Boston’s Bounce-Back Week, Simons Shines, and Defense Steps Up

CCT-Jan19-2026 === Steve: [00:00:00] Welcome to another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. Steve Purciello is my name. I'm here to talk about the Boston Celtics in their last week. And let's just talk about it in a second. I'm an old Celtic fan. Been rooting since the Bill Russell days and we'll probably continue. And I, it's one of my pleasures is watching the Celtic game. That night. Anyway, let's go through last week. It was a two in one week, I'd say after the way it started it was a good week. The first game of the week was against Indiana. That wasn't pretty. Boston went down to the level of Indiana. They displayed something that's really bothered me. They don't contain the ball handler. They don't, and they allow the dribble drive and the kick out and leads to open shots, which hurts them. This has been a problem on and off throughout the year. It was there against Indiana. The other thing in that game was a 26 point percent shooting from three. You don't win. You don't win with [00:01:00] doing that in the modern NBA especially, and you look at it, you played against a team that has six, seven wins and they were able to beat you 'cause you shot so poorly. Now Jalen Brown was out, but you still should be have enough to get by in a game like this. Boston didn't. Now I'd be remiss not to mention the call. The call was at the end of the game. Pascal Akram came up and said an illegal screen. Joe Missoula complained about it after the game to the to the press, but the illegal screen. He came off the screen, got the ball dribbled down about 10, 12 foot out, turned facing straight on and banked a shot. Off with six seconds left. Boston had the ball. They didn't score game over after it was a tie game when AKA made his shot. The point being that illegal screen should have been called and Boston should have had the ball with 10, 11 seconds left and a tie game they [00:02:00] didn't, and that was the ball game. So that game was a tough way to lose, but it does demonstrate the value of the three point shooting, which we'll see later in the week against Atlanta. But now they went on to Miami first half and first couple quarters were just defensively. Again, not containing the ball, Miami's knocking down shots. I'm thinking to myself, is this team not as good as what I thought they were? We're gonna find out today. Along to the rescue came Anthony Simons, God, did he have a game? 39 points. 39 points in the fourth quarter. They just gave him the ball and said, go ahead and do what you have to. I think he had over 20 in the fourth. It just he was just beautiful to watch. The other thing that was. Probably not mentioned was the defense. All of a sudden, in that fourth quarter, they began containing ball, stopping making Miami take bad shots. And it just changed the whole tenor of this [00:03:00] game. It was just great and that to me, I said to myself, maybe this is a turnaround because now you're fi finally maybe gonna play some consistent defense. Now they won the game. With White and Prichard not scoring. Again, I talk about this a lot. You need two guys to have good games to win. They had JB and Amerie Simons. We'll talk more about Simons in a few minutes, but boy, he's becoming a valuable player and I would be the last person to want to see him get traded. He's got too much value to this team. As a sixth man, he's over he's paid high for what A sixth man should be paid, but it's worth every dollar they're giving him. And Boston rode into Atlanta, and there was a converse with with Atlanta and Indiana. All of a sudden now Boston can shoot the three. When you shoot threes like they did over 50%, you are going to have games where you just run [00:04:00] people out of the gym. Sam Houser had 10 threes. Boston shot over 50%. I can't keep saying that because it, it really is remarkable. Jalen Brown had 41 points. You know what? I don't even think that was one of his best games. I've seen him play much better. An all around game. But he was tough offensively and just got things going naturally. With him and Hauser, there's the two guys, 70 points over 70 points they combined for that tells you something. The other interesting thing in this game, and this is really a remarkable feat, they had over 50 points, 52 points in the second quarter. Think about that for a while. It's remarkable. The thing that tipped me off though, that Boston might be playing good ball was in the first quarter, all of a sudden the defense was better. They were containing the ball. They were pressuring the ball. Atlanta wasn't taking good shots, and it seemed like the. [00:05:00] Boston took away their the Hawk's best player, Jalen Johnson. He really struggled. I think he had 12 for the game, but he struggled and he really wasn't a factor at any time. Neither was anybody on Atlanta for that matter, because Boston, just annihilated them really. And it was just beautiful thing to watch as a Celtic fan. A couple notes to just talk about, a little bit about, let me talk about Anthony. Si Simons sign. Sign him again. Give him 15 to, if you can get him for 15 to 20, do it right away. He is of value because coming off the bench, he's a microwave. He's the old Vinny Johnson only from three. The Inferno, all different names you can but having him as a six man on a title team, wow. Look out because you always have this change of pace guy that can come in and just go off at any time, and that's what he does. So I, I hope they don't trade him. I hope Boston [00:06:00] keeps him and so on. Sam Houser there's ups and there's downs with Sam, but he's such a good shooter. He is a 40% guy in from three and when he's clicking, like he was so in against Atlanta. Makes games easy. It really makes games easy, and I'd be remiss not to mention the big three that he knocked down in the game against Miami, down by a point. Down the fourth quarter, a couple minutes left, Simon's has taken it over, but off a little ghost screen. He drifts off to the middle and gets wide open, gets the ball, bangs that three home and bring the, bring Boston get him the lead, which they never gave up. And it just a lot to be said. Sam's a consummate pro. Good defender has not. The big worry was always his defense. It's good. It's good enough for a shooter that good. I would think he, he's become a better player than a Duncan Robinson. And Duncan Robinson, as you all probably know, can [00:07:00] shoot. So you're getting that and it's a great thing to have. Now Derrick White needs to come up big. He hasn't played well in the last two games. I think he's an all star. We need a good game, especially tonight against Detroit, which we'll talk more about in a second. And then let's talk about it Detroit. We're gonna find out a lot about Boston. We're really gonna find out a lot. If Boston wins tonight, you know what? Let's get JT healthy and let's go because we are close and I think we can come outta the east. Don't forget, we're on the road tonight. So if we can win on the road in Detroit, the best team in the division by record, that tells you we are good enough. And when you get. The best addition, you can have an MVP candidate over the years. Jason Tatum, you. You figure to be a better team. Now, if we lose a close game, you're thinking with Tatum we got a shot. We got a shot. If you get blown [00:08:00] out. Then you know what? It's been fun. It's gonna be fun. Let's make some noise in the playoffs and we'll see what happens. But those are the three factors coming in. I look forward to the game. It'll be a great way to figure out where exactly Boston is, because I go back and forth first. Game against Indiana in the first couple quarters against Miami. I said, oh God, we're not that good. What is it? And then when the fourth quarter came and I kept saying to myself, if we're a good team, we're gonna play well here. And they did. If we're going to play well, then we'll win. And then it'll show something character coming back like that against Miami and all the other good things that maybe we are a pretty good team. The next thing I wanna just talk about is like a little bit of a stock market up or down. First one I'm gonna mention is uo, no question he's up. UO has become, if you think about going into the years, a late first round pick. From Spain didn't even play a lot on [00:09:00] Madrid, on, on the team there and you're thinking okay, he's gonna be a G leaguer this year, and who knows? He's getting real minutes and he's playing and he's defensively a disruptor offense. He shows signs of becoming a player. I think down the road, if he becomes a good OA better offensive player, you've got a star. If not, at the very least, you've got a defensive stud. And he's built, he's strong. He's a good player. The next one is Shiman. Now bear he shi. Has become a good role player. He's pretty good shooter out of the corner. I love the way he keeps the ball high. Like a coach would teach somebody, keep the ball high when he catches, and then goes right up into his motion. Get, means it's a quick release and it's not hurting his shot in any way. That's a positive. Good out of the corner's, good corner shooter. Willing to take a charge. Defends really well and physical. Good player good role player and a good backup to use. [00:10:00] Jordan Walsh I can't say enough. Before the year thought he'd be gone by now. Never thought he'd get anywhere. He's become a solid, very good defender and he's shooting over 40 from three, which. It is a surprise. You never thought he could shoot that well, but he is. He's again, the, all three of these guys stock market wise. They're ups. And then the next is Cada. Oh God. Nimi is a 10 and 10 player. Who expected that coming into the year stock market wise, definite up good player, solid sets, great screens, goes to the rolls to the basket. Also becoming a very good rebound to remember pre-season we couldn't rebound. Nimi has helped change that. Now his partner in this whole thing is Luca Garza another, up another guy who has out done what we thought he would do. He's getting a bunch of offensive rebounds. He's a [00:11:00] problem. He can shoot a three. He. Defensively, he's a non-athletic player, but he hasn't really hurt Boston. He hasn't been great defensively, but it's better than what you'd expect from him. So he's a positive. The negatives, and I don't consider Minot a negative. I think Missoula just hasn't used him. He played well early in the season and I think he can play a bit and I think he'll be okay, but he it's not been a positive couple weeks for him. The other negative was Boucher. And I think Boucher will be gone if they find somebody. Or he could be money in a trade, but he wouldn't be somebody that you're expecting him to play any role in the Celtics future. That's it for this week. Tonight we look forward to the game. It's gonna be fun and it's gonna give us a read on the Celtics. Until next week, this is Celtics Chalk Talk. See you next week. Take care.