The Celtics have 14 games remaining on their schedule as of today.
While the playoffs might not start for another month or so, to me things are really already underway.
This isn’t December, it’s time to get serious.
That means kicking off this potentially season defining 6 game road trip the right way.
This win moved the Celts to 21-12 away from home this year and 23-14 against teams .500 or better.
Those seem like pretty important metrics in my opinion.
Was it always pretty?
Are there things that they need to clean up?
But at the end of the day, style points are not what is important right now.
Wins are what’s important.
And that’s what they did.
That’s a lot of basketball games.
Go ahead, run down the list of legends in your head, it doesn’t matter.
Usually we have to work through a slow first quarter start for Tatum, but not last night.
I want wins and I want guys producing to their potential, that’s about it.
Good defenses bad defenses who gives a shit right now.
Jayson Tatum did that in the 4th quarter.
- When Tatum plays like this, the Celts are hard enough to beat.
By that game his legs had to be shot.
Now, with 2 days rest, guess who got being back to his old unstoppable and efficient self?
That’s how you be a leader.
When they get elite guard play, it takes the Celts to a level that few teams can match.
Everything will always come back to guard play.
Last night was an example of what things look like when the guard trio delivers.
Derrick and Malcolm combined for 15-22 shooting overall, which is fairly ridiculous.
That is how this team will win.
- What we witnessed was yet another example of what happens when this team plays the right way.
It’s why Tatum kept stressing “play the right way” in his postgame interview the other night.
When they do it, they look drastically different.
Finishing with 35 assists and only 8 TOs is some prime Warriors shit.
Every single starter not named Al Horford had at least 6 assists.
How important is this punch in of ball movement to the Celts success?
Oh I dunno, seems pretty important to me!
- It’s truly incredible what this team is getting out of Blake Griffin.
Here’s what I care about when it comes to Blake.
For starters, he knows his role and fills it perfectly.
That’s all big.
He’s earning his time on the floor by executing his role at a high level.
- The Celts got up by as much as 16 and then didn’t blow the lead.
The Bad
- As awesome as the offense may have been, that’s how poorly the team defended.
That is in no way an acceptable level of defense.
I know this because I had fun watching them hold the Blazers to 93 points the other night.
Their lack of defensive rebounding and 2nd chance points is what kept the Hawks in this game.
You have to be able to get stops.
That’s not good enough.
The whole point of having depth was using it right?
Joe has called it out publicly and still nothing changes.
The other two led to putbacks.
It’s baffling really.
Shit like this
cannot happen.
Tatum bailed everyone out with a 3, but that led to the Smart airball three from the corner.
The only problem was Jaylen Brown lost focus and fouled a three point shooter immediately after.
Of course Saddiq Bey made it, so now things were down to 6.
Not to worry, Derrick bailed the team out again with a great drive to the rim.
To me, this entire sequence needs to be avoided given the situation of the game.
Luckily that foul was called on the floor or things would have been even worse.
For the most part, Smart played a solid game and filled his role.
Those last 2 minutes?
It was everything he can’t be doing while he’s on the floor.
Just get out with the win and move on.
I will say, the Hawks tweeting this out after
was very funny.
A fantastic self own using a Luka quote considering you know, they traded Luka for Trae Young.
Not debateable in my opinion.
When he tries to do too much, bad things happen.
When he plays within himself and the offense/defense, good things happen.
It’s that simple.
