Jayson Tatum & Celtics surge past Bulls, concern with Boston’s offense? | Hoops Tonight

Jayson Tatum & Celtics surge past Bulls, concern with Boston’s offense? | Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball Celtics Bulls so I talked about uh you know last week the idea of the Celtics having so much margin for error and being able to try stuff right because

They’re they’re going into last night they were what six games up on the two seed and the East and then four games up on the one seed in the west so they just have a comfortable margin to work with right they also have a super easy schedule down the stretch of the Season

Well you saw that a little bit in the first half like they straight up ran five possessions of that 3-2 Zone that they’ve been working on as of late and they got cooked in it I think they gave up nine points in the five possessions

Of the 3-2 Zone Chicago got in a rhythm they had 39 points in the second quarter uh Kobe White made like a drifting three on a kind of a a breakdown defensive rotation situation where he had a drifting three on the left wing put him

Up by three 6259 going into the half but in the second half Boston tightened the screws in their manto man defense for one quarter and the game was over and again that’s the flexibility that they have with their talent and with the margin that they have in the standings

And they were really sharp in their extra efforts on defense they had several blocks at The Rim the Celtics had 11 blocks in this game as a matter of fact they’re second in the league in blocks just so many athletes there was this play uh Alex cuso got a steal and

Threw like a two-handed overhead bounce pass that hit I think it was AO dunu in transition and he was ahead of the field but Jaylen Brown and Derek white were trailing the play and I remember as I’m watching it and I don’t even know what’s

Going to happen yet I’m like this is a bad idea like you might as well pull this one out and like Derek white and Jaylen Brown both just Sky Way Above the Rim and block to sunu at The Rim also the uh Celtics broadcasters were talking

About vich and how he was kind of killing them in the first half and I think it was scalini mentioned like they have to do a better job on vvc’s rolls to the rim of digging down and making it harder for him to catch there or harder

For him to elevate when he gets there and they were just doing a better job when vich caught there in the second half of digging down from the weak side and disrupting the basketball Drew holiday had a dig down from the left wing where he actually knocked the ball

Loose and caused a turnover they just did a much better job defensively and then again helping off of iffy Shooters the Bulls are 24th and three-pointers made per game so that’s the team that you want to pack the paint on they got it going uh on the defensive end which

Led to success on the offensive end as well and then they pulled away in that third quarter obnoxiously good jump shooting in this game the Celtics made 19 pullup jump shots they scored 50 points on 34 attempts comes out to 1.47 points per shot think about how insane

That is in pull-up jump shooting anything over one point is good the Celtics average slightly over one point in uh in pullup jump shot situations but like again pullup jumpers are uh the reason why just barely over one point is good there when like a 120 offensive

Rating is more like what you want in a grand scheme of a game most of the time pullup jump Shooters are like coverage beaters or rescue possession type situations the Celtics actually can lean on them in high doses in nights like this when they’re making him at such an

Insane clip Jaylen Brown was just insanely hot in the first half the Celtics were running horn sets where they have two players at the elbow two players in the Deep Corner player up top they were running horn sets to get Jaylen brown with nicoa vich switched

Onto him and then he would just beat Nica vich with like a hard downhill move into like a step back three he also hit like a left shoulder fade over Alex Caruso out of the post we’re going to talk some more about that here in a

Minute but he had a really really nice stretch in that first half he had 20 points to kind of keep them in the game while their defense wasn’t as locked in and then in that third quarter run Jason Tatum and Derrick White got their pull-up jump shots going Hower ended up

Hitting a big three in transition on the left wing all of a sudden they’re up 14 and they never looked back really sharp performance to start the Celtics season out of the break I wanted to I’m going to stay on Boston for a minute because I wanted to clarify some comments that I

Made earlier about Boston’s lack of an interior attack this is something I’ve been talking a lot about I’ve been harping a lot on Boston’s offense because I think it’s the main thing that is going to be the the determining factor of their success in the postseason and Boston is an elite

Offense Elite of the elite but they’ve been Elite in the large sample they have also had a a tendency to go really cold in individual games especially high-profile games and their offense has fallen apart in those situations and so I’ve been talking about them needing to have a counter something that they can

Do that is more physically aggressive towards the rim when the jump shots aren’t falling I’ve had a lot of Celtics fans since I’ve been kind of getting on that wagon talking about how the Celtics are actually they actually post up more than any team in the league for the

Record it’s true Boston posts up more than every team in the league except for Denver Denver is the one team that posts up more than them and they’re the most efficient postup team in the NBA Boston scores 1.15 points per postup including passes but all of their postup offense

Including passes only amounts to 12.8 points per game Denver is also Denver is also a really good post-up team right they’re number one in postup frequency but they’re also number two in points in the paint per 100 possessions Boston is 27th in points in the paint per 100

Possessions why because posting up is one of is only one way to get into the paint there are many many different ways to get the basketball into the paint just like driving is only one way to get in the paint remember when all the talk was going on about the Lakers and their

Foul discrepancy and uh and how they drive less than any team in the league people people think that driving is the only way to get in the paint That’s not how it works the Lakers make the second most shots in the restricted area per

Game in the NBA 50 6% of the Lakers shot attempts come within 8et of the rim despite the fact that they don’t drive the basketball very much why is that they are top 10 in points scored on Cuts Boston is 21st they are first in two-point field

Goals made on rolls to the rim Boston is 26th Boston is mainly a pick and pop team they take a lot of Threes in pick and roll right Boston is 24th in field goals made on offensive rebound situations even in transition Boston is second in transition threes made per

Game but they are 17th in transition tw’s made per game they run the floor for threes whereas the Lakers are third in transition twos scored per game I’m not trying to compare the Lakers of the Celtics Celtics are way better than the Lakers they’d kick the out of them

If they played in a series tomorrow I’d pick them in four or five games what I’m trying to make a point about is about the offensive versatility yes the Celtics posts up a lot but they do not generate nearly enough points in the paint which is a more resil iant form of

Scoring and what happens when we get to the post uh to the postseason again like even if you look at their post-ups they’re a postup team that takes a lot of fadeaway jump shots out of the post they had 18 post-ups versus Chicago last night 11 of them either ended up in

Fadeaway jumpers or kick out jump shots like they’re they post up for jump shots too which is why their points in the paint are so limited I’m not worried about it in the large sample Boston like to to steal a word a phrase from my

Friend s Vini who came on the show last week like they’re ass kickers they’re total ass kickers on the offensive end of the floor they are by far the best regular season team in the league and I think they’d easily dispatch in the playoffs all but a small handful of

Teams but we know one thing for sure Boston can go cold they went Cold against Denver they lost they went Cold against Milwaukee they lost they went Cold against the Lakers they lost they went Cold against the Clippers they lost it’s not the large sample I’m worried

About it’s the small sample size that I worry about for Boston in the event that they find themselves in the Eastern Conference semis or Eastern Conference Finals against Milwaukee or New York and the series is tied at two and game five is in Boston and it’s a super physical

Rock fight type of game what happens if they go cold what do they do next because we’ve seen in all those games I just mentioned the Denver game the Milwaukee game and the two Lakers the two La teams in those games it wasn’t like they were cold for a half and then

They got hot it was a consistent theme throughout the game even when they made a couple they weren’t able to sustain it and a big part of that is that’s just how these types of games go this has been an overarching theme of my kind of basketball Philosophy for a long time

The more important the basketball game is the more physical it becomes the more intense it becomes and the more the skill oriented parts of the game become difficult which is why I am so you know high on teams that have interior physicality just go back through NBA history like last year’s Denver Nuggets

Team biggest strongest player on the florid Nicole yic now the Warriors in 2022 it’s Steph Curry he’s the greatest small perimeter player in the history of basketball so he’s the exception that proves the rule you can’t use him as a as evidence of what you can do nobody on

Boston is even remotely in the same Stratosphere as a shooter as Steph Curry so that that that can’t be your approach right 2021 Yannis tenmo biggest strongest player on the floor most of the time 2020 LeBron James and Anthony Davis big massive physically imposing front line 2019 Kawhi Leonard big massive physically

Imposing forward like that is the way you win most of the time and again like I was literally you guys know I coach high school basketball here in town I was watching our kids playing a playoff game on Wednesday and uh um they ended up they were up by one

With less than a minute left and then uh the other team made a couple of plays they ended up winning by four and their season’s over now um but in the game it was interesting because I once again watching the game super super intense both teams season on

The line both teams bringing crazy crazy level of effort on both ends of the floor you know what wasn’t happening a ton of three-point shots and that’s not to say that that’s not an important part of the game of course it’s an important part of the game and before you say this

Is how we’ve been playing and it’s been working that’s not the case in 2022 when the Celtics made it to the NBA finals and got within two wins of hoisting the trophy they were eight in three-point attempts per 100 possessions not first they were 15th in points in

The paint per 100 possessions not 27th they were a much more balanced scoring team in that 2022 season than they were now they have gone so so so far in that direction to the point where now they’ve attached their fate to variance last night in Chicago they scored 129

Points only 30 of them were in the paint they attempted 57 jump shots in that game again it’s not about Chicago it like it’s not about the 82 game regular season this is 100% about a seven gamer against a healthy Knicks team against a healthy Bucks team

Against a healthy nuggets team or a healthy Clippers team that’s the lens that we have to look through the look through by the way I have Celtics second as my list of Championship contenders I think they’re the most talented team in the league why I’m harping on this is

This is going to make a break their season in my opinion there is a chance that they just go into the playoffs and they make their threes five to six times per series and they just beat the out of everybody that’s a chance I’m not trying to say that that’s not possible

Of course that’s possible but winning an NBA championship is hard winning four Series in two months is hard and they have made themselves beatable in the sense that if you can play them into their worst Tendencies and they go and you play a super physical branded

Basketball you can get get them to go cold and you might be able to steal the series from them if Boston loses that’s what it will look like a way to prevent that from happening is to be more active in those specific areas run in transition for layups and dunks whenever

You can take the threes when they’re an option stop running for the purpose of taking threes roll to the basket harder more Jaylen Brown Drew Holliday and Jason Tatum when you’re posting up stop settling for fadeaways every damn like Jaylen Brown is the best fadeaway jump shooter in the League this year

Outstanding athlete he can go over both shoulders excellent fadeaway jump shooter even the best fadeaway jump shooter in the world is not close to as efficient on that shot as Nicole yic is on a hook in the lane forget about that it’s not even close to as efficient as Jaylen Brown

And Jason Tatum can be in physical bully ball postup possessions so like crashing the offensive glore running for in transition for layups and dunks posting up with with physicality towards the rim instead of finesse away from the rim rolling to the basket more in pick and roll situations that like those are all

Like cuts to the basket off the ball instead of constantly spotting up maybe taking advantage of a Defender being out of position by cutting to the basket these are all ways that Boston can add points in the paint to make their scoring more resilient that 2022 Boston

Team that’s a great Mark to be eighth in three-point attempts per 100 possessions 15th in points in the paint that is an analytically sound approach you are taking advantage of high value shots on the floor while making sure that you have some more resiliency when the shots

Aren’t falling Boston was able to win ugly better in that season than they were this season and again I I don’t want this to come off as Celtics criticism that’s not that’s not what I’m trying to do we’re nitpicking here because we’re talking about the very best of the

Best like if I wanted to talk about the Lakers I’d have to get into 17 other massive issues before they even have a chance to be in these conversations right Boston has everything else checked if they can figure this out they will Hoist the trophy that is why I’m viewing

This as such an important swing factor for them this season

Jason Timpf reacts to Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics’ 129-112 win over the Chicago Bulls. Despite having a top-level offense, Jason explains why he is concerned about the Celtics as the NBA Playoffs approaches.

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/6kF9_crE0zg

Timeline:
00:00 – Celtics blow past Bulls
04:02 – How concerning is Celtics lack of interior offense?

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