IN A NUTSHELL
Y’all heard of the Atlanta flu? In case you haven’t: The Boston Celtics boarded a plane almost immediately after last night’s hard-fought victory against the Memphis Grizzlies to fly south and face the Atlanta Hawks tonight. So they got in fairly late, and Atlanta’s strip clubs stay open ’til, like, 5:00 a.m. or something. I’m not saying definitively that that’s what the Celtics did, because I don’t know…but I am saying the Atlanta flu has brought down many a visiting NBA squad, and Terry Rozier III used to take a lot of Snapchats in the middle of bars and strip clubs. (Which, generally, I’m in favor of; I’m too old for and disinterested in that shit so I enjoy vice vicariously through my favorite NBA players.)
But seriously: A slow, sloppy start by Boston made it seem like we were bound for a plain ol’ trap game. They looked gassed on both ends of the floor for an entire half and Atlanta dropped bucket after bucket on ’em, with only Kyrie Irving keeping the Cs in the game (en route to his third straight 30-point game; 32-3-5 with a steal). It would take a team-wide defensive clampdown, the ejection of Marcus Smart and clutch moments from Al Horford, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown to produce a grimy, smashmouth-basketball win with a 113-105 final score.
WHAT WENT RIGHT
The first real life the team showed was during a five-minute stretch in Q2 when the Celtics nearly erased the Hawks’ 16-point lead, keeping them from scoring a single field goal in that time.
Honestly, the ejection of SMARF kinda galvanized the squad more than anything else aside from Irving’s excellence. They started applying much better defense than the wimp-noodle stuff from the first half right from the second half’s start. After Smart got tossed, the Celtics seemed much more motivated across the spectrum of the game.
What definitively ensured this win—which certainly didn’t seem likely at the end of the first half, or even at numerous moments of the third and fourth quarters—was pure bloody will by the whole team. Irving’s scoring was the most highlight-grabbing performance, no doubt. But in the fourth quarter, Tatum, Horford and Brown hassled Hawks players into timidity who had been cocky in the past three frames. On the offensive end, they kept driving to the rim over and over to slow Atlanta’s amphetamine pace down to a quicksand crawl and rack up the necessary points to ensure the W.
WHAT WENT WRONG
Most of the first half was wrong. The Hawks were absolutely on fire from deep—and while shots falling is always a crapshoot to some extent, the Cs didn’t apply the necessary defensive pressure on the motion offense planned by sophomore head coach Lloyd Pierce and managed by Trae Young.
Good performances by ATL’s Young, John Collins and Kevin Huerter were hard to oppose, because those dudes were going balls out. (As surprising as that may be in Huerter’s case, given he looks like he’s an eight-year-old that’s been yanked to hell by a saltwater taffy stretcher.) But…Alex Len? You’re letting a center even the Phoenix Suns didn’t want on the books drop 15 on you, including a damn three? Grotesque and horrid.
Honestly, Red’s Army founder and head honcho emeritus John Karalis explains it better than I can in his description of the following video:
Here's Al Horford getting on the guys to match up after giving up an easy last basket forcing him to take the foul.
The game was -probably- over at this point, but the Celtics need to get into the mentality of finishing plays/quarters/games. pic.twitter.com/34nSSghL2z
— John Karalis 🇬🇷🇺🇦 (@John_Karalis) January 20, 2019
WHAT THE HELL
I’d originally planned for this to be a brief (fictional) examination of what the scene with the Cs at the strip club would’ve looked like…but events intervened. OK, so here’s a summation of the mania that occurred when Marcus Smart attempted to end Bembry’s whole life.
https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/status/1086806747539480577
Smart’s tete-a-tete with Hawks swingman Deandre Bembry was verbal at first (before the beginning of the clip) then became *extremely Johnny Most voice* A VIOLENT, VIOLENT CLASH when Smart tore through approximately 20 players, refs, coaches and security personnel with every intention of smashing Bembry’s face with an indestructible right hand. He was fortunately kept from doing so (by, among others, the poor NBC Sports Boston head of security, who fell to the floor in his efforts to hold Smart back but also successfully pacified the Celtics’ ombudsman of combat muscles and grit), because he’s probably getting suspended a game as is.
If that had been the cause of his ejection, it would’ve been more than fair. Marcus was ready to break Bembry’s face. But it wasn’t. Smart had already been ejected by default due to amassing two technical fouls, both of which resulted from objecting to two ticky-tack common fouls, at least one of which didn’t need to be called at all; it was a clean steal. They were called because Scott Foster was lead official in tonight’s game, and he—how to put this—really doesn’t like players of Smart’s ilk. Extrapolate from there.
I’ve complained about Foster at length in the past and see no reason to rehash the specifics of my contempt for him, but he is and always has wanted to insert himself into game proceedings any way he can. The downright repugnant Joey Crawford and whining, buffoonish Steve Javie did the same in years past. In all examples, it’s pathetic behavior that should be beneath grown-up human beings. Get that weak stuff outta here.
GREEN FIRE HIGHLIGHTS
Beautiful move by Kyrie on his Uncle Drew shiz:
Kyrie with the lefty floater (@AAANe_MAnews) #AAANortheast pic.twitter.com/Y9aOHw5ckb
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) January 20, 2019
Uncle Al and Taco Jay working together:
Tatum with the take, Al with the finish https://t.co/Xko2TXQJZg
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 20, 2019
Rozier with the steal, lightspeed coast to coast and DUNK:
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 20, 2019
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