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Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens faces lineup decision after blowout
John Schuhmann | NBA.com | May 20, 2018 11:36 PM ET



http://www.nba.com/article/2018/05/20/boston-celtics-coach-brad-stevens-faces-lineup-decision-after-blowout

The Celtics have been better offensively with Baynes on the floor this series, but his presence doesn't necessarily free Horford of Thompson, because the Cavs have been willing to defend Baynes with Love. And generally, Baynes' value comes on defense.

In the regular season, Boston allowed just 97.0 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor. That was the lowest on-court DefRtg among players who averaged at least 15 minutes in 40 or more games. With Baynes and Horford on the floor together, the Celtics allowed just 95.0 points per 100 possessions, the lowest mark for any two-man combination in the league that played as many minutes as they did.

Assuming Baynes is the starting center on Monday with Horford at power forward and Terry Rozier at point guard, Stevens has a decision to make with the other two players on the floor, some combination of Morris, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. In the regular season, Morris came off the bench when Baynes started. Tatum has started all 95 games he's played this season, while Brown has only come off the bench in Games 2-4 of the conference semifinals, when he was on a minutes limit after suffering a hamstring injury in Game 7 of the first round.

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VC Count, PLAYOFFS, 2017-18
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Victory Cigar
(3) Al Horford
(3) Jayson Tatum
(1) Jaylen Brown
(1) Terry Rozier
(1) Marcus Morris
(1) Marcus Smart




Ties go to the Team.
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(4) Terry Rozier
(2) Al Horford
(2) Marcus Smart
(2) Jaylen Brown


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VC Count, Regular Season, 2017-18
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Victory Cigar
(14) Kyrie Irving
(7) Al Horford
(7) Jaylen Brown
(7) Jayson Tatum
(5) Terry Rozier
(4) Marcus Smart
(3) Shane Larkin
(3) Aron Baynes
(2) Marcus Morris
(2) Greg Monroe
(1) Daniel Theis




Ties go to the Team.
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(15) Jayson Tatum
(10) Kyrie Irving
(6) Al Horford
(6) Jaylen Brown
(5) Marcus Morris
(4) Marcus Smart
(2) Daniel Theis
(2) Terry Rozier
(2) Team/Stevens
(1) Aron Baynes
(1) Shane Larkin
(1) Guerschon Yabusele




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Defend better, rebound better, play with more energy. Win.

Play hard.

Not even Marcus Smart was himself.

Everybody gotta pick up the slack. This ain't the Bucks or 76ers. This is the team that owned the East for years. Not even a little room for error is allowed if they want to win game 4.

LET'S GO CELTICS!

truth18 wrote:Play hard.

Harder, better, stronger!

Yabusele should not play a minute unless it’s during garbage time of a blowout. I have no idea what Brad was doing putting him in during the first quarter. Not good.

And enough of the Morris experiment. Start Baynes. It worked when Korver was starting, but with Thompson in there, it makes little sense and leaves us severely thin on the glass.

Idk why maybe I’m not giving the Cavs enough credit but I feel like Stevens was kind of testing game 3 to see what adjustments Cleveland would make. I feel like he used this game to make proper adjustments for game 4 on Monday. It’s not like Cleveland saw anything from us in game 3 to make adjustments while we have a lot to take away from. Brad didn’t seem mad once or use any of his timeouts. Felt like a throw away game to help this team super prepared for game 4. I’m probably talking crazy but that was such a weird all around game from the Celtics.

Let’s get this win so we can close it out in front of our fans for game 5. Won’t be easy certainly expecting a way better performance. If Brad doesn’t call a quick timeout at any point while trailing then I will be pissed. First half always is a good sign of what Celtics team you can expect on the road.

BigTrade92 wrote:Yabusele should not play a minute unless it’s during garbage time of a blowout. I have no idea what Brad was doing putting him in during the first quarter. Not good.

And enough of the Morris experiment. Start Baynes. It worked when Korver was starting, but with Thompson in there, it makes little sense and leaves us severely thin on the glass.

Agreed--Morris and Thompson is a bad combination.

Win. And finish this at home.

Win.

I wrote it in the previous game thread- game 3 was the most lose-able game. I thought that we were going to struggle a bit. Next game should be better. Hope Brown and Tatum arent in foul trouble in the 1st quarter. And yea stop switching Terry on Lebron. Just dont go for it. Baynes will start more than likely.

Play hard, play smart, play together.

PierceFan4ever wrote:Idk why maybe I’m not giving the Cavs enough credit but I feel like Stevens was kind of testing game 3 to see what adjustments Cleveland would make. I feel like he used this game to make proper adjustments for game 4 on Monday. It’s not like Cleveland saw anything from us in game 3 to make adjustments while we have a lot to take away from. Brad didn’t seem mad once or use any of his timeouts. Felt like a throw away game to help this team super prepared for game 4. I’m probably talking crazy but that was such a weird all around game from the Celtics.

Let’s get this win so we can close it out in front of our fans for game 5. Won’t be easy certainly expecting a way better performance. If Brad doesn’t call a quick timeout at any point while trailing then I will be pissed. First half always is a good sign of what Celtics team you can expect on the road.

It may sounds stupid and crazy...but I think you are right.

Now let's move on and win one in Cleveland.

Asian Celtic wrote:

truth18 wrote:Play hard.

Harder, better, stronger!

Sounds like ‘we should go back to starting Baynes’ to me!

Asian Celtic wrote:

truth18 wrote:Play hard.

Harder, better, stronger!

You forgot faster.

I was obviously super psyched that we won the first two games playing such good basketball. It made me believe that we could win this series and I still think we can, but...

I have watched Lebron teams just torture us for so long, and enough to know that you can never count him out and you can never win a series against him easily. It has to be a scrappy, push yourselves to the limit kind of effort and you can never take your foot off the pedal, ever.

So I was nervous about going on the road, wanting to believe that the same team that I watched fairly handily beat the Cavs two games in a row would show up and put up a good fight, but also knowing that you can't be overconfident heading into Cleveland while Lebron still plays there.

Unfortunately we put up a pitiful fight and from the sounds of it went in to Cleveland over confident.

My hot take is that I am 100% confident that we need to win game 4 to beat this team. If you give Lebron any type of momentum he will capitalize off of it and will ultimately finish you off unless you are the Warriors which as much as I love our team, we are not.

I'm likely over reacting to one bad game but it was a really really bad game. Either way, let's not find out if I'm right. Let's regroup, refocus, and come out and play team basketball and put some fight into it, and win game 4 because we can.

Go C's!!

We need to go to Al down low for the first offensive possession. No more midrange jumpers to start the game.

Al needs to step up. My biggest question going in was will Al get owned by Cleveland as usual...after they put Tristan on him the last two games he's been far worse and literally invisible last night. He needs to get it together.

Ben-N1ce wrote:Al needs to step up. My biggest question going in was will Al get owned by Cleveland as usual...after they put Tristan on him the last two games he's been far worse and literally invisible last night. He needs to get it together.

The whole team was invisible sans Tatum. They should go to him on the post, Thompson is not taller or stronger than Horford.

Very confident that we take game 4