Celtics (0-0) at Knicks (0-0) Game #1 10/20/21

[JohnBoy65]

  Ime already really concerns me. Did he abandon captains because Marcus decided it was meaningless Are we really switching absolutely everything? That’s bad for Timelord. Our only offense came when Jaylen broke his man , which was almost any time he wanted. Jaylen should just be point guard.

Except that's not what happened. We switched everything for 3 quarters, and in the 4th quarter they switched everything 1-4 and kept RWIII on Randall for the 4th and OT. All things considered Rob did a pretty good job on Randall.

In my eyes we lost the game in the 3rd and 4th quarter due to bad offense and lazy transition defense.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

My thoughts:

Ime kept Rob Williams off Randle for most of the game, and then used Williams almost exclusively on Randle late in the fourth and overtime. Randle was dominating before, and would hardly challenge Williams after. Performances like that will have Williams on the all-defensive team this year.

Jaylen Brown looks more and more like a Bradley Beal/Devin Booker scoring engine for the team. I love watching him play more and more.

Jayson Tatum - What is wrong with him? He looks out of rhythm and out of sorts throughout all the pre-season and the first game. He's not just missing shots. He's out of rhythm on drives and pullups too, leading to his shot getting blocked a lot. I think he'll figure it out before too long, but man he looked bad last night.

Kemba Walker - So this is what it feels like to be an opponent going against Walker at this stage in his career? I used to think "he's a decent scorer on decent efficiency." Now I think, "That dude doesn't scare me." There's no doubt in my mind that Al Horford will be a better player for us for the next few years than Walker could have been.

Evan Fournier - This was a pretty predictable happening. What's most disappointing was how the Cs couldn't get over screens to force him off the three point line. It's obvious they didn't want to compromise the lane, but to do that you have to have defenders who are willing/able to fight hard to get over screens. Tatum was a disappointment in this last night (many of Fournier's threes came against him). I think this is a main area that Josh Richardson will help in.

Grant Williams - This is the type of guy he can be. He's better against wings than he is against bigs, but he's a good passer, can stretch the floor, and has a tendency to make timely defensive plays. There's reason to be excited to have a guy like him in our rotation.

Schroeder - Picked up his intensity on defense later, but gave up a lot -- a lot -- of easy baskets earlier in the game.

The third quarter lineup of Nesmith-Langford-Schroeder-Williams-Brown (or Tatum) was interesting, but that's when the wheels fell off. I love the idea of running the offense through Brown and Tatum, and then using Horford as the guy to facilitate getting good looks when we go to our bench units. Running pick-and-rolls or DHOs with Horford/Nesmith/Schroder/Langford should give us reliable and solid looks for stretches of the game.

[Somebody]

  Ime already really concerns me. Did he abandon captains because Marcus decided it was meaningless Are we really switching absolutely everything? That’s bad for Timelord. Our only offense came when Jaylen broke his man , which was almost any time he wanted. Jaylen should just be point guard.

Except that's not what happened. We switched everything for 3 quarters, and in the 4th quarter they switched everything 1-4 and kept RWIII on Randall for the 4th and OT. All things considered Rob did a pretty good job on Randall.

In my eyes we lost the game in the 3rd and 4th quarter due to bad offense and lazy transition defense.

Isn't a coach supposed to give out instructions to players so they can do well in these aspects of the game? Sounds like sketchy coaching to me

[Big333223]

A lot of Grant defenders today which is nice to see but he looked like junior varsity against Randle. Maybe Randle was just especially deep in his bag last night and no one could've slowed him down but I am curious what it means for how Udoka will handle his rotations as a head coach.

Almost 32 minutes from Grant and not a second for Hernangomez, Fernando, or Kanter. I couldn't help but think that Fernando would've been the best physical matchup against Randle but never saw him. Is that because Udoka loved the other things Grant was doing too much? Or is a shorter rotation part of his philosophy? Or s my thinking that Bruno deserves even 5 minutes on the floor misguided?

[slamtheking]

My thoughts:

Ime kept Rob Williams off Randle for most of the game, and then used Williams almost exclusively on Randle late in the fourth and overtime. Randle was dominating before, and would hardly challenge Williams after. Performances like that will have Williams on the all-defensive team this year.

Jaylen Brown looks more and more like a Bradley Beal/Devin Booker scoring engine for the team. I love watching him play more and more.

Jayson Tatum - What is wrong with him? He looks out of rhythm and out of sorts throughout all the pre-season and the first game. He's not just missing shots. He's out of rhythm on drives and pullups too, leading to his shot getting blocked a lot. I think he'll figure it out before too long, but man he looked bad last night.

Kemba Walker - So this is what it feels like to be an opponent going against Walker at this stage in his career? I used to think "he's a decent scorer on decent efficiency." Now I think, "That dude doesn't scare me." There's no doubt in my mind that Al Horford will be a better player for us for the next few years than Walker could have been.

Evan Fournier - This was a pretty predictable happening. What's most disappointing was how the Cs couldn't get over screens to force him off the three point line. It's obvious they didn't want to compromise the lane, but to do that you have to have defenders who are willing/able to fight hard to get over screens. Tatum was a disappointment in this last night (many of Fournier's threes came against him). I think this is a main area that Josh Richardson will help in.

Grant Williams - This is the type of guy he can be. He's better against wings than he is against bigs, but he's a good passer, can stretch the floor, and has a tendency to make timely defensive plays. There's reason to be excited to have a guy like him in our rotation.

Schroeder - Picked up his intensity on defense later, but gave up a lot -- a lot -- of easy baskets earlier in the game.

The third quarter lineup of Nesmith-Langford-Schroeder-Williams-Brown (or Tatum) was interesting, but that's when the wheels fell off. I love the idea of running the offense through Brown and Tatum, and then using Horford as the guy to facilitate getting good looks when we go to our bench units. Running pick-and-rolls or DHOs with Horford/Nesmith/Schroder/Langford should give us reliable and solid looks for stretches of the game.

it's when Brown went out and Tatum came in that the wheels came off.  C's need to get a much better performance out of Tatum every game because we can't rely on Jaylen having another red hot night like last night.  Defense on Fournier was just awful pretty much the whole game.  could have sworn Ime was pushing the idea that this would be a much better team defensively this year.  not seeing it yet.

[Celtics2021]

A lot of Grant defenders today which is nice to see but he looked like junior varsity against Randle. Maybe Randle was just especially deep in his bag last night and no one could've slowed him down but I am curious what it means for how Udoka will handle his rotations as a head coach.

Almost 32 minutes from Grant and not a second for Hernangomez, Fernando, or Kanter. I couldn't help but think that Fernando would've been the best physical matchup against Randle but never saw him. Is that because Udoka loved the other things Grant was doing too much? Or is a shorter rotation part of his philosophy? Or s my thinking that Bruno deserves even 5 minutes on the floor misguided?

The bolded is the answer.  Fernando is going to be salary dumped at the deadline for cash considerations and released by his new team, or cut by the Celtics after the deadline if he is not moved.  He will appear only in blowouts or in games where the Celtics can only dress 10 players.

[JohnBoy65]

  Ime already really concerns me. Did he abandon captains because Marcus decided it was meaningless Are we really switching absolutely everything? That’s bad for Timelord. Our only offense came when Jaylen broke his man , which was almost any time he wanted. Jaylen should just be point guard.

Except that's not what happened. We switched everything for 3 quarters, and in the 4th quarter they switched everything 1-4 and kept RWIII on Randall for the 4th and OT. All things considered Rob did a pretty good job on Randall.

In my eyes we lost the game in the 3rd and 4th quarter due to bad offense and lazy transition defense.

Isn't a coach supposed to give out instructions to players so they can do well in these aspects of the game? Sounds like sketchy coaching to me

Of course that's a coaches role. Neither you, nor I, know what the schemes are. I don't know if players ignored schemes and play calls, or they just didn't execute appropriately. However, there certainly was a lack of intensity defensively when NY went on their run. I think of the all the transition baskets. One play that sticks out to me specifically was a Randall dunk where timelord didn't rotate onto the help line. There were numerous plays like that in the 2nd half, and to me that's just a lack of concentration and effort. Not a coaching issue.

[dannyboy35]

Tatum can’t dribble. He’s still a star but he can’t dribble. Why he doesn’t do this or that is because he can’t dribble better. Simple as that.

[nebist]

I'm not a big fan of the switching off-ball screens philosophy. It burned them last night.

They made an adjustment from switching 1-5 to switching 1-4 to keep Timelord on Randle. While Timelord did a good job on Randle, that's exactly when Fournier went off. The other guys were still in "switch" mentality, and that's why they were running into/under screens (which is exactly what you're supposed to do when switching). However, suddenly Timelord wasn't switching out on the shooter and that is how Fournier got 3-4 wide open looks from 3 down the stretch. If your primary mentality and habits are to switch everything, it's almost impossible to turn that off mid-game as an adjustment. It's way easier to adjust the other way (from a stay with your man and fight through screens mentality adjusting to switching).

[Big333223]

I'm not a big fan of the switching off-ball screens philosophy. It burned them last night.

They made an adjustment from switching 1-5 to switching 1-4 to keep Timelord on Randle. While Timelord did a good job on Randle, that's exactly when Fournier went off. The other guys were still in "switch" mentality, and that's why they were running into/under screens (which is exactly what you're supposed to do when switching). However, suddenly Timelord wasn't switching out on the shooter and that is how Fournier got 3-4 wide open looks from 3 down the stretch. If your primary mentality and habits are to switch everything, it's almost impossible to turn that off mid-game as an adjustment. It's way easier to adjust the other way (from a stay with your man and fight through screens mentality adjusting to switching).

I think it'll take a bit for everyone to get on the same page. I saw a number of times Jaylen stayed on his man through the screen and it looked like his teammate wanted to switch. I don't know what the "right" thing to do is there but the switching thing is going to take a lot of communication and probably time.

[cltc5]

 Why are grant and Romeo still in the league?

[td450]

There was a lot to digest, but my primary concern is that Tatum and Smart reverted to the same bad end of game habits, and worse, Shroder did the same.

Tatum's performance was awful. Shooting comes and goes, but the missed passes, ball stopping and bad decisions was really disappointing.

[td450]

Why are grant and Romeo still in the league?

Apparently you didn't watch the game. They were both quite good

[footey]

Tatum being cold didn't bother me. His decision not to attack the hoop until the very end did.  He knows better. He has been working out to do this very thing. 

The team in general was much more fun to watch.  But for a few bad turnovers we would have won.  Confident that Al Horford would have made a huge difference, especially defending Randle, who killed us.

Brown looked fantastic. What a performance, especially taking into account he had just gotten out of quarantine.  What a stud.

Romeo looked confident.  Would like to have seen more minutes from him in 2nd half.  Nesmith was wound up. He will start to hit his shots, I'm not worried about him at all.

Schroder needs to be a better distributor. He played much better in that regard vs Miami preseason.  He has good court awareness.

I thought Smart was okay, he just needs to take control of the playmaking responsibilities more. 

Fournier was unreal.  Regrets, I have a few....

[Celtics2021]

I'm not a big fan of the switching off-ball screens philosophy. It burned them last night.

They made an adjustment from switching 1-5 to switching 1-4 to keep Timelord on Randle. While Timelord did a good job on Randle, that's exactly when Fournier went off. The other guys were still in "switch" mentality, and that's why they were running into/under screens (which is exactly what you're supposed to do when switching). However, suddenly Timelord wasn't switching out on the shooter and that is how Fournier got 3-4 wide open looks from 3 down the stretch. If your primary mentality and habits are to switch everything, it's almost impossible to turn that off mid-game as an adjustment. It's way easier to adjust the other way (from a stay with your man and fight through screens mentality adjusting to switching).

I think it'll take a bit for everyone to get on the same page. I saw a number of times Jaylen stayed on his man through the screen and it looked like his teammate wanted to switch. I don't know what the "right" thing to do is there but the switching thing is going to take a lot of communication and probably time.

I think not having Al showed up big time in that regard.  He’s such a good communicator on the court.  That’s been an area of emphasis for TL since he was a rookie, and I’m not sure he’ll ever make that leap.  It’s one of those things that either is natural to you — to yell directions to your teammates in the middle of the play — or it isn’t.  Smart’s good at it too, but you need the big who’s guarding the screener to make those calls, and that’s Al.  I think Grant is all right at it too — in OT, when the C’s really suffered through the same action about five times in a row, Grant wasn’t on the court.