I would hate to be the person who cleans the walls around the Celtics' practice facility. The amount of crap Joe Mazzulla has to throw at them to see what sticks must be overwhelming by this point.
The Celtics went through more of those stretches as they tried to find a way against the Magic. There was Jordan Walsh getting 12 first-half minutes, which was more than Josh Minott and almost as many as Sam Hauser. That resulted in Anfernee Simons getting just 2:28.
“Walsh and Hugo (Gonzalez) came in and changed the game for us, got us back into the game,” Simons said of the situation after the loss to Orlando. “I think that was pretty much that simple. All you can do is control what you can control when you’re out there, do your best to impact the game. And I think J-Walsh and Hugo was doing the best at that.”
Simons got himself going in the fourth, and it was almost enough to win the game, except when the Magic got a little bit of an opening, the one strategy the Celtics had to lean on came back to bite them.
“They hit 3s. What did they shoot? 47% from 3?” Payton Pritchard said. “They weren't a team that was supposed to get hot shooting … we kind of were living with that. Tip your cap. They made 3s.”
There's always going to some kind of decision of what to live with in the modern NBA. Players are too skilled and schemes are too complex to be able to take everything away every night. But the Celtics' flaws make the choices more stark. The Celtics don’t have the same defenders they have had the past few years, so defending the paint means chances, double-teams, and hoping the scouting report holds true.
Jalen Suggs is a career 33% 3-point shooter who is shooting better so far this season, but who also has an 0-7 night on the books a week ago, so of course he hit a season-high four 3-pointers. Anthony Black hit a couple from deep, which was only his second game this season with more than one.
You’re telling me Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Sam Hauser combined can’t hit more 3-pointers than Suggs?
On a night where Boston only lost second-chance points by three, fastbreak points by one, and were even in points in the paint, it’s very easy to look at the shooting and shrug.
But that's where the Celtics live right now. With 9:52 to go in a tie game, Joe Mazzulla had Simons, White, Minott, Walsh, and Gonzalez on the floor, trying to find a way to steal minutes until Jaylen Brown and Neemias Queta could return.
That's a scrap heap guy, a second-rounder teetering on the edge of falling out of the league, a 19-year-old rookie, a new guy who might get traded struggling to find his way, and a veteran struggling with a new role.
Amazingly, it went well enough for the Celtics to take a lead with half a quarter to go, but when these are the options Mazzulla has at his disposal. When the Celtics are, hopefully, a fully-realized contender again next season, the goal is to have one of those guys … maybe two … on the floor in that situation.
This is a Thanksgiving dinner of all side dishes. And while I love stuffing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce, I need a little meat on my plate to make it a real dinner.
We’re not going to see that for a while.
The Celtics fought hard against Orlando, which is maybe the most encouraging part of the game. They are 4-6 and prone to wild swings that make us think of first-round playoff matchups one day, and first-round draft picks the next. They are giving themselves chances while taking a lot of chances on the floor. The hope is that enough of this stuff ends up sticking that Mazzulla can eventually stop throwing it up against these walls.
“I think we're making progress,” Pritchard said. “It's funny. You could look at the season completely different if we win two games that we're supposed to, opening night and against Utah. Then we're sitting at, what? 6-4? A lot of people be looking at it a lot different. But first 10 games, now we got another set of another 10 games. Can we get positive each 10 games and keep getting better and better? So that's kind of the outlook we're looking at. It’s a growth mindset.”
