2020 Playoffs Round 2 Game 2 Celtics at Raptors Tuesday Sept 1 5:30pm EST on Sportsnet

[A.I]

Ya I watched the game the best adjustment was the zone defense with serge as the 5 that's when we got our largest lead.
You gotta stop looking at Gasol with excel colored glasses. Dude doesnt have it right now and I dont know if he is ever going to be the player he was just looks lost since the bubble started, hes had time we need to change things or were going to be going home by the weekend

If the shooting struggles continue, it won't matter if we put Serge in the starting lineup.

[bertarapsfan]

If the shooting struggles continue, it won't matter if we put Serge in the starting lineup.

At least he shoots and is hitting his 3s

[S.R.]

Apparently everyone went out of bounds tonight and only Siakam got called

[hotfuzz]

Apparently everyone went out of bounds tonight and only Siakam got called

Oh well. It's not like Siakam was going to make anything happen anyways.

[Fear_the_BC]

Raptors are going to get swept. They don't have the offense to keep up with Boston.

Concur, or perhaps eek with game 3 victory. In the end, Boston has this series. Things could have been different with actual home-court advantage, unfortunately.

On the bright side, this makes it easier for Masai. $20 MM for FVV? GTFO!

[Scraptor]

This being the conclusion from a game where Gasol won his minutes by 7 and Serge lost his minutes by 10 makes me want to cry.

I am surprised that you of all people, as one of the smartest dudes on this board, are using +/- as proof of anything.

Going into the 4th it was 78-70 for us. When Serge checked out it was 93-87 for them. So a 23-9 run for them, or -14 for Serge's +/-.

Of those 23 points, 20 of them were due to Smart and Kemba. How the heck is that Serge's fault?

Serge is very clearly outplaying Marc right now and I don't know how that can possibly be in question. We are playing 4-on-5 on offense with Marc dumping the ball away like a hot potato all the time; Marc is a wonderful passer but Kyle/FVV dominate the ball so much it relegates him to statue duty. And he's too slow-footed on D these days to deal with the agility of all of Boston's attackers, despite a couple of blocks today.

Having an actual shooting threat out there will help make the game easier for everyone else. And we really really need that right now.

[Scraptor]

And all this "we're going to get swept" is just coward talk. That's the same soft ass shit we saw last year when we went down 0-2 to the Bucks.

Have some spine and a little faith ffs.

[DanH]

I am surprised that you of all people, as one of the smartest dudes on this board, are using +/- as proof of anything.

Going into the 4th it was 78-70 for us. When Serge checked out it was 93-87 for them. So a 23-9 run for them, or -14 for Serge's +/-.

Of those 23 points, 20 of them were due to Smart and Kemba. How the heck is that Serge's fault?

Serge is very clearly outplaying Marc right now and I don't know how that can possibly be in question. We are playing 4-on-5 on offense with Marc dumping the ball away like a hot potato all the time; Marc is a wonderful passer but Kyle/FVV dominate the ball so much it relegates him to statue duty. And he's too slow-footed on D these days to deal with the agility of all of Boston's attackers, despite a couple of blocks today.

Having an actual shooting threat out there will help make the game easier for everyone else. And we really really need that right now.

Single game plus minus is not predictive, but it is descriptive. My point was even in a game where we actually won the Gasol minutes in spite of his individual struggles (not a new trend) people come away thinking Serge starting could actually help us, in spite of Serge’s awful, awful defence.

Watch that run again and pay attention to what Serge is doing (or not doing) defensively.

[DanH]

Sure, but did you see the two beautiful field goals he hit? That awesome bank shot from the free throw line, that's the kind of play that's gonna turn this series around for us. He's been a wonderful offence orchestrator from the high post, our half court offence just hums when he's on the court. Floor is wide open. Sure he had twice as many offensive fouls as assists on this one, but that's irrelevant, you can see the Celtics defence just backing away from him in fear, trembling on their boots terrified he might throw a beautiful pass to a cutter.

Also, keep in mind, Individual +/- didn't matter on game 1 where he was a -18 that was a writeoff game, but on this one he was a +7, so on this one +/- matters. You gotta carefully pick the stats to look at and the ones to ignore. For example, he had a team high 3 turnovers, but that's one blemish on his otherwise beautiful game, so it's best to just ignore that.

He was also a strong presence on the glass for us on this one with his 4 rebounds, masterfully containing the monster centres the Celtics have. Our other Centre, the one that had 17 pts, 9 rebounds on this one and is shooting 50% from 3 (second highest 3P% on this series for us), that's a downgrade. What Nurse gotta do is cut his minutes way down and extend Gasol minutes further. You know why? Because good shooting and putting the ball on the basket is overrated, shooting is just luck. You see, the Celtics defence is irrelevant here. This "floor spacing" thing that players and coaches talk about, the one created by good shooters that are not afraid to shoot, that's a myth. You gotta just focus on stats, averages and spreadsheets. The fact that we've had 5 poor shooting games against the same team, that's a conicidence. Shots will just fall in the future, that's what the numbers are saying. I really hope Nurse is smart here and don't change what's clearly working, we got the Celtics right where we want them.

Please try to remember that my point for both games is that we don’t need to create problems for ourselves by changing stuff that is not actually our problem.

My point with the individual plus minus thing was at least I understood the misguided thought that Serge should start when Gasol was losing his minutes, even if the fix was obviously more tactical and hoping for shooting regression (one of which happened to great effect in game 2, still waiting on the shots to fall). Having a much harder time understanding it when the Raptors are winning his minutes, which I would have thought would have made his contributions easier for people to see but apparently not.

I don’t particularly enjoy you making stuff up to attribute to me re: floor spacing (there’s a reason Serge is shooting and making threes and it ain’t because the Celtics are covering him out there) but to each their own I suppose.

Gasol can definitely be better. So can Siakam, Lowry and FVV. The solution to those problems is not to bench any of these players.

[Rudy Bargnani]

This being the conclusion from a game where Gasol won his minutes by 7 and Serge lost his minutes by 10 makes me want to cry.

You're getting razzed for this already but you are also ignoring the following:
--When Ibaka checked in for Gasol in the first quarter something else important happened. Norman Powell checked in for Kyle Lowry. Kyle is really really good and makes all lineups better. Powell was awful. In the 2nd half when Marcus Smart hit his first three 3's on a 9-2 run, Gasol was on bench but so was Lowry.

Now I actually agree your premise though that the starting center isn't necessarily the problem. Raptors lost in part because Lowry, FVV and Siakam shot 4 for 23 from 3 and shot 3 for 19 from the first game. For a whopping total so far of 7 for 40 from those three. That's not good enough regardless of who's playing centre. If your team can't score 100 points in a playoff game in 2020 your not going to win often. Gasol is 0-5 from three in the series which sucks but if the other guys are hitting it's not a big deal. Our depth has not been an advantage which is another problem.

Now...I don't just think this is a regression thing that will automatically correct itself or that it's a case of it being a "make or miss league Doug". Celtics are controlling the tempo and we are not in a rhythm at all. Hopefully that corrects next game.

[DanH]

I am surprised that you of all people, as one of the smartest dudes on this board, are using +/- as proof of anything.

Going into the 4th it was 78-70 for us. When Serge checked out it was 93-87 for them. So a 23-9 run for them, or -14 for Serge's +/-.

Of those 23 points, 20 of them were due to Smart and Kemba. How the heck is that Serge's fault?

Serge is very clearly outplaying Marc right now and I don't know how that can possibly be in question. We are playing 4-on-5 on offense with Marc dumping the ball away like a hot potato all the time; Marc is a wonderful passer but Kyle/FVV dominate the ball so much it relegates him to statue duty. And he's too slow-footed on D these days to deal with the agility of all of Boston's attackers, despite a couple of blocks today.

Having an actual shooting threat out there will help make the game easier for everyone else. And we really really need that right now.

Whoa, wait, have to circle back to this logic. Serge was a +4 if you ignore his worst run of the game, which you should because guards scored points in that run, not his individual check.

But Gasol played 18 of his 21 minutes against Jason Tatum, also not his individual check, who scored 13 points in those 18 minutes. How is that Gasol’s fault? So we should ignore those 13 points, let’s see, that makes Gasol +20 for the game. Good stuff.

Serge is outscoring Marc. That does not mean he is outplaying him. And even if it did (it really doesn’t), that STILL doesn’t mean he should start if that doesn’t make sense in terms of fit with the starters and bench (both their own and the opposition’s) for the two players.

[DanH]

You're getting razzed for this already but you are also ignoring the following:
--When Ibaka checked in for Gasol in the first quarter something else important happened. Norman Powell checked in for Kyle Lowry. Kyle is really really good and makes all lineups better. Powell was awful. In the 2nd half when Marcus Smart hit his first three 3's on a 9-2 run, Gasol was on bench but so was Lowry.

Now I actually agree your premise though that the starting center isn't necessarily the problem. Raptors lost in part because Lowry, FVV and Siakam shot 4 for 23 from 3 and shot 3 for 19 from the first game. For a whopping total so far of 7 for 40 from those three. That's not good enough regardless of who's playing centre. If your team can't score 100 points in a playoff game in 2020 your not going to win often. Gasol is 0-5 from three in the series which sucks but if the other guys are hitting it's not a big deal. Our depth has not been an advantage which is another problem.

Now...I don't just think this is a regression thing that will automatically correct itself or that it's a case of it being a "make or miss league Doug". Celtics are controlling the tempo and we are not in a rhythm at all. Hopefully that corrects next game.

I would hope the legwork I did ALL YEAR including the context of who each player plays with and contrasting their successes in specific lineups would make clear that I’m not ignoring those things. We have two seasons of sample showing the team is always better with Gasol instead of with Serge. My point with this individual game is just that even on a night where that long term trend is written plain as day in terms of who won their minutes (which includes a lot of noise on a single game basis) we still have the knee jerk reactions, which in theory should be in response to actual short term causes for a loss, which is hard to pin on Marc what with the whole winning his minutes thing.

Yes, Norm was bad. But he was more invisible than actively damaging. And yes, Lowry is awesome, but keep in mind he ended up +9 for the game, which means he was +7 in Gasol’s minutes and only barely won his other minutes. It goes both ways. Same goes for Serge - yes, he and Norm got caved in for a -12 together, but that again means that Serge had a stellar +2 away from Norm. All of this is small sample size theatre which is why it describes what happened this game but doesn’t predict what will happen. For that we need the longer term trends. Which is the whole point here.

[TrueTorontoFan]

I would hope the legwork I did ALL YEAR including the context of who each player plays with and contrasting their successes in specific lineups would make clear that I’m not ignoring those things. We have two seasons of sample showing the team is always better with Gasol instead of with Serge. My point with this individual game is just that even on a night where that long term trend is written plain as day in terms of who won their minutes (which includes a lot of noise on a single game basis) we still have the knee jerk reactions, which in theory should be in response to actual short term causes for a loss, which is hard to pin on Marc what with the whole winning his minutes thing.

Yes, Norm was bad. But he was more invisible than actively damaging. And yes, Lowry is awesome, but keep in mind he ended up +9 for the game, which means he was +7 in Gasol’s minutes and only barely won his other minutes. It goes both ways. Same goes for Serge - yes, he and Norm got caved in for a -12 together, but that again means that Serge had a stellar +2 away from Norm. All of this is small sample size theatre which is why it describes what happened this game but doesn’t predict what will happen. For that we need the longer term trends. Which is the whole point here.

on this team marc is key but he hasn't been able to do it offensively and norm also hash been up and down since the actual playoffs have started if those two step it up we can easily win the series.. i think we honestly had that game in control the entire time.

[golden]

I would hope the legwork I did ALL YEAR including the context of who each player plays with and contrasting their successes in specific lineups would make clear that I’m not ignoring those things. We have two seasons of sample showing the team is always better with Gasol instead of with Serge. My point with this individual game is just that even on a night where that long term trend is written plain as day in terms of who won their minutes (which includes a lot of noise on a single game basis) we still have the knee jerk reactions, which in theory should be in response to actual short term causes for a loss, which is hard to pin on Marc what with the whole winning his minutes thing.

Yes, Norm was bad. But he was more invisible than actively damaging. And yes, Lowry is awesome, but keep in mind he ended up +9 for the game, which means he was +7 in Gasol’s minutes and only barely won his other minutes. It goes both ways. Same goes for Serge - yes, he and Norm got caved in for a -12 together, but that again means that Serge had a stellar +2 away from Norm. All of this is small sample size theatre which is why it describes what happened this game but doesn’t predict what will happen. For that we need the longer term trends. Which is the whole point here.

Rudy makes a great point. For example, I can make up a statistical narrative that says "playing with Lowry and Pascal makes every player win their minutes", because they are our biggest driver of wins. Even when Lowry and Pascal are having a bad scoring night, they do other things to help the team win and they make their teammates look good. Let's look at 3-man units, in the regular season:

Gasol-Lowry-Pascal: +9.8 net rating in 607 minutes
Ibaka-Lowry-Pascal: +9.7 net rating in 572 minutes

Voila. No small sample size theatre there. When Gasol and Ibaka play with our 2 best players.... there is no difference in the regular season. The main difference right now is that Gasol has fallen off a cliff and Ibaka looks the same.

Nurse is the best coach in the NBA, but he seems to have a real blind spot when it comes to his bench. He just throws guys out there in any mix & match combination. And he plays favorites. When Fred tried to lead the bench mob last year, he cratered badly because he was separated from Pascal.... so Nurse scraps the bench mob and protects Fred by playing him with the starters when Norm could easily succeed in that role. Powell doesn't get that consistent advantage to play with our starters as FVV.... he gets yanked in and out of the starting lineup and he plays with inferior BBIQ players and assorted random bench guys.. and he's a guy that needs to develop a consistent rhythm.

Here's another epic cherry pick: what happens when you swap out Norm for Fred in the starting lineup?

Powell-OG-Gasol-Lowry-Pascal: +13.2 net rating in 110 minutes
FVV-OG-Gasol-Lowry-Pascal: +12.8 net rating in 330 minutes

Guess what? We are little bit better with Norm in the starting lineup over FVV. Incredibly shocking to see that when you give role players minutes with our best players... that helps them "win their minutes". Go figure.

Similarly, avoiding bad combinations is probably even more important. I don't have the data, but my guess is that Ibaka-Powell + another bench guy, even with Lowry or Pascal propping it up is bad combination... unless we're playing the G-League Brooklyn Nets. Nurse did the same thing last year, repeatedly throwing the Lin-McCaw-Powell disaster lineup out there, until he finally shortened the rotation.

[planetmars]

So I slept on it.. and feel a bit better this morning than I did after the game last night. We should have won that game but c'est la vie. Just bring the same intensity into game 3 and hopefully the Celtics role players don't kill us again.

Fred went from a max contract back to about a $20M/yr deal though (so far). Which I guess is a bonus.