Celtics
Several Boston players struggled on the field during a tough loss Saturday.
Ja Morant threw down one of the most incredible dunks you’ll see on Saturday. Winslow Townson/Getty Images
Ja Morant scored 32 points and the Grizzlies outlasted a depleted Celtics team in a 127-121 victory Saturday.
Here are the points to remember.
Ja Morant threw down one of the most incredible dunks you will see.
In the third quarter, the Grizzlies swung the ball to the corner and Morant exploded on the baseline. When it got to Kristaps Porzingis, Morant attempted and completed one of the most ambitious dunks you’ll see on an NBA court – rising into the air and bringing the ball back below his waist as he flew over Porzingis, then brought the ball over. his head and soak it.
Morant’s athleticism was on full display against a depleted Celtics team – he simply outplayed them on several possessions – but he would have been impressive even if the Celtics were at full strength. Morant scored 32 points and had one rebound and one assist before a triple-double, making 4 of 6 from 3-point range despite entering the game well below 30 percent.
“He’s a big player, and he sees different pick-and-roll coverages, and when he can go down, when he can get in transition and when he goes three, it’s tough,” Joe Mazzulla said. “You have to pace your shots, and we went through too many spurts where we couldn’t do that. But also because we gave them too much during the transition.
The Grizzlies tried a new defensive strategy against Jrue Holiday.
The Grizzlies have a lot of strong defenders and are probably better equipped to take on the Celtics than a lot of teams, but rather than let the Celtics dictate what they wanted to do all night, the Grizzlies were proactive and chose to concede basically. corner 3 points to Jrue Holiday.
Last season, this would have been a crazy move: Holiday was the NBA’s most dangerous shooter from the corners, making an uncanny 60 percent of his attempts.
This year, however, it was a somewhat innovative idea. Holiday was shooting just 30.7 percent from corners before Saturday’s game, but as a talented shooter, he was naturally tempted to take what the Grizzlies freely offered him.
The results were ugly: Holiday shot 4 of 17 from behind the arc, and he even started getting bad looks.
Eventually, the Celtics began to think about what to do. Running their offense through Holiday kept the Grizzlies from letting go and Holiday began to attack more aggressively.
“As far as the strategy on Jrue goes, it’s a bold strategy,” Mazzulla said. “I mean, he’s an All-Star who shoots over 40 percent from three. I think it’s risky, and I think he handled the situation very well. […]
“I think it’s a huge gift, because now we’re going to see him again, and it’s going to be great for us.” So I’m really happy that they did that for us, and I think the teammates did a great job of giving Jrue shots – they didn’t make all of them, but we move on and I I’m glad I saw this, and it’s going to be good for us.
For his part, Holiday said the strategy didn’t catch him off guard.
“They’re literally falling in the paint and I’m wide open,” he said. “So yeah, I knew I was shooting at them, but I don’t see it as a problem. Some days you shoot well, other days you don’t. Today wasn’t the best day for me, but I’m going to keep shooting.
Still, the Grizzlies showed that there’s no need to just let the Celtics play the way they want and managed to do something quite rare: They drew a Celtics team that played decidedly well way all year in a style of play that didn’t work. it doesn’t benefit them at all.
Holiday finished with 23 points on 8-of-26 shooting.
“The biggest thing is understanding that we want Jrue to shoot every time he’s open,” Mazzulla said. “We want him to be an aggressive player, and I’m really grateful that they did that against us tonight so we have him and can get better.”
The Celtics fought, but they didn’t look like themselves.
Holiday wasn’t the only player in trouble. Jayson Tatum went 1 of 10 from the field and was an abysmal 6 of 21 overall with 17 points. Derrick White continued to struggle, finishing 3 of 9 and 2 of 7 from deep. Kristaps Porzingis shot 6 of 17 and 3 of 10 from three. Payton Pritchard shot 6 of 11 and Jaylen Brown shot 2 of 3, but as a team the Celtics made 60 3-pointers and scored just 18 (30%).
That the Celtics stuck as close to the Grizzlies as they did is a testament to the level of defense and professionalism they brought to their fifth game in seven nights, but the basketball itself was pretty lousy .
Fortunately, the Celtics do not appear to be suffering from any serious injuries. Porzingis twisted his ankle in the first half but played in the second. White was hit – maybe in the shin? – but he also played until the final buzzer. Only Sam Hauser left the game for good, exiting in the first half with a right adductor strain (Mazzulla said after the game that Hauser should be fine).
“It’s basketball,” Holiday said. “It’s going to happen to every team. So we don’t really have an excuse. I just have to go out there, play. Even if sometimes the games don’t go the way you want them to, we always know we’ll be there because of how we play and how hard we play.
The Celtics still almost found a way to win.
Last year, playing their fifth game in seven nights, the Celtics had to travel to Milwaukee where they suffered their worst loss of the season and benched all of their starters in the second half, which led to one of the funniest nights in the NBA. aired in recent memory as TNT shed its regular game desperately trying to find a more competitive contest, even though every other match going on was also a blast.
On Saturday, the Celtics held on and even took a four-point lead in the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies fought back and appeared to have a stranglehold on the game, but the Celtics almost gave themselves a chance in the final minute – trailing by four, they forced a jump ball rather than fouling, then appeared to win a offside. The boundaries are between Porzingis and Jaren Jackson Jr. as Desmond Bane and Derrick White crash into the NBC Sports Boston table, going straight into Brian Scalabrine and Drew Carter.
The Grizzlies, however, disputed the call and officials correctly noted that the ball actually went off Derrick White. The Grizzlies got two free throws and put the game on ice.
Marcus Smart returned to a standing ovation.
Smart’s return has been a bit strange: Last season, he received his tribute video on a night when he was in street clothes, and on Saturday he shot just 1 of 11 in his return to the field. ground. After the match, he left without speaking to reporters.
But Smart — who has been the heart and soul of the team for years — remains a deeply beloved figure in Boston for good reasons, and when he showed up to the game, he received a huge ovation.
Smart also defended Porzingis well on several possessions – a throwback to Porzingis’ Knicks days when Smart frustrated him endlessly and tried in vain to press charges against Tatum (sorry Marcus, but Tatum is getting superstar calls now).
If you want to get emotional, we recommend rewatching Smart’s tribute video from last February. It was a fitting farewell to a player who meant a lot to the city.
“It was weird [facing Smart]”, Jaylen Brown said. “It was weird. But it was awesome. Marcus is family at this point. So being able to see him, congratulate him on starting his family, et cetera, outside of the field, is incredible. So all that is good, but it’s really good to see it.
Brown was one of the few Celtics who shot effectively.
Brown had a strange game — while his teammates were building a brick wall, he shot 10 of 14 from the floor, even though he didn’t make a single shot in the first quarter. Much of that was due to the defensive focus on Holiday — who was 4 of 10 in the first 12 minutes — but Brown’s efficient shooting and the Celtics’ overall struggles suggested he might have been underutilized .
Brown, however, wasn’t worried (and he wasn’t particularly impressed with himself).
“It’s basketball. I mean, there’s no determinant of how many shots I should shoot every night,” he said. “Obviously I like to be involved in action and things like that, but on a team like this I don’t mind being the distributor and setting up guys. I feel like I’ve done this a lot, I was just too careless with the basketball tonight, which wasn’t good. I’m going to clean this up.
Hauser was booed loudly.
The Celtics had their team play Start, Bench, Cut with Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady, and almost everyone on the team made the wise decision (which doubles as a business decision!) to choose Brady like “Start”.
Only two players had the courage to risk the wrath of TD Garden. First was Brown, who refused to pick but appeared poised to start Mahomes, bench Rodgers and cut Brady. The second was Hauser, a Wisconsin native, who started Rodgers, benched Mahomes and cut Brady without a break.
The boos that rained down on Hauser were similar to the boos that rained down on Kyrie Irving, but he raised his fist at the crowd without apology.
Give the man credit for standing up for his beliefs.
Finally a break for the tired.
The Celtics now have four – four! – blessed days off to rest and recuperate before facing the Pistons in Boston. After that, they will have two more days off before facing the Wizards in Washington.
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