2021-22 Celtics Playoffs Discussion

[Vermont Green]

Curious to hear reactions.  Is Giannis + Holiday or Durant + Irving a better 1-2 punch.  Which team has the best top end?

MIL clearly has better depth and also clearly is more together as a team, which could be due to coaching but also just due to having played together much more.

I don't think we were ready for MIL's size.  I feel this is still a series and that we can play better than we did Sunday but it is disappointing what we were able to do (or not do) in game 1.  Great teams can make these types of adjustments.  Let's see what we can do.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Brook Lopez was a flippin mountain in the middle today.  Celts couldn't get anything oing to the hoop.

So what? The adjustment is to shoot better from 3.

and if we cannot? we are not winning this series if we have to win with just 3's.  can we hit enough? to pull them out to defend spacing? then upfake and drive to rim? pass to cutters? we need points in the paint. times like this it would be nice to have a real big man who can post up and work over lopez. lopez is a bum compared to real centers of yesteryear. but we do not have one unfortunately like a shaq, olajuwon, duncan, etc. etc.

[Moranis]

Brook Lopez was a flippin mountain in the middle today.  Celts couldn't get anything oing to the hoop.

So what? The adjustment is to shoot better from 3.

Boston shot 36% from 3 in game 1.  On the season Boston was a 35.6% shooting team from 3.  I'm sure Boston will have some great shooting games, but it isn't like Boston shot 20% or was even below the season average so relying on shooting better than your season average is probably not a winning strategy.

[Vermont Green]

Brook Lopez was a flippin mountain in the middle today.  Celts couldn't get anything oing to the hoop.

So what? The adjustment is to shoot better from 3.

and if we cannot? we are not winning this series if we have to win with just 3's.  can we hit enough? to pull them out to defend spacing? then upfake and drive to rim? pass to cutters? we need points in the paint. times like this it would be nice to have a real big man who can post up and work over lopez. lopez is a bum compared to real centers of yesteryear. but we do not have one unfortunately like a shaq, olajuwon, duncan, etc. etc.

The basic play when a guard or wing beats his man and gets to the hoop, a defensive big rotates to "clog" the lane, but then how about just a lob dunk to whoever the big rolled off of?  It doesn't always have to be a kick out for a 3.  Or sometimes just go strong and draw a foul.

Yes, the Bucks are big inside and defend well.  We need to adjust better.  We were 36% from 3 (18-50).  That should be good enough (it is actually slightly better than we shot vs. BKN).  We were 10-34 (29%) otherwise.  That isn't good enough.  Size or not, we should be able to get more easy shots out of the non-3s, or more free throws.

Interesting stat, we are +1.2 per game average in the playoffs, the worse of the 8 remaining teams.  The Bucks are the best at +14.2 per game average.  We had a sweep but all very close games.  We were only +4.5 (per game) coming out of the BKN series.

[Surferdad]

Brook Lopez was a flippin mountain in the middle today.  Celts couldn't get anything oing to the hoop.

So what? The adjustment is to shoot better from 3.

Boston shot 36% from 3 in game 1.  On the season Boston was a 35.6% shooting team from 3.  I'm sure Boston will have some great shooting games, but it isn't like Boston shot 20% or was even below the season average so relying on shooting better than your season average is probably not a winning strategy.

So be it. I am not going to be upset if they play to their averages, the better team wins. I will only be upset if they don't play to their capability.

[Kiorrik]

Brook Lopez was a flippin mountain in the middle today.  Celts couldn't get anything oing to the hoop.

So what? The adjustment is to shoot better from 3.

Or to draw Lopez out the key.

Or to get someone else open in the key.

Or to get him off balance.

Or to shoot better from midrange.

Or to [whatever else they can come up with really, I'm not an NBA coach/player]

[seancally]

Celts have the skill and personnel to go small and abuse Lopez. Lineups with Grant, Horford, Smart and the Jays should make it impossible to play Giannis, Portis and Lopez together.

We need to take more shots in the midrange.

We can’t get knocked off the spot by aggressive on-ball defense.

And above all, Brown and Tatum need to be the no. 2 and no. 3 players in the series. In game 1, Holiday was better than both.

[jbpats]

What's the word on Marcus, the injury surely looked much worse than the silence coming out of the organization right now.

[Vermont Green]

Celts have the skill and personnel to go small and abuse Lopez. Lineups with Grant, Horford, Smart and the Jays should make it impossible to play Giannis, Portis and Lopez together.

We need to take more shots in the midrange.

We can’t get knocked off the spot by aggressive on-ball defense.

And above all, Brown and Tatum need to be the no. 2 and no. 3 players in the series. In game 1, Holiday was better than both.

That exact line up played for over 9 minutes in game 1 and was -2 overall.

In the regular season, that line up played against MIL in 1 game for about 8 minutes and was +15.

Not sure either of these is much of a sample size but I feel the 9 minutes in game 1 that this line up was on the floor indicates that it is not quite as easy as simply going smaller.

[slamtheking]

Celts have the skill and personnel to go small and abuse Lopez. Lineups with Grant, Horford, Smart and the Jays should make it impossible to play Giannis, Portis and Lopez together.

We need to take more shots in the midrange.

We can’t get knocked off the spot by aggressive on-ball defense.

And above all, Brown and Tatum need to be the no. 2 and no. 3 players in the series. In game 1, Holiday was better than both.

that would require all of them to be hitting their outside shots because there's no way they'd score inside and that the Bucks didn't absolutely kill them on the offensive boards.  neither of those situations came to pass yesterday with the C's not hitting enough outside shots nor did the Bucks not make an impact on their offensive boards

[angryguy77]

If we have to settle for 3's in order to have a chance, you might as well forget watching the rest as we will get exposed.
Hopefully we have a better game plan from Ime, and have a better game from the Jays.

They played the style of ball not seen since Brad was coaching. Have to get back to the style of ball that made them look unbeatable.

[nebist]

To me, it all comes down to Jaylen Brown. Jrue is a legit All-world defender, and he is spending most of his time on Tatum (and their team scheme is designed to limit Tatum). Jaylen should be able to feast on whoever his matchup is - getting to the rim, mid-range, not to mention the bunch of open looks from 3 he couldn't make yesterday,


If that was just a terrible game, then I am confident he will bounce back and start to dominate his matchups (which we need to beat the Bucks). If he was that bad due to his hamstring not being right, then I'm seriously concerned.

[seancally]

To me, it all comes down to Jaylen Brown. Jrue is a legit All-world defender, and he is spending most of his time on Tatum (and their team scheme is designed to limit Tatum). Jaylen should be able to feast on whoever his matchup is - getting to the rim, mid-range, not to mention the bunch of open looks from 3 he couldn't make yesterday,

If that was just a terrible game, then I am confident he will bounce back and start to dominate his matchups (which we need to beat the Bucks). If he was that bad due to his hamstring not being right, then I'm seriously concerned.

Yes, JB was the difference in the game. I don’t want to put it all in one guy but if he isn’t way off — like, worst game I’ve seen of him in a long time off — the game is much different. And I think he’ll be better. I really think his fasting may have had an effect, it looked like he was really wiped. Who knows — hopefully it’s that and not the hammy. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Edit: Source: me, non-professional athlete regular guy who has fasted on occasion this Ramadan. All I can say is it is exhausting even for just one day. After 30? Idk man… huge credit to JB, Kyrie and anyone else who fasts and still shows up for work. But I’d be shocked if it didn’t have an effect on him.

[86MaxwellSmart]

I didn't see the C's pressuring the ball full court---I did see The Bucks do it....Play great defense it will lead to great offense.

[jbpats]

Barring injury reports i'm not concerned. The Bucks interior defense is obviously impressive but simply put our shots weren't falling yesterday.
I'd love to see them dare us to take that many 3's again, it'll come back to bite them. Our ball movement around the perimeter will continue to lead to a lot of open looks if they just want to jam the paint all game.