Game Thread: Hawks & Cs Battle for Top Spot in the East

Post #1 » by **Jamaaliver** » Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:58 pm

Game Preview: Celtics at Hawks

The Boston Celtics will try to win their eighth consecutive game Wednesday night when they go on the road to face the Atlanta Hawks.

Despite some poor long-range shooting Monday, the Celtics overcame a 15-point second-half deficit to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 126-122. Boston forced 20 turnovers in staging their comeback and outscored the Thunder 37-26 in the final 12 minutes. With Malcolm Brogdon unavailable Monday (hamstring), Boston received a spark off the bench from Payton Pritchard, who finished the game with 10 points, four rebounds and two steals in 14 minutes.

The Hawks have been playing good basketball lately as well. Atlanta enters Wednesday's matchup having won five of seven.

All five starters scored in double figures Monday to help Atlanta earn a 121-106 road victory against the Milwaukee Bucks in a matchup of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. It was the sixth time in the team's 14 games that Atlanta's entire starting lineup scored at least 10 points.

It was also Milwaukee's first loss in eight home games this season.

"We were playing against the No. 1 defense in the league," Atlanta coach Nate McMillan said. "They're going to defend your first and your second option. We needed to play in our third and our fourth option. Make them defend, and not take quick shots against their defense."

The Boston-Atlanta matchup will feature two of the NBA's top scorers: Boston's Jayson Tatum is averaging 31.9 points, and Atlanta's Trae Young 26.9.

The Celtics have a 5-2 road record, and the Hawks are 5-2 at home.

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jayu70 · Post #2 » by **jayu70** » Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:50 pm

Time to go streak busting again.
Took out the top ranked East #1 Bucks last night, we get to try to take out the newly ranked #1 sMeltics!
GO HAWKS!

jayu70 · Post #3 » by **jayu70** » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:54 pm

Matchups:

Trae vs Smart
DJ vs Brown
Hunter vs Tatum
JC vs Williams
Capela vs Horford

Like the Bucks game, I need Hunter to be the X-Factor. Love the free-throws which means he is aggressive going to the basket and not settling.

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jayu70 · Post #4 » by **jayu70** » Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:21 pm

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Post #5 » by **Jamaaliver** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 2:10 pm

Scouting the enemy:

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Post #6 » by **Jamaaliver** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 2:37 pm

So should we be at all alarmed that Jaylen Brown carries a purse man bag?

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jayu70 · Post #7 » by **jayu70** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 3:35 pm

Jamaaliver wrote:So should we be at all alarmed that Jaylen Brown carries a purse man bag?

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Not at all if you weren't concerned with this

https://tenor.com/Yx5b.gif

Post #8 » by **Jamaaliver** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 3:47 pm

jayu70 wrote:Not at all if you weren't concerned with this
https://tenor.com/Yx5b.gif

jayu70 · Post #9 » by **jayu70** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 6:17 pm

Not happy about this, Hawks tend to not bring their A-game when top players are out.

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Post #10 » by **Jamaaliver** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:18 pm

The Godfather Returns --

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Post #11 » by **HMFFL** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 9:08 pm

Boston is a 1.5 point favorite after opening up as a 4pt favorite

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

DirtybirdGA · Post #12 » by **DirtybirdGA** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 9:19 pm

They should watch out for that Pritchard dude, he's a heads up, sneaky guy a little similar to Aaron.

CP War Hawks · Post #13 » by **CP War Hawks** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:21 pm

Split the series from last season. Looking back, the bench only has one main stay with OO. Everyone else is gone, it was a very poor bench. Hunter had a bad series vs them, but has been playing well lately.

jayu70 · Post #14 » by **jayu70** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:28 pm

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jayu70 · Post #15 » by **jayu70** » Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:51 pm

CP War Hawks wrote:Split the series from last season. Looking back, the bench only has one main stay with OO. Everyone else is gone, it was a very poor bench. Hunter had a bad series vs them, but has been playing well lately.

Hunter struggled last year. OO probably average 12 minutes or so - both missed the 1st game (injury) played in the last 3 games. Collins missed the last 2 games.

D21 · Post #16 » by **D21** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 12:05 am

DirtybirdGA wrote:They should watch out for that Pritchard dude, he's a heads up, sneaky guy a little similar to Aaron.

And even more for Hauser, "only" playing 15min per game, but enough to do damage.
They currently have the best Net rating at +19.2 with him, including best Off rating at 125.3

We are still having a great starters performance, being 2nd just behind DEN (+13.8) with a +13.4 Efficiency difference, BOS being 17th
But our bench is 27th while BOS bench is 1st !

So I hope Nate has check this, and is ready to not run starters only Vs BOS starters, and bench only Vs BOS bench. He has to mix players and be sure to get good defender on the floor when BOS play their bench guys

D21 · Post #17 » by **D21** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:15 am

End of 1st quarter:
ATL 18 - BOS 30

Hauser (2/2 at 3pts) and Kornet with best +/- of +10 in 6min
Pritchard with +5 in 3min and 1/1 at 3pts

The starters are also dominating, but it seems Nate has no solution for BOS bench at this moment. Hope they find it in the next quarters

Post #18 » by **Jamaaliver** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:15 am

Trae is playing awful early. Ball dominating, missing jumpers, not moving the ball or playing defense.

:nonono:

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Post #19 » by **Jamaaliver** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:17 am

The lead ESPN announcer spent the entire 1st quarter calling AJ Griffin -- AJ Green.

Post #20 » by **Jamaaliver** » Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:28 am

We need to steal some plays from Boston's playbook.

They're scoring very often and making it look so easy.

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