Celtic Chalk Talk: Episode 6 - Jalen Brown Shines Amid Team's Defensive Struggles

Untitled project from SquadCast === Steve: [00:00:00] Welcome to another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. We're out each Monday throughout the season. Let people know that this Celtic talk is on and we'd love to pick up more subscribers. My name's Steve Purciello. I'm a life long Celtic fan. I go way back to the Bill Russell days. And we talk about the Celtics and what's going on with them each week. This last week was an interesting week for the Celtics. They opened the week beating the nets and really playing poorly. And they were fortunate. They were playing the nets. They weren't really ready to play. They really showed very little they were struggling, falling behind quite often in the game, I think by over 10 points at one point. They just weren't good sloppy turnovers. A ton of turnovers. The Walsh Gerald Walsh got in foul trouble and he was really ineffective. What was the good, I guess you could say Derrick White had a good game. Peyton Pritchard played real well but it was one of their worst games of the [00:01:00] year. It really wasn't fun. And then after seeing that debacle. They come back on Friday night and play the nets again. This time at home, they should win easily against the net team at home. And they were just terrible. They played poorly, Jalen Brown. Got his third foul called on him that his fifth foul that just really set them back in the third quarter. They had to take him out and they had nothing. They really had nothing. They had no answers. What was disappointing is Joe Missoula had no answers. The nets kept running the same thing. They started Porter out of the corner and he came up around Claxton at the high post, at, above the three point line off of him, and little dribble handoff, and he was hitting threes and Boston had no answers. They made no adjustments to take it away. And it was really a frustrating thing because even down the stretch, when Boston made a run. Porter was still able to get away with that, [00:02:00] so it just didn't work. They didn't play hard. It was just tough. The one thing that we did see, Jalen Brown came in and he did it again on Sunday, but he came in down the stretch and he played some good basketball. Jalen Brown is proving that he is. A star number one player on most teams. Unfortunately, he's got even a better player with him when he is healthy and Jason Tatum. But boy, he can play. And let's talk about the Orlando game, which was a heck of a lot. Better though Orlando had a JV team out there. They were missing a bunch of players, two centers Batay and Carter. They were missing Van Carro, who's been out for a while. Jalen Suggs. They really had not a great team. And Boston got off as they should to a big league, 20 points or so. Simons ca Anthony, he came off the bench and shot well, and we're gonna talk more about him in a few minutes. Boston in the second quarter went 18 for 22. How much better [00:03:00] could you get on from the four? But again, they were playing against the JV team. Defensively, it became a disaster in the second, in particularly in the fourth quarter, they were getting wide open threes by guys off the bench and they kept hitting him for Orlando. Jet Howard had a career game. And this is a guy that. Could Orlando didn't even renew his contract for next year. So they don't place him that high, but he just had one of the great games coming off the bench. The Celtics did shoot 60% for the game and 46 point percent from three, and they also had. 80 points at half. Think about that. That's 40 points a quarter. But the defensive effort was terrible. Jalen Brown, fourth quarter tight game, got a little tighter. He comes back and he comes off the bench, 13 points, hit a couple threes and a couple nice drives to the basket and really helped put the game away, although. It was a scheduling loss for [00:04:00] Orlando but it wasn't easy for Boston to hold on and win that game. Like the week, it was an interesting week. We learned a little more about the Celtics. Couple points I wanna make Josh Minot as a reserve. He plays very well and Boston was able to use him as a center in place 'cause Kada was hurt early and that's a loss. And because Orlando really played very little size in this game, they were able to get away with Minot. Minot shot well defended did a lot of really good things. And he is really turning into a good role player to have. He had a couple big threes. And, he just, he adds energy like Jordan Walsh does in, in all his games. He just does a lot of nice things, rebounds and you really have to like him. The other thing, and I mentioned it before, Jalen Brown let's just talk about him. I hope Boston fans understand you have a real star. He is [00:05:00] tough. He plays hard, gives it his all. We'll try to defend, if you didn't notice, he was guarding Franz Wagner last night. That's their best player and he was doing a respectable job. He has no problem and Wagner's bigger, taller and Jalen Brown just went right at him. Now for a while it looked like Sam Hauser was finally finding his shot. And when I say that he's at 34% for the year. Now, anybody who follows Boston kind of knows this is a man. That shoots a hell of a lot better than that. He's usually around a 40% shooter and he's one of the best three point shooters in the NBA. He hit two when he immediately came in the first quarter and it looked like finally he's starting to come out of it. We'll see. But they do need him to play better. Te the team overall just has to just get better. Derek White has, he's he's gotta play better. He doesn't shoot well. He [00:06:00] only shoots 30% from three so far this year. Now when you look at them, he and Hauser, you start thinking, are they playing poorly and not shooting well? And white missed a couple enclosed shots that he doesn't usually miss. Are they playing and he missed a layup in the or in the. Debacle against the Nets on Friday night. Are they a product of with Tatum out, you're expecting more from them and they're just not that good to give you more? Is that the problem? Or is the problem? This is what we got. This is all we got. But I have to think he's got more in, in the tank as well as Hauser and they can help in a lot better ways. Anthony Simons. A 41%, three point shooter on the year. He's I don't know if he would adapt to the role, 'cause Boston has some decisions to make. He [00:07:00] would be a great sixth man. He comes in Vinny Johnson, I said this before. He can come in and shoot and. Pull you out of a bad night numerous times coming off the bench. Problem here is he makes 27 million his contracts up. Does he wanna do that? And would he sign for 15 million a year? I don't know if his market is that good around the NBA, so I don't know. But if he did, Boston would be saving 12 million. In their salary cap next year. And then also the salary cap will rise by 10%. So they're gonna be saving a lot of money if they can pull something like that. If not, he's gonna have to be traded before the before, before the deadline this year. You don't want to just lose that 27 million without getting something for him. That's part of the overall thoughts I have about what do they need to do to get better lost. It you could sit and say, let's ride it out with these [00:08:00] guys. Let's see if Minot continues to improve. If Walsh does, Luca Garza, who didn't play last night, and I understood why, because of matchups, he's big and not the sweetest of foot. And he, Orlando is really playing without a real big, so he really would've been in the wrong place at the right time. So I understood why he didn't play, but. He's got some value. He's not a great rim protector, but he can help. What about Kada? How good is he? Is he good enough to be your center or is Kada a guy that might be a good off the bench player as a big, your second big, and that's something they have to weed out and figure out because when Tatum comes back, you are looking at. Compete Right, right out of the box. So that's another thing. Now, my, my other point on this is with Derek White and Sam Houser, if you deem that they can't, they're just [00:09:00] not playing well and so on. With White, I believe he's 32 years old, it might be time to get, see what they can get for 'em, and I'm sure they can get a lot. And Hauser, who's an underpaid player, making 11 million. That also he, he's got value. So Boston's gotta make some decisions on what they wanna do with these people. They do have time. December 15th is like the unofficial opening of the trade trading. Mark time. So they've gotta make some decisions before then if they, and I guess you let it ride and see what you got. But if Tatum, and let's just think there, there a lot of people are saying he's gonna be back in March. You wanna have a team, you want to have something, so you gotta make some decisions quickly. On this last night, there was an Hugo spotting, and he. Just he was there. He didn't play real well, which was good to see that he was getting some time. Shower. Shireman continues to get time and these guys, I don't know if [00:10:00] Shiman I, my, I go back and forth on him and I don't know if he's gonna help them. Uo I think is just gonna get better and he's a tough son of a gun, so I think there's a value there and it's somebody that you wanna develop because I think he becomes somebody that you can use off the bench and can help you. I like Jared Walsh can. But that's where we are. It's been another week, maybe after next week. And this week we do have Detroit on, on Wednesday night, and that should not be a, an easy game. And we'll learn more about the Celtics over the course of the next couple weeks. We can discuss it each week. And again, my name's Steve Perello. I do this weekly chalk talk. Please tell if you like it, please tell your friends. And let's just. We will continue and and I'll continue to give you my thoughts on the Celtics. Thank you and take care.