Well, losing 3 starters is not fun at all... Nevertheless - I will not use it as an excuse for losing this particular game, the C's are better - and had all the chances to win. My biggest concern is how long it will take for KI to recover: at this point, we do not care about the record - but rather how healthy he will be getting into the playoffs. Even in the 1st Q - KI was struggling on both sides, and 3 TOs and 1 assist just 15 minutes shows how really struggling he was. Interestingly enough, the team had 10 points lead by the half - and everything was pointing to an easy win despite KIs poor performance (don't even mention his more than usual struggles on the D end!!). So, let's try to actually analyze the game instead of whining that we didn't have 3 starters:
"The Game Changer"
Wanted to pencil in Smart for his off the charts game, but have to go with Al and KI missing to close up the game. I'll get to it later, but their absence affected much more than just scoring or defensive punch.
Nevertheless - props to Smart playing his best game of the season. In the initial rotation, just a 3-4 minutes in the game, he had 2 steals, a charge, and - more importantly - completely shut down Victor Oladipo. A couple of plays that were sticking out for me:
- Baynes and Smart trapped a player on the inbound at the base line, leading to a TO and corner 3 by Smart. That was something like "Bird stealing the ball! " kind of play - not in a sense of impact, but shear will to make things happen.
- Smart stealing the ball AGAIN on the inbound with 5 mins to go and down 3, and then draining 2 back to back huge 3-pointers with 2 minutes to go.
I, for one, simply see no such impact player like Smart in the NBA today - not the Hardens of the world, but truly impact winning attitude. This is why Harden will never win the big one - and he actually needs someone like Smart by his side to win. Bryant and MJ were complete 2-way players, but needed Pippen, Rodman, Fisher to win.
"The Best Lineup"
TRoz, Smart, Ojeleye, Tatum, Theis
Not that they just match super aggressive small lineup by the Pacers - but also brought the team back into the game to just 3 points down. They also put the Pacers into the penalty with over 6 minutes left in the game. They trapped Oladipo at the top taking the Pacers completely out of their sets, and causing turnovers. The only caveat - Tatum making 2 REALLY bad mistakes leading to dumb turnovers - and actually causing them to lose the game. Yet - it was very entertaining and a true Celtics grinding lineup - winning with the defense despite very limited scoring punch.
"The Game"
1. Good game overall - it's a shame the team was taken out of the game plan completely at the half, but shit happens - and I see it as the glass being half full rather than half empty.
2. Was interesting to see how the C's were countering the small ball by the Pacers giving us fits with their uptempo and fastbreak oriented game. Prior to the tip off, they gave Oladipo's breakdown for points scored against the C's: and it was over 30% in the paint, and 22% on fastbreak. Difference was in inserting Smart into the starting 5, and adjusting the sub patterns to control/maintain the tempo to our advantage. Oladipo was a non factor until the second half, and the winning formula was in putting KI, Troz, Smart, Morris, Baynes that pushed the score to +10, and took the Pacers completely out of the game plan. Enough to say that the Pacers were held to 16 points (!!!) in the second, and 40 points only at the half. After that??? 36 points in the 3rd crushed the C's.
3. So, what really happened in the 3rd and the end of the game?
- BS tends to starts the second unit in the 3rd maintaining rotation and managing minutes for the starters. I mentioned that the biggest impact of not having KI and Al (and Brown - but to a lesser degree) is to have rotation and lineups all messed up. C's gave up a 16-3 run to the Pacers right out of the gate, and it looked like it somewhat stabilized playing Larkin, Smart, Nader, Ojeleye, Monroe. The key was managing Booker and Sabonis - and not having Big Al hurt the C's a lot. Al is the best matchup for both Myles and Sabonis - while Baynes and Monroe are way too slow. So, the REAL reason (IMO) for losing the game was that the C's deviated from playing big vs. small - and went to playing small lineup yet again, something I thought we would not see again.
- Beginning of the 4th Q was exceptionally bad: after the C's just recovered by going inside, and establishing low post presence over again - BS goes with Larkin, Nader, Tatum, Ojeleye, Theis. Not just playing small ball - but no real response to the Pacers back court on the D end. This lineup looked totally disjointed - like they had never seen each other on the court even before. Putting TRoz and Smart in for Larkin and Nader made hell a lot of difference - and brought the C's back into the game.
- No - REALLY puzzling move by BS... With just a couple of minutes, and having momentum on our side - BS puts Morris at the 5 instead of Theis that played so well vs. Turner... Result - easy layup on Morris (who didn't even try to defend in the post), and giving critical 4 point lead back to the Pacers. It looked like BS was more experimenting - rather than winning the game. It looked weird, and didn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Yet - Smart almost pulled it getting a TO on Dipo yet again - but TRoz never really had a chance for hitting this 3. Btw, I'd rather have Tatum taking this last shot...
4. Morris - he's great as a scoring punch off the bench, but is a terrible defender and is NOT a starter.
5-13 shooting, a lot of contested shots. Only 4 boards and lack of D stats in over 30 mins says it all.
And it's not that I blame him for losing the game - he just does not fit anywhere but the bench, that really needs a scorer and better matchups than players like Ojeleye can give. Again - rotation was all screwed up, and his poor game was a result of it. Typically, the C's are able to hide him and KI on the D end because of great switching and timely rotation, but that was not there the last night.
5. Last one: great game by Tatum. I had all the intent to pencil him as the difference maker - but his critical 2 TOs at the end of the 4th were very disappointing. Granted - he's just a 20 yo rook, but it's interesting how my expectations grew for the kid over the past 60 games. It's like automatically assuming that he'll start taking over the games all of a sudden. One thing stood out for me (yet again!) - his court vision and willingness to pass. Sky is the limit, and I believe he'll be a break through player of the 2019, if not during the playoffs.
So, what's next? KI is out for a little while. Brown will not play as well. Hope that Big Al is back, and will take over the team yet again. But - more importantly - I look forward to see what BS will do with the rotation. Obviously, my biggest request remains the very same - "PLEASE!!!! NO SMALL BALL - EVER AGAIN!!! NO MORRIS AT THE 5 - EVER AGAIN!!!!"
Hope it's not too much to ask... :)
Next 6 games (assuming KI will miss at least 2 weeks):
Wizards - W
@Magic - W
@Pelicans - L
Thunder - L
@Blazers - L
@Kings - W
So, that kills my chances for guessing the season record - but should be all good for the C's. Cavs are a mess, and Pacers took over the #3 seed for now. So, I guess it's all good... The C's just need to go 50% W/L to retain #2 seed for the playoffs - definitely should be no problem here. But it's time to admit the reality:
- we will not get to the #1 seed, unless some miracles happen
- KI's knee and getting JB back - that's all it really matters right now
- There should be no obsession with the season record anymore, as it becomes irrelevant beyond securing the #2 seed. East standings will play out by itself, and the best way to affect them is to win the games vs. the Cavs.
AG
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