Boston Celtics blow out Houston Rockets in Ime Udoka’s return to Boston

Boston Celtics blow out Houston Rockets in Ime Udoka’s return to Boston

Now that’s more like it Boston Celtics come in get a nice bounceback win blowing out the Houston Rockets e odoko was here did anybody even care I’m going to talk about it with a special guest here on the bonus locked on Celtics podcast ever ready recognize the city of

Champ Boston baby we do what you can’t locked on number 18 Tatum and brown J team step back we going to wet that and slay teams of course the Celtics who else could it be screaming like kg with the lario B corales above average assessing the team status best daily pod

No cap salary matching clutch like bir the DJ keep John on replay Prime Time dapping up the truth on the sideline raining JS how we started raising B how we finish locked on Celtics of the winners hey there welcome back to the lockon Celtics podcast here in the

Lockon podcast network with your team every day and I got you covered every day with a free fresh podcast even if it’s looking diagonally here uh here from the garden makeshift uh I’m John corales host of this lockdown Celtics podcast I cover the souel for Boston Sports journal and this

Is oh are you me okay I guess I’ll do it myself I don’t I I don’t remember your name you don’t wow wow oh man so so not only Jackson Gatlin from lock on Rockets everybody everybody in Boston has all forgotten not only Oka they’ve also

Clearly jum on me that is correct L erased things a lot of friendships a lot of history that’s right friendships especially are done uh a mere shell of them okay so uh we’re here it’s a it’s the the Celtics uh got the uh what was the final score here 14 145

113 we’re gonna start with Jackson here because he’s here he’s visiting from Houston and it’s a very neighborly thing to do uh we we hopping on each other’s podcast because I basically invited myself onto your podcast which was fantastic it was very fun so if you want

To check out John and some of his thoughts over at locked on Rockets be sure to go do that go do that uh all right let’s start with this man you you’re you’re first of all you’re in town I think people around Boston would like to know what have you thoughts of

The city um so first off I haven’t traveled much in my life but the cities that I’ve been to of all the cities that I’ve been to Boston is easily top of my list already like I I was just over in the uh remind me it’s North North over

Here yeah you know walking up and down Handover I did like the Freedom Trail kind of you know some some of the touristy stuff just walking in you know going into little pockets checking out different shops chatting with locals that kind of thing I got kind of lost

For just hours the day before the game I I came in the day before so I was here Friday afternoon got to really explore check out a couple spots I went to pully’s got myself a lobster roll uh went to the the bakery that you recommended Mike P Mike’s Pastry got

Myself a couple canoli um it’s been a fantastic experience so far well I’m glad that fantastic experience uh led up to the game was not a fantastic experience that’s where your fantastic experience ended stop just just sudden hit the breaks yeah oh man I will get into the Celtics and and everything that

I think worked in just a second and it’s it’s really I think is as simple as Celtics equal good Rockets equal not I don’t want to say bad they’re not a bad team they they’re now 500 right 19 and 19 y so um they’ve they’ve I think

Played a little bit over their heads a little bit but regardless not a bad team they play hard it’s just I think the Celtics were good and they figured it out they were motivated and the rockets on a backto back a tough a tough win like a last second win over Detroit it

Was kind of tough to go from Detroit to Boston and and with all that emotion to to to get that same thing and last the way the way it did but it was it was tough early on I mean look it was at one point in this game with about just under

Six minutes to go in the second quarter it was 5150 so Celtics only leading by one point before they reeled off a big run and took the 11-point lead into halftime and then start of the third quarter Oka talked about the Rockets their competitiveness was not quite

There in the third quarter he didn’t like their physicality really just didn’t like a lot of their body language in the second half of this game almost like they were kind of just resigned the fact hey we’re we’re already trailing by 11 we’re going to lose and like like you

Said right a second night of a back toback they had a lot of kind of things stacked against them in this game but this game also highlighted one of the main Achilles heels of this Rockets team this season and their defense has been uh better than anybody could have really

Expected this year they’ve been largely a top five defense most of the season they lost Dylan Brooks for a chunk of games and their defense kind of started to Crater without him now you also don’t have tar e in the lineup they’re the two best defenders for this Rockets team so

Not having them leads to a team that is not as good defensively what a novel concept right you miss some of your key guys on one side of the floor suddenly that side of the floor starts to look a little bit worse um but the other area

That is is really interesting for them is offensively they just don’t have enough shooting man and and we talked about the uh three-point discrepancy over on locked on Rockets you highlighted it but it was the Celtics were like plus what 50 from the something like that yeah it’s you know

This Rockets team you know they have a lot of good things going for them they’ve adopted E’s kind of Defense first identity and one of the big question marks coming this year was cool alperin shingon is incredible he’s an offensive Phenom he’s an upand cominging star maybe a potential Allstar this

Season possibly uh but defensively what’s he going to look like kind of as your five in the middle right and and he’s bought in and the defense has been great but they also offensively kind of play Like A team out of the you know 90s or early 2000s where you know their

Their final score tallies are often really low they like to get these you know raggedy grinded out wins and they just don’t shoot enough threes for the modern NBA and that’s a problem you just like even their volume it’s not only so they’re they’re a bad three-point shooting team and they don’t shoot

Enough threes to begin with that’s just really hard to win sometimes in today’s NBA I don’t have the box score in front of me but it I think it was what seven of 35 that sounds about right yeah it wasn’t good yeah and and the the Celtics the Celtics

Made 24 three-pointers I looked at you at one point in the game and I said I said John what is the Celtics like best three-point percentage this season because at one point they were hovering around like 53 54% I was like this has

Got to be it if it’s not one of one of three times that Celtics have hit 50 plus percent from three this year obviously when you do that you win uh the high was 57% when they put up 155 points against the Indiana Pacers uh in a in a in a

Early season just the Pacers came in no halberton could again couldn’t hit a shot the Celtics hit every damn shot and it was over in a hurry uh but yeah I think I think it’s as simple as the the Celtics they they couldn’t miss they really could not miss from three um and

You were like this is incredible shot making it really wasn’t even like a lack of breakdowns like some of the early defense was actually pretty decent at times like you know Tatum had a hand in his face or Jen Brown you know were some think the BG were the open shots that

Porzingis actually got because the Rockets were trying to adopt this new defensive game plan eay talked about them wanting to be a little bit more aggressive on Jaylen and Jason in this game trying to you know send extra bodies at them trapping them occasionally and really didn’t slow them

Down at all unfortunately for the Rockets but that also led to some open looks for Kristof porzingis because he was the guy with him popping out to the three-point line he was the guy that eem thought they could kind of cheat off of a little bit and of and and get and it

Just didn’t workit shots up and down the entire Celtics roster yeah everybody was hitting and that’s that’s one of the the points I’m gonna make as I transition into what the Celtics did the the bigger thing not not even so much that Tatum and brown were hitting shots when Tatum

Is hitting the pull-up shots like just just right in people’s faces there’s no you you don’t you don’t win those games like when Tatum’s hitting shots like that you’re you’re not going to win but it’s porzingis who had been struggling a little bit going three for five from

Three Derek white to your point going three for five from three and he he’s been in the post uh JJ reic podcast slump it’s the same thing he did last last year he was shooting 40% from three he did the the reic podcast and he went into a slump this year the same

Literally the same thing happened well that well you know that’s how JJ stays young and looking fresh is he saps the three-point shooting energy from players yeah that’s right that’s right so he so he never he’s like a vampire he just takes three point shooting that’s right

Um all right well I’m Gonna Let You Go Back do do your podcast so I can finish talking about the Boston Celtics here uh JT Gatlin on Twitter uh Monday locked on NBA as well and obviously the lockdown Rockets podcast which is uh an upand cominging you’re I know you’re sitting

There like you’re coming at me you’re coming at me this is just want to let everybody know that he does not miss an opportunity to let me know that he’s gaining on me and subscribers so anybody out here who’s a Celtics F who’s just new like you got to subscribe to the

YouTube thing so this young punk doesn’t get the satisfaction of catching the lockdown Celtics podcast in YouTube sub he at least I’m a respectful young punk John because I look I I I specifically chose rather than coming here and displaying uh the haircut look I specifically wore the beanie to hide

The the the beautiful locks just out of respect okay man wow wow wow okay I’m about to I’m about to trash your trash ass Rockets right now go do your podcast I’ll see you in a bit all right welcome back back welcome back welcome back to the lockon Celtics

Podcast now just featuring me John corales uh this is fun this is like Jackson is like over there in the corner doing his podcast and uh we’re both here at the TD Garden uh after this game so my my quick takes here uh on this B

Podcast again make sure by the way just subscribe I didn’t do my full normal intro where people are used to probably can say the words uh along with me as I’m I’m doing that but you know on this it’s Saturday night it’s getting getting done early because the Celtics got their

Work done early so this is just a fun kind of special Saturday into Sunday podcast uh by the way this week is going to be fun later on this week uh plans to have Drew Carter Celtics New Road Celtics voice uh the play-by-play guy there so he’ll be there at the end of

The week we’ve got obviously podcast all week long got a mailbag podcast coming up uh tomorrow for Monday so John cis.com mailbag I got a ton of questions already but you can get those in all right so uh nice response for the Celtics they they did acknowledge after

The game that they they wanted to kind of avoid a let down after the the Milwaukee Bucks loss uh that was uh ugly and gross and you know hey what what more can you say about that Tatum said look we got our asses kicked and we wanted to have a

Uh you know I wanted to come out and and play well like of course I wanted to win of course I wanted to win when eay was here and all that stuff but more so than anything just getting the taste of that Milwaukee Bucks game out of out of their

Mouths and coming in and like I just said with with Jackson having that um that that type of game where all right it didn’t go great to start but they slowly figured it out they got their their their M themselves together uh they figured out how to defend the

Second half defense was a lot better they gave up 31 points in in the first uh in the first quarter it was 35- 31 I believe after after one quarter and then after that they were able to kind of hold Houston closer to that 25p point mark

And it was interesting where Joe was talking about after the game if if you you uh hold a team to a 25-point quarter you have a 49% chance if if to win if you hold them to one a 68% chance to win if you hold the other team to two 25o

Quarters interesting stats I didn’t even realize that so they after the 31-point quarter uh they gave up 27 28 and 27 not 25 but not 31 and so uh better defense not the best and they still have things to work on and and this is where where I

Think the the the Crux of this game Falls it’s a nice response right Jaylen comes out has a dominant third quarter 21 points in the third quarter Tatum has a dominant second quarter so after the kind of back and forth feeling out first quarter Tatum goes off and they have

That 11-point lead Jaylen goes off and that lead grows to more than 20 grows up into grows into 30 uh and then they get it up as high as 36 uh Tatum gets a Ed which was you know what are you going to do he he said after the game you know I

Said my piece I have to defend myself he’s aware he’s aware of the text he no one’s really worried about it no one seems to care a whole lot um it’s something that I’m not the biggest fan of say your peace and move on but at

That point I can argue that he shouldn’t have even been on the floor so getting himself ejected was his way of saying like I’m done with this game anyway I’m going to go in the back and start icing and take my show and whatever so anyway that that besides the point they came

Out they had their nice response they had their great three-point shooting the three-point shooting was I mean out of this world they shot uh 24 of 47 so when Jackson talks about the volume their number was seven of 30 so seven of 30 the rocket shot 23% Boston shot 47

Three-pointers so they were at 47 three-pointers 40 eight two-pointers which is I mean right at that 50/50 balance that you’re kind of looking at uh they they hit 24 so the the the Rockets were outscored 72 to 21 from the three-point line that’s outrageous no team is ever

Gonna win no team nowhere no how no team wins a game when you’re outscored by that much when you’re outscored by 50 51 at the three-point line no team wins that game so the Celtics their their hot shooting kind of carried them through so it was great to

See and and look you run down the the lineup four of six for Jaylen four of seven from Tatum Tatum’s hitting the the contested pull-up jumpers he’s up over like 50% since in January on those pull-up jumpers those pull-up three-pointers so when those are going it’s there’s no you’re not going to win

Porzingis and Derek white each win three for five like I mentioned before Pritchards three for six um Hower of all people is the one guy who couldn’t really connect more consistently uh but Shri millik even in in some garbage time hit two of three so guys who have been

Struggling a little bit got their three-pointers off but at the same time Boston lost in some of the margins I asked Joe Missoula after the game you love the math you love when the three-pointers are falling the math behind the three-pointers Big Joe moula thing you also love the

Margins and you got outshot they had 90 uh 99 shots the Boston’s 95 they took more free throws 30 to Boston’s 25 and they won that battle by seven they got 15 offensive rebounds to Boston’s 10 those are all important aspects of the game that Missoula will

Highlight over and over and over again when he talks about the um the margins and things like that that contribute to winning so the Celtics got the math part right they got the margins part actually kind of wrong and not to take away from

The the the win this is a good win it’s a big win you win by 30 like you can’t say anything really bad about the win but as Missoula said actually he enjoyed the fact that there’s something to take from this that’s that that he can look

At as te and be like hey we got to get better at this like we’re we gave up too many offensive rebounds and and that was a problem early on you you fouled too much that was a problem uh you because of those things you got outshot and and

You don’t want to you’re not going to win a lot of the games when you get outshot like that now they outshot the the Rockets as Jackson mentioned they outshot the rockets by a bunch and at the three-point line so by taking the 47 uh three-pointers that that allowed for the

Kind of volume to make up for some of that other stuff and then you know they just got hot and even if they even if they had hit you know uh what would 40% be uh 48 12 16 17 or so 18 so you you hit like six fewer that’s an 18-point

Difference well I mean they still it was a still a 32 point game so let’s say it’s a 16-point difference then then you end up winning by 16 so it still would have been a comfortable win probably if it was a more normal shooting night but when you look at the

Margins that that those are the things that that Joe really highlights those that’s a that’s room for improvement so nice response out of the Milwaukee game yes hot shooting is great but the Celtics do have to make sure they’re better at that stuff and and this is the

Hard part of the season to do it Jaylen talked about it after the game mid January is an easy time for guys to just kind of and we talked about this on this podcast before it’s an easy time for guys to just kind of be like ah we’re

Good we’re we’re good I’m I’m not going to give it the 100% I don’t have 100% I’m gonna give it 80 or 90 and and that’s the difference between winning and losing some of these games and this is the hard part this is a very mentally

Taxing part of the Season you see the allstar break coming it’s a month away literally a month away from the allstar break it’s it’s right around the corner you’re starting to make vacation plans right like even like Derek white Kristof porzingis uh guys who are kind of On The

Fringe who might get an invite who might be an injury replacement maybe but they’s still like they’re you know they’re looking at vacations I’m sure um guys like you know Drew holiday his wife are probably sitting there like hey where do we want to go for the week and get off get off

My feet and like go swim on a beach somewhere you know like that that Creeps in when you’re making even at your job you know even at this job whatever job it is if you’re starting to make vacation plans and your mind gets into vacation mode like that’s that creeps

Into your kind of mental state so this is hard for every NBA player to to kind of get past some of the doldrums they are uh right around the half halfway point of the season and this is about the time where guys need those breaks

They have uh they’re at 30 and N right now they’re 19 and0 at home so they’re three games away from the halfway point of the regular season uh I would say at least 11 to oh what well let’s say 15 from the what should be the actual halfway point of

Their season can taking into account playoffs in late June mid June but anyway this is this is the tough part for them and and they need to be mindful of those margins now if you’re looking out on the um YouTube page over here and I see no

Narratives that’s the the my my postgame piece for Boston Sports Journal is about the the Celtics do not care do not consider narratives at all they I mean teams don’t but like the scripts that are there hey it’s emay oka’s return they don’t even like give you canned

Answers about like oh yeah that was nice they they don’t want to think about it at all Joe mou doesn’t want te his team to think about it at all it’s just a matter of uh they are focused on this day what’s this day what do we need to

Do to win this game and for the Celtics eay coming back they were like yeah yeah okay that’s good to see him good to see him that’s nice uh but that’s where it ends good to see him who cares uh he didn’t care that’s for sure the players like they they had

Their moments they got to say hi and all of that stuff but that’s that’s about it who cares and and I’m fine with that narrative like I don’t think the fans care I I I didn’t want to make this about em udoka at all and I don’t even

That’s why I saved it to the end because you kind of have to mention it but he was introduced and there was uh you know mixed mixed reactions some cheers some booze I swear the Celtics hit the uh like hit their theme music their Jumbotron like Eddie Paladino said

And the Rockets head coach emay udoka and before emay udoka came out of his mouth like as the uh was happening that Jumbotron hit they didn’t even want to give the fans a second I I swear that that happened like faster than normal so I don’t think

Anybody wanted to to deal with that I don’t think the Celtics wanted to deal with that I’m pretty sure no one in the front office wanted to deal with the potential for a um a loss e may coming in and winning so this is a a perfect perfect scenario perfect case for Boston

They get the win um yeah and they just Joe Missoula just does not care about that stuff he is challenging he’s challenging his players he’s challenging his staff he’s challenging Us in the media to think a certain way and like after the game he came out because I

Asked him before the game I said you got a lot of stuff going on here you got you got blown out you had emay you got emay back you’re trying to protect a home court do you use that stuff as like a motivating tool or do

You prefer to just say I put it out of your heads we don’t want to deal with it and he says we don’t want to deal with it and he’s like we’re not trying to prove anything we’re not trying like all that stuff and after the game he he’s he’s

Sitting down to do his media availability he’s at me he goes so what do we prove today corales and I said well that’s going to be my first question to you he goes don’t ask me I don’t know we didn’t prove anything and that that’s kind of like a challenge it

Was kind of like a a shot across the bow good nature totally fine not like being a jerk or anything like that Joe and I have a good relationship so I I take it as good-natured but it’s also like you know don’t ask me don’t ask me what we proved

I don’t want to hear that I don’t want to hear that narrative that’s how I took I don’t want to hear that narrative and I didn’t ask him because that’s not what I wanted to know like you didn’t prove anything and I it’s good to be challenged that way I want to be

Challenged that way I want to if if that’s not how you guys are thinking then what are you thinking tell me what you’re thinking and so my first question was actually about the margins how do you you know how do you take a game

Where you won by as much as you did and that’s a good win and you hit as many three-pointers as you did which you love to do but also lost on those margins that you love to to look at and so he liked that question but I I don’t care

About narratives either I joke I joked in my piece like narratives make life easy for me uh because it’s very easy to do a color by numbers postgame piece and be like blah blah blah quote quote quote quote quote EMA was back haha you know whatever but that’s not how they want to

Operate and that’s not how they should operate so eay was back they beat eay uh Jaylen Brown had a moment where he was like running out of bounds to chase after a ball and he kind of like ran into em and they have like a little hug

It was kind of a fun moment uh but that that’s about it that’s about it so Celtics get the win over Houston the eay stuff put it to bed it’s over it’s over move on we are done with it and I’m done with this podcast bonus podcast on a

Saturday I’m gonna podcast after every game so uh nice to uh have you here with me uh love that you’re with me on these nights H if you’re a new listener if you’re new subscribe again don’t let Jackson Gatlin get the best of us don’t let the Rockets don’t let these Rockets

Punks these Rockets punks I don’t know if you can hear me over there get the best of us this is the Boston Cel this is a lockdown Celtics podcast so that means if you’re with me every day if you’re one of my every dayers I would love it if you can

Help me hold him off hold off the lockdown Rockets podcast spread the word share the podcast tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the lockdown Celtics podcast here on the lockdown podcast Network it’s your team every day

The Celtics bounced back from there horrible loss in Milwaukee by blowing the doors off the Houston Rockets. They buried Houston under a barrage of 3-pointers, and won going away despite losing some of the margins Joe Mazzulla loves to point out. John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal talks about that and Ime Udoka’s return with a special guest, Jackson Gatlin of the Locked On Rockets podcast.

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Locked On Celtics is a daily Boston Celtics podcast by Boston Sports Journal beat writer John Karalis. It’s an inside look at the C’s from a former professional basketball player who is at practices & games.

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