Game 1: Celtics vs the other NY team
Let me pre-face this by saying the Knicks stadium sounded like a Finals game 7, packed out arena while Nets stadium sounded like we were still in the bubble. All that tampering and money couldn’t capture more than 10% of the New York fan base. If they do win the championship, doubt it, there will be no more than 250 people at the parade, down atrocious.
I re-watched the game and kept track of how many points Celtics scored vs Nets worst defenders compared to Nets’ better defenders, excluding fastbreak and second chance points. When targeting Blake, Kyrie or Harden the Celtics scored 1.16(35pts/30poss) points per possessions. Most of these came when targeting Blake Griffin, Nash sat him for most of the second half because of this. Our best offense comes when we get the Tatum/Blake matchup. Here’s a few of the buckets we got off those matchups:
On the other hand, when going against other Nets defenders the Celtics scored 0.74 (29 pts/39poss) points per possessions. We don’t get good shots against good defenders because we have a hard time beating them off the dribble.
Robert Williams was our best player and put on his best performance. He ate up any shots around him and almost came up with a triple double finishing with 11points, 9 blocks, 9 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. Nets are playing small so the oops are there and he should eat on the offensive boards, he had 5 last game. Another important signal of improvement was that he was able to be that aggressive while only getting 2 fouls. Just enjoy these clips of Rob warping time and space.
In my opinion we should put in Nesmith for Fournier in the starting lineup. Although Fournier was absent on offense he was very visible on defense, in a bad way. He got beat on cuts, went under screens on shooters, Kyrie and Harden had him dancing on their way to the rim. The Nets made it a point to hunt him and make us pay. Nesmith on the other hand played solid defense on the Nets best players, was active on the boards, and we know he cant knock down the open 3.
The Knicks little brothers are very beatable, we just need Tatum and Kemba to hit their shots and discipline on offense and defense.
