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Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics EXPLODE for 125 Points Without Usual 3-Point ATTACK – Pritchard Impresses
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Boston Celtics rack up 125 points against the Toronto Raptors—without relying on their usual three-point barrage. Can Joe Mazzulla's squad thrive with a more versatile shot selection? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal highlights Payton Pritchard’s relentless paint attacks, Sam Hauser’s adaptability, and Derrick White’s steady two-way performance as Boston shifts focus to high-percentage two-pointers. The Celtics’ ball security and poised offense have ranked number one since December, sparking questions about sustainability and playoff potential. Jaylen Brown’s surprising revelations about an ongoing wrist injury and his candid response to officiating controversies take center stage. With Brown dominating at the free-throw line and sharing insights on modern treatment methods, his leadership and adaptability are in the spotlight. Trade rumors swirl around the Celtics—with possible moves for Ivica Zubac—while looming tests against the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama add ...
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Foreign podcast network your team every day.
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Celtics put up a lot of points and without the one weapon they probably use the most. And Jaylen Brown opens up about his wrist injury, something we didn't expect. Now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Hey there. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast network where it's your team every day and your is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday. You got bonus podcasts on a night like this where they plan a Friday night bonus podcast tomorrow when they play on a Saturday night against the San Antonio Spurs. So make sure you're subscribed wherever. Get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube, get into that comment section, share your thoughts with me. If you're new to the show, I am John Corrales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I've been covering this team for about 20 years doing this podcast for like 10 and I've written a couple of books about the team. Today show is brought to you by FanDuel. Go ahead over to FanDuel if you missed it on Friday night they do NBA Happy hour from 6 to 7:30pm Eastern. Check it out on the FanDuel app or@fanduel.com Celtics get the win over the Toronto Raptors 125117 so I'll be going to do a two segment show today, not three because it's a bonus podcast. I'm just going to condense it a little bit. Second segment's gonna be all Jaylen Brown. His his game, his what he said about the refs, him and the refs what he said about his Wrist. Incredibly revealing stuff. Unexpectedly revealing stuff from Jalen Brown. But let's get into this game here again. The Celtics win at 125, 117. The Raptors without. Well, they lost RJ Barrett in this game to a sprained ankle. Like another injury. No Scotty Barnes, no Jakob Poeltl, no Brandon Ingram. So shorthanded. But those are always dangerous games because the, the other team has a reason to play hard. And you know, the guys that do play are going to be like over the top, hustling, trying to all, you know, you know how it goes. You've seen the Celtics kind of screw these games up before both teams came out hot. The Raptors were shooting just out of their minds. In the first, first half. They shot 11 of 25. So 44. They cooled off in the second half and this is where the Celtics started to get some separation. They shot 7 of 22 in the second half while the Celtics just kept on rolling. The Celtics were hot the whole night. They finished shooting 53.4%. They shot 50 from three, 89 and a half percent from the line. Sam Houser shot 70%. Peyton Pritchard shot 63%. Derek White hit half his shots. So the hot shooting was the big thing. But not just the hot shooting. It was the two point shooting that was the big thing. They shot only 28 three pointers, which was the lowest in this season, by far the second lowest regular season output by the Celtics in the Joe Missoula era. And, and if you factor in the playoffs, it's in the bottom, I think bottom five. But the Celtics put up 125 points. They took 87 shots. And that doesn't even count the free throws. They went to the line 19 times. Thirteen of those were Jaylen Brown, which I'll get to in a little bit. But when you factor in the 19 free throws, well, those are all shot attempts too. But they, they got a ton of shots off. So they, they only took 28 three pointers, which means there were 60, 59 two pointers. And that's, that's just not something that you normally expect out of the Boston Celtics. You, we think of them as a three point team. But again, I've said this before. This is like Missoula ball is not just go take three pointers. You. You have to take them. And the 20th that they took, there could have been more. But the, the Raptors were, were pressuring. They were up and the Celtics were able to get past that initial line of defense. And so that helped them like drive and kick and attack and you know, drive, kick, multiple attacks. You have drives, defense steps up and you have lobs to Namishkada. You just have straight all finishes. You have Jalen Brown in the mid range, you have Peyton Pritchard in the mid range. So Missoula ball is make the right read, make the right play, whatever that is, that is just going to make that shot when it's open. And this was two points, two pointers just galore, attacking, getting to the line. And when they, they gave you the three pointers, you take them and you make them. They made half of them, 14 of 28. Now when you only take 28, you have to make half of them to be able to do what, you know, put up, put up a lot of points. But the Celtics were still able to dictate kind of like their, their shot profile and, and just do it based on what the Raptors like. Hey, okay, you want to pressure us? No problem. We're fine with going into the mid range and hitting those shots. Peyton Pritchard, incredible again. He was 8 of 10 in the paint area, 2 of 2 at the rim. So it was another 6 of 8 at that paint non restricted area that he loves so much. And the, the beauty of what Pritchard did is the, okay, I want to drive. Okay, you want to shut off my drive. I have a counter move. The counter move is that stop, either step back or spin and fade. No problem. Oh, you want to come up on that? Then he hit mount, you know, Mamu Kelvili with the step through move. Because, okay, we expect to drive, we expect a step back. He comes up, defends it well. And so Pritchard was just like, you know what, I have this move, I have this last move which Jalen keeps joking that, you know, Peyton stole, you know, is in his bag, in Jalen's bag. And like that's a move that Jalen does. Pritchard just hits, hits you with it and, and finishes incredibly crafty in the paint. That's what working on your craft is. But that was just an incredible performance from Pritchard. But he, again, he wasn't the only one. Hauser hitting five of seven from three hit his first four. So. But he also, when they ran him off the line, very, very willing to go in and take, you know, go two of three from two point land. And so, so that, that also, you know, Sam's not just the three point shooter. He's willing to attack. You got seven of 14 from Derek White who had just A classic Derrick White game. He was 2 of 7 from 3. He was one of few guys that didn't hit the three pointer. But you hit one more and you're 3 of 7 and that's perfect, right? So the, the overall game, 18 points, five assists, three rebounds, two more block shots, just one turnover. Turnovers are a huge thing for the Celtics because they protected the ball well. They had seven turnovers in this game and they didn't get like a ton off of Toronto. Toronto had six, but seven. Said it after the game was asked about the Celtics offense is number one since December 1st by a mile. And he, he said it. The, the, the key is to protect the ball and get the shots up off the rim. And if you can put the ball up off the rim, there's a good chance that you're going to start scoring some points because eventually those, those are going to start falling even if you start cold, which the Celtics weren't at all in this game. So Derek White, just one turnover. I mean the only, the only person who turned it over more than once was Jalen Brown. He had four. There were a couple of not so great ones, but you know, it's okay, it's okay because he, he, you know, did his damage, got, you know, 25 points on the 13 free throws. So if you hear background noise in the audio version, you probably see it on the YouTube version. I'm here at the TD Garden at the sports museum. Upstairs is kind of like my new spot to do to record this show. It's really good. If you want, you should probably come by and check this out. I'm doing like free promotion for the sports museum here. But you got Larry Bird behind me, Bobby Orr can't see him, but Ted Williams in the back. I got Kyle Yastremsky and Harry againis just Boston sports legends. So anyway, you know, when it comes to this, this game, it really wasn't like the most exciting game in the world. It was just kind of like there were a couple of nice plays. There's, you know, Jalen Brown, you know, right off the bat just driving down nice little inside out dribble down the lane, two hand dunk. Then he hit Mamu with the, with the poster later on in the game. So you had a couple of exciting plays there. You had a wild alley oop to Namishkada, which it goes down as like, wow, what a wild basket that was. He was trying to catch the pass and it was up towards the rim and he just couldn't. But because he's tall. It just kind of rolled off his fingers into the. Into the rim. So it goes down as an alley oop layup for Verkada, which was fun. Other than that, it was just like, Celtics made a run, Raptors made a run. Celtics made a run, Raptors made a run. And then when they. The. The Raptors got cold, the Celtics were able to push it to 20. But then again, this. The Celtics just. They. They got into a couple of ruts there where they're trying to do a little too much. A little too much ISO. A little too much individual play. And the Raptors cut it all the way back down to single digits. And then the Celtics whipped off another run. Anthony Simons was behind one of those runs. He was. He was big. I. I'm really impressed with Simons. I asked him after the game about being in trade rumors and trying to focus and concentrate. He just laughed. He's like, I've been in trade rumors for years. Since, like, my second, third year in the league. I've been in trade rumors for a long time. He was laughing about it because it's like, yeah, I've learned to live with it. It is what it is. You just, you know, you. You are where your feet are or something like that, he said. And he's. He's gotten super comfortable. And he, I think, obviously was going to take him time to get used to it and figure out, like, okay, I'm. I'm in a new city, right? You get traded in the middle of the summer, you come here. It's a new city. It's a new role. It's new teammates. It's, you know, new coaches, new culture, new everything. And it took them a little while to kind of get used to that. And then on top of it all, you do have the trade rumors. You do have that thing hanging over your head of like, hey, at any moment, I could be gone. And maybe there were trade rumors before, but these are legit. Like, this is Brian Scalabrine before the Denver game. I. I only saw the clip today where he was just adamant. He's like, no, these talks between the Celtics and the Clippers are real. There. You know, there's real. There's something behind this, and it's interesting to me. I don't know. I. If the Celtics, that's. That's probably another topic for an off day. But Scal seems to think that the Celtics discussions for Vita Zubacs are. Are real. If there's something behind that now, that's not out there, but it's probably meaningful that it's not out there because the Celtics operate in silence. You know, they're, they're like, you know, they, they never let things leak. So Simons could easily at any minute just be like going off to la. But he's not letting it bother him. He comes in off the bench, he spurs that first run, the run that really turned the game around, right? That the Celtics were. Well, no, that was Pritchard in the one in the third quarter. In the second quarter was. It was Simons that came in and kind of like got the Celtics a little bit of room. Then in the third quarter was Pritchard who I think had 12 in the third quarter and he got the Celtics that 20 point lead. And Simons was just there. He said Joe was talking about his defense. He did a great job there. So it's just a nice team win a nice kind of business, like win a couple of things that I didn't like with the, the individual stuff. And the defense, the, the Celtics defense is just the way it's geared towards giving up certain three pointers. You got to live with it. Who was it? Jacoby Walter hit 5 of 9. Gary Washburn tweeted this out during the game. Walter came into the, the game having hit 39 three pointers total in like 34 games. And it comes in and hits five in this one. Celtics defense is geared towards protecting the paint. And sometimes you just. A guy gets a wide open look, he sees it, he sees it goes in and it just, it feels good. When that first one goes in, it feels good. The next shot you take, you have. You shoot it with confidence. It feels good. Next thing you know, boom, boom, boom. They start falling. So the Celtics defense is geared towards this, but they still need to figure out how to challenge those shots without just daring guys to take those shots. It's the one thing I really didn't like in this game, but otherwise just a nice, a nice win over the Raptors. And they, you know, it's important because the. Tomorrow they're playing the San Antonio spurs and Victor Wembanyama, Luke Cornett, who was at this game. And you know, they're. That's not going to be the easiest game in the world. Third game in four nights. Wemby is just, you know, how do you deal with him? Nobody knows how to deal with him. So spurs are a really good team. That's gonna be a tough one. I wouldn't be surprised if they lose that game. So we'll see. But anyway, the A nice win. Jaylen Brown, 25 points in this, but did it at the free throw line. Interesting, right? The day after he went kind of berserk. We'll talk about that and his revelations about his wrist. That's all coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. Go on to the FanDuel app every Friday from 6 to 7:30pm Eastern and you're going to get the NBA Happy Hour right. You get right before the games, tip off, give you a new way to kick off the weekend. It's like your official pre game. It's a limited time window. You get special offers right on that FanDuel app before it starts. You get things like boosts, you get bonuses, you get surprises. Every Friday from 6 to 7:30pm it's like appointment viewing. With NBA Happy Hour, it's easy to check the weekly special before tip off and make a move before the window closes. It's right before the games. It's right before the weekend starts. So it adds a little extra energy to that Friday night without overthinking it. I don't know if you've got into it before this game, but you should have check it out right before tip off. NBA Happy Hour every Friday from 6 to 7:30pm Eastern. When you're on that FanDuel app, it's going to ask you to set a budget, set your limit, please do that so you can gamble responsibly. Set whatever you can afford to lose, whatever your disposable income is. If that's what you want to set your limit at, please do that. So if you hit a cold streak, they will take care of you. They will stop you themselves. So do that. And then check out NBA Happy hour only on FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Today's show is also brought to you by BetterHelp. I'm a big proponent of therapy and I know that this is a big time, like new Year, new me. People want to say, okay, I'm starting fresh, I'm starting over. No, you want, you don't want to start over. You want to become your best self. And so it's not about reinvention. It's just about feeling a little less weighed down. Therapy can help you understand that and BetterHelp can help you get that better perspective on your emotions, motivations and relationships. Because their therapists are fully licensed in the United States and they work under a strict code of conduct, they help match you with therapists based on your needs and preferences. So there's no need to do all of that legwork, which can be discouraging. The legwork is tough to do and if the match isn't right, you can switch to another therapist from their tailored recommendations at any time. So that gives you the option. They do a lot of the work for you and there's no kind of pressure to stay with somebody you're not clicking with. BetterHelp has served over 5 million people with more than 30,000 therapists and live sessions. Live sessions average a 4.9 out of 5 rating across more than 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist. Sign up and get 10 off@betterhelp.com Locked on NBA BetterHelp H L P.com Locked on NBA thank you for making Locked on Celtics your first listen every day and making it the number one Celtics podcast in the world. It's on the number one sports podcasting network on the world. That's because of you, the everydayer who is with me every Monday through Friday, who joins me on these bonus podcasts. Thank you so so much for doing so. Really means a lot. Jalen Brown it didn't have the best game. You know the numbers. Again, it's another Jaylen Brown game where the numbers look decent. 25 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists. The four turnovers weren't like the best 6 of 15, so 40% 1 of 3 from 3 didn't shoot particularly great, but he got to the line 12 for 12 out of 13. So Jalen Brown goes out and trashes the refs. I didn't see a fine anywhere, trashes the officiating and then comes in and gets 13 free throws. So was his game markedly different than it was the other night against Denver? Not necessarily. But 13 free throws. Again, the Celtics were aggressive. They were. They were definitely like both teams were were aggressive, attacking. But Jalen gets to the line. Okay. So I asked him about it and he said, quote I just got to keep my head on straight. Don't let it affect my physicality or the way I play. Don't let it cloud my vision. Thinking about the refs, not thinking about making the right play. So I just got to stay poised. I'm versatile, flexible enough to make it happen. But it feels good though. And he said I can't let it get get me from making the right reads and all that stuff. It's honestly, it's almost like he directly addressed my criticism from the last podcast where we said that like you have to have the poise. You have to be able to rise above that. Yeah, I get it. It's frustrating to not get the foul calls, but to make it the focus of that post game from Denver and, and to let it clearly affect you and to let it clearly change how you play, that is bad. Jaylen Brown is too good for that. And so it's like, I, I, I definitely called him out on that, but then he comes out and says this and it's like, okay, good. This is exactly what you want to hear from someone. That, that kind of. I believe, I'm just, My personal belief is he wanted to send that message. He might have gotten a little too overboard with it. He realized it and he came back and he's like, you know what? I have to be better in that moment. Good. Boom. Done. As far as I'm concerned, handled perfectly. Done. Moving on. Because Jaylen Brown is too good for that. Jalen is an MVP candidate. He is playing his best basketball of his life. And you have to prove that. Like the, the, I understand complaining, complaining to the refs during the game, that that happens, but at the same time, you have to compartmentalize and have to move on. And so it's good to hear Jalen talk about that. So he ended up with a good game. I, you know, overall, I like the fact that he did the other things that he was in there, rebounding, that he was in there, you know, with the assists. That, that's just a nice overall game. The Celtics protected the ball really, really well. Even though Jalen had those four turnovers. A couple of early ones, they were not great, but that's okay. You know, it happens. Four turnovers is not the worst thing in the world for a guy that has the usage as high as he does, but a couple of them certainly could have been better. So that's fine. Who else did I not mention? Hugo Gonzalez was, you know, his, he had a couple of nice finishes at the rim. What else Jordan Walsh played was okay. I mentioned Simons. That's basically everybody. Okay. Now, Jalen was also very revealing about his wrist. Now, he's had issues with the wrist before and before the game, like Darko Rajkovic, the Toronto coach, was talking about how Jalen had adjusted and, and become, like, really good with his, with his left hand. And Jalen after the game was like, he's lying. Don't listen to him. He's joking around. And then he said, he said this on his live stream too, once, but he said, look, I've had, I tore all the ligands ligaments in my wrist in 2021. So he's talking about that and he just said, I've had procedures where I've had a couple of loose bodies removed and I've had chips in my wrist over the last couple of years. And he talked about modern medicine so he could go get some mobility in the wrist. Talk about plate prp, platelet rich plasma therapy and stem cell therapy. He's, he went on, he spoke for 13 minutes after this game. The video is all online. You should probably go listen to it. I can't, like, I'm not going to read off all the quotes here. That'd be boring and I don't have the actual audio to play you. So the. But he was so revealing in this, talking about multiple procedures to clear out loose bodies from the wrist and multiple times getting the PRP injections and the stem cells and how sometimes you fall on the wrist. And now for two weeks, it's you, you can't. Like, it doesn't move the same way. He really kind of like opened up. It's. This is a whole new Jaylen Brown, which I've said before on the podcast, you know, earlier this year, like, Jaylen is being so much more open about things. It's incredible. It's incredible to see and I love it. I love that he's being more open and sometimes that leaves you open to criticism and that's how it goes. But, you know, I love hearing this because, you know, lends a little extra perspective. You're like, okay, this guy is dealing with this thing and it just makes the things that he's doing a little bit more impressive, actually. The, the fact that he's out there, he had some great lefty finishes. He's. He's been going left incredibly well all year long. So to hear that, like, hey, sometimes it does. My wrist just doesn't work and you fall on it. And it could be like, we, we had to move on because the post game is only limited to a certain amount of time. But I'm curious about the whole wrist issue and is he going to have to go get that fixed in a different way after his career is over? Is that something like when he's going to be 50 or 60, is that thing just going to lock up on him? What's he putting himself at risk for moving forward by continuing to play and all that stuff? Like, I love the fact that he's kind of letting us in on that. But very revealing. Jalen Brown talking about that, talking about the the refs and all that stuff. So it was kind of fun. I I would recommend finding that post game stuff online and like I said, it's out there. The quotes are out there. But you know, credit to him for that. So nice win over the Toronto Raptors again. San Antonio spurs are next that one. I don't know how that's going to go, but hey, they've won games they're not supposed to win before, so we'll see how that goes. I will be here at TD Garden again after that game. So last home game before they head out on the road. I'm going to be out on the road for a couple of those games. So make sure you're here for not only Monday through Friday podcast, but for the bonus podcast on the weekends and all of that stuff. So thank you for being in every day. Or thank you for being here with me every Monday through Friday, plus Saturdays and Sundays and whatever. If you want to join the Everydayer Club, you can get ad free audio access to our Discord server, merchandise drops and all of that stuff. It's at lockdownceltics.supercast.com Lockdown Celtics.supercast.com Five bucks a month gets you all of that stuff. The ad free audio, the 50 bucks a year. If you want to pay up front, you get two months free. So go check that out there. And now I would love it if you share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Here on the Lockdown Podcast Network is your team every day.
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