Celtics 0-7 against teams .600 or better

[MikeB12]

Last night was another example why the Cetlics can't beat good teams.   O-7 vs teams with .600 records or better.

Watching the C's vs Spurs was tough - only lost by 7 points which is why it is so hard to watch the various dumb plays they make.   Defensive lapses, bad shots, bad spacing, can't get important rebounds.  Granted the Spurs are a very good team, well coached.   They pass the ball to the open man and at times made the C's defense look silly.  Very frustrating.

25 games in 13-12 record doesn't bode well for the Celtics to top 48 wins they had last year.  Yes, some of the losses can be attributed to injuries to Horford, Crowder and IT missing games but it is becoming evident this year is not going to be what most of us were hoping for - a viable playoff contender to at least win the first round in the playoffs.

MikeB

[celticsclay]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

[PhoSita]

On the plus side, they're 13-5 against everybody else.

Winning 60% of your games projects to 49-50+ games over a full season.  So we're talking about really good teams here.  Only eight teams in the league currently have .600+ records.

The Celts have actually only played six games against teams that currently have a .600 record.  The Thunder are just under .600 currently with a 15-11 record.

Guess what the Celts point differential is in those 6 games against the Spurs, Rockets, Cavs, Warriors, and Raptors?

6 points.

Take out the game against the Warriors, which is the only game they lost by double digits, and the differential is 5.4 in five games.

We're not talking about blowouts here.  Those were all winnable games.  And again, it's a small sample size.


I would have liked to see the Celts find a way to win at least one of those games, but they've been competitive in all but one of them.  The Celts are still figuring some things out and they haven't had all their top guys healthy for much of the season.  They have time.

If we get to late January, early February and the Celts still haven't beaten a top team, then we'll talk.

[TrueFan]

Some predicted the Cs would win 60 games.

Nets fans are happy. They finally have something to cheer for.

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

[celticsclay]

Some predicted the Cs would win 60 games.

Nets fans are happy. They finally have something to cheer for.

What they could get the 21st pick instead of the 26th?

[mctyson]

Their record is not good but, save for a few games, they have had legitimate chances to win against plenty of good teams.

Spurs (home), Raptors (home), OKC (away) are the more recent games where they were either leading in the 4th quarter or right there. 

If they were healthy up to this point they would have won a couple maybe.

[celticsclay]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

[celticsclay]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

you list 6 games. Half of them we were losing our primary scorer and ball handler. Kind of makes the statistic a little silly. You add in that we were missing our other best player for 2 more of the games and the numbers really mean very little.

[Boris Badenov]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

you list 6 games. Half of them we were losing our primary scorer and ball handler. Kind of makes the statistic a little silly. You add in that we were missing our other best player for 2 more of the games and the numbers really mean very little.

Yeah our 3 best players have missed 22 player-games and been less than 100% for more than that. We have new players/rotations. Etc.

I don't think we've learned a whole lot at this point.

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

you list 6 games. Half of them we were losing our primary scorer and ball handler. Kind of makes the statistic a little silly. You add in that we were missing our other best player for 2 more of the games and the numbers really mean very little.

LOL the point stands that no matter how you slice it injuries to more than IT4 have been the issue! We weren't beating them with him or without him but it's nice to pretend like being without him is the reason we were bad, it doesn't matter if you add in other players on your subsequent posts, we need more than IT4 to beat these guys (starts with getting a big who can consistently do his job)! Your first post only mentioned IT4! We miss him no doubt about it but we are missing something (big) else!

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

you list 6 games. Half of them we were losing our primary scorer and ball handler. Kind of makes the statistic a little silly. You add in that we were missing our other best player for 2 more of the games and the numbers really mean very little.

Yeah our 3 best players have missed 22 player-games and been less than 100% for more than that. We have new players/rotations. Etc.

I don't think we've learned a whole lot at this point.

Of course we haven't but this thread is about those few games and to make it seem like we were somehow good against those teams with IT4 is the only thing I questioned! We need health of all guys for this ship to sail! To beat those teams so far we need a big who can help AL, I'm tired of our smalls killing themselves because the bigs are crud! I want IT4 to make it safely to the postseason but he'll be too [dang] tired of we keep depending on these bigs, him along with AB, Smart and Jae!


Here's another season where I have to talk about our bigs not carrying their weight, sad [dang] shame!

[celticsclay]

Do you remember how bad we were before IT? Is it a surprise we are bad again without him?

You do realize most of those losses to those teams came WITH IT4, right?

I'm not exactly sure how the number was derived cause some teams were above .600 when we lost but no longer are. So far we lost to Spurs, OKC and Toronto without him which is already half. Then we lost to Cleveland and warriors without horford. So yea...

So now you're adding Horford to the mix to be right? Come on man. Just admit it, we weren't beating them with or without IT4! If you said "health" then I would understand but get real, we haven't been good enough against the best teams at all!

you list 6 games. Half of them we were losing our primary scorer and ball handler. Kind of makes the statistic a little silly. You add in that we were missing our other best player for 2 more of the games and the numbers really mean very little.

LOL the point stands that no matter how you slice it injuries to more than IT4 have been the issue! We weren't beating them with him or without him but it's nice to pretend like being without him is the reason we were bad, it doesn't matter if you add in other players on your subsequent posts, we need more than IT4 to beat these guys (starts with getting a big who can consistently do his job)! Your first post only mentioned IT4! We miss him no doubt about it but we are missing something (big) else!

You don't think we would have beat OKC a game we led pretty much the entire time if we had someone to create offense in the 4th? I think it is highly probably we would have won that game. Do you think we don't lose a 12 point third quarter lead against the raptors with IT to create offense during a drought? I certainly think we do. Just be realistic is all I am asking. I am not sitting here claiming we beat the Warriors or Spurs with our current team. We certainly can beat the raptors or OKC (or Houston) with our best player playing.

[Donoghus]

Last night, Celtics just lost to a better team.  Plain & simple.  Granted, there were some boneheaded plays & "woulda, coulda, shouldas" but that was just a better team on the other side of the court. 

The OKC & TOR loses are much more frustrating, IMO.  Those are games that I felt like the Celtics let slip away.  Last night was not one of those games.