Celtics Regular Season News

[Surferdad]

Assessing where we stand as of the last several weeks:

Starters:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, RWill

Brown has been a little up and down but still good.  Other than Brown, everyone else is absolutely peaking.  Can't really expect things to be any better right now.

Core Bench:  Pritchard, White, GWill, Theis

We don't have a true back up wing in this group (Nesmith may emerge but time is running out on this season) but this is a good bench.  White is on the upswing (improving from 0-8 to 2-8), Pritchard seems to have found his shooting confidence again, and GWill/Theis give us quite a bit of versatility as back up bigs.  Joking aside on White, he has been useful, probably slightly better than Richardson and Pritchard has been roughly equal to Schroder, but he needs to figure out his shot.

Deep Bench:  Nesmith, Hauser, Stauskas, Fitts, Kornet

There are some potentially useful players in this group as 3rd stringers but you can't expect much from any of this.  I think we are at 14 right now so there is one more slot.  It would be nice if one of these emerged as an actual playable back up wing.  As of last night, Fitts now has 12 total NBA points over 2 seasons, 4-9 (44%) from 3, just say'in.

BTW, where has Kornet been the last couple of games?

ANSWERS:
Brown has been playing through an injury.

Grant is playing backup wing.

Kornet shouldn't even be in the NBA.

[Celtics2021]

 
BTW, where has Kornet been the last couple of games?

https://gleague.nba.com/games/20220318/LAKMNE/

[Vermont Green]

Assessing where we stand as of the last several weeks:

Starters:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, RWill

Brown has been a little up and down but still good.  Other than Brown, everyone else is absolutely peaking.  Can't really expect things to be any better right now.

Core Bench:  Pritchard, White, GWill, Theis

We don't have a true back up wing in this group (Nesmith may emerge but time is running out on this season) but this is a good bench.  White is on the upswing (improving from 0-8 to 2-8), Pritchard seems to have found his shooting confidence again, and GWill/Theis give us quite a bit of versatility as back up bigs.  Joking aside on White, he has been useful, probably slightly better than Richardson and Pritchard has been roughly equal to Schroder, but he needs to figure out his shot.

Deep Bench:  Nesmith, Hauser, Stauskas, Fitts, Kornet

There are some potentially useful players in this group as 3rd stringers but you can't expect much from any of this.  I think we are at 14 right now so there is one more slot.  It would be nice if one of these emerged as an actual playable back up wing.  As of last night, Fitts now has 12 total NBA points over 2 seasons, 4-9 (44%) from 3, just say'in.

BTW, where has Kornet been the last couple of games?

ANSWERS:
Brown has been playing through an injury.

Grant is playing backup wing.

Kornet shouldn't even be in the NBA.

Grant has played wing for a total of 9 minutes and entirely in 1 game.  I determined this by checking 3-man line up for when Grant was on the court with 2 other bigs (2 of Horford, RWill, Theis).  I think it was the Detroit game but I am not sure.  Anyway, the team was -4 in those 9 minutes.

GWill offers some versatility but he has not been playing back up wing and I don't expect he will be in any significant way moving forward.  In a pinch, it is a nice option to have.  I was actually surprised to not have seen it more.

Other than garbage time (and the 9 min mentioned above), they have been able to keep at least one of Brown or Tatum on the court and when it is only one of them, they play with 2 guards (some combination of Smart, White, Pritchard), along with some combination of the bigs (Horford, RWill, GWill, Theis).

I consider Brown and Tatum to be wings, Smart, White, and Pritchard to be guards.  The principle combinations they use are:

1 guard, 2 wings, 2 bigs
2 guards, 1 wing, 2 bigs

Not really a whole lot of difference really but there is a subtle difference.

[Roy H.]

StatMuse: The Celtics are for real. — 21-4 in last 25 games — 13 of those wins vs playoff teams — Best defense — Best FG% defense — Best 3P% defense — 3rd best net rating (1st since 2022) — 0.5 games back from East 2nd seed Tatum, Time Lord and Udoka are MVP, DPOY and COTY candidates. 3 hours ago – via Twitter statmuse

[Goldstar88]

Too funny.

Keith Smith: Jayson Tatum: “Grant wants his nickname to be…(laughs) I can’t understand why Grant wants to be called Batman. I’m gonna ask him when I get on the bus. Grant played great tonight, but I’m gonna call him Grant. I’m not calling him no [dang] Batman.” – via Twitter KeithSmithNBA

Keith Smith: Jaylen Brown on his partnership with Jayson Tatum: “Not satisfied. I can always play better…It feels good to win games, and I don’t want to discredit that. But we’ve still got a lot do. We haven’t proven ourselves yet.”  – via Twitter KeithSmithNBA

Jared Weiss: Jaylen Brown on shutting down Nikola Jokic: “Grant did a great job. He wanted me to tell the media he wants his nickname to be Batman. I said I don’t know about that one Grant. But the way he played today, it might be Frank Lucas.”  – via Twitter JaredWeissNBA

[Roy H.]

Too funny.

Keith Smith: Jayson Tatum: “Grant wants his nickname to be…(laughs) I can’t understand why Grant wants to be called Batman. I’m gonna ask him when I get on the bus. Grant played great tonight, but I’m gonna call him Grant. I’m not calling him no [dang] Batman.” – via Twitter KeithSmithNBA

Keith Smith: Jaylen Brown on his partnership with Jayson Tatum: “Not satisfied. I can always play better…It feels good to win games, and I don’t want to discredit that. But we’ve still got a lot do. We haven’t proven ourselves yet.”  – via Twitter KeithSmithNBA

Jared Weiss: Jaylen Brown on shutting down Nikola Jokic: “Grant did a great job. He wanted me to tell the media he wants his nickname to be Batman. I said I don’t know about that one Grant. But the way he played today, it might be Frank Lucas.”  – via Twitter JaredWeissNBA

There's only one Batman:

[Roy H.]

Celtics say Marcus Smart (non COVID illness) and Robert Williams (knee) are OUT vs Thunder. Aaron Nesmith (ankle) bumped up to questionable.

[Celtics2021]

Celtics say Marcus Smart (non COVID illness) and Robert Williams (knee) are OUT vs Thunder. Aaron Nesmith (ankle) bumped up to questionable.

Not too surprising about Smart, as he left early with a sinus issue.  It also looked like Rob’s knee was bothering him a bit in his final couple of minutes — hopefully this is just a one-game maintenance.  Although he hasn’t played more than 24 more minutes the entire road trip, so I wonder if there’s something they’re managing more this week.

[Celtics2021]

Tatum is the Eastern Conference Player of the week again. Third this season, and seventh of his career.

[Surferdad]

Celtics say Marcus Smart (non COVID illness) and Robert Williams (knee) are OUT vs Thunder. Aaron Nesmith (ankle) bumped up to questionable.

Not too surprising about Smart, as he left early with a sinus issue.  It also looked like Rob’s knee was bothering him a bit in his final couple of minutes — hopefully this is just a one-game maintenance.  Although he hasn’t played more than 24 more minutes the entire road trip, so I wonder if there’s something they’re managing more this week.

Fortunately, Theis looked good vs. GSW so let's hope he continues with more PT tonight.

[Roy H.]

Justin Kubatko @jkubatko
2 minutes ago
Jayson Tatum last night: ✅ 36 PTS ✅ 7 REB ✅ 6 AST Tatum has scored at least 30 points with a 70 eFG% in each of his last three games. It's the second time he's recorded three such games in a row. The only other player in @Boston Celtics history to do so even once is Kevin McHale.

Impressive.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Justin Kubatko @jkubatko
2 minutes ago
Jayson Tatum last night: ✅ 36 PTS ✅ 7 REB ✅ 6 AST Tatum has scored at least 30 points with a 70 eFG% in each of his last three games. It's the second time he's recorded three such games in a row. The only other player in @Boston Celtics history to do so even once is Kevin McHale.

Impressive.

In 26 games since his first 50 point game, he's at 29.9 ppg, 7.6 rpg, and 5 apg on 50/40/89 shooting splits.

That over a full season with how the Celtics are playing are MVP-quality numbers. It may not make him the favorite, but he'd be in the conversation.

[Donoghus]

Which one of you rascals did this?

RD 🍀 Go Celtics Or Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.S
@CelticsGRD
·
5h
Boston Celtics go 4-0 on the road trip
& Celtics fans don’t know how to act 🤪☘️

[Atzar]

That's a very brave tattoo. 

I can think of a few other adjectives besides brave, too.

[Roy H.]

That's a very brave tattoo. 

I can think of a few other adjectives besides brave, too.

I’m hoping it was an opposing fan who lost a bet.