Outclassed: Spurs pick apart Celtics 112-100
This will be a shorter recap for two reasons. First, my computer crashed, taking with it the first slightly longer recap. Second, that was a pretty discouraging game. The defense continued to struggle, the rebounding continued to be utterly absent, and once again, the combination of those two factors doomed the Celtics. Ugh.
Let’s get straight into the bullet points.
- The Spurs are really really good at scoring. Boston’s defense broke down a lot, but it wasn’t just the defense breaking down on its own (although that happened a few times as well), it was the Spurs picking away at the C’s like a high school kid picking a zit. San Antonio shot 45-77 including 8-16 from 3-point range. Tony Parker was scary good, scoring 26 points on 12-17 shooting and dishing out six assists. Boris Diaw and Tim Duncan combined for nine assists. And once again, Boston failed to rebound, losing 41-25 overall. Of course, it’s difficult to rebound when the opponent misses just 32 shots in the game.
- Tiago Splitter scored 1.64 ppp. I’ll be seeing his uncontested layups in my nightmares. Please make it stop.
- Here’s perhaps the most frustrating thing: The Celtics actually weren’t bad on the offensive end. The C’s were 41-77. Every player besides Jeff Green and Jared Sullinger shot over 50% from the field. And yet, the Spurs ran away with the game in the fourth quarter.
- If you see anyone saying this loss is on Rondo, please call them out immediately for stupidity. Rondo was the reason the C’s didn’t lose by 20, smashing his way to the basket in the fourth, hitting his free throws (6-7 for the evening), and getting his teammates involved with 15 assists. Sure, Rondo got burned by Parker on the defensive end, but, frankly, that was indicative of the game overall. The Celtics burned the Spurs on offense but got more badly burned on defense.
- As I mentioned, Rondo dished out 15 assists. The rest of the C’s? Six. Rondo is so incredibly important to this offense. It’s probably not healthy.
- The Spurs don’t get out in transition a lot, but when they do, they are a juggernaut. San Antonio scored 1.83 ppp on 11 transition opportunities tonight.
- The Celtics went to Pierce three times in the post in the first quarter. In those attempts, Pierce scored once, scored once AND drew a foul, and was fouled for two free throws. He never went back to the post for the rest of the game. Why doesn’t he try to operate out of the post more often?
- Tommy Heinsohn believes that we should give the Celtics more time to gel as a defensive unit, and I’m inclined to agree with him. It’s still way too early to declare this current group a failure. But the knowledge that this team could EVENTUALLY be a defensive force again doesn’t make it any easier to wait for that moment to arrive.
That should about do it for tonight. The Celtics will look to rebound against the Thunder on Friday. Ugh.
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Celtics Blog | Tom Westerholm | November 22, 2012
Spurs starters 28 rebs, Cs 12. Duncan 15 rebs, Cs, starters 12. PP & JG 52 mins ZERO rebs. Until this team (and f’in Doc wakes up) learns to rebound we are nothing more than fodder for all teams, good and bad. We SUCK and the stats prove it. How can we go a full game and only get 1 offensive reb? Even with luck we should have had at least 2. Pathetic effort and while the offense may be better, we’re a LOSING team about to get worse until we control the boards. Funny joke, your last statment about the Celtics “look to rebound”. Yeah, right. Another loss on the boards and then in the game. Go Cs…a less than .500 team after Friday!
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This is another reason why Doc shouldn’t have gone down the ”we have to keep up with the Heat” path. The lack of physicality under the basket is inexcusable. I get the feeling that this Celtics team is easily pushed around. They better find a couple of quality big men and fast. Cut Collins and go after Gortat and Martin. We need a decent front line on this team or forget about Banner 18.
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I agree that the idea of keeping up with the Heat was utter nonsense. The centrality of this idea to what the team did this summer explains why we are struggling now, in part, I think. We didn’t have any actual ideas. Just imitation. Imitation isn’t an idea. It’s the absence of an idea.
We should have built around Rondo. I thought that’s what we were doing, but now it seems clear that that would have taken too much actual thought. Now we are stuck with a team that has no identity, beyond being a really bad imitation of Miami.
Of course, it doesn’t help any that Green, who was supposed to be the key guy off the bench, has been a near total flop. My God, on the allstar ballot? !! I want to see Green succeed, but at this point it seems incredibly unlikely.
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the Cs basically need 2 things:
1) big men. Use our stock of 2s and trade for the Polish Hammer, at once. If Bass has to go, let it be. I’d keep Sullinger over him. Alas, I fear Green can’t be moved because of contractual implications, otherwise he’d be the first one on the launching pad. And don’t tell me Ainge wouldn’t trade him. Ainge. Seriously?
2) a defensive coach. Last year’s Thibodeau departure was probably covered by having basically the same roster than the previous year. This year the second unit has NO CLUE about what to do on defense. We need a coach for bigs, rebounds and defense, all the things Doc seems non very interested into.
Doc is… Doc. without him, Garnett wouldn’t be back, and Pierce may have retired. This said, anyone that thinks that Doc is worth Popovic’s half is utterly wrong
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I watched Bass watch the ball instead of reacting to the swing of the ball and covering his man. I watched Terry revert to the crunch time player who could only be trusted to shoot. I saw Green play less and look just as confused on offense and gangly slow on defense. Where is the cohesion? I’m not so worried about rebounds as the mistakes. You can’t win when you are beating yourselves.
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I agree with Tim’s assesment as well; however I am certain to say that Boston has proven that it is no longer championship material. Don’t expect this group to make it past the first round let alone the Finals.
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