - how the hell does this happen after Tatum's hot start? Mr. Nice Guy just does not have the character or the personality to manage an NBA team with the requisite level of talent needed to be a winner in this league. Just too soft.

[SCeltic34]

Westbrook and the Thunder blow it against the Kings at home.  Too many boneheaded decisions by Westbrook down the stretch.  Just a bad night of basketball overall.

[Tr1boy]

Tonight Robert Williams was needed on the court

Cbs doesnt give him a lick of time

needed to do what?  he wasn't going to guard Lavine or Markkannen and he wasn't going to stop those perimeter shots the Bulls were making.

What were you watching?

You know how many pts they got inside the paint?

yeah, 56 to the C's 52.  If you think Williams would have made that much of a difference, you're fooling yourself.  defending his man he's ok.  help D, he needs work.  Bulls didn't have anyone working the post where he could have really helped.  he'd likely have been out of position trying to help on drives where his man would have received a pass or offensive rebound

Williams presence would have made levine, markennen, lopez think twice

Once you have the inside game (bulls)

The outside game is also there

Celtics running around like headless chickens with no inside presence

fooling yourself.  a lot of their paint points were off fast breaks which Williams wouldn't have impacted.

bottom line, C's had better players on the court and they didn't perform at the level they should have.

Dude you dont know what you are talking about

You state 56 points in the paint

Yet you defend "how it was"

Hilarious

Ok sure

[jpotter33]

You guys that want Stevens yelling and screaming are hilarious. Do you really think the man doesn't get angry and that the team doesn't know when he is angry?

My old Sicilian grandmother was 4'11" and maybe weighed 100 pounds. She was ALWAYS smiling and happy. But if she got mad at you, all it took was that look, the one where the smile disappears, the eyebrows furrow a bit and her eyes widen as she stared at you.

There's ways when you know certain people are angry. I think the players know when Stevens is steaming and I am sure the players hear it off court behind doors

I'm sure they do. Their play on the court really screams that they respect Stevens so much and that he seriously holds them accountable.  [sarcasm]

[nickagneta]

I know so many love the guy but I think it's time to say that Smart needs to go back to the bench. Over the last five games he has been AWFUL.

7.5 points 3.5 rebounds 3.5 assists 2.4 TOs shooting 29.2/21.2/50 in 29 minutes

It's not much better over the last 10-14 games either. His shooting has been terrible.

And tonight, Smart has been as bad as Rozier

That's laughable.

Rozier is 1-9 for 3 pts, 3 rebs, 1 ast, and a -16 with his usual porous defense.

Smart is 2-3 for 6 pts, 6 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl, and a -7 with solid defense (though not his usual elite defense)

Don't be fooled by Smart's last few minutes of the Fourth where he hit his two shots and had a rebound and an assist. When I started writing my post Smart had done nothing in the game and his defense was poor. Hell, he got his first foul with like 3 minutes left in the game. To me, that shows he was a bit more passive and not his usual bulldog self. And through most of 3 1/2 quarters it showed.

Sure, and even with all of that it still wasn't even close to who was hurting this team more out there. Rozier LITERALLY - not figuratively, mind you, LITERALLY - adds no value to this team when he's not scoring. For most of this year Rozier has been a net negative out  on the floor due to his inability to be a contributor in his role.

Okay maybe Rozier was superhumanly bad tonight but Smart sucked. His first 23-25 minutes on the floor he may as well have been napping on the court.

[gpap]

https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1099509202849021952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1099509202849021952&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fboston-celtics

The Celtics defense was horrendous tonight, as Chicago shot over 53%.

But the next most unacceptable part of the loss? Jayson Tatum hit the game's first 3 shots. He finished with just 6 more FGAs.

In a big way, that's on Brad Stevens. He's got to make sure the guys go to Tatum.

This is another thing I was wondering about - how the hell does this happen after Tatum's hot start? Mr. Nice Guy just does not have the character or the personality to manage an NBA team with the requisite level of talent needed to be a winner in this league. Just too soft.

I just think not having a center and not playing defense is what's killing us. I know many will be quick to nitpick who's getting more touches than whom. However, without size and defense, the Celts just end up spinning their tires with exchanging buckets, regardless of who's making them.

[gouki88]

It hurts me to say it, but I'm starting to get to the point where I think some of the blame is on Brad.  It's not totally his fault, because he has an exceptionally hard roster to manage, but... Kyrie Irving is easily one of the most dynamic and efficient scorers in the league and yet there are 16 players in this league who take more shots per game.  Tatum is clearly our 2nd best option - another guy who can create his shot at will... and yet there are 43 players in this league that take more shots than him. 

While this "share the wealth" and "get everyone involved" stuff is great when you're a plucky team of non-stars, it's clear that we should be leaning on our top guys.  Problem is, doing that would freeze out some quality players who need touches to stay engaged. 

Really tough situation.

Agree completely. Elite teams have defined offensive roles - we don't really

The other problem is that feeding Kyrie/Tatum would result in Brown becoming disengaged - and subsequently hurt his trade value.  Also, I'm a big advocate for getting Gordon Hayward more touches so that he can get in a rhythm and get back to his prior form, but I don't know how you do that while freezing him out of the offense.

It's a really rough situation where Brad has to manage multiple contradictory goals.

My guess is that come playoff time we should be getting Kyrie/Tatum/Hayward 18-20 shots per game like the Warriors do with Steph/Durant/Klay ... and then everyone else just needs to fall in line and get them the ball.

I've been saying for ages that our offence should try and emulate the Warriors, in terms of sharing the ball. When you do a comparison of FGA between the two teams it's ridiculous. The Warriors have their big 3 all between 18-20, with Cousins at around 11. The next highest is Draymond with 6.4. We have 5 guys in double digit FGA per game, and 8 guys overall taking more shots than Draymond.

The way the Warriors can concentrate their offence, and make it come from their legitimate offensive talents is something we should emulate. Smart, Rozier and Mook should not take the amount of shots they do. Hayward and Tatum, and even Kyrie need more. Really frustrating coaching