Week 15 Recap: Boston Goes 3–1, Tatum’s Status Watch, and Jaylen Brown Leading the Way

Untitled project from SquadCast === Steve: [00:00:00] Hello Celtic fans. Welcome to another week of Celtic Chalk Talk. We're on every Mondays. We put a new episode out, we talk a little bit about the Celtics the last week and other little things that come across that we wanna mention this week. First of all, my name's Steve Purciello, a lifelong Celtic fan. Going back to the Bill Russell Days, been around a while, so I have a little knowledge and I can go back and give you some interesting things. This week the Celtics went three in one. Honestly, they should have been four and oh, they didn't have a rough week with schedule wise. It'll get a little rougher next week particularly, but in the future. And they didn't play well early in the week. First they played Portland in on last Monday night. It was not a great game to watch. There was no excitement. The crowd wasn't in it. They were home. All four of these games were home. They did enough to win. Portland was struggling on the road. Portland's not quite as good as Boston. [00:01:00] And Boston did what they had to do, I guess would be the best way to look at it. Jalen Brown had 20, not a great game. Pritchard had 23. White, 18. So they got some scoring outta their guys. They needed to white hit a big three near the end of the game when Boston was teetering. And then he made a steal to put the game away. Interestingly enough, Amari Williams played he started the 25 25 minutes he played. He was nine and seven, 9.7 rebounds. And you try to make a judgment on him because as I said last week, you're trying to decide if you're going to keep him, or he's gonna figure into the team's plans this year or not. I think he can play, but I don't think he's ready. And I think that illustrated itself more as what went on with their next game or two. But they did get the win. Cada was played, but you could see he wasn't he was not feeling well. Supposedly. He had four, four and [00:02:00] four points and four or five assists, nothing. Great. Hugo. Again, and he does this all the time. He was plus 19. And if you look at the plus nine plus minus stats on the year, Hugo is like a a celebrity with it. He's one of the top if not the top rookie in plus minus and is just amazing when he's on the court. Things happen, I guess is the best way to put it. Boston moved along, they played Atlanta next. What a terrible game. They were just terrible. They fell behind big and they just had nothing. And I guess the best way to sum the game up was somewhere in the third or fourth quarter, Buster was trying to make a comeback. Walker got the ball for Atlanta, threw up at the end of the shot clock, a left-handed three from beyond the line, and it banked in. It was straight on and it just summed up the game. Summed up the whole game. Their defense was terrible. Their offense wasn't crisp. They. Gave up any penetration and kick and guys were getting open [00:03:00] threes and Atlanta shot real well. It seemed like Atlanta was just moving quicker than Boston, and that's a problem, obviously, and Boston wasn't able to match that ability to move the ball, shoot the ball, and move and move. Quickly to get open and get things they wanted. They shot, they were 43, Atlanta was 43% from three. And really, I guess it was a way for them to get back at Boston after Boston blew out in Atlanta earlier in the year. Atlanta's not a bad team. And I think they, they, if they can figure it all out, they could be a little bit of a problem for the East. I don't think they're good enough to go much past. If they went past the first round, that would be big. Right now it looks like a playoff team, but then they've got a lot of things to figure out, but they're not bad and they're on a good track. Then the week Friday night we played Sacramento. There's not a lot I can say that's nice about Sacramento. They're just not a good team. They don't play hard and they just, [00:04:00] they really show nothing. It was a 16 point win. Sacramento's defense was not good. Boston really did what they wanted throughout the game. They were winning by more. They almost looked like they were uninterested. And then last night, Sacramento continued and got beat by Washington, which really tells you where Sacramento is right now. They have some talent, they just aren't I don't know. They're not in sync, I guess would be the best way. Pritchard had 31 and eight. Assist. Which was a great game. He didn't play well the Tuesday, but he came back on Thursday and did well the interesting person in that game and one of the sparks, if you wanna call it, that was Bay Shireman. He had 16, but he defensively, he moves his feet and he can contain the ball, meaning keep the ball in front of him. He does some nice things. Cada 10 points, 15 rebounds, nice bounce back game. I guess he's feeling better. He played well and really anchored the defense and did the things that he [00:05:00] had to do. And now here we go again. Luca Garza, 11 and eight. So now if you combine the two centers. You get 26 points and 23 rebounds. Think about that, that's what you need from the center. Now we're trying to see, what I'm trying to look at is when Boston plays a real center more of an offensive center. Can he, 'cause Saboni didn't play and it had Max Reno, who's not a bad rookie as the sinners, but can. Garza contain them and defensively hold his own. They will get Garza in screen and rolls, meaning they'll hunt him and when they hunt him. He's got trouble moving his feet, but he does so many nice things. He's a good offensive rebounder, decent defensive rebounder. Can just keeps the ball alive, can shoot the ball from threes over 40% on the year. So there's things he does that are well. The game itself was never in doubt. It was an easy [00:06:00] win. And unless Boston really played poorly and Sacramento played well, there's no way they'd lose. Yesterday they played the bucks. It was an easy win. They started out down 12, nothing. But you know what? There was no panic. They got it together. And they played it in the first quarter. An Anthony Simons was really the saving the day. He had a couple big threes by the end of the quarter. It was now 26, 26 after being down by 12 to start the game. And Simons hit a big shot at the at the end of the quarter to tie the game. From that point on, it was over. It was all around good game. Jared Jordan Walsh played a great game on the offensive boards, keeping the ball alive defensively. His hustle just did a lot of good things in this game. And it's interesting to note Boston from Walsh, Hugo Shiman, they get a good game outta one of them every. Every night and maybe sometimes two. UO didn't play bad defensively and he created the havoc he always did in this game, but [00:07:00] they always get something out of those, and those guys make up the fifth man on the court for Boston. So it was good. There's one thing that kind of bothered me in the third quarter. Boston was up by 21 and I think I think, the bucks cut it to 13 or so, but in the course, it took a couple minutes. Boston didn't score. Now the bucks were so bad they couldn't do anything really. They scored eight points in those couple minutes when they had a lot of opportunities to cut the lead from there. But they couldn't, they weren't good enough. And Boston defended fairly well. So they real well. 'cause the bucks didn't score many points in the whole game, so that was good. But the troubling part, like I said, was that third quarter, which really wasn't it was troubling 'cause he didn't score, they were missing layups, they were missing easy shots and so on. I remember one point, Jalen Brown had a point blank two footer and he missed it. It was just not working in the second half though. Jalen Brown came alive. He really went off. [00:08:00] I believe he had 22 in the second half. He got hot and he just really helped us and just pull away and win the game. So for the week bust and went for three and one. Now, little notes, a little things. I saw bearish Ironman showed some signs offensively, and he does not look to score. He will. He'll take the three when he's open, but if he drives to the basket, you'll notice he'll pull up and look to kick it out. He'll, he won't complete the play or finish the play. The other thing about Shireman, and I said it before, defensively, he can move his feet. He can stay in front of people, and he's a good defender. He's building himself into a good role player for Boston, and that's a good thing. Amari Williams. I don't think he's ready yet. I was hoping he would because he might've been that extra center they needed, but I think he's fine where he is. As a third man let him develop and hopefully next year he shows signs that he can help us uo. He's getting [00:09:00] better. He is getting better. On threes, he shoots 39% or so, 38, 30 9%, which is pretty good for a rookie who's not known to be a shooter. I'm gonna make a crazy prediction, but if UO becomes a better offensive player and he does go to the basket, but if he can become a better offense, you've got a star in waiting. And that is a great thing for Boston fans. 'cause again, you picked him 28th in the draft and you're getting this I whatever happened to Josh might not. He's buried on the bench. He played a little bit in the blowouts, hit a couple threes, but he doesn't get used and he can play, he can help them, and I guess Missoula just doesn't, can't fit him into it. Now, overall, this team is fun to watch. They're not, they don't have the talent to win the title or even get outta the Eastern Conference. Now that's saying if Jason Tatum is in here and we don't know if they're gonna make a trade between now and the deadline next week but [00:10:00] if they get Tatum back, all bets are off. They can play. They can play. And what's really fascinating is Stevens did a good job getting people after losing. A lot of talent, cornet and Horford and Binga and Holiday. There's a lot of decent players there. And Tatum, technically this year they lost him, but they're still hanging tough and right now there's tied in second place and they're there. But I don't see the talent there. Tatum makes it different, but be prepared if Tatum doesn't come back. Celtic fans. They'll probably, they probably have a shot at winning the first round, but I don't see them getting any way past the second round. That's why the hope is Tatum does come back. You don't want him to get hurt. And I know he's going through a tough time where he is thinking, I don't wanna hurt the team. By the way, it tells you what kind of person Jason Tatum is that he would be concerned about coming back. Most stars think it's all about them and they take care of [00:11:00] themselves. Tatum is different. He's a great kid. Then him and Brown. It really, the way they built themselves, a nice partnership on this team and the ability to respect each other and allow each player to play while the other one is cheering for them is something that doesn't always happen on teams and as Celtic fans, we should be proud of 'em. And I wanna mention one more thing about Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown, when you think about it, he embodies. What the Celtics are about. He gives to the community. He started a lot of things for the black for black business people and so on, to make some money off, with his help. He, yesterday he was out front and center because they had Pioneer Day and the black pioneers of the NBA were honored. By their family being there and so on. And the other thing too, he respects Celtics tradition, which I love. And by that, what am I saying? After the game, there were pictures of him hugging [00:12:00] Bill Russell's daughter who was at the game as well. And that means they have a relationship. And Jalen Brown, just like I said, both he and Tatum, but Brown, I wanna mention they embody Celtics and they should be Celtics for life and let's hope they are. Really it's fun to root for a team where the people are good people and the two of them, brown and Tatum are good. People. That's it for this week. Another week of Celtics chalk Talk in the books. Hopefully everything's good for you and we'll be talking soon. Thank you.