Celtic Chalk Talk: Episode 10 - Comebacks, Challenges, and Jaylen Brown's Scoring Streak

CCT-12-29-2025 === squadcaster-g855_2_12-29-2025_130047: [00:00:00] Welcome to another week, a Celtic Chalk Talk. We go through it every Monday. We look at the Celtics and see how they did over the week and have some thoughts about it. My name's Steve Purciello, lifelong Celtic fan. Always rooted for him. Always loved him since Bill Russell will always be a Celtic fan, for the rest of the years. Been around a while. We've watched a lot of great Celtic games and all. We've seen a lot of great Celtic teams that I can talk about all day. But today we're gonna talk about the last week. It was an interesting week. The first game of the week was against Indiana, and that was a fascinating game. The first half Boston was terrible. They were down 20. Indiana couldn't miss. And you sat there and you said to yourself, how the heck is this team so bad? In the second half you learned, but what was interesting about that Indiana? Couldn't miss. In the first half they were just incredible. 51% from the four, 60% from three, [00:01:00] they made their first couple of threes and it was just one of them things where you're sitting there saying it's just not our night down. By about 20, at half Boston comes out in the second half. And they're just trading baskets for a few minutes. Missoula calls Time out, which was an interesting thing. He took a lot of courage to do this, and he just replaced four guys with his bench. And one of them was Anthony Simons, who had a very good quarter and Boston. Suddenly the game was changing and they were down by 10 at the end of the third quarter and you could feel the change happening. Simons was a key in that quarter in getting it down, but now in the fourth quarter, that's when it really changed. Boston just took over and really one going away. One of the key parts of that game was. Jalen Brown Boston had about a second or two on the shot cock. Bo Brown caught the ball in the corner near the baseline and the sideline and [00:02:00] threw up a three. And hit it. And Boston was winning by two made of the five point game. It was an incredibly great shot. Put you to mind of a couple years ago when Boston beat Indiana in the playoffs and Jalen Brown hit that big three to put it and send it to overtime. It was on the opposite end of the court. It was out of the corner and so on and so forth. So that was just a great thing. Now in the game, it's amazing how Boston, first it was Josh Minot, then Jordan Walsh. Now it's Hugo. Hugo Gonzalez when he becomes a better offensive threat lookout. But in the game, he had six points, 11 rebounds and his usual disruptions. Frustrating Rin just playing his normal game. And that's good enough, and that's one of the things. That helped Boston throughout the game, that defense and those intangibles, that UO brings the next night not next night, but Friday night they played Indiana. Again, [00:03:00] but this time in Indiana, and again, it started out the same way. Here we go. They made a bunch of threes to start the game. And it just was, here we go again to start the game. Boston down 10 at the end of the quarter, second quarter Boston. This, it's incredible. The more I think about it, they scored 47 points, 47 points in a quarter. Now normally, I guess a team gets between probably about 25 to 30, 30 possessions in a quarter, 47 points. That's 1.6 points per possession. Incredible quarter. And they, that began the route and they just beat them. It was a beat down after the first quarter. Sam Houser, who has not had a great year. Finally, and I mean it finally went off. He had seven threes and so on. And if for nothing else, it brings his percentage up. And if you do wanna trade him, it looks a little better than numbers for the year if they do decide to go in that way. The [00:04:00] win was more workmanlike after the first quarter. Jalen Brown again does it every night. 30 points. We'll talk more about that in a few minutes. It just that 47 points was just I can't even begin to talk about that because it just it was incredible. The other guy that was great on offense was painting Prichard managed the 29, but he kept getting in the paint and he has that little 12 footer that he. Creates space and then hits this and it's always all net. It's just really beautiful to watch for a little guy like that, to hold his own doing the things he does. Now we could talk about Portland. Oh, God. What a what? A what a bad night. A lot of people would say they were looking ahead and it was a set up game and all those other things. No, Boston didn't execute in the fourth quarter. They didn't, they were down the stretch. They didn't defend. They allowed Portland to drive and kick and get open [00:05:00] threes throughout the game, and guys like Shaden Sharp were on shooting real well and it hurt Boston obviously, and it beat Boston. The other factor that we've talked about over the last couple weeks was. Rebounding defensively. Clinging had a tremendous game. He's big, he's wide and he's thick, and it brings something up that we've talked about a lot. Cada can hold his own. Against guys who are not thick. Klingen just being so much bigger and stronger was a problem for Brown. I mean for cda. CDA couldn't really do much and this guy rebounded nor neither could Garza. And it brings back the question, does Boston need a wide, big bodied center, thick, big body center so they can compete down the stretch Portland? Out [00:06:00] executed Boston. That's the best way to put it. They got what they want. And again, Boston never guarded well in this whole game. Now beside that, the other takeaway I have is you need to win. Brown got his 30 and like he always does, but you need either Prichard or White to play well. Boston shot poorly and both of them did not have great offensive games. And by playing well, offensively, neither one was able to do much on that defensive rebounding. Again, we'll go back to that 72% Boston got on defense on shots. That Portland took on the rebounds and that means 28%, that's a high number you want to get near 80 or above. So that was one of the reasons they lost. The other we have to think about is that 29% from three. This is a team that lives on it and it brings me to mind. Something else. Boston plays well [00:07:00] almost when it's a bigger game, they shoot well and so on when there's not. As big a game, it seems like they're not really executing or playing as well and as sharp as they usually are. And that's an important piece to, to consider Missoula in the game. Played a zone for much of the game by the end of the third quarter. I wrote in my notes to get the heck outta the zone, but I understand it because they couldn't contain any. But Portland was shredding the zone by hitting open threes throughout. They hit open threes through mu much of the game. So tho those were the stories in the game. The game was a frustrating game. No doubt Boston's a better team, but they didn't play it. And that's the way it is now, boy let's talk about a couple different things for every game, it seems that somebody on the bench for Boston takes over. Monday, you go, Friday was Hauser last night. They didn't play well on the bench. Simon's had a little bit of he did a little bit offensively, but not as well [00:08:00] as you'd hoped, and they really didn't get much with Jalen Brown and that, that's important. The way Garza and Kada, we go back and forth on it. I guess after watching this many games, they need a big man who's wide. Daniel Gafford might be somebody off the top of our head that could help. He's not an all star, but he'll rebound and keep Boston in those games. Of course, we have to keep thinking though, Jason Tatum's gonna come back and he gets. Usually nine to 10 rebounds a game, and that's gonna help the defensive rebounding. The loss to Portland was a wake up loss. Boston has to play hard every night. They don't, I don't believe they have as much talent. As teams like the Knicks or Detroit, they can play with them if the shots are falling and they're playing defensively hard and containing the ball defensively is the whole game. They didn't do it against Portland. That's why they, one of the reasons why they lost. Brown. Let's talk about Jalen Brown for a [00:09:00] minute. Jalen Brown has nine, nine games in a row. Scoring over 30 points now to tell you how sacred or hollow or how wonderful that is. Larry Bird is the only other person to do it. Now, when we talk about great Celtics, naturally Larry Bird would be the second best behind Bill Russell and Larry Bird. Not a bad player. Now, Jalen Brown is approaching that in his numbers and what he's doing. Think about that for a while. That tells you so much about him. Last night, he was the offensive star, although down the stretch. He had a driving layup and he was called his elbow, hit his, the defender in the face, and it was a flagrant on Jalen. They went down. Denny Avia missed the two foul shots, but they got the possession and wiped away to Celtic layup, which at first when the whistle blew, I thought it was a three point play, and Boston would be in business. That [00:10:00] sums up the week. We have another week starting up tomorrow night. We Boston's in Utah and we'll be back again next Monday. Thank you for listening and have a good week.