Just a few days ago, things seemed quite bleak for the Boston Celtics. Fresh off blowing a 14 point lead in the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bulls, the team was set to head on a quick road trip that saw them playing three games in a span of four days. With games against the Orlando Magic, Miami Heat, and Dallas Mavericks, things certainly were not looking good for Boston.
Yet two games into the trip, the C’s have made a remarkable turnaround, and on a back-to-back nonetheless. After an impressive outing against the Magic in which they held them to just 79 points, they managed to one up themselves last night against the Heat by holding them to 78 points.
Of the two, the victory over the Heat obviously is more impressive. The Heat came out of the gate, well, hot to say the least, and had a 6-1 record coming into the game. Their last five victories all came by 13 points or more, as they were just dominating teams from start to finish.
Even with a relatively poor offensive showing, Boston managed to limit Miami’s scoring output, and picked up a key victory early on in the season. While not every issue this team has is now fixed, it’s clear a lot of progress has been made in quite a short amount of time. Here are three initial thoughts on their beatdown of the Heat, starting with a key development from the coaching staff.
Boston Celtics thought No. 3: Ime Udoka getting his rotation together
Obviously it’s going to take time for a coach to figure out their rotation at the start of the season, let alone a rookie head coach who’s just starting out with a new team. But head coach Ime Udoka couldn’t seem to get his rotation set in stone over the first couple of games, leading to some truly questionable lineups hitting the floor. A quick look at the box score will tell you just how instrumental his rotation was tonight.
Arguably the three best performances of the night came off the bench. Starting with one of the more consistent pieces off the bench, Dennis Schroder continued to prove he’s Boston’s best true point guard with a 14 point, six assist outing. He’s proven to be a capable playmaker, and leads the offense with a pace and purpose that no one else on this team seems intent on doing. His ability to attack the rim helped soften Miami’s defense throughout the night.
Next was Romeo Langford, who chipped in 12 points off the bench. Langford has always offered the C’s with a solid defensive piece off the bench, but his scoring has been too inconsistent throughout the start of his career. So far this season he has been far more consistent off the bench, especially from behind the arc, and if he can keep this up he will continue to get minutes off the bench.
The biggest performance tonight though came from Aaron Nesmith, who scored 13 points on 5-8 shooting, including 3-5 from behind the arc. Nesmith got off to an ice cold start to the season, and Udoka quickly moved away from him for some reason. With Josh Richardson missing tonight’s game, minutes opened up for Nesmith, and he took full advantage of them. If he can find his three point shot every night, Nesmith will continue to be a weapon off the bench.
Also worth noting is how Payton Pritchard has taken somewhat of a backseat with the emergence of Schroder. Pritchard’s defensive capabilities have taken a step back, which is probably the main reason for him really only seeing action in garbage time. Either way, Udoka is finally figuring out his rotation, and it can only get better from here.
Boston Celtics thought No. 2: Defensive effort finally shows up
For much of last season, the Celtics struggled on the defensive side of the ball. Udoka made it clear he wanted to improve the team’s defensive efforts from last season, but early on in the season they failed to do so. Some games it was a lack of perimeter defense, others it was a lack of rebounding, and sometimes there wasn’t any sort of effort at all. But those issues suddenly vanished at the perfect time against the Heat.
Coming into tonight’s game, the Heat were averaging 115.6 points per game on the season. Facing a Celtics team that couldn’t seem to figure out their defensive scheme on the second night of a back-to-back probably seemed like easy pickings for Miami.
Despite that, they managed to shut down the Heat all night long. Miami shot just 34.6 percent from the field, including a paltry 22 percent from three point land. With dangerous perimeter players such as Tyler Herro, Kyle Lowry, and Duncan Robinson, this team couldn’t afford to allow Miami any space on the perimeter, and for the majority of the night hey didn’t.
Boston also did a good job making sure they didn’t get bullied on the boards by Miami. With Bam Adebayo, Dewayne Dedmon, and P.J. Tucker, the Heat definitely have the ability to pick up some extra hustle rebounds. But Rob Williams, Al Horford, and Jayson Tatum did a good job making sure there weren’t many boards, particularly of the offensive variety, there for the taking.
And overall, the team looked like they actually wanted to play defense this time around, which hasn’t always been the case this season. When you defend with a purpose, it opens up so many other avenues for your team, and Boston found that out tonight when they labored through an up-and-down offensive performance. Even if the offense struggles, the team can win any game they play if their defensive effort is anywhere near as good as it was tonight.
Boston Celtics thought No. 1: What on earth is going on with Jayson Tatum?
We are now nine games into the regular season, and we have still yet to see any sign of the real Jayson Tatum. The Tatum that has started off the 2021-22 season is a person who looks like they have never touched a basketball in their life. Tatum’s struggles are seriously hurting this team, and he needs to figure out what’s wrong and get back on track.
Tatum came out slow, but he has been downright awful as of late. Factoring in his ugly 3-13 shooting performance tonight, in which he didn’t score his first point until the fourth quarter, Tatum’s numbers through nine games are not indicative of the player Boston has come to know and love.
Tatum is averaging 22.7 points per game, 8.1 rebounds per game, and 3.4 assists per game. On the surface, those numbers aren’t really anything to complain about. A deeper dive shows Tatum is taking an absurd amount of shots per game (22.3), while hitting a pathetic amount of them (37.3 percent overall, 27.1 percent on three pointers).
This just isn’t good enough for a player of Tatum’s caliber. This is the same player that scored 40+ points six times over a 24 game stretch to close out last season. Tatum has developed a reputation as an elite scorer in this league, but so far this season, he just hasn’t produced.
At this stage, you can make an argument Tatum isn’t playing as good as the average NBA player. In fact, his Value Over Replacement Player (which measures how effective a player is compared to a replacement level player) is -0.1, so he’s quite literally been worse than a free agent you could bring in off the streets.
Until Tatum figures out what is wrong, he’s going to continue hurting his team. He’s a solid defensive player, but it’s not the reason he takes the court every night. Tatum’s still playing because the threat of him finally finding the bottom of the bucket still exists each and every time he takes a shot. But until he can figure this out, Boston’s offense will likely continue to struggle as a result.