My Top 5 Celtics Plays From The Last Week

Just like we do every Monday, it’s time to look back and relive some of the best plays from the past week. Seeing as how the Celts haven’t played in 2 days and that feels more like 55 years, consider this a nice little primer to get your juices flowing before tonight’s showdown with the semi-hot Nets. There were three games to choose from for this blog, as we’re going from 12/31-1/4 where the Celts played SA/MIN/DAL. They went 2-1 over that stretch, started their homestand off on the right foot and as I type this remain undefeated in 2019. As always this is a subjective exercise so you may have gone with a different collection of plays, but after reviewing the tape this is where I landed.

5. Brad’s next level ATO

A lot is made about Brad’s ATO abilities and for good reason. He’s shown time and time again that he is a prodigy coming out of a timeout. This was once again on display against the Spurs when he unleashed perhaps his most impressive ATO to date. This was so effective he successfully brainwashed the Spurs to completely forget what basket they were defending. That is some next level stuff right there folks. Sure this looked like a simple play, but it just shows that when he wants to Brad can pull out the Jedi mind trick strategy which is good to know moving forward.

4. Big Al gettin fancy

I have to say, I didn’t know Al had this in his bag. I mean DeAndre Jordan isn’t exactly effective in this much space, but this whole sequence was a roller coaster. First, you had Al putting it on the floor from 26ft, that’s where the concern first starts. You see it’s a known fact that the more Horford dribbles, the less effective he becomes. He’s no Kyrie Irving when it comes to his handle ya know? So the first kudos goes to him actually pulling off that behind the back dribble. Sure it looked like a baby deer was doing it, but he didn’t mess that up. The second part that impressed me was once he got into the lane he made that little running hook after absorbing a little contact from Jordan. Little known fact about Horford, I feel like he misses this little running hook like 64% of the time. My math may be wrong there but I don’t think it is. I always feel like he gets that shot and immediately follows it up by clapping his hands because he can’t believe he missed. Here, I couldn’t believe he made it.

3. Tatum recognizing a mismatch

So this play was sort of cut off so let me set the whole scene for you. Tatum found himself being guarded by Dennis Smith Jr, which is a mismatch. Instead of being a dickhead and just dribbling for 20 seconds in isolation, he quickly found Horford and immediately did what we all hoped he would. He took DSJ down to the block. Reposting and getting the ball in a better position was the first positive, and then him unleashing a Paul Pierce stepback out of that post up made me all warm and fuzzy inside. This was not the only time we saw Tatum do this against DSJ in this game, and that recognition is all I care about. Even if he missed the shot, his willingness to not do that stupid side step three and instead get his ass on the block against a smaller player is a step in the right direction for a guy that sometimes has shot selection issues.

2. Marcus Smart being Marcus Smart

It was hard to find just one play from Smart over the last week, he was awesome, but I thought this was a great combination of everything. You had Smart not giving up on the play and pressuring the ball as MIN was trying to call a timeout or whatever, then you had Semi making the right decision and NOT giving this ball to Jaylen so he could run the break because we know what an adventure that is, then Semi actually threw a lob that didn’t go over the backboard leading to a point guard, Marcus Smart throwing it down with authority. Add it all up, you had defense, unselfish play and a successful fastbreak which is never a guarantee with this team. Loved that.

1. Everything Gordon Hayward

Yeah, I cheated with this one. This is not one play but rather a collection of plays. But guess what, you don’t make the rules of this blog and if this is what I need to do to help convince both my brain and my heart that Gordon Hayward is on the road to being his old self well then that’s what I’m going to do. Let me have this OK? Performances like this have been few and far between for us Celtics fans to enjoy so yeah I’m going to look for every excuse possible to show it again. Sue me.

Honorable Mention: Jaylen’s stepbacks, Kyrie’s reverse layup against SA, Horford blocking KAT, Yabu being a real NBA player

So that’s where I netted out for the last week. We have four games to choose from this week, and seeing as how it’s not the best competition I am expected big things for this blog next Monday. Anything else stand out to you that I didn’t list? Let’s discuss.