BSJ Game Report: Bulls 102, Celtics 96 - Turnovers, poor shooting snap Celtics win streak

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics 102-96 loss to the Chicago Bulls, with BSJ insight and analysis.

Box score

The Celtics looked like a team without point guards. Payton Pritchard did a fine job. Tremont Waters came in late and did well. In the middle of it all, the Celtics were, as Brad Stevens said “ a little clunky in the first without a pure point.” 

This had ripple effects. Jayson Tatum was tasked with a lot of the ball distribution duties, and he handed out 10 assists, but he also shot 3-17 from the field. No one else had more than 3 assists. 

With so little production from other point guards, the Celtics weren’t able to switch up ways to get Tatum the ball and maybe help him shed Garrett Temple. 

Jayson Tatum (and everyone, really) struggled against their size.  “I thought their length affected us defensively. We didn’t have much threat at the rim tonight,” Stevens said. “I thought we tried to get there, but it was pretty jammed up, as you saw. And we struggled to finish when we did get there. They deserve a lot of credit, they impacted us on our drives big time. I would say that’s the No. 1 thing that I felt.”

This is the story for the Celtics. At full (or mostly full) strength, they can be very good. When their bench is forced into big minutes, they are not. Without Kemba Walker to be an offensive threat or Marcus Smart to run some backup minutes and move the ball, the Celtics were stuck with Chicago packing the paint and playing off of Grant Williams and Romeo Langford. Without some space to operate, the degree of difficulty at the rim went way up, and the production went way down.

TURNING  POINT

Jaylen Brown hit a 3-pointer to tie the game at 90, but the Bulls scored after the timeout and stripped Tatum and Brown on consecutive plays and went on a 6-0 run that was too much for the Celtics to overcome.  

FIVE UP 

Jaylen Brown: He was on fire early. After a perfect first quarter, he shot 4-9 the rest of the way and he finished with 23 points and 4 rebounds. He’s only down for two turnovers because those strips in the “Turning Point” section technically went down as blocked shots since he was raising up to shoot. To me, those are turnovers because he exposed the ball at his waist. Either way, he had a decent night but could have been better.

Payton Pritchard: He did a nice job starting, dropping 14 points on 5-8 shooting and 2-3 from 3. He hit a big shot late in the game, too.

Tremont Waters: His 7:59 all came in the fourth quarter, where he dropped 9 points on a perfect shooting night. He also finished a clutch layup late in the game that at least gave the Celtics a chance. Water has not had much opportunity this season, but it was nice to see him bounce back after a rough time in that Lakers collapse.

Jabari Parker: This is mostly because he’s giving the Celtics something out of nowhere, and it’s making up for the defensive lapses he has on the floor. He wasn’t quite as bad on some possessions, though.

Jayson Tatum: I’ve gone back and forth on this, so I just decided to split it into two. He had his first career triple-double, which is great. He did distribute the ball well and he picked up 11 rebounds...

THREE DOWN

Jayson Tatum: ... but he also shot 3-17 and settled for some bad shots.

“I wasn't scoring like I normally do, so I was just trying to impact the game as much as I could in other ways to try to help us get a win tonight,” Tatum said. “Had too many turnovers, obviously didn't shoot well. Just a tough night. One of the nights you wish you could have back.”

Grant Williams: Williams can be good in a particular role right now. With Boston down three and 4:00 to go, Williams got the ball in the corner from Tatum, and he decided to drive instead of move the ball. Tatum was still on the baseline, but out of bounds, so his defender was still in Williams' general vicinity. He ended up turning the ball over.

He turned around and played incredible defense on the other end. And when he’s focused on defending, moving the ball, and taking open 3-pointers, he can be good.

Williams, in a way, is a bellwether for the season. When he’s playing well, it’s because he’s in the right role, and it usually means the Celtics are whole and winning. When he’s not playing well, it’s because he’s asked to do too much, and he just can’t handle that right now.

Romeo Langford: “He’s just out there still kind of swimming because he hasn’t played a lot,” Stevens said. “He had some moments today, but you could also see moments where he’s not as fluid yet.” Langford is re-learning on the fly and while he does some good things instinctively,  he’s in the same “ask him to do too much at your own peril” boat as Williams.

He made some competent point guard plays and picked up a few assists. But he’s still catching up.

TOP PLAY

https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1384308964939079684

 

TWO TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

The Celtics get away from Jaylen Brown too much. Brown’s last basket of the first quarter came at the 4:13 mark. He played the whole first quarter and didn’t check back in until the 5:16 mark of the second, and his next shot came at 4:10. He missed that and two more shots in the second before finally scoring again with 9:20 to go in the third quarter.

Maybe the substitution pattern could have been different to maximize Brown’s time on the bench around the quarter break to get him back in sooner and capitalize on the hot hand. At the very least, the Celtics should have run some offense specifically geared towards getting Brown something easy. 

I know that’s easier said than done without the point guards, but the trend for the Celtics all too often is to get away from Brown when he’s got it going. They’ve been winning and it hasn’t mattered, but he shouldn’t have to hit 17 of 20 shots or 10 of 15 shots to put up a big stat line. 

At the same time, Brown needs to cut the turnovers because he sometimes costs himself these opportunities I’m calling for, but the Celtics need to focus on getting him more shots when he starts games like he did tonight. 

The turnovers are too much. Stevens said it would come back to bite them eventually and it finally did. As great as the Celtics have been, they’ve gotten away with some monster turnover nights. This one goes down as a 17 turnover night but, as I said earlier, some of those 8 blocked shots by Chicago are basically turnovers as well. 

Being down key players means players have to be more precise. The Celtics get less precise in these situations, and they’ve been getting sloppy in general. 

These two days off are coming at the right time. Hopefully, for them, they can fix this problem with some actual practice time.