Wow. Never in one game have I seen a team play so terrible and bad for an entire half, and then come out and do a complete 360 be so good for the rest of the game.
That felt like an out-of-body experience. Every game with the Celtics feels like a bad acid trip at some point but I thought my soul was going to evaporate watching the majority of this game. They get boned on every shot they take for a full two hours before they magically make 18 in a row and tie the game to end regulation. They had 13 points at the end of the first quarter. They were down by 22 points in the second half. They were down by 12 with 3:30 left in the game.
The Suns made three field goals in the final nine minutes. The Celtics outscored them 51-29 in the fourth quarter and OT. They made eight consecutive shots to end regulation and start OT. They, quite literally, were as bad as a team can possibly be, and as good as a team can possibly be within the span of one game. This wasn’t “the good, the bad, and the ugly,” this was “the excruciatingly painful, and the immense feeling of joy.” No in between.
Somehow we survived the starters not named Kyrie putting up a goose egg in the first half. Tatum didn’t even score until there were 5 minutes left in the game and only had 4 on 1-7 FG in the game. Hayward had 8 on 3-8 FG, Horford had 7 on 3-7 FG, and the bench didn’t show up until the second half. The team as a whole played awful defense until halfway through the third quarter and couldn’t stop Devin Booker and TJ Warren (?????) for the life of them. The Celtics’ ability to turn this game around in the blink of an eye, on the road, is truly a testament to their chemistry and toughness. People always bitch and say there are too many stars, only one ball, blah blah blah. Well, Kyrie took 28 shots last night and almost single-handedly won the game. Clearly, other guys are fine with not getting shots if they WIN THE GODDAMN GAME. Nobody on this team gives a rat fuck about their stats if they win. It is a team. Brad Stevens puts them in positions to succeed, and they know this, so they go as hard as they can for him and for each other so they can capitalize on those opportunities. It doesn’t always work out because the second-best player on the team just got his ankle glued back together, and the three young stars have a significant reduction in minutes. These things take time. It’s the 11th game. But what we saw last night showed us exactly what they are made of, even if they sucked wind for 28 minutes. /endrant
Now that I’m done with my spiel that I didn’t mean to get into before I started writing this, I’ll get into some film.
The Celtics defense was fucking bad in the first half. I came really close to giving up on this game, considering the cellar-dweller Suns were torching them. Transition defense was bad, and so was the help side. Here’s a sweet combination of the two;
All four players that got back on defense are staring at Devin Booker as he goes up the court. It sounds trivial to say this about NBA players, but sometimes you just have to keep your eye on your man. I know it’s tougher in transition, but not one person was watching out for the cross-court pass. Jaylen got there just in time for Canaan to hoodwink him with a nice pump-fake three.
Obvious bad pass from Jaylen. He had Kyrie, but it was a bit late. Booker makes a nice save and dribbles it back up the floor and Warren gets an easy three. Either one of Terry or Baynes has to commit to Warren instead of continuing to fall back into the paint. The lineup the Suns had out there was all shooters except Ayton. Gotta know they’re looking for the three ball.
There were too many good offensive sets in the last 6 minutes to count. Kyrie was hitting legit circus layups. When Jaylen goes hard to the rim like he was there, it opens up the Celtics offense. He’s probably the best athlete on the team, and when he puts that to good use, everyone benefits, specifically guys like Morris and Horford. It takes pressure off of Kyrie when he’s not the only guard they have to worry about scoring the ball.
And then we got a beautiful display of basketball genius. Brad Stevens ATO plays are second-to-none;
Bottoms. That’s Marcus Morris SENIOR, to you sir. You knew as soon as he took that shot it was gonna fall. Smooth as ice.
OT was a different animal. There was a very slim chance the Celtics were gonna lose after Morris hit the buzzer-beater, but they still let Phoenix hang around for the first few minutes.
All is well, though. Brad Stevens can still yell at his team despite them pulling a 22-point comeback out of their ass. The perfect ending. We got Utah tonight, no Kyrie, and I’m calling a big game from Scary Terry right now. This trade rumor stuff (which I will address in a blog later today) is pissing him off and he’s gonna get to start tonight. Go Celtics.
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