Celts Fall Short In Rumble With The Thunder! Loss vs OKC 3/12

[phincsfan]

Kristaps Porzingis.

When he plays it's a plus and when he doesn't the C's are still the top team in the league IMO. But, I think he has worn out his welcome in that locker room. Last season he fit right in, played his normal amount of games and missed the normal amount of KP games with nicks and bruises.

Last year in the playoffs the calf injury happens and then the crazy track and field injury happens. The team wins the chip and all is forgotten. The team knows that his recovery will be long and he'll be good to go hopefully at the halfway point. But he comes back early and everybody's happy. Now all they have to do is manage the back to backs.

Then, he twists his ankle on Christmas and now he has the flu .

I always look at the money.

KP has played in 10 seasons (missed 1 season completely) for a total of 491 games out of about 750 games. He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a big role in a good Celtics defensive scheme. He is a huge plus for any team WHEN he plays. He was the 4th overall pick and will have made over 230mil after this contract ends next season.

AL has played in ALL 18 years that he's been in the league. The lockout year he TORE his left pec. Out of the approximate 1480 games during this 18 year career, AL has played in 1128 (which will increase because this year isn't over). He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a HUGE role wherever he plays. He is a MUST for this team to be successful IMO. AL was the 3rd overall pick and will have made over 285mil when this contract ends after this season.

IMO, NBA players are not exempt from pocket watching. I'm sure they have heard and seen all the stories about KP and his injuries from plenty of players in the league. You have that co-worker who gets paid just like you, meanwhile you work just as hard and eventually that starts to become an issue. KP's seems like a good guy, but if we're both getting paid generational wealth money or in AL's case a lot less money (this season)and he's doing things that most NBA players his age only wish they can do, people take notice.

I hope KP is able to play a few regular season games and hopefully the majority of the post-season, but after that I'd look to cut ties for not only tax purposes, but to stop the insanity of his injury prone career to continue in Boston.

[Triple7]

Kristaps Porzingis.

When he plays it's a plus and when he doesn't the C's are still the top team in the league IMO. But, I think he has worn out his welcome in that locker room. Last season he fit right in, played his normal amount of games and missed the normal amount of KP games with nicks and bruises.

Last year in the playoffs the calf injury happens and then the crazy track and field injury happens. The team wins the chip and all is forgotten. The team knows that his recovery will be long and he'll be good to go hopefully at the halfway point. But he comes back early and everybody's happy. Now all they have to do is manage the back to backs.

Then, he twists his ankle on Christmas and now he has the flu .

I always look at the money.

KP has played in 10 seasons (missed 1 season completely) for a total of 491 games out of about 750 games. He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a big role in a good Celtics defensive scheme. He is a huge plus for any team WHEN he plays. He was the 4th overall pick and will have made over 230mil after this contract ends next season.

AL has played in ALL 18 years that he's been in the league. The lockout year he TORE his left pec. Out of the approximate 1480 games during this 18 year career, AL has played in 1128 (which will increase because this year isn't over). He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a HUGE role wherever he plays. He is a MUST for this team to be successful IMO. AL was the 3rd overall pick and will have made over 285mil when this contract ends after this season.

IMO, NBA players are not exempt from pocket watching. I'm sure they have heard and seen all the stories about KP and his injuries from plenty of players in the league. You have that co-worker who gets paid just like you, meanwhile you work just as hard and eventually that starts to become an issue. KP's seems like a good guy, but if we're both getting paid generational wealth money or in AL's case a lot less money (this season)and he's doing things that most NBA players his age only wish they can do, people take notice.

I hope KP is able to play a few regular season games and hopefully the majority of the post-season, but after that I'd look to cut ties for not only tax purposes, but to stop the insanity of his injury prone career to continue in Boston.

Haha. This is hilarious! Lol. Take a look around the league. A lot of over paid superstars that ain’t playing at all. Cut ties? Good luck finding a replacement that fits well with ou style of playing. 3 ball. Horf would very well retire next season. Kornet and Queta are end of bench players, and we are stuck with an outrageous payroll. With or without KP.

[titlebound1]

We win the game pretty easily if Brown plays even slightly below his average.

The thing that worries me about Brown vs OKC is that OKC play very physical defence.

His whole career he’s struggled with this sort of d because his handle and decision making are weaknesses.

In a 7 game series vs them I seriously worry

Even if he struggles, I really don't think that he would average 10 PPG in a series and foul out multiple times. I also don't think that the FT hunting is going to work out for them in the playoffs

[return2glory]

Let's not act like OKC didn't have Jalen Williams in this game. He is having a great season, averaging 21, 5 and 5.
And for anyone that says we didn't have KP, well we usually don't and also we have shown to play better without him this season.

[itrsteve]

I honestly didn't hate the game, sure some things could have been better but we didn't play absolutely awful or anything. OKC is just really damn good. We're lucky that we got the easy opponent last year in the finals.

Maybe Luka will take care of them again, who knows? I wouldn't bet for us in the finals against these guys.

LOL, no he's not. You think that slob can keep up with OKC?

[NYCelticsfan136]

Celtics are easy to figure out. Defend the 3, and you're golden.

Last year the Celtics took close to 4000 attempts from 2s. This year they haven’t even reached 3000 by a wide margin. Just horrible shot selection by thr Celtics and they’re pretty one dimensional when that happens.

The Celtics are practically the same position wise as they were last season despite Porzingis missing way more time

Idk about that. This team is one dimensional and their defense is lethargic in my opinion.

[phincsfan]

Kristaps Porzingis.

When he plays it's a plus and when he doesn't the C's are still the top team in the league IMO. But, I think he has worn out his welcome in that locker room. Last season he fit right in, played his normal amount of games and missed the normal amount of KP games with nicks and bruises.

Last year in the playoffs the calf injury happens and then the crazy track and field injury happens. The team wins the chip and all is forgotten. The team knows that his recovery will be long and he'll be good to go hopefully at the halfway point. But he comes back early and everybody's happy. Now all they have to do is manage the back to backs.

Then, he twists his ankle on Christmas and now he has the flu .

I always look at the money.

KP has played in 10 seasons (missed 1 season completely) for a total of 491 games out of about 750 games. He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a big role in a good Celtics defensive scheme. He is a huge plus for any team WHEN he plays. He was the 4th overall pick and will have made over 230mil after this contract ends next season.

AL has played in ALL 18 years that he's been in the league. The lockout year he TORE his left pec. Out of the approximate 1480 games during this 18 year career, AL has played in 1128 (which will increase because this year isn't over). He puts up very very good numbers in his career and plays a HUGE role wherever he plays. He is a MUST for this team to be successful IMO. AL was the 3rd overall pick and will have made over 285mil when this contract ends after this season.

IMO, NBA players are not exempt from pocket watching. I'm sure they have heard and seen all the stories about KP and his injuries from plenty of players in the league. You have that co-worker who gets paid just like you, meanwhile you work just as hard and eventually that starts to become an issue. KP's seems like a good guy, but if we're both getting paid generational wealth money or in AL's case a lot less money (this season)and he's doing things that most NBA players his age only wish they can do, people take notice.

I hope KP is able to play a few regular season games and hopefully the majority of the post-season, but after that I'd look to cut ties for not only tax purposes, but to stop the insanity of his injury prone career to continue in Boston.

Haha. This is hilarious! Lol. Take a look around the league. A lot of over paid superstars that ain’t playing at all. Cut ties? Good luck finding a replacement that fits well with ou style of playing. 3 ball. Horf would very well retire next season. Kornet and Queta are end of bench players, and we are stuck with an outrageous payroll. With or without KP.

I can care less what other teams are dealing with or paying for. The same way I can care less what owners of this team are paying because it's their money and monopoly game. As good as KP can be and make this team better, it's the definition of insanity with him.

If a team has space and offers a 2nd round pick for KP at this point? Peace be with you KP.

What if a new owners group wanted some input and told Brad to do whatever you can do to trade KP because we'll be willing to pick-up another big contract to fill his spot? Their way of putting their stamp on the team.

[NYCelticsfan136]

Celtics’s 63 3 point attempts was just shy of the 70 attempts by Houston in an nba game. I still can’t get over that number. That’s just not basketball.

[Parliament10]

Well, I hope KP can save us, because Joe can not. If Joe doesn't have a distinct talent advantage and Boston actually needs Joe to coach up, we are in trouble. His defensive gameplan against SGA was a joke. And as much as I love PP, who actually did battle well, but using PP as one of the main defenders vs SGA was a joke. Even a bigger joke is Joe not seeing how much of a liability Kornet is on defense. But Joe decided early this season to make Kornet a regular rotation piece over developing a more physically talented Queta gets us in major trouble against the better teams. Also, Joe not developing any wing players to adjust to smaller faster teams like OKC is/was trouble waiting to happen.

Then of course is Boston's live by the 3 and die by it leads to many problems. For one if a team is off or defended well, then what??? Seeing PP often as the only one going inside to attempt an offensive rebound is the definition of a soft team. How many times can we get to the FT line when we are just launching 3s??

35 FTs to 12 That is all about Joe and his stupid philosophy. 63 3 pointers attempted?? 43 missed 3s??? Let that sink in for a minute.

KP needs to be back and totally ready. Not convinced KP will be enough, but anything to add some sort of interior presence. Especially on defense.

You can’t get past your hate for Joe that your analysis makes you sound like you didn’t watch the game at all.

Stop pretending like you know what you’re talking about.

Wow. -- You've been Banned a number of times, for Multiple Actions.
This behavior doesn't belong here. -- Time to seek a 1-year Ban.

~ Parl

[Larry_Russell]

Meh

Shot poorly down the stretch and they got to the line a TON.

Thats the game. Simple as that. Still no way they can beat us 4 of 7 unless the refs have money on the game.

I know that many are saying the Celtics shot too many 3s and that is why the FT discrepancy...

But assuming that 3point shots mean no FTAs...


OKC had 35 fta on 45 2pt fga (78% on 2point FGAs resulted in a FTA)

Celtics had 12 fta on 31 fga (39% on 2pta FGAs resulted in a FTA)

THere is obviously something more.

[fallguy]

With KP, we could have actually mismatch hunted. Not sure him shooting two pointers would have got us the win but that plus his rim protection and us matching their double big might have done the job.

[Shak_Celts]

JB took all the blame for his bad playing on both ends. “I like when players hold themselves accountable.” He must be better, no doubt. We needed him out there even with how poorly he was playing individually, because whatever was happening, it was happening less poorly when he was out there. Gotta be smarter on fouls when you see what was going on, he should have learned what the refs were calling and adjusted at the half. You could see he didn’t have it from the first couple minutes of the game.


As for PP and Sam, I was worried about them, but I don’t really care anymore, I’ll just have to see it through in the playoffs. I don’t even know if it’s true they haven’t played well against the good teams, I just don’t want to be stressed about it anymore, they are good players and they are Celtics, both helped us win playoff games last season.

I still believe we can beat okc, neither of these games make me feel differently about it. We’ll only meet in the finals and one thing ifs for certain, as tough as the playoffs are, the finals are another animal! We know what it takes, will those kids know? We certainly didn’t vs GSW and the Lukas found out too. If we had to face OKC or healthy Lakers, I’m taking OKC, because both LBJ (especially) and Luka know what to expect. Just as we learned from our first trip, OKC will have to learn, Celtics used to be young and talented too, they had a bunch of close calls and had to learn before they reached the mountain top! (We can beat the LBJ-Lukas too, simply taking experience)

[Bar Fight]

I dont care what did we miss or that JB had bad game.
That SGA game just SHAMEFULLLLLLL

Looking at the tape, almost all those fouls were legit. He exaggerated/embellished them, but we were undisciplined guarding him, reaching, handchecking, etc. He probably could have gotten even more calls tbh. We got away with a few

[Bar Fight]

I had nightmares last night of Jaylen Brown demanding the ball over and over in the post and it leading to turnovers every time.

[ConstableGeneva]

We were uncharacteristically undisciplined with the fouls. Blaming the refs is just letting our guys off the hook. Defense got a bit better in the 2nd half but we were still fouling a lot. C's are known to not foul that much. Tops in opponent FTA rate. When's the last time two Cs players fouled out in the same game? Just weird from us. The disparity in FTA is our own fault and I don't expect us to be this bad again re that aspect.

[ConstableGeneva]

Rare L when Cs make 20+ threes. Previously 48-4 (92.31%) when making that much in a game in Mazzulla era. This could've been a W despite OKC's strategy if we were just a bit better on D. Non-SGA Thunder players take about 11 FTs a game. We gifted them more than double that (24).

[Lee Van Cleef]

I honestly didn't hate the game, sure some things could have been better but we didn't play absolutely awful or anything. OKC is just really damn good. We're lucky that we got the easy opponent last year in the finals.

Maybe Luka will take care of them again, who knows? I wouldn't bet for us in the finals against these guys.

LOL, no he's not. You think that slob can keep up with OKC?

He destroyed them last year, but a big part of it was the lobs he created for the 2 7-footers. There is no such centers in the Lakers.

[return2glory]

I took the names of all you who declared the Celtics done. Pathetic.

Celtics in 5.

Boston has zero chance of repeating if Jrue continues to play like crap. He was one of the keys to a chip last season. This season, the guy can't shot, defend or rebound. All 3 things he was great at last season.

Jrue is a playoff player. I'm not worried even a little bit.

Can Joe coach us out of a series? Absolutely.

OKC isn't gonna get 20 plus more free throws then us every game. Celtics in 5.

He is a playoff player, but he also has been a really good regular season player. Even last year, he played really well in the regular season. He shot great from 3, rebounded great for a guard with 6 a game and defended really well. This season has been a whole different story.

[Red2]

When you’re trying to win back to back titles you don’t give away your best backup defensive guard. But thats what we did with springer

[redslastlaugh]

I put the 2nd half for a rewatch and we had so many key possessions where guys just stand around the perimeter and somebody like JT dances with the ball and then sidesteps into a 3. I hope coach Mazzulla was rope-a-doping the opponent with his 63 3pt attempt game plan, because we did so little to work the defense to get open looks. In the playoffs there is no math advantage in shooting low % shots. It doesn’t matter if they’re worth 3pts or 2pts if they’re contested chucks that aren’t going in.

In particular in the 4th quarter we were 2-14 from 3pt area (until Pritchards last minute make which raised it to 3-14 after the game was decided)…. In the 4th we were 6-9 from 2PTA by comparison.

I don’t want to be too negative but I am feeling less hopeful than I was a couple weeks ago. KPs mysterious illness, Jaylens sore knee and the realization that we just don’t get many easy shots, despite our talent, in the half court. Sky is not falling, but I’m 12% less confident in our repeat odds