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- 68 Comments
1·1 year agoEveryone bringing up the money like the players who make a lot would not care about money is weird to me.
Like if you make $40M, wouldn’t you want to make $40.5M?
That’s the same ratio as someone who makes $40K per year and could be given an extra $500
Is it a lot in the grand scheme of their yearly salary? Not really. But would they want an extra $500 bonus? I know I would if I had to play the games (do the work) anyway
Brown with the 30/8/6 on 52% shooting and game high +22
We feasting on Jaylen Brown haters today who only post after he has bad games
1·1 year ago23! Now just keep even the rest of the game and we did our job
I personally like the lighter ones like Orlando’s but ours isn’t the worst
Taking their foot off the gas. Huge halftime leads and they don’t want to go all out and expend energy when it’s November. Play it safe to not risk injuries. The problem is the other team is trying and this builds bad habits.
They’ve actually been really good in the 3rd quarter for years, it’s the drop-off in the playoffs that’s concerning. Could be mentality, could be coaching, could just be that our players are inconsistent. I mean look at Tatum game 6 against PHI last year. Was abysmal and then went off. Might just be the Celtics experience with him where they have to figure out how to get him to always be in control of the game, not just for a half or a handful of possessions.
Same for Brown, he always has a great first quarter and then forces things as the game goes on. He has to learn to adjust to what the defense is giving him and play around it. If he scores 10 and they key the defense in on him, he has to look to be a passer in those moments and open the floor back up. Not just force his way into double teams or ice him out of games.
Just my 2 cents on it, but it’s something to watch going forward if they just lack energy in the 3rd quarter after building a 8-12 point lead by halftime, it’s kind of concerning if they make a habit out of it.
Magic next 2 games are against Wizards. Winning 2 of next 3 puts them at 14-6. Last 5 years any team that starts 14-6 or better ends up as a top 8 seed. About half above 48 wins. Their great defense is sustainable. If no major injuries, it’s pretty reasonable to expect the Magic to make the playoffs.
Even if top 4 is Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Miami, and even if Cleveland, NY and Atlanta surge, is Orlando falling below Indiana and Brooklyn? I don’t think so, Magic are just a better team than those 2.
I think at worst the Magic are 8, but could end up as high as 3 if they keep playing elite defense. Their bench is deep enough where they can do what Cleveland did last year. Just don’t think they’ll catch a healthy Boston and Milwaukee over 82 games.
They’re a playoff team.
I think 16 is too many and the sporadic nature of the results is what will make it fun every year.
Orlando and Indiana can play for this tournament, Celtics, Nuggets, Heat, Warriors and Sixers will be playing for June. Everybody’s fans are happy.
The fact that the Celtics, Nuggets and Heat miss it is probably a good thing for fan engagement and gives other teams a chance to shine in playoff atmosphere.
If we beat the Magic we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Suns feel like they’re a bit under the radar. They’re 11-6, inexplicably lost to the Spurs twice to give them 2 of their only 3 wins, have missed Booker for 8 games and Beal for 14.
Their 3 stars haven’t played a single game together and they’re 11-6 and 4th in the West. 1.5 games out of 1st.
Maybe injuries plague them but they’ll be a problem if they’re healthy and build chemistry. A healthy Suns team is easily pushing 55-60 wins and the 1 seed. They’re the new 2021 Nets where only injuries can stop them from dominating the West
Something to monitor going forward about the 3rd quarter.
Great 3rd quarter teams are usually the ones that end up in the finals in June
- 2014-15: Warriors (+14.5, 1st), Cavs (+3.9, 9th)
- 2015-16: Warriors (+12.9, 1st), Cavs (+6.9, 5th)
- 2016-17: Warriors (+23.0, 1st), Cavs (+3.4, 8th)
- 2017-18: Warriors (+17.3, 1st), Cavs (-0.3, 17th)
- 2018-19: Warriors (+11.7, 1st), Raptors (+9.9, 2nd)
- 2019-20: Lakers (+0.4, 14th), Heat (-1.2, 19th)
- 2020-21: Bucks (+6.8, 3rd), Suns (+5.4, 6th)
- 2021-22: Celtics (+11.8, 1st), Warriors (+10.5, 2nd)
- 2022-23: Nuggets (+5.3, 4th), Heat (-7.5, 29th)
For the aberrations, Celtics were 4th, 5th and 2nd in the 2018, 2020 and 2023 respectively. Nuggets were 7th in 2020 as well.
So generally, when teams aren’t injured (or the Heat), it’s the great 3rd quarter teams that do well.
For whatever reason, we go from a great 3rd quarter team to a drop off in the playoffs.
- 2017-18: RS (+6.2) / Playoffs (+8.3)
- 2018-19: RS (+1.3) / Playoffs (-6.2)
- 2019-20: RS (+12.1) / Playoffs (-2.4)
- 2020-21: RS (+3.9) / Playoffs (-11.6)
- 2021-22: RS (+11.8) / Playoffs (-6.0)
- 2022-23: RS (+7.1) / Playoffs (-1.3)
The sample size is smaller, but a lot of the blown games can be attributed to weak 3rd quarters. Remember the whole “we won 3/4 quarters” from the 2022 ECF? Have to play 48 minutes.
We’re -1.9 this season, but the Nuggets were also not great through 17 games last year and then picked it up as the year went on (as did the Celtics). Small sample still.
Just something to keep an eye on if we continue to have weak 3rd quarters, especially against good teams.
In our 4 losses, we got outscored that 3rd quarter
19-27, 17-20, 22-27, 18-29. All really weak scoring outputs. Can’t be losing these quarters by 8 or 11 points
To be fair, we have excellent isolation players.
Tatum scores 1.12 points per possession in isolation. He’s in the same ballpark as SGA is this season. He also put up 1.11 PPP in the playoffs. Even Brown and White put up good isolation numbers in last year’s playoffs.
I think the idea is to make the game simpler. Tatum is a 6’10” wing who can handle the ball and almost always draws a double when he’s on an island, and the thing about isolation is spacing is more important. Celtics would rather drive and kick and play to their strengths of making it easier to read defensive motions. It’s not that cutting and a motion offense can’t be effective, I think it just plays to the Celtics strengths to go 1-on-1 because they have a lot of really good 1-on-1 players.
They’ve won 50+ games the last 2 seasons and made deep playoff runs and will likely do so again this year.
I agree they can get into trouble when not giving effort, but some of that can be attributed to the schedule. Their worst offensive games so far this season were all 3+ games into a road trip (Philadelphia, Memphis, Charlotte) and then against the best 2 defenses in the league (Minnesota and Orlando). A lot of teams struggle in those spots. Almost every other game they’ve played has been good offensively.
So overall, I think they have some things to work out against teams with length (Orlando, Minnesota, Toronto) but in the playoffs when both teams have the same schedule, they won’t be at that disadvantage.
A good test is if they fall flat with their home schedule coming up in December against Cleveland and Orlando twice each. That should be a week where they figure some of their problems out.
Not sure why so many people responded this way
If you take 80 shots, they’re all 2’s and you shoot 43.8% that’s 70 points
If you take 90 shots, half are 3’s and shoot 22/45 from 2 and 15/45 from 3 (41.1%) that’s 89 points.
The second way you score way more despite the worse percentage.
You can still win shooting a poor percentage, this is more about efficiency than points.
There will be 2 games on days the tournament is not happening
- Sunday December 3
- Wednesday December 6
- Friday December 8
- Sunday December 10
Are all open days. If the Celtics don’t make it, their 2 games will be scheduled on these days
Still overall a light schedule since they play Dec 1 and Dec 12, meaning whenever the 2 games are, they’ll have one stretch where they have at least 4 days off.
Orlando is a really good defensive team. Really physical game that I feel like calls have favored us but good defense is definitely sustainable so I‘ll be interested to see how we handle the second half
Running the table before the IST would be nice. 16-3, putting the Magic and Sixers at least with 6 losses, Milwaukee and Miami also play each other so one of them will have 6 losses.
If we could manage that, we could have a 3+ game lead on the 3-5 seeds, and at worst a 2 game lead on the 2 seed with the tiebreaker over them.
Would be huge to own all these tiebreakers and have a cushion.
That Hauser oop might be the only one he gets all year. I gotta rewatch that for Kornet’s reaction, that was hilarious
That’s completely fair. I figured by this point the variance would exist but not by that much. I should have done the math! In any case, everyone is relatively around where we would expect them to be, with the exception of Pritchard. But like you said, low volume.
I think overall we can reasonably expect all 8 of these guys to be 36%+, which that threat alone makes it more likely the overall percentages go up rather than stay low for guys like Pritchard or Horford
Just tuned in, any first half highlights/noteworthy contributors?
Just did some digging on 3P% so far and precious 3 year averages (I like 3 year samples as relevant)
Tatum currently is 38.4% but his “average” is 36.1%
Brown currently is 34.0% but his “average” is 36.1%
I don’t think it’s really a strong statement to say Tatum has been shooting great and Brown has been a bit down, but if we expect them to both move the needle back to their averages, I think with how quickly opinions change, we might see a lot of push back on “see? None of you believed in Brown look at him now” and “what is wrong with Tatum? Is he hurt?” When really it’s just variance and law of averages and they shoot pretty much identical percentages over a large sample.
I think despite their current numbers, I’m going to keep a mantra of “Trust in Brown, Believe in Tatum” because I trust that Brown won’t be this inefficient all year (not just from 3 but around the rim too) and I believe the team is still we go as Tatum goes so can’t be too down when Tatum has a cold streak and the team underperforms.
I’m still going to trust Brown even in the spots he gets roasted the most for (handling the ball, pulling up) because we’re still going to need him when it matters. He has ALWAYS picked up the slack when Tatum has been off, that’s how we ended up with All-Star Brown in 2021 and All-NBA Brown last year.
2nd night of a back to back at the end of a road trip, down 2 guys, took 50 3’s, missed a bunch of FT’s. This has they’re tired written all over it. I get it’s the Hornets but it happens in the NBA.
Last season the Nuggets lost to the 4-15 Pistons without Cade, Stewart or Bey in late November. At home. They ended up winning the NBA finals.
People have to understand the context of being on the road for 3+ games usually results in poorer performances than usual.
I knew this team was going to settle for a bunch of 3’s because they didn’t have the energy to attack over and over. Brooklyn did the exact same thing to us in their first meeting and they had a terrible second half because of their b2b. It’a every team, get used to them launching a bunch of 3’s in that spot on a schedule.
The next time we have a back to back on the end of a road trip is in March. The only other weird scheduling that stands out to me is this week in January:
- Jan 5: Home vs Jazz
- Jan 6: at Pacers (b2b)
- Jan 8: at Pacers
- Jan 10: Home vs Wolves
- Jan 11: at Bucks (b2b)
5 games in 7 days and some travel with b2b’s, but not that awful compared to how loaded March is.
I’d be willing to bet a good amount of money that these 2 parts of the schedule is how we feel today, doom and gloom.
Just gotta let this one go and get back on track. A win Wednesday would be nice though
Celtics usually provide smokescreens with their trade targets. Remember Pritchard for Isaiah Stewart? Or for Willy Hernangomez?
Derrick White wasn’t expected, Brogdon wasn’t expected, no reports of interest in Muscala before he came here, Porzingis trade details all happened within a day because the midnight deadline. Jrue Holiday was just about the only one that you heard Celtics were interested in and made a move on and that also happened within a couple of days.
This early, I’m not sure Konchar would actually be the deal that gets done.
However, I don’t think they would be opposed to a 2 guard since I don’t know if Svi will really give us playoff minutes with his defense, and before the season the 2 positions we felt we needed the most were SG and a big man. And Konchar is a cheap option on a team that might be selling pieces. I wouldn’t mind him as an extra piece if it’s possible.
I think if we use this as speculation that Brad is calling Memphis FO and asking about players, both Tillman and Aldama are on cheap contracts and fit a need.