Recap: Celtics outgunned by resurgent Rockets

IN A NUTSHELL
Last time that the Boston Celtics met the Houston Rockets for the last Thursday night of the year, they mounted one of the most improbable comebacks in recent regular-season history: battling back from a 24-point deficit at the half and securing victory thanks to the mental kung-fu and plain ol’ bullshit skills of Marcus Smart. (It remains absolutely bonkers that Smart pulled that off, or that James Harden fell for it, but fall for it he did.) Those circumstances were far too singular to repeat, of course, and this season’s Celtics and Rockets squads are different in numerous ways.

There was good play on both sides of this game and some truly impressive superstar dueling between Harden and Kyrie Irving, but there would be no true heroics. Houston has much more to lose in their desperation not to fall back into the morass of non-playoff Western Conference teams, and played like they wanted it more. Boston, meanwhile, played 2.5 quarters of good basketball, but blew the beginning and end, resulting in a 127-113 loss. All things considered, this one wasn’t an end-of-the-world defeat, but with the continued tough schedule lying ahead, there will be far fewer games in the near future that can be written off as even remotely acceptable losses.

WHAT WENT RIGHT
The Houston Rockets blitz opposing defenses with relentless isolation drives in the halfcourt to create openings for three-pointers, dunk opportunities or drawn charges for free throws. But threes are where they live and die. This isn’t news to anyone; I mention it to emphasize how it’s almost a given that a team opposing Houston will likely encounter a sizable deficit at some point. The earliest of these runs started late in Q1, extending through much of Q2.

What matters is how a team responds to that initial barrage. The Celtics punched back well in this contest, shrinking a 17-point lead to just two points in about three minutes of game time with a 22-4 run. In the tight back-and-forth gameplay of the third quarter, Boston upped the pace considerably to make it harder for Houston to get in proper rhythm for its preferred halfcourt isolation plays. The team’s depth also allows other Boston players to function as ball-handlers, most notably Smart and Gordon Hayward, so Kyrie can stay off-ball and position himself for easy buckets.

Additional positives:

• The starters (with a few caveats, noted below) did about as well as they could, particularly Kyrie, Smart, Marcus Morris and Al Horford.
• Jaylen Brown’s strong night in the six-man role also helped fuel the big runs that, at least for a while, put Houston on their heels.

WHAT WENT WRONG
In the final quarter, the Celtics seemed to forget all of the defensive steps they took in earlier frames to mitigate the Rockets offense. The home team got their big lead back when the treys just kept being open—not infrequently after blown Boston defensive assignments—and kept going in. Perhaps it took so much effort to make that second-quarter comeback and hold momentum in the third that they had little left over for the fourth.

Some other negatives:

• Houston is terrible at rebounding (the worst NBA squad in defensive boards), while Boston is middle-of-the-pack in most rebounding categories. Yet the Rockets had the Cs out-rebounded by almost 10 at the half and never lost that advantage, with a game-ending disparity of 54 Houston boards to 38 by Boston.
• Yeah, Eric Gordon can sink an open trey. We all know that. But an elite NBA defense—which the Celtics absolutely are—should be able top neutralize him in all other offensive areas, and Boston let him off the hook. (Capela’s dominance is more excusable, given Horford’s minutes limit and the team’s lack of a center big enough to hold him back; the Swiss big man has grown from iffy-looking reserve to top-10 center.)
• ON THE OTHER HAND: Nene Hilario is approximately 69,420,000,000 years old, and cannot possibly still be in the league for any reason other than arcane bloodmagic, PEDs or both. Daniel Theis should be more than capable of rendering that dude useless, and was not.
• Our heroes got baited into a lot of technical fouls (notably Mook, who got ejected). When facing a team looking to get to the line often as possible, the Cs need to keep it cool, and didn’t do so in a number of crucial moments.
• Jayson Tatum was due for a dud, and it came tonight.

WHAT THE HELL

• Seriously, HOW THE HELL is Nene still playing in the NBA? His beard is so old it’s growing sub-beards that are themselves beginning to reach a point of sentience. Nene’s beard remembers when Jheri curls were still the move.
• Harden excels at drawing contact, and much to the NBA fan community’s chagrin, more of it is legit than not. That call against Semi Ojeleye on James Harden’s trey, by contrast, was crooked as a table leg in a Cubist painting. The refs put themselves into this one like a crew of Scott Foster clones, making questionable-at-best calls unfair to both teams (like a completely unnecessary demerit for Capela hanging on the rim after a monster dunk). It sucked.
• Austin Rivers, you suck. You suck, your music sucks, and I hate your sucky stupid metal face.

GREEN FIRE HIGHLIGHTS

SMARF using Hayward as a decoy to flummox the defense into a miscue:

Made ya look! 👀 https://t.co/poESAmZw65

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 28, 2018

Kyrie spinning PB&J Tucker the sneaker maven into a time vortex of pain and poor switches:

That’s just mean, Kyrie. ⛸⛸⛸

Vote Kyrie for All-Star: https://t.co/Kgx6whrKmg https://t.co/pI4CDPPVYC

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) December 28, 2018

Box score