Celts Hungry for a Title, Start By Eating Big Apple! Opening Night Victory Cigar vs NYK 10/25

[CelticsPride18]

#7:

For as long as he is a Celtic, I WANT him to do well because I want a chip. Period.
His flaws are his flaws. They are not going away to any significant degree. His basketball instincts suck.
Bubbles the time out genius needs to get the most out of his strengths - in particular, explosive drives to the hoop.
Do not ask him to create much.
Encourage quicker decision making.
Beat him over the head when he plays dumb D & leaves shooters open, or turns it over.
#7 needs to understand that JT & KP are the 1 & 2 of this team.

You need to relax. KP looks great, but he has never played a meaningful series in his life.

[exculpatory]

#7:

For as long as he is a Celtic, I WANT him to do well because I want a chip. Period.
His flaws are his flaws. They are not going away to any significant degree. His basketball instincts suck.
Bubbles the time out genius needs to get the most out of his strengths - in particular, explosive drives to the hoop.
Do not ask him to create much.
Encourage quicker decision making.
Beat him over the head when he plays dumb D & leaves shooters open, or turns it over.
#7 needs to understand that JT & KP are the 1 & 2 of this team.

You need to relax. KP looks great, but he has never played a meaningful series in his life.

I am very relaxed.

[Shak_Celts]

Boston starting 5 is incredible and Horford is solid but PP, Kornet and Houser isn't a very good bench and I don't know how anyone can think otherwise.

give it time. not forever but at least a few games. Pritch especially has one job to do, he has to do it. I know neither snip3r got many shots but they would have if they were making any.

PP and Houser are what they are. They will be productive one game and struggle the next. The bench needs more consistent players.

They are still kinda young, young folk can be inconsistent. 25 is a wonderful age.


I do want consistency on the bench, that’s why i think they went with mostly guys over 26 but Joe probably isn’t going to play them until haus and pritch prove they can’t play.


IMO there was no reason lamar or svi couldn’t have been out there a couple minutes. One is the defender and the other a shooter, could have gone with whatever we were missing (shooting).

[JJHondo17]

I see Mazzulla taking a lot of grief, some on this board, more outside from those who don't have a coherent thought about basketball. I'd like to give Coach Joe credit for the Jrue Holiday / Randle match-up and the Jaylen Brown / Brunson match-up. Both were very effective and I had my doubts in the beginning because of Randle's size against Jrue and Brunson's speed against JB.

[shackles10]

I see Mazzulla taking a lot of grief, some on this board, more outside from those who don't have a coherent thought about basketball. I'd like to give Coach Joe credit for the Jrue Holiday / Randle match-up and the Jaylen Brown / Brunson match-up. Both were very effective and I had my doubts in the beginning because of Randle's size against Jrue and Brunson's speed against JB.

They were unorthodox defensive matchups that definitely paid dividends last night for sure.

[Red2]

2nd unit has to play better; almost cost us the game. Brown has to be much better . You’d think he would have come out fired up

[Shak_Celts]

I will give brown 10 games to find his place.

He is 3rd scorer and needs to be a defensive stud and help rebounder.
Its not complicated.

To us, it's not complicated.

But to Jaylen, it's very confusing, to say the least.

You realize you are saying words, not actually doing it, right?

[zoyathedestroya]

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Refs aren’t perfect lol. Better luck next time, Knicks. Officiating was terrible esp in the 2nd half.

[CelticsPride18]

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Refs aren’t perfect lol. Better luck next time, Knicks. Officiating was terrible esp in the 2nd half.

They were horrendous everything after the KP flopping tech was a disaster

[zoyathedestroya]

This shocked me. The combination of speed, strength, grace, and decisiveness on these drives is something new. Hope he sticks with it.

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[ConstableGeneva]

Jaylen had a usage rate of 18.5% last night. Not once did he go under 20% in usage rate last regular season and just once in the playoffs. Obviously still very early but it's something to monitor. Something in low-to-mid-20s would be ideal number. Last night, he didn't get the usual scoring opportunities and there was a more conscious effort of passing the ball, even if at times it wasn't the right pass/timing. The 11 potential assists are way more than his norm (from last season).

[Memokerobi]

You’d think Jaylen had 7 turnovers with the way you guys are talking. Give everyone time to gel on offence.

Lol its weird, guy led the team in assists too. His bench led unit was also a + which would be huge for us over the course of the season. Yeah he had a really bad stretch in the 4th but his overall performance for a bad shooting night was improved from past years

[Memokerobi]

Bob Myers said during the halftime show of the ESPN broadcast that the Celtics have the highest margin for error in the entire league. It's hard to argue with that.

- The Knicks shot 13/20 on open triples (despite not having very good shooters). The Celtics shot 3/15.
- The Knicks have maybe the most continuity of any team in the league while this was game 1 of a completely reworked rotation for the Celtics.
- The Knicks are a good team, at home that won a playoff series last year and are a bad match up for the Celtics.

Boston pulling out a win in those circumstances is really impressive. Not sure too many teams could have managed that.

Knicks absolutely bricking from the FT line helped balance things but I generally agree with the sentiment

[ConstableGeneva]

Can't keep criticizing Joe for questionable decisions but then not acknowledge the good calls. This was a good call... Took Randle off the board. He traditionally eats when he goes up against us and bullies his way inside. I thought we'd put Jaylen on him but Jrue being able to hold his ground was even better.

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[djFan71]

You’d think Jaylen had 7 turnovers with the way you guys are talking. Give everyone time to gel on offence.

Lol its weird, guy led the team in assists too. His bench led unit was also a + which would be huge for us over the course of the season. Yeah he had a really bad stretch in the 4th but his overall performance for a bad shooting night was improved from past years

That bench unit was fun and I think could work for Jaylen cuz it was like last year - he knew what to do. With the starters he just doesn't know where his shots will come from quite yet. Wasn't just him, but everyone was over-deferring to some extent around Tatum/KP and running to the wrong/same spots, etc. He did some really good things, and he'll get there so he can work with any unit.

It's just a) higher standard after all-nba and the $, and b) the bad was SO bad, lol.

[GWVan]

You’d think Jaylen had 7 turnovers with the way you guys are talking. Give everyone time to gel on offence.

Lol its weird, guy led the team in assists too. His bench led unit was also a + which would be huge for us over the course of the season. Yeah he had a really bad stretch in the 4th but his overall performance for a bad shooting night was improved from past years

Without Williams and Smart making bonehead moves and Joe actually calling timely timeouts, I was forced to only yell at the referees.

JB had a bonehead back to back plays that made me shake my head but his overall numbers show he had a good night on a bad shooting night where his role is being redefined.

Al had back to back moving screens and Tatum and Holiday both had bad turnovers, it might be that this is the first game and things have to settle in a bit, but that won't stop the people who simply love to hate on Brown or feel personally responsible for his salary.

[Dogen]

I feel like people here are really mislabeling Jrue as some “true PG” type. That’s not his game at all. He’s more of a Marcus Smart type of PG that people grew tired of than the ARondo type people here swoon for. He’s just a much better version with the rough edges smoothed out a good deal.

I’d love to move White or Holiday to the bench and play Horford with the starters. I think moving Holiday is getting too cute and just move the lesser player in White. But the holdup there is the lack of another center. Starting Horford/KP creates the need for a better backup center than Kornet once you go to line up the rotations.

Get a Mason Plumlee type in here mid season or some other compatible talent level of player and I’m totally on board with bringing a guard off the bench.

There is only ONE Mason Plumlee!

[Homerclease]

#7:

For as long as he is a Celtic, I WANT him to do well because I want a chip. Period.
His flaws are his flaws. They are not going away to any significant degree. His basketball instincts suck.
Bubbles the time out genius needs to get the most out of his strengths - in particular, explosive drives to the hoop.
Do not ask him to create much.
Encourage quicker decision making.
Beat him over the head when he plays dumb D & leaves shooters open, or turns it over.
#7 needs to understand that JT & KP are the 1 & 2 of this team.

You need to relax. KP looks great, but he has never played a meaningful series in his life.

I am very relaxed.

He’s right though. 95% of your posts are going at “#7” because you don’t like the guy.

[Dogen]

Jaylen had a usage rate of 18.5% last night. Not once did he go under 20% in usage rate last regular season and just once in the playoffs. Obviously still very early but it's something to monitor. Something in low-to-mid-20s would be ideal number. Last night, he didn't get the usual scoring opportunities and there was a more conscious effort of passing the ball, even if at times it wasn't the right pass/timing. The 11 potential assists are way more than his norm (from last season).

The book is out on Jaylen Brown. He is going to have to learn how to adjust his game, especially with an even bigger target on his back after the big contract. He should have things easier this year with Tatum and Porzingis as the 1 and 2 option, but he seems determined to make life difficult.

Teams can double on him during his heroic drives and get a good 5 percentage that he'll cough up the ball or pass into the void. Dude plays rather robotically so he needs to be reprogrammed.

[Celts17Pride]

Jaylen Brown lead the 2nd unit the last 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter and the Celtics went up 82-73 with a 9 point lead.
Celtics subbed Jayson Tatum for Jaylen Brown to start the 4th quarter and the Knicks in 3 minutes went on a 13-2 run to take a 86-84 lead.

I can just imagine what this forum would have been like if Brown came in in the 4th and the Knicks went on a 13-2 run. Tatum does it and it barely gets mentioned. This board needs to get over their Jaylen Brown obsession.

By the way, Jayson Tatum was absolutely fantastic last night and Jaylen Brown outside of a 1 minute stretch (turnover, turnover, foul on 3 point shooter) was unselfish and played the role that was needed from him on that particular night. Same for White and Holiday.

KP played great and was VC for me.