The Celtics lost to the Houston Rockets 104-90 in one of the most painfully hard games to watch that you’ll see all year (hopefully). To those who had the Celtics competing with the Cavaliers and Bulls in the East after our first game, this loss may have been a hard pill to swallow. For the more realistic ones who may still be down on the game just remember, Celtics are a fringe playoff team in the East while the Rockets are a top five team in the West. This was an uphill battle to begin with, and it would have been a major shocker if we actually had won this game. Saying this, let’s look at some of the things we liked and didn’t like.
FOUR UP:
Rajon Rondo
Rondo didn’t have a good night scoring the ball (no one in green did), but he did a good job contributing in other ways. With 10 assists, 8 rebounds, 3 steals, and some stellar defense on Harden in the second half Rondo played with a lot of grit. Granted, it would have been nice to see him making more of an effort to get himself going offensively, but he did impact other facets of the game, and who knows how much his hand was affecting him.
Tyler Zeller held his own a bit
Zeller came into the game, and had a few good sequences against Dwight Howard, that helped weather that disaster of a first quarter. Though he eventually got into foul trouble too, he did show that he could help defend against bigger teams which was missing last year.
Offensive Rebounds
The Celtics actually beat out the Rockets in offensive rebounds, 14-10. Though this is a bit of a misleading stat as the Celtics had 98 Field Goal attempts while the Rockets only had 76 Field Goal attempts meaning Boston had 22 more chances to grab them. However, in a game like this you take whatever positive you can.
Celtics are a gritty bunch
The Celtics were being beaten pretty convincingly but never gave in. And at one point cut the lead all the way sown to 11 in the third quarter. As bad as the game got the team never quit, they just couldn’t overcome their offensive issues.
FOUR DOWN
Kelly Olynk
We already knew Olynk was going to struggle against bigger frontcourts, but this was pretty bad. He got in foul trouble quickly in the first quarter because of his inability to keep up with Terrence Jones, and he looked very timid and passive offensively. Olynk’s one strength against the bigger frontcourts is his ability to stretch the floor and force bigs on the perimeter. If his not doing that, then his not helping this team.
Avery Bradley a little too aggressive
Bradley shot the ball poorly like most on the roster, but also made a lot of bonehead defensive mistakes that stopped the little momentum we were trying to gain. Bradley’s mind is in the right place, he’s being aggressive and trying to set the tone with his defensive presence. However, he needs to learn how to pick his spots, and play aggressive defense without fouling his man.
Brad Stevens questionable decisions
As great as our coach has been he deserves some blame with some of the decisions he made. In the first quarter he opted not to get a quick timeout with the Rockets coming out hot, and it felt like they had all the momentum. I understand that he wanted to see whether we could handle the flurry and respond, but against a much more talented team in their home opener we can look back and say he should have called the timeout, and ended the momentum. Also, he made some blunders with rotations, waiting til the second quarter to put our only other 7 footer (besides Olynk) didn’t make much sense. And with the shooting so bad, I would have liked to see him turn to a guy like James Young who can score, and maybe could have helped the team before the game got too out of hand. In his defense, the Celtics have a solid 12 guys that can make a case for playing time, and with the trust level at different places with each of them he probably wasn’t comfortable putting some guys in over others.
Three point shooting…. sucked
People can point to a lot of things as to why the Celtics lost this game, but the main reason was the three point shooting. The Celtics were 1/25 from beyond the arc, a mere four percent. Not only does having that type of misfortune hurt you offensively, but mentally is very disheartening, and interferes with the other aspects of the game. The Celtics lost this game by 14 points, Boston had 20 more bench points, 22 more points in the paint, 7 less turnovers, and 7 more field goals. If the Celtics just made four or five of those twenty-five attempts this could have been a whole different game.
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