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2023-24 NBA (Playoffs!) Thread: Kawhi introduces playoff load management (12 Viewers)

I gotta say man in years of this thread I’ve never seen fans of a team go “oh YEA bet you can’t hit that many wide open threes again!” — just a wild take to have. The Celtics D was trash and NBA players canned a bunch of open shots. This isn’t college ball. They’ll beat Miami and Cleveland but if they do that in rds 3/4 they’re going home.
 
Capella said:
I gotta say man in years of this thread I’ve never seen fans of a team go “oh YEA bet you can’t hit that many wide open threes again!” — just a wild take to have. The Celtics D was trash and NBA players canned a bunch of open shots. This isn’t college ball. They’ll beat Miami and Cleveland but if they do that in rds 3/4 they’re going home.
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:shrug:

Their defense sucked. Miami still made more threes than expected. Both those statements can be true
 
Sorry if this was mentioned in one of the long form blog posts that I skimmed over. . .

With a Jrue/White backcourt, Celtics should be pressuring the ballhandlers much further up the court considering Heat don’t really have a point guard.
 
Capella said:
I gotta say man in years of this thread I’ve never seen fans of a team go “oh YEA bet you can’t hit that many wide open threes again!” — just a wild take to have. The Celtics D was trash and NBA players canned a bunch of open shots. This isn’t college ball. They’ll beat Miami and Cleveland but if they do that in rds 3/4 they’re going home.
Click to expand...
The Heat won / Boston lost, we move on to Game 3. You are correct, Boston didn't play great defense. All of the following are also accurate:

- Miami made a ton of threes and at a high percentage, both of which have historically proven to be nearly insurmountable.
- Five of Boston's starters and regular reserves (Holiday, KP, Pritchard, Horford, and Hauser) average a combined 60 ppg. They scored 27.
- Pritchard played 20 minutes and did not take a shot.
- Holiday and Porzingas combined to go 5 for 21 shooting.
- Boston had a Bottom 5 half in scoring for them this season and a Bottom 5 game for them in total points.

Not to take anything away from Miami. They played better, they played harder, they played tougher, they played much better defense, and the better team won last night. I'm not big in playing the coulda, woulda, shoulda game, but if the Heat shot like they normally do, it's a much different game. If the majority of Boston players performed like they normally do, it's a much different game.

If the Heat can continue to perform at the same level while preventing the Celtics from producing at their normal production level and win 3 move games, congrats, they will earn the right to advance. Neither team is in position to win the series yet, and there's a lot more basketball to be played still. As a Celtics fan, one game does not make a long-term trend. My level of concern really hasn't changed (for now). They've still beaten Miami 7 of their last 9 meetings. Let's see how things go in the next game.
 
Yo Mama said:
Sorry if this was mentioned in one of the long form blog posts that I skimmed over. . .

With a Jrue/White backcourt, Celtics should be pressuring the ballhandlers much further up the court considering Heat don’t really have a point guard.
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That is a great idea. Holiday did that to Paul, and Booker in the finals a couple of years ago and turned that series around.
 
STEADYMOBBIN 22 said:
Anarchy99 said:
For people that don't watch Boston all the time, they give up a lot of three-point attempts and most of the time encourage them. That's how they play. They often get long rebounds, are then off to the races, and either get easy points at the rim or kick outs for wide open threes. Many times, that's how they go on 20-3 runs.

What I didn't like last night is how the Heat defended them. Miami started to double guys way past the 3P line, and rather than defend a player, they defended passing lanes. That led to multiple bad passes / steals / turnovers. They didn't really turn into point for Miami, but they prevented Boston from catching up. In the second half, the Celtics got a lot of shots close to the rim and missed and didn't get rebounds.

I agree with Mazzulla's post-game comments that you are in trouble when a team is shooting 55% from three and you are shooting 45% overall with a lot more two-point attempts. Simple math confirms that. Joe said the answer was to play better and more efficiently on offense. My concern was they usually get a lot of open looks on threes by driving and kicking. Miami gave up easy two-point shots and took away the kicks for three pointers. That essentially took Holiday, Horford, Hauser, and Prichard out of the game.

As for Porzingas, he had a defensive rating of 108. The other Boston starters were in the 120s (and that was better than 4 of the 5 Heat starters). He didn't do much offensively and had one of his worst game scores on the season. Same thing with Holiday. Those two had two of their worst games on the season and Prichard didn't score in 20 minutes of playing time. That's almost 90 minutes of game time between them at extreme negative productivity.

A win is a win for MIA (or a loss is a loss for BOS), and the simple assessment is the Heat are unlikely to make that many threes again and multiple Boston players are unlikely to do close to nothing again. The Celtics need to have more intensity, be more committed defensively, and not be as sloppy. They didn't have a ton of turnovers, but they all game at bad times.
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You should be a sports columnist if you’re not already.
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he's Bob Ryan.
 
Orlando really needs Banchero to find his shooting rhythm. For the first 100 minutes of this series, he’s 18-42 from the field (3-14 from the 3point line) with 15 turnovers.
 
Sixers scored 43 in the 3rd quarter. Sixers had 46 in the first half in game 1. Where is this coming from?
 
Felt nervous until about 30 seconds left. Too many times seen them blow it that late. Sixers crazy 3rd quarter won it. Hope they bring it in Sunday the same way.
 
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