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Official Celtics vs. Sixers Playoffs Series Thread (BOS wins 4-3) On to the ECF...
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by finnns2003,
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This seriously needs to happen because if Pierce doesn't get better there's no chance of the Celtics making any noise whatsoever in the playoffs.
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Making excuses
I'll be at the game tonight. It's going to be the most rocking the arena's been for a Sixers game in a long, long time.
BOS-PHI: As close as it can get.
Spoiler [+]
The Philadelphia-Boston series may not be an aesthetic wonder, but thus far it couldn't possibly be any more competitive. Two hard-fought, one-point games -- one won by each side -- leave us no closer to having a victor than we were four days ago.
The odds still slightly favor Boston -- teams with home-court advantage have advanced 60 percent of the time after splitting the first two games, and even more often when the split happens with a Game 2 loss rather than a Game 1 loss.
Nonetheless, this one appears to have seven-game series written all over it. And it appears Game 1 -- a 92-91 Boston win -- may be the highest-scoring game. As I noted when previewing the series, Boston and Philadelphia were two of the league's top three defensive teams in the regular season, but both finished below the league average in offensive efficiency. Even during Boston's late-season surge, the Celtics weren't doing much of note on offense; they were just playing ridiculously well on defense.
The postseason has been par for the course in that regard. Boston and Philadelphia are, by far, the worst offensive performers left in the playoffs. In Game 2, Boston scored just 24 points in the middle two quarters and nearly won anyway.
A perfect example was the key play to decide Game 2 -- an illegal screen call on Boston's Kevin Garnett. Setting aside the call itself, let's talk about the real cause: Paul Pierce left for his cut a half-second too soon, because he had a bad wheel and was being hounded all game by arguably the league's best perimeter defender, Philly's Andre Iguodala, and so Pierce likely felt like he had to cheat and go early to get enough of an advantage to get a shot off.
Many possessions in the first two games were like that -- with one team or the other needing a break of some kind just to get a decent look at the basket.
(For the record, I was fine with that call. As others have pointed out, Garnett was whistled for an illegal screen earlier in the game and also for roughhousing on a similar play at the defensive end. Michael Smith, the ref in question, is also one of the league's best officials, and one of the least prone to make "Hey, look at me" calls. Besides, I'd say your case is pretty flimsy if your primary defense is "How dare you call that in the last seconds? We're veterans!")
That said, we're left with three big questions after the first two games, and I'm here to answer them.
Are the Celtics any better than these guys?
We don't have a ton of evidence that they are, frankly. The Celtics came into this series as huge favorites, but I wonder how much we were looking at jerseys rather than performance.
In the regular season, for instance, the Celtics outscored opponents by 2.5 points per game. The Sixers were plus-4.2.
The teams met head to head three times, and Philly won two of them, including a 103-71 rout on March 7.
Both teams played six playoff games in the first round; the Celtics against a worse team but Philly against a team without its best player. The Sixers were plus-10, the Celtics were plus-28, and each team won four of the six games.
The main piece of evidence many would use to favor Boston is the Celtics' late-season surge. However, early-season performance historically has been a better indicator of playoff results; Philly came out of the gates like gangbusters before fizzling later in the season.
To be fair, there is one data point that heavily favors Boston: starting five against starting five is a major edge to the Celtics. Boston's Rondo-Pierce-Bass-Garnett group, regardless of who plays the 2, was plus-12.3 points per 48 minutes according to NBA.com's advanced stats tool. For the Sixers, the starting five they've used in the playoffs was a ghastly minus-21.2 in the regular season; even if one subtracts newly promoted Evan Turner from the equation, the other four were minus-0.7 together.
Nonetheless, nearly everything about this series coming in indicated it would be close, and there's no reason to deviate from that forecast now.
What's going on with Boston in crunch time?
People forget this, but Boston wasn't exactly a crunch-time juggernaut on the way to its last title in 2008 -- in fact, it was one of the doubts that nagged them all the way through the playoffs, and the Celtics didn't really shake it until Ray Allen drove past Sasha Vujacic for the clinching bucket in Game 4 of the Finals.
Which takes us to the past four games, when Boston's reputation as the veteran team that make the plays at the end knocks heads with the reality that the Celtics keep screwing up in crunch time. Three of the four games were decided by a single point, while the fourth effectively was, as well. Despite their experience advantage, the Celtics did much to help their opponents in the final seconds of all four:
• In Game 5 against Atlanta, Boston's final play ended with Rajon Rondo dribbling aimlessly around the perimeter until the clock expired. Just before, the Celtics had the ball with a chance to take the lead and got a Pierce air ball out of it.
• In Game 6 against Atlanta, Boston was caught with Marquis Daniels on Al Horford on two separate inbounds plays in the final three seconds; both resulted in fouls on Daniels, with Boston inexplicably making no substitution in between. Only a blown call on the timing of the first kept the Hawks from tying the game.
• In Game 1 against Philadelphia, Boston led by six points with 1:17 left before hanging on to win by a single point. This game, however, did contain their one inspired crunch-time moment in the four games -- Rondo intentionally fouling Jrue Holiday with three seconds left and Boston up by 3. Holiday inexplicably made the second free throw -- just as Atlanta's Al Horford had done in Game 6 -- and the Celtics ran out the clock.
• And in Game 2, the Celtics seemed confused about whether to give a foul or not when down three with a four-second differential on Philly's final possession. They finally gave the foul -- the right call here -- but only after drizzling away 10 precious seconds.
Two of their other three close games in the first round also featured troubling moments -- Rondo's ejection from a tight game in the final minute of Game 1, and the four-minute scoring drought that allowed a skeleton Atlanta crew to send Game 3 to overtime. Even the Celtics' best crunch-time moment, Game 2 in Atlanta, was more a case of maintaining a lead in the final minutes than executing on final possessions.
So if you're expecting Boston's veteran-ness to provide a magic last-second elixir, you might be waiting a while. Both on the bench and the floor, we've seen some strange stuff from the Celtics this postseason. Big-picture, their close games are likely to be 50-50 propositions just as they are for everybody else; as a reminder, Boston beat Atlanta by hammering the Hawks in Game 4 and building a solid lead in Game 2, and then split the four nail-biters. That's the Celtics' best formula for beating the Sixers, too.
How good are the Sixers anyway?
This is the most interesting part for Philadelphia. Sixers coach Doug Collins has juggled his rotation to exclude Nikola Vucevic and Jodie Meeks -- both of whom played major minutes in the regular season -- and has given their minutes to Lavoy Allen and Evan Turner. By doing so, Collins has made a conscious decision to eschew 3-point shooting entirely and just rely on his team's ballhandling and athleticism.
Those moves have paid dividends so far -- Allen has the strength to defend 5s like Kevin Garnett, while Turner made two circus shots near the end of Game 2. But Philly is a sneaky team because its starters aren't the ones that beat you. The Sixers' first five is a big fat plus-2 for the playoffs; it's when Allen (plus-23) and Lou Williams (plus-27) come in that the Sixers have been able to gain an advantage against opponents' subs, and with Boston's weak bench that figures to continue.
The Sixers' bench could actually take another level up if Thaddeus Young shakes off his shin injury and gets back to his usual ways. He's normally a matchup nightmare against the type of small-ball units that Boston has often played with its second unit, but he hasn't made an impact yet. In fact, the Sixers have spent 13 of the series' 96 minutes with small lineups comprised of four perimeter players because Young and Brand are dinged up; Philly hardly ever played that way in the regular season.
Finally, Philly's offense has discovered a new skill in the playoffs: drawing fouls. The Sixers set an NBA record for fewest made free throws this season, but Philly stepped up its rate dramatically in the first found against Chicago and has gotten to the line against Boston, as well, with a solid 41 free throw attempts in the first two games.
Sum it all up, and I think you can see where I'm heading with this. Yes, we've sold Philly a bit short. Break down all the information and ignore the jerseys, and I don't think it's the least bit surprising that Philly came away with a split of Games 1 and 2 in Boston; the Sixers have a real chance of winning this series, and I'm expecting it to be a hard-fought slugfest all the way through.
The odds still slightly favor Boston -- teams with home-court advantage have advanced 60 percent of the time after splitting the first two games, and even more often when the split happens with a Game 2 loss rather than a Game 1 loss.
Nonetheless, this one appears to have seven-game series written all over it. And it appears Game 1 -- a 92-91 Boston win -- may be the highest-scoring game. As I noted when previewing the series, Boston and Philadelphia were two of the league's top three defensive teams in the regular season, but both finished below the league average in offensive efficiency. Even during Boston's late-season surge, the Celtics weren't doing much of note on offense; they were just playing ridiculously well on defense.
The postseason has been par for the course in that regard. Boston and Philadelphia are, by far, the worst offensive performers left in the playoffs. In Game 2, Boston scored just 24 points in the middle two quarters and nearly won anyway.
A perfect example was the key play to decide Game 2 -- an illegal screen call on Boston's Kevin Garnett. Setting aside the call itself, let's talk about the real cause: Paul Pierce left for his cut a half-second too soon, because he had a bad wheel and was being hounded all game by arguably the league's best perimeter defender, Philly's Andre Iguodala, and so Pierce likely felt like he had to cheat and go early to get enough of an advantage to get a shot off.
Many possessions in the first two games were like that -- with one team or the other needing a break of some kind just to get a decent look at the basket.
(For the record, I was fine with that call. As others have pointed out, Garnett was whistled for an illegal screen earlier in the game and also for roughhousing on a similar play at the defensive end. Michael Smith, the ref in question, is also one of the league's best officials, and one of the least prone to make "Hey, look at me" calls. Besides, I'd say your case is pretty flimsy if your primary defense is "How dare you call that in the last seconds? We're veterans!")
That said, we're left with three big questions after the first two games, and I'm here to answer them.
Are the Celtics any better than these guys?
We don't have a ton of evidence that they are, frankly. The Celtics came into this series as huge favorites, but I wonder how much we were looking at jerseys rather than performance.
In the regular season, for instance, the Celtics outscored opponents by 2.5 points per game. The Sixers were plus-4.2.
The teams met head to head three times, and Philly won two of them, including a 103-71 rout on March 7.
Both teams played six playoff games in the first round; the Celtics against a worse team but Philly against a team without its best player. The Sixers were plus-10, the Celtics were plus-28, and each team won four of the six games.
The main piece of evidence many would use to favor Boston is the Celtics' late-season surge. However, early-season performance historically has been a better indicator of playoff results; Philly came out of the gates like gangbusters before fizzling later in the season.
To be fair, there is one data point that heavily favors Boston: starting five against starting five is a major edge to the Celtics. Boston's Rondo-Pierce-Bass-Garnett group, regardless of who plays the 2, was plus-12.3 points per 48 minutes according to NBA.com's advanced stats tool. For the Sixers, the starting five they've used in the playoffs was a ghastly minus-21.2 in the regular season; even if one subtracts newly promoted Evan Turner from the equation, the other four were minus-0.7 together.
Nonetheless, nearly everything about this series coming in indicated it would be close, and there's no reason to deviate from that forecast now.
What's going on with Boston in crunch time?
People forget this, but Boston wasn't exactly a crunch-time juggernaut on the way to its last title in 2008 -- in fact, it was one of the doubts that nagged them all the way through the playoffs, and the Celtics didn't really shake it until Ray Allen drove past Sasha Vujacic for the clinching bucket in Game 4 of the Finals.
Which takes us to the past four games, when Boston's reputation as the veteran team that make the plays at the end knocks heads with the reality that the Celtics keep screwing up in crunch time. Three of the four games were decided by a single point, while the fourth effectively was, as well. Despite their experience advantage, the Celtics did much to help their opponents in the final seconds of all four:
• In Game 5 against Atlanta, Boston's final play ended with Rajon Rondo dribbling aimlessly around the perimeter until the clock expired. Just before, the Celtics had the ball with a chance to take the lead and got a Pierce air ball out of it.
• In Game 6 against Atlanta, Boston was caught with Marquis Daniels on Al Horford on two separate inbounds plays in the final three seconds; both resulted in fouls on Daniels, with Boston inexplicably making no substitution in between. Only a blown call on the timing of the first kept the Hawks from tying the game.
• In Game 1 against Philadelphia, Boston led by six points with 1:17 left before hanging on to win by a single point. This game, however, did contain their one inspired crunch-time moment in the four games -- Rondo intentionally fouling Jrue Holiday with three seconds left and Boston up by 3. Holiday inexplicably made the second free throw -- just as Atlanta's Al Horford had done in Game 6 -- and the Celtics ran out the clock.
• And in Game 2, the Celtics seemed confused about whether to give a foul or not when down three with a four-second differential on Philly's final possession. They finally gave the foul -- the right call here -- but only after drizzling away 10 precious seconds.
Two of their other three close games in the first round also featured troubling moments -- Rondo's ejection from a tight game in the final minute of Game 1, and the four-minute scoring drought that allowed a skeleton Atlanta crew to send Game 3 to overtime. Even the Celtics' best crunch-time moment, Game 2 in Atlanta, was more a case of maintaining a lead in the final minutes than executing on final possessions.
So if you're expecting Boston's veteran-ness to provide a magic last-second elixir, you might be waiting a while. Both on the bench and the floor, we've seen some strange stuff from the Celtics this postseason. Big-picture, their close games are likely to be 50-50 propositions just as they are for everybody else; as a reminder, Boston beat Atlanta by hammering the Hawks in Game 4 and building a solid lead in Game 2, and then split the four nail-biters. That's the Celtics' best formula for beating the Sixers, too.
How good are the Sixers anyway?
This is the most interesting part for Philadelphia. Sixers coach Doug Collins has juggled his rotation to exclude Nikola Vucevic and Jodie Meeks -- both of whom played major minutes in the regular season -- and has given their minutes to Lavoy Allen and Evan Turner. By doing so, Collins has made a conscious decision to eschew 3-point shooting entirely and just rely on his team's ballhandling and athleticism.
Those moves have paid dividends so far -- Allen has the strength to defend 5s like Kevin Garnett, while Turner made two circus shots near the end of Game 2. But Philly is a sneaky team because its starters aren't the ones that beat you. The Sixers' first five is a big fat plus-2 for the playoffs; it's when Allen (plus-23) and Lou Williams (plus-27) come in that the Sixers have been able to gain an advantage against opponents' subs, and with Boston's weak bench that figures to continue.
The Sixers' bench could actually take another level up if Thaddeus Young shakes off his shin injury and gets back to his usual ways. He's normally a matchup nightmare against the type of small-ball units that Boston has often played with its second unit, but he hasn't made an impact yet. In fact, the Sixers have spent 13 of the series' 96 minutes with small lineups comprised of four perimeter players because Young and Brand are dinged up; Philly hardly ever played that way in the regular season.
Finally, Philly's offense has discovered a new skill in the playoffs: drawing fouls. The Sixers set an NBA record for fewest made free throws this season, but Philly stepped up its rate dramatically in the first found against Chicago and has gotten to the line against Boston, as well, with a solid 41 free throw attempts in the first two games.
Sum it all up, and I think you can see where I'm heading with this. Yes, we've sold Philly a bit short. Break down all the information and ignore the jerseys, and I don't think it's the least bit surprising that Philly came away with a split of Games 1 and 2 in Boston; the Sixers have a real chance of winning this series, and I'm expecting it to be a hard-fought slugfest all the way through.
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Thanks for posting that Pro.
Even tho it was kind of a reality check. Philly is for real
Even tho it was kind of a reality check. Philly is for real
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Someone needs to step up big tonight and hit shots.
Im looking for KG and Bradley to show up big tonight
Im looking for KG and Bradley to show up big tonight
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Legoooo
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Was somebody just yelling little bow wow when Rondo shot those free throws?
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Love the way rondo is attacking
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P2 !!!!!!
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This is shaping up to be a good, high-scoring game.
Pierce is clearly locked in, dude is putting in work right now and u can see the determination in his eyes.
Pierce is clearly locked in, dude is putting in work right now and u can see the determination in his eyes.
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That block
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- Nov 22, 2007
Watching a C's game makes me realize why I hate Garnett so much.
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So why did it take 15 years for KG to play like this on offense?
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why does garnett always gota say something everytime he scores..am i the only one annoyed by that
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Dude gets emotional and amped up, he's done it for years I think it just helps him stay pumped up.
Anyway good end of the half for Boston
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it was fun while it lasted
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Did u not watch him when he played for the twolves?
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all that is missing is him going down on the floor and barking at spencer hawes
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All the KG hate
Thats just who dude is. It gets his teammates amped. Slaters gonna slate
Thats just who dude is. It gets his teammates amped. Slaters gonna slate
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our offense is horrid....i wish we were like the spurs....tons of movement on and off the ball....our offense is just stagnant
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nice pic