Over the course of 82, there are going to be some nights where nothing goes your way.
After one of those nights, there will be people that overreact.
They’ll call a team frauds or act like the sky is falling after a single loss.
That happens with pretty much every fanbase in the league.
The important thing when this happens is the response.
It’s about how you handle the chaos and imperfections, and not trying to be perfect.
No player or team is perfect, that’s not how things work.
It’s happened just 3 times in 64 games.
When they start thinking and stop playing, things snowball.
Instead, they immediately responded with a win that wasn’t really as close as the final score indicated.
Once the 3rd quarter started, the Cavs never really threatened.
Now comes the next step, which in my mind is harder than a bounce back win.
Well, it seems to me like this was one of those games.
Since mid-February, Horford is shooting 60/56.8% with 3.5 3PM a night.
You know who this is?
This is Playoff Al.
There will be nights he holds back, maybe looks a half step slow, but make no mistake.
Al has plenty of gas left in the tank, and last night was another example of that.
- When the Celtics are at their best, they love and trust.
To me, this means a variety of things.
And maybe most importantly, it means moving and sharing the ball.
That’s the good stuff.
People ask me what Mazzulla Ball is, and this is it.
It’s not just the 3PA volume, it’s a mindset.
The Celts finished with 27 assists and 12 TOs in this game.
A total of 5 different players had at least 3 assists.
- I suppose we’ve gone on long enough without mentioning the performance of Jayson Tatum.
It’s almost as if people hadn’t experienced a Tatum slump before.
Newsflash, he’s still really fucking good.
That pretty much checked every box people want.
Great production, efficient, low minutes (for him).
That’s not exactly true.
In this game, Tatum only had 13 drives and had 2 FTA off those drives.
That’s what made the last two games, where the guy had 3 FTA total, so frustrating.
In a game the Celts needed, their best player showed up.
Jaylen kept talking about how important rebounding was during timeouts, and the Celts won the rebounding battle 43-38.
- Finally, this team didn’t come out of halftime dead ass asleep.
A quick 7-0 run got the Celts lead to 10, and that was pretty much it.
Good defense, better offense, loving and trusting.
That’s the formula.
- Say it with me now.
Sam Hauser is a 3&D sensation.
But when he wants to?
He’s the same guy, with a smarter approach.
This game was a perfect example of that, just look at how he runs/jumps/reacts.
It’s the same Rob we know and love.
This is not a guy who no longer has the physical capabilities after his knee issue.
This is a guy that is just being smarter about when he unleashes it.
He’s pacing himself.
Even with the lob that he missed, Rob still got basically to the top of the square.
His OREB is still a weapon too let’s not forget.
I didn’t love that they went 22-38, but I liked the aggressive mindset.
He had a very weird game and not in any sort of good way.
The 1-5 (0-2) is whatever to me.
I know Malcolm Brogdon can shoot.
What bothered me was his 4th quarter play.
Well, then what the hell was this
I’ll tell you what it was.
It was very bad.
Everyone knows the way the Celts let teams back into games is by committing live ball turnovers.
Again, I don’t care about the shooting.
I care about the ball control and the decision making in the fourth quarter.
That needs to be better.
On the season, Brogdon is tied with Smart for 20 4th quarter turnovers.
- What makes playing the Cavs so tough is how good their guards are at scoring the basketball.
If this team cannot find ways to stop dribble drives, they’re cooked.
In a playoff series, shit like that is how you get upset.
The defense has to tighten up and it starts up top.
Maybe he’s just in a rut?
It’s not like Blake or Kornet played either, but this is something to keep an eye on.
I’ll be interested to see how many minutes he gets against BKN/NYK ahead of the CLE rematch.
He’s a pretty important rotation player so I’m not exactly sure how this shakes out.
- I know this is a me thing, but Tatum missing 3 FTA bothered me.
I find that to be very mean and totally uncalled for.
This stretch run is stressful enough, I don’t need to be sweating 20 point leads.
The Celts as a team scored 21.
Hopefully, they learn from it because it’s clear Donovan Mitchell and the Cavs play a full 48.
We’ve seen it before.
Great bounce back win.
I don’t even remember the Knicks loss if we’re being honest.
There’s only 19 games left, so it’s time to buckle down and win.
