CELTICS 2010

was listening to the latest free episode of the dunc'd on podcast where they do a few mins on each eastern conference team. they do the celtics first if any of you beanheads wanna check it out. but my main takeaway from their discussion was that porzingis has essentially eliminated the midrange jump shot/long 2 from his game (i think they said it was down to 2% of his attempts this year). i think my biggest question w/ the trade beyond the health aspect was just that zinger was a malcontent the last time he was asked to be a complimentary player but it seems like maybe his time w/ washington scared him straight in terms of being run off of a good team bcuz he wanted the ball more

i think too the fit was just weird in dallas, if youre gonna be a complimentary-ish player doing it while youre really in the mix of the offense for a contender is pretty different than being told to stand in the corner of a second round luka dominated team, also he learned how to post up where in dallas he was having trouble punishing small defenders, but yeah im sure having a year in dc to think things over didnt hurt, also defensively the celtics have personnel and scheme that makes much more sense for him he seemed genuinely happy when asked about how the celtics are using him defensively

that series where he got benched in dallas they were playing a scrambling switch everything style which obvs is just not gonna work for him, tho his switches so far this year have been fine, but if the celtics were asking him to rotate all over the place hed break down, hes actually had more trouble just defending good centers straight up, bam cooked the hell out of him, and obvs he was hopeless vs embiid they didnt even try to have him as a primary defender, but generally against centers who have got game hes not strong enough

flip side he is good around the basket great rim protection happening

he is also just clearly much healthier. i feel like he’s a rare case of a super tall guy who was considered something of an athletic freak early in his career then suffered some leg injuries, surgeries etc but somehow just looks better and more natural moving around 10 years into his career than he did when he was 20 years old

having not watched him closely in a while i've been impressed at how fluid and active he looks. i do think some of these huge guys take more time to grow into their bodies, and they also probably figure out stuff about what strength and conditioning works for them as the years go by

yeah he def seems like a mature player now playing at his own pace not forcing things game slowing down etc

of course thats easier to do when youre the third to fifth option

definitely--you made a good point earlier about how there are different flavors of being not the primary option, and he's obviously getting to do a lot more stuff here than he was in dallas, but it's all been within the flow of the offense

generally against centers who have got game hes not strong enough

but then there's al. what a sweet performance tonight against embiid.

yup al is game

just give him 15mins a night until they play a big guy then bring him out

yes!

lol

4 years ago, Al Horford was so bad that the Sixers benched him for Furkan Korkmaz — and the team got vastly better. For him to be back on the Celtics, playing this well, and torturing the Sixers, is simply one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever experienced as a sports fan

— Mike O'Connor (@MOConnor_NBA) November 16, 2023

https://media.tenor.com/n38H2VGxhrUAAAAC/kim-sneaky-kim-kardashian.gif

lmaooooooooo

https://imgur.com/a/RetfZho

celtics need to share some points with other teams

I don't get upset about Horford. He seems like a great, prideful guy and teammate. Get mad at the front office and coach.

one thing horf does really well v embiid is get his hand on the ball, which joel is vulnerable to, most guys when they defend him are just trying to withstand the physicality and get a contest but horf doesnt care horf is strong

Joel Embiid had season-low 20 points last night against the Celtics.

Big reason why? Al Horford. As always. pic.twitter.com/FIMR1fCKsl

— Tomek Kordylewski (@Timi_093) November 16, 2023

doris "keeping him in front just try to make joel shoot over the top" incorrect he is trying to take the ball

Horf had 5 blocks. hands on the ball everywhere. such an awesome Horf game

hit four threes too, he loves the sixers

to me it's pretty simple, he knows all of embiid's moves and is strong enough to go on the attack against them

obv these are selected clips but you don't see any clips of embiid trying to use his footspeed to get past horf in that video. you don't get any sense that embiid has an athletic advantage over horford which shouldn't really be the case

seems like horford is just really comfortable when embiid is trying to score from the block, that's a brute force type area and horford can clearly guard him in a phone booth in a way most guys cannot. of course does embiid have the stamina to actually try and push off rebounds, play in space in the half court, dribble and move around a bunch, take contact etc kinda gets to the crux of embiid as a player

embiid doesnt really use his athleticism much he plays pretty slow, most of the time might as well be jokic out there as far as that goes, which could be a stamina thing

It seems to me to come down to Embiid's processing and how he's receiving the ball. When he receives the ball on the move and/or is quick and decisive, he generally has a lot of success. When he slows down and dribbles trying to decide what to do, he seems to give the defender more time to get set and is prone to turnovers. I think Horford's past success sometimes gets in Embiid's head and causes him to do the latter instead of the former.

beautiful jrue photo

https://i.imgur.com/pQXWuDG.png

celtics taking about half their shots from three, the highest rate in the league, seems like too much but kinda makes sense since their top seven guys are all ready to hoist at a moments notice, theyre also last in middy attempts which i guess stands to reason since theyre too busy taking threes, would like to see more layups and especially dunks the best shot

https://i.imgur.com/kuzS4kH.png

the fact that theyre producing great offense while shooting a only slightly above average % from three (37) is good i guess, theyre not just riding hot shooting

only thing i could find poking around their stats that screams unsustainable variance is they are leading the league in free throw defense at 71%

for all their firepower theyre kind of winning by playing solid ie defensive rebounding and not turning the ball over

i haven’t looked at the stats but it feels like they’re getting in the paint a lot

like tatum and jrue just doing some classic post-up bully-down stuff

yeah it could be that a lot of those threes are generated via kickouts which would be good, but you would expect to see more rim and floating range attempts if they were hitting the paint a lot, idk how to find that info tho

this has them 20th in paint touches tho tbf im not sure what constitutes a paint touch https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/paint-touch?dir=D&sort=PAINT_TOUCHES

nice

FIRST HALF BUZZER 🚨 pic.twitter.com/c1wuNtsdtE

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 18, 2023

ball movement’s back baby

Porzingis had another big night on the defensive end. His size and length around the rim forced multiple altered shots around the rim. He also ended the night with three blocked shots. My favorite was a block that flowed into an impacted shot on the Raptors' second attempt around the rim.

i miss the old celticsblog takeaways guy around the rim

how the buzzer goes off right as the ball hits back rim and in is very satisfying that tatum buzzer beater clip like its a button

trying to watch celtics hightlights and getting drake calling fat joe great

Not the greatest Tatum game, but this was a laser to Derrick for the big 3. pic.twitter.com/OusOg15h2w

— Pull up shoot (@NElGHT_) November 18, 2023

zinger very good at playing off guys while menacing them with his freaky arms

Porzingis mobility and discipline is very impressive. Doesn’t leave his feet and really knows how to use his size. pic.twitter.com/G5EGLk0mUh

— Pull up shoot (@NElGHT_) November 18, 2023

so over the past bunch of months the guy across the street and i have discovered that we have a couple common interests so we have been awkwardly lurching toward becoming friends in the way that only 2 suburban dads can. we were texting today and he suggested we hit a c’s game together after the holidays so we’re going to look for one to go to soon—this will be a milestone!

could a shared sauna be far away???

no seriously congrats

lol

broin down at the broston garden

good luck on the dad friendship

thank you, we need all the help we can get

its wonderful how good the celtics are playing but seeing them run actual plays in crunch time with white and jrue initiating is the best, end of the minny game made me worry nothing had changed but then to see joe calling the good plays vs toronto was very satisfying, would be cool if they just did that all game, with their roster its so easy to get mismatches get guys the ball on the move etc theres no reason for the jays to bring it up and go iso

next they should eliminate the mediocre early shot clock threes

the whole league takes too many of those now blame the warriors