The Champs Continuing To Find Ways To Win Despite Playing Like Dogshit Is Both Impressive And Extremely Frustrating

Stephen Gosling. Getty Images.

On one hand, the Celts are 13-3, and are technically off to a better start than their 2023-24 champion season (12-4). 

On the other hand, they continue to play some of the grossest basketball the sport has ever seen. I'm talking about a level of play so poor that it's as if the entire team had a lobotomy and completely forgot how to play. 

Perhaps that feels harsh and a little dramatic, but it's also the truth

Outside of the first half against CLE, the 2nd half against MIL and the BKN second win, it feels like it's been a long, long time since we've seen this team play to their level for 48 minutes. Instead, we've been getting a whole bunch of performances that look and feel like last night. It's honestly impressive when you think about it. Depending about how you feel about the MIL win, if you go down the list since the Warriors loss on Nov 6th, can you say the Celts have played well in any of these games?

In the first Nets game they shot 43/26% and needed OT to survive. Then against MIL they allowed 40 points in the first quarter and were down 11 at home before locking in over the final 24 minutes. The Hawks game speaks for itself, a brutal loss at home in which they gave up 30 and 33 points in the second half and allowed 68 points in the paint. Same shit with the Raptors where they allowed 70 in the pain and needed a Tatum game winner to pull that one out. The Cavs game started off fine, and it was their first magnet ball in forever, but they allowed 69 points in the second half and their backup center was eaten alive.

Then you factor in what we saw last night, and no one with working eyes and a functioning brain could tell you the Celts are playing even close to acceptable basketball right now. The numbers back it up too.

Since November 6th (GS loss):

5th in Offense

15th in Defense

19th in Defensive REB%

13th in FG%

13th in 3P%

16th in DREB

21st in opponent FG%

10th in opponent 3P%

16th in opponent OREB

25th in opponent TOs

If that isn't "meh" level basketball to you, then I'm not sure what is. 

But here's what I also know. No win is a bad win. I'll take playing like shit and still finding ways to win over the alternative, and you should too. At this point of the season, it's about stacking Ws however you can get them. Now I think we'd all prefer if this team played to the standard they've established for themselves, but also think it's important to remember and accept that every NBA journey looks different. It's a clean slate where you have to learn how to walk all over again, regardless of what you may have done in the last journey. 

So I think that's where I'm at. Annoyed at how they've been playing, but happy that the end result has been a win. If you can win your stinkers, imagine what happens when you actually play well? 

With that said, let's dig through this latest pile of shit

The Good

- OK, 31 points on 27 shots isn't the most efficient thing we've ever seen, but you know what? For long stretches of this game Jaylen Brown was the only player who was playing with any sort of pulse

His outside shooting was a complete disaster (3-13), but outside of that? You saw the benefit of having both Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum on your team. Even after their title, people STILL try and do the whole Jaylen vs Tatum thing, even within the Celtics fanbase. That is something that will always be bizarre to me. The whole point is HAVING THEM BOTH is what rules. When one guy has turned into a ghost, the other is there to pick up the slack. When they both have it rolling in the same game, the team is unbeatable.

In this win, it became clear that Jaylen was going to have to be the one to do a lot of the backpacking offensively. I didn't love how he settled early in terms of his shot profile, but his approach was much better in the 2nd half where he led the Celts with 17 points on 6-13 an a +12 in his 17 minutes. When it came time to make big shots late, Jaylen delivered. Again.

See, that's the beauty of this duo. You had Tatum's game winner against TOR, Jaylen's layup over Mobley and then the fadeaway last night. What makes this team so tough is they have two options to kill you in these late game situations. Then, like we saw last night, once Tatum's post-fade starts to drop late in the game and teams have to worry about that option, it opens up everything else

While their scoring wasn't the best we've seen all year, what should not be overlooked is the work Jaylen/Tatum did on the glass and as facilitators. Jaylen leading the way with 11 rebounds (Tatum 9) and Tatum leading the way with 8 AST (Jaylen 5). In the 4th quarter when it was winning time, they delivered a combined 15 points on 6-10 shooting. Now, should they have been in this spot in the first place to where they're in a dogfight with a 2 win team? Of course not. But shit happens. It's about how you respond to that shit that matters, not only that it happened in the first place.

- When I think about Jrue Holiday as a player and as a Celtic, I think of him as a quiet assassin. He's not loud in terms of his voice, but he's very loud in terms of his basketball impact. You look down at the end of the night and you see a rather dominant 16/5/1/4/1 on 50/40% shooting and a +10 in his 28 minutes

Solid. That's the best way I can describe what we got from Jrue in this win. When they needed a stop, he provided it. When they needed a big momentum bucket, he delivered. The mistakes were limited as he was able to fight off the urge to play CTE ball. On a night where Derrick couldn't really buy a bucket until the 4th, I thought Jrue was the perfect steadying force in the backcourt. Nothing was forced, he took what the offense gave him and he instead focused on dominating the margins to help the Celts in other ways. 

With KP out, it's been impressive how Holiday hasn't tried to force things. You would think that everyone's role has slid up a spot given they're missing a 20 point per game scorer, but Holiday honestly feels like he's stayed in the same role. A little bit more Jaylen, a little bit more Tatum, and a lot more White have been the role leaps in my eyes. Jrue has just remained his consistent self, and I think that goes a long way in explaining the success of this team. 

- Maybe there's just something about that building, but Sam Hauser finally looked like Sam Hauser which was certainly a welcomed surprise. 

In fact it was the white boys who were putting this team on their back early with Hauser and Pritchard both knocking down their early 3s, but of the two I'd say this type of performance probably meant way more to Hauser than it did Pritchard. We know he's good. Hauser on the other hand has been fighting through it big time to start the year. A career 40% shooter down in the low 30s, he really hadn't had a typical Hauser showing yet so I feel like it was big for him to see the ball go in like this.

Considering he also had 3 steals, it truly was a vintage Hauser performance. Automatic on one end and baiting opposing players into bad isolation offense due to his whiteness on the other. People still think they can attack Hauser in isolation which is funny because they must not have been watching the Finals where Hauser had both Luka and Kyrie in jail while in isolation. This is what he does. As a reminder, Hauser only allowed 0.91 PPP as an isolation defender last season. For comparison, DWhite was 1.11.

- Sneaky massive Joe ATO with about 4 minutes to go. At this point of the game is where they truly needed a bucket and they really needed to get their best players going. So what did Joe do? He drew up this beauty

That was your classic "OK, enough of the bullshit" play. No more screwing around, no more low percentage contested 3s, just use your size and finish strong. You can tell it worked because not too long after that bucket we had Tatum's big fadeaway, so that was nice to see from Joe.

Not only that, he also took it upon himself to change the momentum of the game

I mean, it was complete bullshit. Jaylen was clearly fouled after his up fake

but what else is new? This is the type of shit that the Celts deal with every single time they play. I'd say 99.9% of NBA players get that foul, let alone a star player, so Joe was well within his rights to lose his shit. 

Do I think in the moment he was thinking this is where I can swing things? No. I think he was pissed that the refs were complete bozos. But I also know that Joe isn't going to take the fine, so that's where we get his explanation. 

- Congratulations to Luke Kornet for winning back his reserve center rotation minutes. A +15 in his 23 minutes, a perfect 3-3 from the floor and 6 rebounds (3 OREB) with a block and a steal, this competition between him and Neemy is over. That doesn't mean there won't be times where Luke is getting burned and you need maybe a different option for a stretch, but in terms of the pecking order, Kornet has to be the primary big when Al sits.

- I'm also not ruling out a return for Tillman either. While the offensive spacing with him and another big is a disaster (especially when Jaylen is the Jay on the floor), and I'm worried about his ability to hit a corner 3, there's no denying that he provided a spark in his minutes. The blocks were nice, he did do a decent job of moving his feet and staying in front of guys in space, and Joe did keep going back to him down the stretch so maybe there's a chance he gets out of the dog house.

The Bad

- I mean, where do we start? I suppose the paint defense is a good place because frankly it's been horrible for the last few games. 68 points, 70 points, 52 points again last night, this is something the Celts have to figure out. And yes, I know KP helps, but stop using that as a blanket excuse.

He's elite in the paint and at the rim, but he's not Jesus. This team has shown us they can still not be dogshit in these areas without KP available, so there's no real excuse this year. The perimeter guys need to guard, the bigs need to do something outside of just standing there and watching. There are going to be games like last night where the Celts can't buy a bucket, and when that happens they need to tighten things up in the paint and at the rim and so far it feels like they're doing the exact opposite.

The Celts are allowing opponents to shoot 67.7% in the restricted area so far this season (22nd) and a total of 44.4% in the non RA area (25th). That, stinks. It's partly why all these games feel familiar. Cold shooting, easy buckets being given up at the rim and in the paint. That is not a sustainable formula.

- Easily the worst game of Jayson Tatum's season. It's not really just the poor shooting and the 0-10 from deep, it's that you could tell right away that he was mailing the game in. A little surprising given the rest they had leading into it, but its' very obvious when Tatum is locked in and when he's coasting, and last night was a full on coast job. 

The funny part is he was a +20 in his 37 minutes, but this was certainly nowhere near the MVP player that we've watched for the previous 15 games. Everyone is going to have a stinker over the course of 82, but to me there's a difference between not being able to hit a shot and playing like you don't give a shit.

I can handle the brickfest. I will not accept playing like you don't give a shit. As they say, things start at the top and it's also not a surprise the Celts got off to a pretty gross start while their best player decided to sleepwalk.

- DWhite also couldn't buy a bucket for the majority of this game, but at least when it came time for some big time 4th quarter buckets he did what he always does. I swear nobody gets thrown more grenades at the end of clocks or off bad passes and somehow still makes a dagger 3 more than Derrick White. 

Goes to show why you should never hang your head when you're missing wide open looks and just continue to shoot with confidence. 

I'm just saying it'd be nice to not have to wait until the 4th.

- You saw the Grande tweet, lowest ppp of the season, 42/23% splits, just a brutal night of offense to watch. I feel confident in saying if the Celts put up that type of effort against 95% of the league, this is a loss. It's OK to admit that. Only 108 points on those splits are not going to beat the majority of teams in the league and certainly not the contenders.

What they fell victim to in this game wasn't the 3P volume, but the quality of their 3PA. For example, there was nothing wrong with the 61 they took against the Knicks, because they were pretty much all generated through great ball movement. Last night? They only took 46, but I'd say the majority came off terrible decisions. No real ball movement, more contested iso's and bombs from 40 ft. 

So while a lot of people focus on the volume number, it's more complicated than that. What matters is how they are getting to that number, and last night was an example of now not to get to 46 3PA. 

That's not to say there weren't some bricks on wide open C&Ss, there were. But some of the decisions on 3PA by the Jays on a night where nothing was dropping was definitely frustrating and a little confusing considering they showed very early that no Wizard defender was going to be able to stay in front of either guy if they just put their head down and attacked the rim with force.

The Ugly

- I mean, what the fuck

Even all these hours later, I'm still trying to figure out how a sequence like this is possible. After a rough performance against the Cavs, I'd say Neemy was no better in this game which is concerning because again, the Wizards have 2 wins. I can live with the learning curve mistakes that you would hope improve with more run. But that clip? That's an effort thing. That's what gets you benched and passed over in the rotation.

I don't think anyone expects Queta to be perfect, but he has to be playable. That means quicker processing on the offensive end and to actually play with a pulse on the defensive end. I seriously cannot get over that clip. His development is going to be up and down, but the downs are reaaaaaalllly down right now. Just 2 rebounds (0 OREB) in 18 minutes is simply not going to cut it for what his role requires, especially when you have a guy like Tillman come in and finish with the same rebounding totals in half the minutes. The energy difference was clear, and at this point there is no excuse for Queta not to be playing with a ton of energy.

Jayson Tatum can coast (but he shouldn't). Neemias Queta cannot. Not if he wants to play.

I'll tell you this, with a B2B of MIN and LAC on deck, knowing they'll be without Al for the Clipper game we're going to have to see a MUCH better 48 minute effort in both of these games. Whatever the Celts decided to put out there against the 2-11 Wizards cannot make an appearance tomorrow and Monday. You got the prayer, you survived, not cut the shit and get back to playing at your standard.