J.R. Smith and Carmelo Anthony did almost all of the scoring for the New York Knicks tonight, combining for 61 of the Knicks 100 points. They destroyed the Celtics not just by scoring, but by scoring off their own misses. I believe Carmelo Anthony tipped in 2 more of his misses just as I typed this last sentence.
The Celtics were only down 4 after the first quarter, thanks mostly to Jordan Crawford, of all people. But the Knicks turned the C’s sloppy, disjointed play into a 14 point halftime lead. The Celtics recovered in the third by actually hustling and out-working the Knicks to cut that 7, but the Knicks whipped off a 9-0 run that basically left the Celtics in the dust.
The Green
Jordan Crawford: I’m not saying it was great for the entire game. But for a guy who Doc accurately summed up as a guy who scares both coaches at the same time, Crawford was the only reason why the C’s were close for a chunk of the first half. He had 9 points on 4-5 shooting and 2 assists in the first quarter. He did have 6 turnovers, and he forced a bunch of shots… But I’m trying to find some positives here…
Jeff Green’s 3rd quarter: 9 points on 3-4 shooting, 2 assists and 3 rebounds. He was the aggressive Jeff Green that we saw in the Miami game.
Terrence Williams: He missed a couple of shots, but he was aggressive. He had 7 points and 5 rebounds, but he was 3-4 from the line. I saw some good things in him tonight.
The Gross
Avery Bradley: The kid struggled mightily in this game. One of his layup attempts went off the side of the backboard. Yeah, it was that bad.
This quote:
Doc on the plan without KG for the next few weeks: “Shavlik and D.J. will play now. Maybe we’ll find something out about our team.”
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) March 26, 2013
DJ White didn’t play. Randolph didn’t get in until after the 6:00 mark and the game was out of hand.
The Greenlights
The Grid
- Paul Pierce: 16 pts (5-10 fg, 1-4 3pt, 5-7 ft), 6 rebounds, 6 assists
- Jeff Green: 19 pts (6-14 fg, 1-4 3pt, 6-6 ft), 10 rebounds, 6 assists
- Brandon Bass: 11 pts (5-6 fg), 7 rebounds, 3 blocks
- Second chance points: New York-29, Boston-6
- Celtics turnovers: 20, leading to 17 points.
I should mention Brandon Bass’ stat line, which looked good, but I just saw so many balls bounce off his hands that I couldn’t bring myself to put him in the “green” or “gross” categories. He was neither.
The last two stats really tell the story. When you get smoked for 29 second chance points and 17 off of turnovers, you’re going to lose. A few points off turnovers will happen. And sometimes guys will just tip in their own misses. But the Knicks took 21 more shots than the C’s did, and that’s all because they got a ton of offensive boards and they turned C’s turnovers into baskets.
I get that KG and Courtney Lee were out, and the C’s are as shorthanded as it gets. But effort means something. And there wasn’t a lot of that out there tonight.
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