Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics' win over the Houston Rockets, with BSJ insight and analysis.
It took the Celtics a little while to get going, but they finally nabbed their first win of the season, beating the Rockets 107-97. They were carried by Jayson Tatum (34 points, 12-24 fg (4-11 3pt), 9 rebounds, 2 assists), especially early, and then got nice contributions from Dennis Schröder (18 points, 5 assists), Grant Williams (18 points, 5-7 3pt), and Al Horford (17 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks) to build their lead as high as 20 and hold off a pesky, young Rockets team. Second overall pick Jalen Green was awesome, nearly matching Tatum with 30 points. He went 8-10 on 3-pointers.
HEADLINES
It’s not perfect, but it’s progress: The Celtics certainly hope they’re better than this in March and April, but after an incomplete preseason and an already choppy mix of guys in and out of the lineup, they’ll take it.
“I would say overall that’s who we are,” Ime Udoka said. “We got back to what we did tonight, which is compete at a high level, matched this young team’s energy and really shared the ball and defended well. So that’s what we’re looking for: consistency going forward. And we brought it well tonight.”
The Rockets are going to lose a lot, but that’s due to inexperience, not lack of talent or hustle. The Celtics let go a little in the fourth and that’s certainly a problem, but right now any progress is good progress.
Dennis Schröder made a big difference: His ability to blow by defenders was a huge reason for Boston’s 36-21 third quarter advantage that saw a two point halftime lead grow to as high as 20. He got into the paint and drew fouls, which helped the Celtics get into the bonus early. Horford shot seven free throws in that quarter, and four of them were penalty free throws. He scored four points, in part, because Schröder drew fouls earlier in the quarter.
Grant Williams & Al Horford were huge: More to come on them but both of these guys were crucial to the win. Williams is suddenly Steph Curry, I guess? And Ponce De Leon should have gone to Oklahoma to find the fountain of youth, not Florida, because as Tatum put it, Horford “looked kinda young today.”
TURNING POINT
Schröder took over in the middle of the third quarter, driving past any Houston defender who tried to stop him. It was a critical stretch of six quick points in less than two minutes with Tatum on the bench that helped break the game open.
SECOND GUESS
I understand the C’s were a little shorthanded and we’re still basically in an extension of the preseason, so there’s a fair amount of experimentation going on, but the lineup of Marcus Smart, Josh Richardson, Aaron Nesmith, Robert Williams, and Grant Williams might be a bit too much. The Celtics lack of reliable shooting is really exposed in lineups like these.
FOUR UP
Jayson Tatum: Not much more to say about a night like this from Tatum. They needed him to step up without Jaylen Brown there and he did.
“It’s a challenge, I love it,” he said. “And I think that’s what the best players have to do. You know, figure it out regardless of lineups, regardless of who’s in. Figure out how to win on any given night and do whatever it takes. Don’t look at it as you being asked to do a lot. It’s what you worked for is to be in that position and you just try to figure it out.”
Dennis Schröder: He started in Brown’s place and Houston simply had no one to prevent him from getting to the rim. He dropped 5 assists and grabbed 5 rebounds on top of everything. His performance allowed Udoka to stagger him and Tatum throughout the game. Winning minutes in any game without Tatum or Brown on the floor is big for this team.
Al Horford: After blocking 4 shots in his first game against Toronto, he came back to block 3 more. His defensive ability is still off the charts.
“We can switch with him, have him back in more of a drop coverage, but he covers a lot of holes in every way,” Udoka said. “He’s a huge complement for our guys, kind of a stabilizer out there and kind of a glue guy for our group. We love what he does for us and look forward to seeing more going forward with him.”
Grant Williams: Two seasons ago, Williams started 0-25 from deep and was being called “Ben Simmons” in the locker room. Now he’s 9-13 from deep over three games to start the season. He was 5-7 in this game.
“He asked me in the summer, months ago when I got hired, what can he do,” Udoka said. “And I said, get the three point percentage up to 40, defend, and he's doing all that right now.”
How does 69.2% sound?
TWO DOWN
Aaron Nesmith: I’m just confused when it comes to Nesmith right now. It feels like the game speed changed in the regular season and he hasn’t caught up to it yet. There’s certainly no reason to panic, but he’s such a far cry from where he was in the preseason, summer league, or even last season’s playoffs that it’s jarring.
Robert Williams: He was just kind of non-existent. He had one dunk off a leak-out and that was it for his scoring. I don’t actually think he was bad in this game, it was more that afterwards I realized that he really didn’t do much. The C’s need him to do things.
PLAY OF THE GAME
Al Horford firing on all cylinders 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/D6qTkULGrq
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 25, 2021
TWO TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
1. The Boston Celtics players LOVE Ime Udoka. I feel like I’ve been around long enough to know the difference between lip service, saying the right thing, and genuine words. I’ve heard players talk about coaches a lot, but the way the Celtics talk about their coach right now makes it clear that they’re 100% on board with him.
From Brown saying there was no way he was going to miss Udoka’s first game as a head coach to tonight’s comments from Grant Williams (who came flying in at the buzzer with a chest bump for his coach) after Udoka received a water shower in the locker room to celebrate his first win.
“It was dope just because that's a historic win for him,” Williams said. “That's his first of many and he's been a great, not only mentor to me, but great coach and great person since the moment he walked through the door. We all think highly of him and we're fortunate to have him here. So we just wanted to show him that love and that respect that he deserves as our head coach to get his first win in the NBA."
The challenge for Udoka is to have this love and support two or three years (or even months) from now when the honeymoon has ended. Who knows what the team will look like then, but someone from this roster will probably be there.
For now, he has their ears. What he does with all this capital is important. This is a high level of buy-in and few coaches have that. He has to take advantage of that. He keeps talking about breaking guys of their bad habits ... This is the time to really dig into those.
2. We really have to try to keep level heads. This win is a nice step in the right direction, but it’s also a reminder of how far the Celtics really need to go. The loss on Saturday was embarrassing in the moment, but also, we do have to realize how little time a largely new group of guys has had to learn a new coaching staff’s system.
This team is not going to be perfect after one month. The hope is that they come together quickly and string some wins together while figuring some things out, but they really do have a long way to go.