Your Boston Celtics Now Control Their Own Destiny For The Number One Seed
It took 81 games, but here we are. Your Boston Celtics now control their own destiny for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. A dream that seemed dead less than a week ago is now very much a reality as long as they can beat a MIL team that has nothing to play for. Their seed is essentially locked in, and chances are they rest their guys. Ever since the CLE loss last Wednesday, there has been a lot of debate as to whether or not the top seed makes a difference. My stance on this could not be more clear. This does not mean they are the best team in the East, and it does not mean that they should be favored in a series against CLE. My whole desire for the top spot essentially has nothing to do with CLE. For me, it’s always been about avoiding TOR in the second round. I think we can all agree that this year will be a success if the Celts make the ECF. While it’ll be nice to have home court in that series, all I care about is having the easiest path possible to that point. That is what’s at stake Wednesday night. This team already had an opportunity to clinch this position and it played some of the worst basketball of the entire year. It’s not often you get a second chance like this, and even though seeding doesn’t matter to CLE, it very much matters to this Celtics group.
And look, as exciting as this should make all of us, it wouldn’t be a Celtics win without also making us almost vomit. At least they are who they are no matter the opponent, but man would it kill them to give us a little GINO action every once in a while, my lord.
Beating BKN isn’t exactly the most impressive thing we’ve ever seen this team do, but since when are we going to let that stop us from having a little fun? Let’s go
The Good
– He was supposed to fizzle out. He wasn’t supposed to keep this type of production up for this long. He’s a one trick pony. Well in game 81 (75 for him) it was more of the same and we will not begin anywhere else. Enjoy.
I’ll say it again, a win and strong performance against BKN is about as insignificant as a practice scrimmage. That still doesn’t mean Isaiah wasn’t solid. His 27/4/3 was actually an average night as crazy as that sounds. Watching Isaiah play you can see the development from even last year. There was that play in the video about around 6 min in the first where he keeps his dribble alive, shows patience, and essentially works his way through the entire Nets defense for the finish at the rim. It’s hard to not get at least even a little half chub when you see Isaiah and Horford run the P&R together. I understand that 99% of teams are going to defend better than BKN did, but watching them work magic together makes me excited for the next few weeks.
And that third quarter, oh man that’s what it looks like when Isaiah is feeling it. Step in transition threes that hit nothing but the net, insane midrange pullups over taller defenders, there’s a reason he’s shooting 50% for the month of April after a 47% March. His offensive game is ready for the playoffs, and honestly that’s the big elephant in the room. We all want to see which end of the spectrum he’ll play at, and while a good night against the Nets helps us exactly 0% in figuring that out, who am I to thumb my nose up on this type of performance.
– I don’t think there was a bigger collective exhale by every person who is a fan of this team after seeing Avery go for 18/5/2 with 70/60% splits. Other than Isaiah, there isn’t a more important offensive player on this roster than Avery Bradley. We saw it when he went out in the ATL series, and we’ve seen it in the games he’s missed this season. This offense is completely different not just when he’s in the lineup, but when he can be that solid second scoring option. He showed flashes of breaking his slump against CHA, and I’m a good game against MIL away from declaring it officially over.
You know Avery is feeling better when he attacks the rim like he did the first few months of the season. This happens not only on backdoor cuts, and moving without the ball, but also when he crashes the offensive glass hard like he did here
This wasn’t the only time Avery had a play like this, so between that and the improved lift we’re seeing on his jumper it’s no surprise he is shooting the ball better. Because so much of Avery’s game is coming off screens without the ball, the health of his legs is very important. His ability to catch the ball, square up, and get good lift are why we didn’t see him leave so many shots short in this game, like he had against CLE and ATL. When Avery was in his slump it wasn’t the wide open corner misses that bothered me, but more the shots he was missing when the Cs ran those pin downs for him. If teams really are going to be sending every play on their roster at Isaiah during the playoffs, if this is the Avery we get, that will open everything up.
– Al Horford picked a great time to show up in a fourth quarter. Looking at another potential disaster to a shitty team in consecutive games, Horford was that calming force this team really needed when things got a little wonky. His overall line was solid (19/8/4), and it was great to see that a majority of it came in that fourth. What I loved was how the Celts got Horford involved, because we’ve seen this be VERY inconsistent from game to game. They allowed him to catch the ball in areas that he tends to succeed in, usually coming off a high P&R. The only difference was they actually looked for him as the roll man and all of Al’s FGA came from the circle or below. That’s the type of late game offensive execution you need to help ensure that Horford doesn’t disappear late in games. When he stands outside the three point line, or doesn’t touch the ball on offense, he provides little to no value. But having him moving around, setting screens, rolling hard, those are the things that when they happen, all the sudden he doesn’t go missing.
Oh and that pass early to Isaiah that was in his highlight video made me legit dizzy for 30 seconds. Can’t get enough of Horford’s passing.
– I’ll take a wire to wire win thank you very much. I don’t care about close they came to almost blowing it. It was a game they had to have and they didn’t spend one second trailing.
– Has anyone else noticed Jae’s transition defense over the last few games? While I’m cautious that these strips will be called fouls in the playoffs, I have to commend his effort. For a guy who’s defense has regressed a bit this season, between him, Marcus, and Avery I don’t think there is a trio better at this move. You bring the ball down against any of those guys, they are going to swipe it.
– It’s very simple. You put Marcus Smart in the post and you can essentially guarantee something positive will happen. The Celts went to this a couple times in this game and each time it made me smile. I mean look at this dude
I am convinced that you put Marcus on the block on a consistent basis, he will be a completely acceptable offensive player. His ability to pass out of the post, bully his man to the rim, but also turn and face and blow by a guy is why it’s so frustrating when he does nothing but jack up threes. The thing with Marcus in the playoffs is when he goes to the block, he won’t get the calls all the time. How he then deals with that mentally will be the difference maker.
– Credit to the Heat. They almost blew it, but they didn’t. This now concludes me ever saying anything nice about that team/franchise. And yes I am still bitter about how things went down in 2012 thanks for asking.
– Celtics get back to winning games at the same time they get back to moving the ball. Coincidence? Absolutely not. 31 assists on 41 baskets is the type of ratio that shows us the Celts are playing the right way.
– What if Jae shoots around 43% from deep in the playoffs? He’s finally healthy going in, shot the ball well again yesterday, and while I know that is an absurd number, something tells me we’re going to get Good Jae in a few weeks. He’s due.
– The People’s Puppy nailed it. Proud of Walter and all that he accomplished so far this season. When I got him and the Celts were 4-4 and I told him of our march to #52 he looked at me with those beautiful droopy eyes and told me not to worry, that it would be a piece of cake.
#GoWalterGo
The Bad
– I’m still not OK with the amount Isaiah has been turning the ball over. He finished with four after three bad ones in the first quarter, and again these were a result of well intentioned plays, but I need him to simply take better care of the ball moving forward. After being in the low 2s for the first half of the year, he’s slowly started to creep up, and while his TOV% is still great considering how much he has the ball, I would prefer if this was cleaned up before the first round starts.
– Boy do I hate the other side of the Theory. Another great start, if you’ve followed this idea over the last two season, you knew it was coming. The third quarter was going to suck donkey dick. I would say giving up 37 points to the damn Nets qualifies.
– Kelly Olynyk, while he had a pretty decent game, had a brutal fourth quarter. Turnovers, poor lateral movement on defense, and fouls. I do think at times Kelly gets a bad whistle, but for the most part he found himself on an island against a quicker defender and couldn’t prevent himself from fucking up. That’s my fear with Kelly in the playoffs, that teams are going to change around their lineups to get smaller, more athletic big men on him to take advantage of his slow whiteness. Seeing as how the Celts bench will probably be primarily him, Marcus and Jaylen, I don’t think we should ignore the significance there.
– Tyler Zeller played 7:26 and was a -8. That pretty much sums it up.
– The Celtics cannot stop Jeremy Lin. That is a factual sentence that I’m not sure how I feel about typing.
The Ugly
– What the hell is going on in a world in which the Nets have a FTA advantage of 39-21? And don’t get it twisted, it wasn’t that close. This is part poor defense by the Celts, part bailouts by the refs, but Jesus did it feel like we were playing Lebron in CLE with the amount of whistles there was. This was ugly from a results standpoint, a basketball flow standpoint, and the fact that it kept the Nets “in” the game at all.
– Because the Celts like to stay on #brand, it was brutal to see another 20+ point lead evaporate down to 7. It isn’t the best feeling when you watch your team go up by 16+ and say to yourself “nope, I’m not going to put 1 second of faith into this lead”. That’s a problem. Call it lack of focus, call it poor offensive and defensive execution, call it whatever you want. I choose to call it inexcusable.
– And another thing about the Celts defense. It again wasn’t very good. They couldn’t hold another team to under 100, and gave up 65 second half points on 45% shooting. If there was ever a team you expect the Celts to play consistent 48 minute defense against it’s BKN, and that wasn’t even remotely the case.
The Celtics defense has been beyond poor for weeks, and if you want one thing to freak out about as the playoffs approach, I’m picking this 100/100 times.
It’s hard to imagine the regular season ends Wednesday, but I think we’re all ready. We want to see what this team can do once the games actually matter against better competition. Can they back up the quality of basketball we saw for the last six months. Can they show progress and get over the hump. That all will be answered in the coming weeks, but it starts with their game against MIL and their pursuit of that number 1 seed. Snag it, and ride that momentum into the biggest challenge of the year.
Now, say it with me
52 down, 0 to go.