2019-20 Boston Celtics Season

Agree to disagree. That's what Irving did, demanding the ball and I hated it. I don't want everyone going ISO because of the D. Both Smart and Walker were both able to get into the paint, they just both were looking to score. The Clippers kept moving the ball and Beverly got like four open three pointers and nailed everyone of them. That was the killer, you can take Leonard, George or Williams hitting a bunch of shots, but Beverly killed us at the end and he's was having a bad shooter year. You have to keep moving the ball with this team, we don't have a bunch of superstars.

You're likely right in that they will get better and it was likely a great learning game. Not many teams have the defenders they do, but the ball just stopped moving after great ball movement all game long.

Having G back should help with moving the ball. Impressive effort last night considering we were missing our best playmaker.

There were plenty of open guys early on, shots just weren't falling. After Tatum went supernova in the 3rd, the Clippers started playing some SERIOUS defense. There wasn't much space and they were pressuring the ball, every driver was bounced back to the 3 point line. The lack of size was a bit of an issue and it makes me wonder if they couldn't have played Kanter a bit more for some inside scoring. Time Lord plays like a guard in the paint (he did knock an absolutely impressive turnaround hook though).

That's the offense and they do that to space the floor and give the guy someone to pass to if the drive gets cut off.

Right now the use Walker, Smart, Hayward, and Wannamaker. In the basic offense one of those guys takes it to one side, either drives or passes to the guy in the corner. Doesn't work the pull it back out and swing it to the other side. All season long guys will be stationed at the three point line and this included Smart and Walker when they don't have the ball.

Late in the 4th the Clippers started jumping the passing lanes and picked off a few passes. No biggie adjust your angles and be more careful with your passes. If they don't get the pass it leaves the shooter open. Instead of adjusting they changed how they played. Smart and Walker have the ball, so when both go full on scorer, the offense changes. There was no Wannamaker or Hayward, so it was on those two.

I don't buy for one second they had no other options, most of the shots weren't late on the shot clock, but early in the shot clock. Nothing beats an aggressive defense like great passing and ball Movement. Just look at the Clippers getting those open shots by making the extra pass.

You want Brown and Tatum more involved the ball handlers need to make sure they are touching the ball on possessions. Which for most of the year has happened. I'm not a fan of running a bunch of iso plays unless it's out of timeouts or like the last play to get Tatum a one on one down three with the game on the line. It just kills ball movement.

So your only other option is for Tatum and Brown to be ball handlers and act as creators. Yet do we really want that? I'd rather it be Smart, he's much better at it than those two, or Walker, Hayward or Wannamaker who has been rather impressive lately. It has worked brilliantly all year long and it's the same basic offense that Rozier was good at running. It's why I would bitch about Irving when he'd do do much iso because it stopped ball movement. It's why Walker has been different, he lets other guys run the show a lot of the time and actually plays shooting guard. So Walker and Smart need to figure that out, with no Wannamaker or Hayward one of them has to play PG at all times and frankly it should be Smart.

This team is allergic to good starts. Pathetic.

Let's hope Walker is OK, didn't look good.

This game only told me one thing. Kemba is a dude. He's a dude's dude. From Stevens, to Brown to even Jamal Murray. JAMAL MURRAY man, the one that got into that childish thing with Kyrie. Not Kemba though. Because Kemba is a real basketball player.

This team with Kemba, Gordon, Brown, Tatum and Smart as the center. This team is just awesome. I still don't see how they win it all, but I definitely see how I love this team so much night in night out.

He uses them just at the dumbest spots

Tatum might start getting calls when he stops crying for one every play. If he were on any other team I’d hate him for that. Also, finishing strong thru contact and not losing the ball so easily would help.

Seems a little crazy, sure his at the rim shooting has been disappointing. You only really think of him as an under achiever if you set the bar at All-Star. That's what he'd be if his shooting at the rim was at his career norm.

He's at 63.5% of his shots are at the rim or three pointers, last year was 56.1%. Like what do people expect? Tatum has a very good mid range shot. If he's open he needs to take those shots. He's not doing what he did last year with a bunch of iso long range two's. For me the quality of the shot is what is important more than the percentage of them.

How is he getting to the line slightly less? He's improved over last year, even if you use per 36 minute numbers. Color me confused, sounds like an old article.

Outside of his shooting, mainly because of that at the rim shooting, his numbers are up a cross the board, his defense mainly playing PF has been great and he's become much more aggressive and is taking a lot more shots.

To me so far it's our two rookies that were older with a ton of College experience, neither has been that good. To make matters worse Brandon Clarke is playing great. I don't know, but watching Williams play big minutes the last two games hasn't impressed me.

It wasn’t old, if you read the entire write up it was a praising of Tatum and yes the bar was set at All-star.

I don’t think a late first round and early second round pick qualify. I am with you on G Williams but we are also only 17 games into the year. The experience he’s getting should be a good thing long term. You can’t expect there to not be growing pains with a rookie. Hell the end of last night both Williams showed inexperience at times. Rob, over rotes hunting for blocks too much giving his man easy offensive boards and put backs. Stevens took him out and put in Grant right after doing that in crunch time. I think it was the wrong move but it’s what happened. The game is still moving fast for Grant - he misses some easy layups and gets swallowed up trying to make a more difficult passes. I think we need to live with some of this stuff because we need them both to be better. I think they will.

On the second unit and after Williams went out with Smart, Brown did a bunch of creating last night and was rather good at it. He kept going to the basket, got to the line a bunch, which jump started his offense after a horrible start. Tied a season high with four assists. Maybe he should do that more, he might be ready to take that next step.