Post-Game Notes: BOS 114, MIA 117 (0-1)

[Duke4life831]

Kemba needs to step it up. 17/4/5 on 50 TS% over the last 7 games. He has also been a massive liability on the defensive end. The offense gets pretty predictable with Kemba struggling. Jaylen isnt a guy yet that can consistently get his shot off against a set half court defense. He needs to step it up, or Hayward needs to come back and play like he hasnt missed any time.

[batabatuta]

I fine with the loss. We deserved that. It's just frustrating sometimes that your 2 max players are both nonexistent in this series. Even if GH returns, it is going to take him a ton of games before he takes out the rust and we don't have a lot of it. Kemba struggles is all mental at this point and I don't think he is going to bounce off that.

So it all boils down to Tatum/Brown/Smart/Wanamaker/Theis/RobW/GWilliams to seal this. Just use Kemba as a diversion instead.

[Jaqua92]

I hope Marc Davis and Kane Fitzgerald get brutally ********.

This is **** up.




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[Dangit]

I’m legit worried if Kemba is right. He wasn’t getting separation off the dribble against anyone and he should be able to torch most of those
slobs outside Bam and Butler.

I don't think anyone here thought Kemba was a "true" star until we were forced to. He has a gear he can hit that is impressive when he is feeling right, but that doesn't happen often. Not an elite scorer, a pedestrian playmaker, and not very good defensively.

Hayward is better, period.

No doubt about this , When Hayward is not shooting well he still is doing most of the little things that win ball games.... When Kemba isn't shooting well , he's killing us on both ends of the floor

[Jaqua92]

I know there are things to take away. Positive things. Reasons not to be down.

Winnable series even without Gordon? Absolutely.

But how many times do we need to see this team fail to execute in close games for us to admit as a consensus that

1. This team isn't mentally resilient enough to win close, high stakes games yet? Yes, we are young. It doesn't change the fact that this team doesn't have it yet. What's our record in close games? We need to build leads and keep them to close out series against good teams.

2. Tatum isn't a closer yet. Sorry. Super talented, top 12 player...but he just isn't a clutch player right now and isn't capable of closing out games for us. He gets tunnel vision and seems to think about the "big shot", rather than the "smart shot". He can do whatever he wants during the game and can build that lead I mentioned in point 1. But if the team can't maintain the lead, and we need our star player to take over, he can't do it. How many times do we have to see Tatum miss a game winner? Make bad plays in an overtime?

This team overachieved..but compared to the contenders and even the fringe contenders, we are punching above our weight. Compared to superstars and big time players, Tatum is punching above his weight.

This genuinely looks like a championship core in about 2-5 years. Tatum will be the guy. We can get to the finals this year. I believe that. We won't win, but we'll get there.

Guys, this team simply isn't a contender yet and these players aren't there yet mentally either. It just is what it is.

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[Jaqua92]

Read on Twitter

Brad Stevens shouldn't be happy with himself for sucking on offensive sets. Unless players aren't listening to him, which would be worse.

It would be worse?

It would be nothing new. We don't even know if Brad is telling these guys what NOT to do. Players don't listen to Brad or respect him as a leader. Tatum slipped this when he said Brad isn't the leader type, but the XO's type. They may run certain offensive sets and play style, but Brad Stevens offense is freelance. He doesn't reel these guys in when they are playing dumb offensively, and he doesn't chew them out. When do you hear our players compliment coaching staff?

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[djFan71]

I know there are things to take away. Positive things. Reasons not to be down.

Winnable series even without Gordon? Absolutely.

But how many times do we need to see this team fail to execute in close games for us to admit as a consensus that

1. This team isn't mentally resilient enough to win close, high stakes games yet? Yes, we are young. It doesn't change the fact that this team doesn't have it yet. What's our record in close games? We need to build leads and keep them to close out series against good teams.

2. Tatum isn't a closer yet. Sorry. Super talented, top 12 player...but he just isn't a clutch player right now and isn't capable of closing out games for us. He gets tunnel vision and seems to think about the "big shot", rather than the "smart shot". He can do whatever he wants during the game and can build that lead I mentioned in point 1. But if the team can't maintain the lead, and we need our star player to take over, he can't do it. How many times do we have to see Tatum miss a game winner? Make bad plays in an overtime?

This team overachieved..but compared to the contenders and even the fringe contenders, we are punching above our weight. Compared to superstars and big time players, Tatum is punching above his weight.

This genuinely looks like a championship core in about 2-5 years. Tatum will be the guy. We can get to the finals this year. I believe that. We won't win, but we'll get there.

Guys, this team simply isn't a contender yet and these players aren't there yet mentally either. It just is what it is.

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I'm quoting you, but not singling you out as others have said the same as #1 before. I don't think I buy that yet.

* We beat Philly too easily, so no close games there, but that's good in and of itself. Shows toughness holding the leads.

* In Toronto series we were 2-2 in games decided by 5 points or less. 0-1 in the 7 point game. Won 2 blowouts. Against a team that won the finals. (I can't bring myself to say defending champs without Kawhi)

* We lost a tough one tonight.

2 of the losses were on spectacular plays by OG & Bam.
That seems pretty even against good competition and no contest against scrubs from Philly.

If you want to argue the team isn't good enough to cakewalk to the finals without Hayward, i'm all on board. But, to say the team is mentally weak in close games, I don't buy it.

[Jaqua92]

Read on Twitter

We've heard this 3 times now.

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[Jaqua92]

The end of the game takes some steam out of this for sure, but still, this gives an idea of the level of play he’s at.

Read on Twitter

?s=20

It's nice. But what does it say when that player goes 0-7 in the clutch?

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[robbie84]

Many people got on K Walker in the game threads.. I don't think that is really fair.. Recently, he hasn't shot as well and he normally does but he is facing tougher defense and he is willing to take shots at end of quarters that usually hurt your FG%. And Walker is making mostly good decisions and playing reasonably hard on both ends. As a fan I feel that is all one can ask for.

Ainge's biggest weakness as gm is being too infatuated with weak defenders at PGs that are undersized like Iverson (reported tried to trade for him), IT, Kyrie Irving and now K Walker. On defense Walker is one to two levels up from IT since he is bigger but he still compromises the defense against elite competition for him to be worthy of a max/near max deal. Kyrie Irving isn't even that short but he plays more like a small PG.

These guards all work reasonably well during regular season. But usually they are bad investments at max money if you want to win a championship.

Some will counter and say Steph Curry is clearly a bargain at max money. Not only is he 6"3 and arguably greatest shooter in NBA history but Steph Curry is super strong so even Lebron James in the NBA Finals was reluctant to try to back him down.

Honestly, if fans are ever frustrated with K Walker in this series, blame Danny Ainge/maybe Stevens and not K Walker. If you are going to succeed with a small PG, against truly elite competition you usually need other players to make up for it. SAS won with Avery Johnson and even Tony Parker but they were usually a huge team elsewhere to make up for it and neither of those PGs made the max. Duncan after all often played PF. They even had lineups with Duncan at PF and Leonard at SF. Duncan/Robinson.

Toronto won with Lowry but he makes up for his relative lack of height with a lot of strength and savvy. And Toronto with Gasol/Siakam/Leonard had a big front court.

Rajon Rondo may have been skinny but he is super long and athletic so he hardly fit the mold of undersized PG. Rondo also taller.

Kemba got absolutely torched defensively all game.

He was horrible tonight, beyond reason or excuse. His words not mine.

Kemba plays like he did tonight then its a 4 to 1 series loss. That simple.

Lol emotional much? We were the better team. We controlled the majority of this game and the Heat won with some really, really good 3 point shooting toward the late stages.
Kemba's obviously not 100% and the Heat can't play much better.
Take a breath, plenty of reasons to be confident we'll beat this team over 7 games.

[Jaqua92]

I know there are things to take away. Positive things. Reasons not to be down.

Winnable series even without Gordon? Absolutely.

But how many times do we need to see this team fail to execute in close games for us to admit as a consensus that

1. This team isn't mentally resilient enough to win close, high stakes games yet? Yes, we are young. It doesn't change the fact that this team doesn't have it yet. What's our record in close games? We need to build leads and keep them to close out series against good teams.

2. Tatum isn't a closer yet. Sorry. Super talented, top 12 player...but he just isn't a clutch player right now and isn't capable of closing out games for us. He gets tunnel vision and seems to think about the "big shot", rather than the "smart shot". He can do whatever he wants during the game and can build that lead I mentioned in point 1. But if the team can't maintain the lead, and we need our star player to take over, he can't do it. How many times do we have to see Tatum miss a game winner? Make bad plays in an overtime?

This team overachieved..but compared to the contenders and even the fringe contenders, we are punching above our weight. Compared to superstars and big time players, Tatum is punching above his weight.

This genuinely looks like a championship core in about 2-5 years. Tatum will be the guy. We can get to the finals this year. I believe that. We won't win, but we'll get there.

Guys, this team simply isn't a contender yet and these players aren't there yet mentally either. It just is what it is.

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I'm quoting you, but not singling you out as others have said the same as #1 before. I don't think I buy that yet.

* We beat Philly too easily, so no close games there, but that's good in and of itself. Shows toughness holding the leads.

* In Toronto series we were 2-2 in games decided by 5 points or less. 0-1 in the 7 point game. Won 2 blowouts. Against a team that won the finals. (I can't bring myself to say defending champs without Kawhi)

* We lost a tough one tonight.

2 of the losses were on spectacular plays by OG & Bam.
That seems pretty even against good competition and no contest against scrubs from Philly.

If you want to argue the team isn't good enough to cakewalk to the finals without Hayward, i'm all on board. But, to say the team is mentally weak in close games, I don't buy it.

This happened through out the season. I 100% buy it. Closing out close games has been an issue and we've talked about it in every single game thread.

They're a young team without a consistent leader in a high stakes situation. It's natural that these kids need to become experienced men/adults for these situations. But we just aren't there yet. Team is too young to be a legitimate title thread.

26 year Tatum, 27 year old brown, 29 yr old Smart will be much more consistent, resilient and will be able to execute.

This team has a harder time playing to it's potential than any other team.

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[threrf23]

The end of the game takes some steam out of this for sure, but still, this gives an idea of the level of play he’s at.

Read on Twitter

?s=20

It's nice. But what does it say when that player goes 0-7 in the clutch?

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In this case, that he was a bit gassed from having to carry his team on his shoulders all game long

[djFan71]

I know there are things to take away. Positive things. Reasons not to be down.

Winnable series even without Gordon? Absolutely.

But how many times do we need to see this team fail to execute in close games for us to admit as a consensus that

1. This team isn't mentally resilient enough to win close, high stakes games yet? Yes, we are young. It doesn't change the fact that this team doesn't have it yet. What's our record in close games? We need to build leads and keep them to close out series against good teams.

2. Tatum isn't a closer yet. Sorry. Super talented, top 12 player...but he just isn't a clutch player right now and isn't capable of closing out games for us. He gets tunnel vision and seems to think about the "big shot", rather than the "smart shot". He can do whatever he wants during the game and can build that lead I mentioned in point 1. But if the team can't maintain the lead, and we need our star player to take over, he can't do it. How many times do we have to see Tatum miss a game winner? Make bad plays in an overtime?

This team overachieved..but compared to the contenders and even the fringe contenders, we are punching above our weight. Compared to superstars and big time players, Tatum is punching above his weight.

This genuinely looks like a championship core in about 2-5 years. Tatum will be the guy. We can get to the finals this year. I believe that. We won't win, but we'll get there.

Guys, this team simply isn't a contender yet and these players aren't there yet mentally either. It just is what it is.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

I'm quoting you, but not singling you out as others have said the same as #1 before. I don't think I buy that yet.

* We beat Philly too easily, so no close games there, but that's good in and of itself. Shows toughness holding the leads.

* In Toronto series we were 2-2 in games decided by 5 points or less. 0-1 in the 7 point game. Won 2 blowouts. Against a team that won the finals. (I can't bring myself to say defending champs without Kawhi)

* We lost a tough one tonight.

2 of the losses were on spectacular plays by OG & Bam.
That seems pretty even against good competition and no contest against scrubs from Philly.

If you want to argue the team isn't good enough to cakewalk to the finals without Hayward, i'm all on board. But, to say the team is mentally weak in close games, I don't buy it.

This happened through out the season. I 100% buy it. Closing out close games has been an issue and we've talked about it in every single game thread.

They're a young team without a consistent leader in a high stakes situation. It's natural that these kids need to become experienced men/adults for these situations. But we just aren't there yet. Team is too young to be a legitimate title thread.

26 year Tatum, 27 year old brown, 29 yr old Smart will be much more consistent, resilient and will be able to execute.

This team has a harder time playing to it's potential than any other team.

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The regular season where we lost our starting frontcourt, brought in a new FA and won 2/3 of our games?
Game threads are freak out sessions where people want to fire everyone when we're only up 4 in the 2nd quarter. Of course people whined about losing leads. That's what they do.

People in game threads thought when OG hit his shot the team would crumble, and they didn't. They thought we'd lose after the Raps won game 6 in double OT. They didn't. They came out and grinded out a game 7 series win. But we still want to call them mentally weak?

I mean, it's frustrating losing leads/close games. I get it. But every team does it.
The bolded, I don't even know what to make of. Cs are one of 4 teams left. And, Bucks & Clippers aren't.

[ConstableGeneva]

People might flame me for this, but our most clutch teams were the 1st and 2nd years of Al Horford with the Celtics. Based on watching games and our win % in close games. It really does make a difference having a veteran presence on the floor on both sides of the ball. On defense, I trust Smart to be that. But on offense, we don't have anyone on the floor to calm the guys and steer them to make the right decisions. I was hoping Hayward could be Horford's suitable replacement, but yeah.

And with Kemba being targeted on defense, we have very little margin for error on offense. We almost have to score every time down. This is what also happened in Toronto's double OT win.

I've yet to listen to their post-game interviews, but I wanna know why they elected to go iso/mismatch-hunting in the 4th instead of running their usual plays. Spo also did a good job putting at least 4 good to great defensive guys on the floor in crunch time. Herro was the only weak link in terms of individual defense. I don't think we really gained a favorable advantage when we forced switches late.

[soxfan2003]

Miami is a tough team but that is to be expected. They would not have beaten Milwaukee if they were not a very good team. Favorable matchups in terms of style and Milwaukee not playing well in the bubble only take you so far.

I agree with others that Miami probably won't normally shoot quite this well from 3 but the Celtics may have games shooting worse from 3 and Miami may shoot better from the line in the future and Celtics worse from the free throw line.

To state the obvious, it seems critical that the Celtics win game 2 since beating Miami 4 out of 5 would be awfully difficult. I'd feel better about game 2 if Hayward could give the team 20 high intensity minutes off the bench but if I had to guess Hayward doesn't return until a little later in the series.

Celtics have to eliminate nearly all Miami easy baskets in transition and a few of their baskets on back cuts. The Heat shoot well enough that it is better to not allow them easy points.

Pretend Herro is a Miami starter since the guy has been playing starters minutes. He is a below average defender but not an awful defender and he is already a very good offensive player that can shoot/pass and drive reasonably well -- may not have the size to finish that well in a congested paint but he can get to the rim. A big part of Dragic's effectiveness is Dragic being a savvy veteran that knows when to leak out for fast breaks and attack before the Celtics defense is set. Dragic is good at exploiting weak defenders and defensive miscues. Another part of it is Celtics for good reason are concerned with all of Miami's shooters.

So, if you look at the Heat starters right now as
Dragic
Herro
Butler
Crowder
Bam

That is not quite as good as Boston's starters but it isn't far behind. And Miami is better off the bench than a Hayward less Celtics team.

I don't blame the players or Stevens for this loss but I must admit in Stevens shoes, I would have rolled the dice and went with Robert Williams to end the game. The way I see it, the game really did require the Celtics players to expend a lot of energy -- Miami had used its bench more as well -- and there was likely to be some missed shots/need for rebounding and I trusted Robert Williams to be more useful there than Grant Williams. I get why Stevens went with Grant Williams. High basketball IQ and on a bit of a hot streak. But I just didn't like the fact that Boston was super undersized at that moment.

[Ill News]

Tyler Herro has brass balls. That transition three he took when we went up 5 in regulation was massive. I wish he was on our team.

[ConstableGeneva]

Tyler Herro has brass balls. That transition three he took when we went up 5 in regulation was massive. I wish he was on our team.

Herro is now 5/10 (50%) from 3 in clutch minutes in the postseason. Here's the top 6 guys, minimum 5 3PAs:
• Murray - 7/9
• Doncic - 3/5
• Herro - 5/10
• Crowder - 2/5
• Butler - 2/5
• Harden - 2/5

Butler has 50/40/90 splits in the clutch. Main reason they're 6-1 in clutch games this postseason.

Brown is 1/5 from 3. Tatum is 1/8 from 3. Celtics are 5-4 in clutch games this postseason. Tatum has been shooting 21.1% from the field in clutch minutes in the playoffs compared to 50% in the regular season.

[steefP2]

There’s a ton of stuff to complain about and I’m sure we all will but bottom line: we didn’t play with nearly the amount of discipline and effort we did in the Raptors series. We didn’t deserve to win tonight and we didn’t. Oth it’s game 1 and there’s a lot of fixable things. We proved today we absolute can defend them, we just didn’t for half the game.

All that said, it **** sucks to lose a winnable game because of effort and execution. This is not a talent issue. This is an issue of do better.

[ConstableGeneva]

This led to Butler's easy layup under the basket, cut the lead to 5 w/ over five minutes to play.



Looks like Dragic stepped on the baseline to me. Wish I had Marc Davis's angle.

[Triple7]

I think what Stevens said that too much pounding of the ball, refers to Tatum and Kemba taking turns on iso, and basically using all the clock. The question is, why didn’t Brad do something about that? They was doing that in the closing minutes of the game. They didn’t run actual plays, no passing at all. Just hero ball left and right. It’s either they don’t have some offensive plays designed, or the players (kemba, tatum) totally ignored Stevens. Either way, doesn’t look good on Brad! If the last play before the block by Bam, was an iso for Tatum, then why does Smart asking for the ball, on the left side, before JT waived him off and smart settled on the left corner.