Let me ask you if this sounds familiar.
Couldn’t make a shot and couldn’t get a stop to save their lives.
The Bulls played harder, they played smarter, and they executed better.
Yeah, no shit.
The Magic didn’t have their two best players and best bench player.
To me, that’s such a cop-out.
In the Joe Mazzulla Era, the Magic are 5-2 against the Celtics in their last 7 meetings.
It’s OK to acknowledge that there are other good teams out there!
The fact that the Celts operated with the exact opposite mindset last year is why they were so good.
There are no skipping steps on the way up the NBA mountain.
You should be past that shit (hopefully).
If they don’t play the right way, they can get their ass beat.
If they can’t execute, they will get their ass beat.
Regardless of who is on the floor.
It would just be forcing it considering the Celts largely played like ass.
Let’s move on.
The Bad
- Let’s start with the obvious.
I mean, this is the very definition of a KP stinker.
Didn’t make a jumpshot, didn’t really rebound, and he finished with 0 assists.
That’s, bad.
As a reminder, here are the 3:
1.
Poor outside shooting
2.
Poor late game rebounding
3.
So what happened last night?
The data doesn’t lie.
Let’s start with the outside shooting.
Here are some sobering realities for you.
Over their last 6 games, that number drops to 24.6%.
That is impossibly bad on clean looks.
How does that stack up with the rest of the league this month?
Only 3 teams have been worse when it comes to making “open 3PA”.
The Hornets, Raptors, and Wizards.
Arguably the 3 worst teams in the NBA.
They collectively are shooting just 36% from the corners and 32% from above the break.
Pritchard is at 35% from the corners.
Derrick White is shooting 28% from above the break.
Jaylen is shooting 33% from the corner and 28% from above the break.
Porzingzis 33% and 31%.
Horford 20% from the corner (this was fitting).
Tatum is 16% from the corner and 37% from above the break.
This too shall pass.
You have to be able to make your open 3s in 2024.
The Magic did (and won), the Celts didn’t (and lost).
But that’s only part of the equation.
Let’s now move to ball security.
The Celtics finished with a pathetic 13:18 assist to turnover ratio.
Read that fucking sentence again.
Jrue, White, and Jaylen all finishing with 5 TOs is pathetic.
The Celtics desperately need to practice entry passes.
They are terrible at them all of a sudden
2.
Make them beat your defense in the halfcourt.
When we look at the 2nd half collapse last night, what do we see?
We see the Celts committing 11 TOs and the Magic winning the fastbreak battle 13-2.
Gee, do we think this played a role in their comeback?
- I would also say it’s not great that your bench comes in and gives you virtually nothing.
Bench points difference in this game was 41-11.
The Sam Hauser literally did not take a shot in his 16 minutes.
He’s on the floor to shoot, and he did not take a single FGA.
- All night long you really saw the Celts struggle with the Magic’s ball pressure.
This is the book on how you give the Celts trouble.
Be extra physical, be aggressive on every screen, close out hard.
Last night, the Celts put up a 120 DRTG in the final 12 minutes.
Tied entering the final frame, this is where you gotta strap in and get stops.
Instead, the Celts allowed 56/55% shooting and 29 points.
They kicked things off by allowing a 7-0 run which ballooned into like 11-2 or something terrible like that.
Zero resistance at a time when that’s the very thing you need.
And as I said, this isn’t just a last night issue.
This is turning into an every night issue.
In those scenarios, the Celts put up a 118.9 DRTG which ranks 22nd in the NBA.
And this includes KP games which many people said was the only reason for their defensive struggles early.
It’s just been ass.
You could even call it straight up bad.
But my reasoning may be a little different than most.
People look at that Horford shot and say it’s a bad shot because it didn’t go in.
I don’t really view it that way.
I don’t look at 3PA as “good” or “bad” based on the result.
What I care more about is the process in which it was generated.
So the Horford shot wasn’t bad just because it missed.
First and foremost, you have to give the Magic credit for how they defended that possession in transition.
Look at #12.
From there, watch what everyone does.
Look at how bad the spacing is right before and after the Holiday pass to Horford.
It’s bad process.
The answer is probably a pump fake and drive, but Al’s a billion years old.
I don’t expect him to do something like that in that spot.
Instead, he rushed the contested 3PA and that was that.
But the issue is more everything that happened around the shot.
This is where losing that timeout on a bad challenge came back to hurt you.
Maybe, but I don’t really put that on Jrue.
- 5 missed FTs in a game you lose by 4.
They’re in a rut on both ends of the floor.
That, is the issue.
