Boston Celtics’ Robert Williams’ struggles with Serge Ibaka led to limited second-half minutes in Game 4
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)AP By Tom Westerholm | twesterh@masslive.com
After going 3-for-4 from the floor in the first half of the Boston Celtics’ 100-93 loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 4, Robert Williams played just two minutes in the second half and was summarily pulled after Serge Ibaka made his fourth 3-pointer of the game.
Brad Stevens was short when asked about it on Sunday
“The Ibaka pick-and-rolls were obviously giving us fits, so we went to a smaller switching lineup there during his normal stint,” Stevens said.
That was that.
The Celtics did go small -- Grant Williams played some center to spell Daniel Theis. Stevens went back to Theis to close. The decision not to use Williams (or Enes Kanter, whose brief stint on Thursday coincided with a Raptors run of pick-and-roll baskets) felt intentional.
Still, watching Ibaka’s made field goals last night, Stevens’ explanation feels a little strange. Presumably, the Celtics went smaller because they wanted to switch, but Williams’ defense was only responsible for one of Ibaka’s four made 3-pointers.
Ibaka’s first was a pick-and-pop attempt, but Daniel Theis was covering him. Theis took a bad step back into the paint as he recovered from containing Fred VanVleet around the screen, which gave Ibaka time to set up and fire from 3-point range when VanVleet laced a pass to him.
Ibaka’s second 3-pointer was a pick-and-pop with Theis assigned to him as well, this time an off-ball pick-and-roll. Theis stayed a little too far back as Norman Powell curled toward the hoop, and when VanVleet delivered the ball to Ibaka, Theis recovered quickly but too late.
The third triple Ibaka splashed home was in delayed transition -- Kyle Lowry raced the ball up the court, and Theis dropped back into the lane again. But trailing the play slightly, Ibaka stopped at the 3-point line for his third make of the game.
Ibaka’s fourth 3-pointer was a breakdown on Williams’ part. As Lowry maneuvered around a pick-and-roll, Williams guided him away from the middle of the paint. But that took Williams far away from Ibaka, and when Lowry delivered a pass back to his big man, Williams was very late recovering.
Three of Ibaka’s four 3-pointers were against Theis. But at this stage in the playoffs, Stevens has stuck with the players he trusts. Although Robert Williams has had excellent moments since the bubble restarted, Stevens doesn’t entirely trust him yet.
Stevens was asked if there are one or two things he plans to tweak going into Monday’s game.
“Yep,” Stevens said.
Would he care to elaborate?
“I don’t know that that would be the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Stevens said. “But, well, actually I’ve probably done some not-so-smart things before, but I’ll keep those to us right now. But there’s a couple of things that we need to do different.”
Whether or not those tweaks include Williams remains to be seen.
Most didn't want to face the Bucks in the 2nd round but look what's happened ... The Heat lead that series 3-0 and Giannis is done for the day after tweaking his anhle again. Now maybe they see the writing on the wall and don't want to see Giannis do any more damage or maybe Giannis has had enough. Whatever the case, the Heat it would seem got the easy path facing the Bucks who haven't looked good since beating the C's with tons of help from the officials. Meanwhile, the C's left the window open in their series with the Raptors and they climbed through and now the shoe is on the other foot.
Somehow, despite believing in this Celtic team, I find myself wondering why we couldn't be the lucky ones like the Heat.
Red: "Basketball is like war, in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up."
I don’t know if the Bucks are going to win today up 4 with 4 min to go but they’ve been close whole 2nd half without Giannis...don’t know what that tells me?
Last Edit: Sept 6, 2020 16:56:02 GMT -5 by sfbosfan
Post by elvissurfs on Sept 7, 2020 10:57:47 GMT -5
Gotta take charge of this series today!...Going to be tough without Hayward...watching Jaws right now with my eight year old, sort of a Labor Day type flick...firing up the barby later...go Celts!
Gotta take charge of this series today!...Going to be tough without Hayward...watching Jaws right now with my eight year old, sort of a Labor Day type flick...firing up the barby later...go Celts!
Yes, the Celts need to get their mojo back or the Celtics will play their last game in the bubble on Wednesday.
Sorry for the cynicism but just bit of frustration and unluckiness with the Hayward injury keeping in mind he was out for a year also. If we lose next 2 games, Hayward will be finally healthy to cradle his new baby and walk relieving Mom from baby duties at times but would be nice if he was relieving some of our starters!
Sorry for the cynicism but just bit of frustration and unluckiness with the Hayward injury keeping in mind he was out for a year also. If we lose next 2 games, Hayward will be finally healthy to cradle his new baby and walk relieving Mom from baby duties at times but would be nice if he was relieving some of our starters!
Yes, it would be nice if Hayward will be relieving some of our starters 2 weeks from now.
It's all up to Jaylen and Kemba now.
Jayson Tatum has proven that he's not affected by what happened in Game 3.
Tatum bounced back from a bad Game 2.
It's Jaylen and Kemba who need to get over Game 3 and contribute.
Fierce, this is a BostonHomeCourt posting page. I don't want to make a deal with you on here. I'm sorry but I don't take this stuff that seriously because WE ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAMES OR GETTING PAID. Again, our debate was not the number of games, it was your prediction that the Celtics would have no problem with Toronto.
Like I said from the beginning, this is going to be a tough series.I felt it would go 7 but, honestly, I just want the Celtics to win 4 games.
I couldn't care less about a made basket with 0.5 seconds left in game 3. The bottom line is the Celtics are having huge problems with Toronto.
And, as for game 2, let's not act like we blew them out decidedly. We've had 4 good round two playoff games against the defending champs.
That's all that is going on right now and I anticipate 3 more tough ones to come with the Celtics getting 2 of those wins.
Celtics must limit the Raptors’ second-chance opportunities While the focus will be on Toronto’s 17-7 three-point differential, it was their advantage on second-chance points that was the real Celtics killer. By Arjun Balaraman
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
After OG Anunoby’s miracle three gave the Raptors hope on Thursday, Toronto continued their hot shooting from the second half of Game 3, knotting up the series at two games a piece behind a 17-for-44 performance from deep, on a night the Celtics only managed to convert 20% (7-35) of their tries from downtown.
It’s a cliché to say the NBA is a “make-or-miss league” but look, three-point variance is very real. It will happen in every game. In the modern NBA with teams taking more threes than ever, it’s inevitable that there will be games where teams go cold – with the most crucially glaring example being the Rockets missing twenty-seven straight in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals back in 2018.
Prior to Game 4, the Raptors were going through a brutal shooting streak of their own. Through the first three games, Toronto was shooting an abysmal 14-of-54 (25.9%) on wide open threes (classified as having the closest defender more than 6 feet away). Since there are no defenders near the shooter, a lot of the variance in wide-open threes is attributed to luck, and given that the Raptors shot above 41% on such attempts during the regular season, it was always likely that the basketball gods would shower some good fortune their way at some point.
Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Despite being outscored in the three-point battle by 30, the Celtics still had a legitimate chance late in this game. What really killed Boston on the night was allowing the Raptors to feast on secondary opportunities – outscoring the C’s 24-12 on second chance points. Toronto did so by scoring a whopping 17 points off their 8 offensive rebounds (that 2.25 PPP ranks in the 99th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass), and adding 7 more points off team rebounds.
In his postgame interview, Kemba Walker harped on the Celtics’ energy levels. “I thought we just didn’t match those guys’ intensity,” Walker said. “We’ve just gotta be tougher. We’ve gotta want it more.”
A huge part of rebounding is hustling and wanting it more, and that lack of intensity really showed up in the Raptors’ advantage on second chance points. Allowing eight offensive rebounds on its own is not all that bad, but it was the fact that all lead to easy, open layups, or wide open threes. That was the real killer for Boston.
The good thing for the Celtics, though, is that these are all fixable mistakes. Take this particularly brutal possession at the end of the first half that serves as a microcosm for the game as whole. Up three with a 4-second differential between shot and game clock, the Celtics have a chance to go into the half with a two-possession lead despite shooting the ball terribly. Ojeleye does a great job to stay in front of Siakam on the isolation, and even doesn’t bite on Pascal’s up fake. The help from Tatum forces a tough pass out to VanVleet, and Smart rotates to contest the 3 as the shot-clock is winding down. Nice team defense up to this point.
As the ball is in the air, though, neither Robert Williams nor Kemba Walker really check their opponent. Both Walker and Williams have an arm on their men, but don’t take the time to properly box out. The result: Timelord swipes the ball out after Gasol gets his hands on it, but Siakam picks up the loose ball to find an open VanVleet who ties the game with a triple. Despite 24 seconds of good defense, the Celtics gave up three points, and all night, the Celtics put good possessions together defensively, but just failed to finish them off.
Another reason why that second VanVleet three was open was that Marcus Smart leaked out after contesting the original shot, looking for a transition opportunity. Finding that balance of when to leak out and when to stay and help rebound, was something the Celtics struggled with all game.
On this play here in the first quarter, VanVleet gets by Brown with a behind-the-back move before launching a pull-up three off a screen from Marc Gasol. After Brown contests the shot from behind, and Williams from in front, both decide to leak out – giving the Raptors a 4-3 advantage off the glass.
With only Grant Williams rotating inside to try and box out Marc Gasol, Tatum pinches in a little and gets caught as the rebound flies over his head to Siakam, who manages to tap it back as Toronto eventually recovered the loose ball with Timelord and Brown out of position – soon leading to an open FVV 3.
The other area where the Celtics are getting caught on the offensive glass comes on switches where Kemba is forced to guard a bigger player. Below, OG Anunoby knows that he has the smaller Walker switched onto him and while he doesn’t get the ball in the post as the shot clock winds down, OG drifts towards the basket looking for a rebound. With the ball in the air, he easily discards Walker and has the simplest of putbacks.
The same thing happened later in the game at an important time, with the Celtics down just 6 in the fourth. Ibaka does well to set a good screen on Walker, forcing Grant Williams to pick up Norman Powell, as Walker and Grant switch. As Powell puts up a tough layup, Walker gets no help from either Smart or Tatum, and is left stranded under the basket against Ibaka.
Rebounding is a team effort and, while the Celtics usually do a good job of “scramming” Walker out of difficult matchups in the post, it’s important that they recognize when he’s caught on a switch while going up for a rebound, and help him out there.
Simple regression to the mean will likely lead to a better Celtics performance shooting the ball, but it’s vital that they’re focus on the defensive glass is consistent in order to restrict the Raptors’ second chance opportunities in Game 5.
For those who say we are going 7 games is there positive in me saying well at least we’ll get one more win! Only joking. Trying to be light as I am a bit anxious about coming game and a nice 10+ pt lead most of the game I would not find boring!
Trying to do some construction work here. cant focus thinking about the game today. Cant believe we lost 3 and 4. Cant believe we have lost momentum. We need to fight.
Last Edit: Sept 7, 2020 12:29:39 GMT -5 by Cabutan
For those who say we are going 7 games is there positive in me saying well at least we’ll get one more win! Only joking. Trying to be light as I am a bit anxious about coming game and a nice 10+ pt lead most of the game I would not find boring!
If Celts start hot and dominate the 1st qtr. then it will be game over for Toronto.
But if the Celts start the way they did in Game 4, Celts will most likely lose.
Trying to do some construction work here. cant focus thinking about the game today. Cant believe we lost 3 and 4. Cant believe we have lost momentum. We need to fight.
It's not that simple.
The problem is psychological.
We agree that the Celts are the better team.
Unfortunately what happened in Game 3 is in the heads of Kemba and Jaylen.
Fierce, this is a BostonHomeCourt posting page. I don't want to make a deal with you on here. I'm sorry but I don't take this stuff that seriously because WE ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAMES OR GETTING PAID. Again, our debate was not the number of games, it was your prediction that the Celtics would have no problem with Toronto.
Like I said from the beginning, this is going to be a tough series.I felt it would go 7 but, honestly, I just want the Celtics to win 4 games.
I couldn't care less about a made basket with 0.5 seconds left in game 3. The bottom line is the Celtics are having huge problems with Toronto.
And, as for game 2, let's not act like we blew them out decidedly. We've had 4 good round two playoff games against the defending champs.
That's all that is going on right now and I anticipate 3 more tough ones to come with the Celtics getting 2 of those wins.