← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown PUSH Bulls, but Chicago too HOT from 3
00:21:30
Boston Celtics gut out a hard-fought battle against the Chicago Bulls, falling 114-111 in a loss that surprised fans with its competitiveness despite a brutal schedule. Can the Celtics address defensive lapses and three-point shooting woes before it costs them bigger games? Celtics On SI's John Karalis recaps Jaylen Brown’s standout night amid fatigue, Nemias Queta’s limited impact due to illness, and key moments where missed opportunities defined the outcome. Breakdowns include Derrick White’s January shooting slump, the Celtics’ struggles with defending the three-point line, and the importance of cleaning up late-game execution. With upcoming home games against the Portland Trail Blazers, Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, and Milwaukee Bucks, the focus shifts to how Joe Mazzulla’s squad finds its rhythm for a crucial stretch. Can Boston tighten up their defense and regain momentum before the All-Star break?
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Vintage store be any cuter? Right, and the best part, they accept Discover. Accept Discovery in a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh, yeah, huh? Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times. Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think.
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Discover is accepted at 99% of places.
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That take credit cards nationwide, based on.
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The February 2025 Nielsen report.
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Now in the Locked On Celtics podcast, a loss that was somehow better than anything I expected and yet still disappointing. Lock on Celtics P.O. home of the winners. Hey, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown podcast network, where it's your team every day, and your team is the Boston Celtics. I talk about them daily, Monday through Friday and after every game, so make sure you're subscribed. Watch the show on YouTube. Get into the comments section if you're new to the show. I'm John Corrales. I'm a beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports Illustrated and I've covered the team for about 20 years doing this podcast for 10. And I've written a couple of books about the team. Today is a bonus episode about the Celtics lost to The Chicago Bulls. 114, 111. And because it's a bonus episode, because it's Sunday, because it's snowing, because Patriots play football and all that stuff, Abbreviated podcast. So we'll keep it tight and not the normal half hour. I'll come back Monday with a We'll do a mailbag Monday. John corrales.com mailbag hey. In fact, this is a good time to actually make the announcement. I met after the last mailbag. I'm going to be answering the questions on the Celtics on SI page as well. So all of your questions come in@johncralis.com mailbag I'll answer my normal mailbag podcast, you know, half an hour, which is usually 3, 6, 7, 8 questions, something like that. But then I will get some overflow questions. I will put them on Sports Illustrated, the Celtics on SI page. So make sure that you are checking that out there as well. I don't get a chance to answer all of the questions here, but I'm going to get some and put them there so you can get an answer. All right. Now Boston Celtics lose 114, 111 to the Bulls. I said on yesterday's podcast I didn't expect much. So right away, my first thing, my first reaction is I'm just pleasantly surprised that they even had a chance at 114, 111 and kind of like a defensive mistake that led to an open three pointer for Kevin Herder. Obviously not ideal, but it's considering everything. A double overtime game on the back to back, third game in four nights. Essentially a two week road trip. And if you haven't heard my rationale for that, I know they had a home game in the middle of it. But when you're on the road for two straight weeks and you have one home game in the middle, that's a road game. That's still a road game at home. All of the cadence of your life is still road game. You come into a city, you go, you just don't go to a hotel, you go to your house, you get to pack something new for the next part of the trip. But like you go to the game after that game, you fly out. It's, it's all the same stuff. So all of that made me Just feel like this, to only lose by three. I was totally surprised. I thought they might have lost by 30 in this game. Especially the way the Chicago Bulls came out and started shooting right away. They hit 21 three pointers. They hit six three pointers in the first, third and fourth quarters. The only quarter they didn't hit six three pointers in was the second. They were three of eight. Guess which quarter the Celtics won. They won the second quarter 30 to 22. Amazing when the other team isn't shooting blistering hot from three that the Celtics were able to do well. And actually, you know, they, they took a halftime lead. So the, the, the Celtics looked good heading, you know, into, into halftime. But the Bulls in the third quarter, same thing, six of ten. They won the third quarter by nine. So all of a sudden that eight point lead, you're down in the, in the. They were down three. They ended up down three. Whatever it was, they ended up down three because through three quarters the Bulls were shooting 15 of 32 and the Celtics were shooting 11 of 37. And in the fourth quarter they played even the Bulls 6 of 13. But we talk about missed chances, missed opportunities. The Celtics really, in the fourth quarter, the Bulls hit their first five, I think three pointers and then they missed seven, eight and seven in a row and then hit, hit the last one. It was somewhat like crazy stretch where the Bulls didn't score for the last or only scored twice for the last five and a half minutes. And the Celtics couldn't take advantage. They only scored three times. Pritchard had a left like just, just outside the lane, jumper wide open. He shot, he missed it badly. Sam Houser had an open corner three which he missed. Now Derrick White got the offensive rebound, but that was a bad miss. Jaylen Brown had a couple of, you know, fadeaways that were kind of tougher shots, but shots that he makes all the time. Celtics just could not capitalize on Chicago going cold for the middle of the fourth quarter. That's where they, they, they lost, they lost the game. Kind of like in that stretch to me where if they had just first of all boxed out number one, you box out. The Bulls had four offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter. They didn't turn those into second chance points. But if you box out and get those rebounds, you get to go out and run. You get to go out and potentially score. Even though I said the Celtics weren't able to score, they weren't able to take advantage of one bucket, two buckets, you know, a three pointer and this is a different ball game. A couple of buckets in that stretch. It's a different ball game. So I think the. I think the road trip kind of caught up to them a little bit. They started to lose their focus. They started to lose their. They lost their legs. They. They had a good second quarter. They went into halftime. And so, so often a team in Boston situation, the. The third and four and all of that stuff, you come out, you play with good energy and halftime comes around and you sit down and you just go, oh, God, I'm so tired. And it's hard to ramp up. I know Joe Missoula has said he's. I don't think he's even joked. I think he's serious. He wants to eliminate halftimes in that situation. I'm 100% sure he would have if he could have petitioned somehow, like to eliminate halftime or just keep the guys out there and run some sprints, do something to keep you going. And force. Once you sit, you just, oh, like, this sucks. I don't want to get up now. And the beginning of the third quarter, they came out and gave up a 70 run. I do think that that was a huge part of it, that they came out and were like, it's going to take me a minute to get up to speed here. And I think those, those stretches of bad decisions, turnovers, not a lot of turnovers, but like, Jalen only had two turnovers, but he, he had a tough one at the, at the very end. I don't even think it went down as a turnover because he turned it over but then forced the jump ball and won the jump ball. And Neemi just barely missed the shot at the buzzer. So. But those, those plays were just, I think, indicative of there. They weren't their sharpest. They weren't their sharpest against Brooklyn either. So they, they're starting to feel it. Every team's starting to feel it here. I'm not, I'm really not worried necessarily about this. Another reason I'm not worried about this loss necessarily. The bigs were problematic because Nimius Kada was sick. He was available, but he didn't play. He didn't start. And that told you kind of everything. Amari Williams got the start and Luca Garza subbed in for him. So Neemi was listed on the injury report as sick and. But then available. But then they do that to start the game and it just felt like they didn't want to play Neemi if they didn't have to. And it Turns out they. They ended up having to. And in retrospect, probably should have just been like, if he's available, just play. Just go out there and play him. If he's not available, then don't play him and deal with it. Just deal with it. But Amari comes out and looks, I don't know, like he did some good things, but he just looked a little passive, like he was just getting bumped around. I didn't like how he looked. He just. He didn't look aggressive. And I know there was a stretch when he was in Maine, um, where I know some. Some of the people who. Who follow him closely. I, I admit I don't follow him all too closely. I tend to read other people who are following the G League closely and just kind of keep up. There was a stretch recently where all of a sudden Amare's, like, aggression came out, and that was. That was kind of like a big deal for him in Maine. That is kind of what he needs to be. He needs to channel that up at this level because he looked. He looked passive. It's not that he wasn't in the right spot sometimes. Not that he didn't do a couple of good things and set a couple of good screens, but he just, like I said, get bumped around, get knocked around a little bit. It just becomes like, okay, he's not quite ready here. So Joe takes him out. Garza goes in, Garza turns his ankle. We'll see if Garza is available to play in the. In this next game, because that. That's going to probably stiffen up on him.
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That point, Neemi comes in and, you know, Neemi was. I don't. He did a couple of good things, but again, he's sick, so I'm not. I'm not holding it against him. It's just. That's. That. That was a problem that the Celtics bigs just couldn't really give anything. And Keita is such a big part of the Celtics success, where if he's playing hard, rolling hard, playing well, the Celtics can run a pretty, you know, pretty effective offense around him, but they weren't getting any of that, really. So, I mean, combined keda and Garza, 10 points, 4 of 10 shooting, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks. Keda had a couple of steals. Okay, I got to give him credit. He's. He's been getting a lot of steals lately. He's on a bit of a roll, just tapping the ball free from behind. It's really kind of interesting, but okay, so that happened, and the Celtics had to try to find a different way to score, which they did with Jalen Brown. Jaylen Brown was really, really good. He shot with 50% on this night. Hold on, hold on. I'm on the fourth quarter. Full 14 of 28, 50%, 2 of 8 from 3. Not the best, but okay. 3 of 4 from the line, 8 rebounds, 5 assists. Just the two turnovers, a steal, a block. I think he hit that one. Crazy finish. The layup, the lefty layup with the foul. I think he. He just was in that same kind of falling. Falling behind in the fourth quarter, losing his legs a little bit. I'm surprised he played. I know Scal was saying it on tv, too, that when I saw him on the injury report with the hamstring tightness, I thought, okay, probable was surprising to me. Should have been like, questionable and then out. And I wonder if the Celtics regret it at all because they ended up losing this game. He's. With the hamstring tightness, he's going to have to. I just feel like he's going to have to sit somewhere along the way here because you don't want it to turn into something bigger. He's going to be playing in the All Star Game, so you don't want to have that be an issue. So just get him. Get him some rest. Or maybe he sits out the All Star Game, which I'd be surprised at, but maybe he Does, I don't know. But Jalen was basically the only real kind of consistent offensive threat outside of Anthony Simons, who was good. Simons was 21 points, 8 of 16, 5 of 11 from three. You know, in that fourth quarter down the stretch where the Celtics hit three shots and they couldn't take advantage of the Bulls hitting just two, that might have been a place for Simons to get in. Maybe he would have. He should have played over Pritchard or maybe they should have just gone small and, and tried that. I feel like Simons should have been on the floor in, in that, in that last five minutes or so, and he wasn't. Maybe, maybe he should have been in place of Sam Houser. Whatever it was, I think not having Simons on the floor might have been a little bit of a mistake. But you still have to depend on, like, Derek White did not shoot well, but he did have a decent fourth quarter where he scored 10 of his 15 points. In the fourth quarter. He was 3 of 5, 2 or 4 from 3, 2 of 2 from the line, 3 assists. I mean, he had, he had a really good fourth quarter. So I can see why maybe you don't pull him, but somebody, somebody should have probably sat so Simons could get in there and maybe steal something. But Simons was good off the bench. Derrick White, 5 of 18 shooting. This was, you know, after the day off, you're hoping that he could have stepped up. But two of 13 through the first three quarters, one of seven, just didn't have it going. It's another January slump for Derrick White, which sucks because, you know, he does so many other things. But this Celtics team needs him to score. You're going to have so few games where you have chances to win with him shooting the way he shot. Again the fourth quarter, yeah, great. But you need a little bit more of that early on. It's a three point loss and that's Derek. You can point to two, like, big blaring, obvious things. The Chicago Bulls hit six more three pointers and like, that's. What are you going to do about that? Josh Giddey, who is back from injury, kind of sucked in this game. And he was the only one who didn't score double digits, which blows my mind. Everybody who played for the Bulls scored double digits, except for Giddy, and everybody else who played hit at least two three pointers, except for Giddy, who hit zero. So you could look at that and just say if some of these guys have normal shooting nights. If the Celtics have a normal shooting night, then this is a much different story. But at the end of that road trip, third game in four nights, I knew the Celtics weren't going to have a good shooting night. So they needed to hold the Bulls to a better shooting percentage. And this is the last thing that I'll get into is the three point shooting that the Celtics allow. They, they have to figure out, they have to tighten that up. Other teams get going, they get hot against the Celtics and they have a defensive scheme. We know what the defensive scheme is in general big picture, it's pack the paint and run corner shooters. You can't allow corner threes. You allow above the break threes to the other team's worst shooters. But the Celtics somehow get the best from the other team's worst shooters on a regular basis. It's kind of like getting old. At this point, the bulls shot almost 47%. That's almost impossible. You can't overcome that. And to only lose by three when you've been outscored by. I mean, there was six more six to 18 points to be outscored by 18 at the three point line. And look, they won the shot margin. They took 99 shots to Chicago's 88, 85. So they hit a bunch more twos. The free throws were basically even. The Celtics had one more point off of that points in the paint. Celtics plus 10 second chance points. Actually, the Celtics won the second chance points by four. They had, they forced 15 turnovers. The Bulls, you know, 18 points off of those turnovers. Celtics only turned it over six times for five points. All of those things should add up to a win, except 16. I mean, six points for six, three pointers more for Chicago. 18 points more for Chicago at the three point line. That's, that's the problem. And Derek White, three of 11 from three, five of 18 overall, 15 points on a night he should have scored, you know, 20 plus. What are you going to do? Said you can. This could all be boiled down to make miss. It could very, very simply be boiled down to make miss. And sometimes that's how it goes. But like I said, I was expecting it to be worse. The Celtics need to tighten up some things there defensively, but I think with a little bit more rest, a little bit more time at home, they can, they can tighten that stuff up. And I'd like to see them figure out how to keep other teams from getting blistering hot from three. That's, that's the biggest problem if you, if you face a team that takes and makes a Lot of three pointers. The Celtics are going to be in a lot of trouble, but it's a loss. It's all right. It's a loss. They happen. Not a big deal. The Celtics are still the second seed. They are 28 and 17. So everything is. Everything still looks good. And now they come home to play the Portland Trailblazers on Monday. That's going to be an interesting game for a number of reasons, including whether I don't know how they're going to get there, I don't know what the weather's going to be like and all of that. So if I don't know if I'm going to be able to get there. But Portland, Atlanta, Sacramento, Milwaukee, in their next four games, all of them at home, it's four winnable games. Portland can be tough. Drew Holiday's coming back. Atlanta, they smoked Atlanta already, so maybe they can do that again. Sacramento's a mess. Milwaukee's a mess. Celtics could very easily go on a little bit of a winning streak here before tough games. Dallas, I'm going to say Dallas is tough just because Cooper flag and they seem to find a way. I'm not saying they're going to lose, but that's going to be a tough game. Houston, obviously can be a tough game. So they head into the All Star break with Dallas, Houston on the road on a back to back home for Miami. That'll be a third game, a fourth, third game in four nights. Then couple days off for once, Chicago again and then that's the All Star break. So there's a chance for the Celtics to do a little bit of damage here. But the schedule is grueling and so there'll definitely be at least a couple of losses in there. If they can keep it to a couple of losses, then great. If it's more than that, you know, shrug, shrug and hopefully trade deadline at that point after the Houston game, we'll see what happens there. That'll do it. Thank you for listening so much for the abbreviated show. This is me talking for 20 minutes. That's abbreviated. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. I appreciate you joining me for these bonus podcasts. The show is Monday through Friday, so these bonus podcasts are typically a little shorter. Normally it's 30 minute podcasts, so if you're new, thank you. If you want to subscribe, please do so. If you're a regular and every dayer who's with me every Monday through Friday, please share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day.
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