← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics' STRUGGLE late in Spurs loss | Jaylen Brown RIPS Refs
00:18:05
Boston Celtics fall late to San Antonio Spurs despite Jaylen Brown and Derrick White’s explosive first halves. Can the Celtics overcome end-game fatigue and officiating struggles as the season heats up? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down Boston’s narrow five-point loss, spotlighting Victor Wembanyama’s unstoppable shot-making and the strategic defensive matchups featuring Jordan Walsh and Hugo Gonzalez. Key moments include Jaylen Brown’s heated clash with referees—will his latest outburst finally spark league action? Plus, Karalis assesses critical turnovers, rebounding woes, and why the Celtics’ resilience remains cause for optimism. Bonus coverage highlights Luke Kornet’s tribute, Derrick White’s frustrations, and Anfernee Simons going cold. Will Boston rebound against the Indiana Pacers? Don’t miss this quick-hit Celtics breakdown and what it means for the road ahead.
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John Corrales
It's the locked on podcast network. Your team every day.
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John Corrales
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- [00:41]
John Corrales
Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cell savings versus comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required. New year same extra value meals at McDonald's. Now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery. It was better than I expected. But still a tough finish for the Boston Celtics. And Jaylen Brown once again rips into the refs. It's right now in the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Hey there. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast network where it's your team every day. Your team's the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcasts like this one on a Saturday night heading into Sunday. Seven days in a row this week and it'll be another six in a row next week. So we'll be here Monday through Friday. Whatever. Free podcast. Wherever you get your podcast. Watch a show on YouTube if you're new to the show. I'm John Corrales, B writer for Boston Sports Journal. I've been doing a version of this job for about 20 years now, this podcast for 10. And I've written a couple of books about the team. Today the Boston Celtics are suffering a loss. Five point loss to the San Antonio Spurs. This is a bonus podcast. I'm going to keep it brief because I'll, I'll revisit this game for the Monday show. So this, I'm going to keep it to about 10 minutes or so. Just a quick, kind of quick thoughts on this game. And then again we'll kind of rewatch some stuff and get into deeper stuff on the Monday show. Full podcast coming up on Monday. So obviously, first things first was a tough finish. The Celtics had. They had a five point lead with five minutes or so to go. Then they got outscored 16 to eight over the last five and a half minutes or so. They miss every three they took. They were three of ten. Victor Wembanyama was hitting shots, Kelvin Johnson was hitting shots. They took over down the stretch when Benyama hit some really tough shots, some tough turnarounds. And the Celtics kind of very easy to say they ran out of gas, which may be some of it, maybe some of it was frustration, which I'll get to in a second with Jalen Brown and the refs. In a few minutes, I'll get to guarding Victor Wembanyama and how the Celtics did that. And I thought they did a good job, but they, they struggled a little bit down the stretch. Jalen Brown had had a turnover that was, that was costly. A straight rip from de' Aaron Fox that Derrick White almost saved that play. That would have been an incredible defensive play. He did make an incredible defensive play. The guys just never really fully got back that. That one was tough because Derek was fighting like hell to break up the two on one. And he did it. Just offensive rebounds over there and, and they finished the play ultimately. But I think the misses were obviously San Antonio defends very well and they, they are able to be physical. And look, the Celtics just kind of struggled. They, they, I think the third game in four nights kind of caught up to them at the end there. By the way, if you're watching the show on YouTube and you're like, are you in prison or something? John? This is like a, this is a back room with a white brick wall, white concrete, cinder block wall. It's a very generic kind of backdrop. So I apologize for that. But it's late and the changeover is happening again. I mean, shout out to the bull gang over here. They went in 24 hours, they went from basketball to hockey to basketball and now back to hockey again. So they're out there doing that thing. It's kind of wild. But anyway, back to the game there I think a number of things that went wrong down the stretch. Some of it was certainly fatigue. Some of it was certainly frustration. Some of it was Victor Wembanyama doing things that he only he can do, right? He doesn't, he doesn't register any sort of defense, any sort of contest if he wants to rise up for a shot. He's going to rise up for a shot and. And no one is going to really bother him on, you know, most of his shots, although Luca Garza did get him, did block him on one. But those turnarounds were incredible. Jalen and Derek had great first halves. They were seven. Jalen was seven of 12 in the first half. Derek was seven of 13. They each had 17 points. They each had three three pointers. They each had four rebounds. They very much mirrored each other in this game. In fact, the final box score. They each hit 11 shots. Jalen was 11 of 28. Derek was 11, 26. They each hit five three pointers. Jalen was 5 of 11. Derek was 5 of 7. Jalen had eight rebounds and seven assists. Derek had nine rebounds and three assists. So they, they were kind of very much mirroring one another. Derek had 29 points, Jalen had 27. And the 29 came because Derek had two free throws, Jaylen Brown had none, which. Look, Jalen got into it with the refs or, like, during the game. Yes. And then after the game, he was obviously very frustrated. And, you know, a couple days ago, Tom Westerholm and I kind of, like, got into it a little bit. We, We. We both feel the same in that Jalen needs to, like, put some of this aside and you've got to play. And he admitted it after the game. He's like, do I. Is it the only thing that went wrong? No. Do I have to play better? Yes. But also the, you know, the officiating has to be addressed. And he again has a point because he shot what I say, 26, 28 shots. 11 of them were threes, which means 17 were twos. And there's some jump shots in there, but there was some at the rim for sure. And he got zero free throw attempts, like, literally zero free throw attempts. Jalen is like, he's got to get to the line at least a little bit. He attacks enough. He forces. He forces some contact. He, He. I don't understand how he didn't get at least 4, 5, 6 free throw. Like, not, you know, it doesn't have to be a ton, but I, I just don't understand how he didn't get Annie. And so I get the frustration. And, you know, here's. Here's why I give Derek a little bit of a pass, because Derrick White, who never shows this kind of frustration, was also frustrated with the refs. In fact, at one point, he got fouled, like, multiple times out in the perimeter. Then he got fouled on a drive and he, like, was under the basket and he turned and he kind of joked like he was gonna fire the ball and, like, throw a fastball across the court at the refs. And then he just turned and handed it to the ref behind him. And he and that ref both got a laugh out of it. But he was frustrated. Derek was frustrated. He. He wanted to say something. Gary Washburn of the Globe asked Derek a couple of different questions about the refs. I asked him one. Gary asked them a couple. And then by, like, that last one, Derek was like, you're trying to get me in trouble, right? Like, not because he thought we were antagonizing, because we're just asking follow up questions. And Derek wanted to say something, and he just didn't. Jalen was like, dropped a few F bombs. Dropped a lot. Like, he said a lot. And. And it. He probably said, give me the fine in some terms, which cannot be repeated on this podcast. Probably said it like five, six times, you know, give me the fine. After the game, he tweeted. After, after he left, he tweeted it out, you know, give me the fine. He wants to be fined. He wants the league to recognize. I think he wants to be fined. So the league. So he knows the league heard what, what he had to say, right? He didn't get fined the last time. And he's probably like, did they even hear what I had to say? Did it even make it to their desk? So now he's like, find me. I'm begging you. Find me here. And so I don't know. I don't know if he's gonna get fined. But at this point, he swore so much in the post game and called one of the refs out by name and was begging for a fine. I think the league might be like, all right, fine, buddy. You want it, you got it.
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Podcast Advertiser/Host
Boom.
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John Corrales
Here's $30,000. At least Jalen will know he's heard if that's the case. But it's. He has a point. But also, you got to move on. You got to finish. You can't have the turnover that you had. You got to play a little bit better down the stretch. But again, third game in four nights. I honestly, I come out of this game, like, more encouraged than anything because they played the, the, the. The spurs, tough. They had it. They had a chance to win this game. I never expected them to win this game. I thought they might lose this game by double digits, by 20 even. Like, I thought this was going to be. They were in line for a blow. And to their credit, they fought hard, they stayed the course. They. They never gave into the fatigue. I think it might have hit them at the end, but I come out of this game thinking like, yeah, it's, you know, there are a couple of moments there where, you know, you could have done better. But also, you know, I feel encouraged. Like, you can play with the spurs, and the spurs are tough, man, they're big, they're strong, they're fast. There's a reason why they give OKC so many problems, and it's because of their size and speed and all of that. So the spurs are good and the Celtics did a good job.
- [11:26]
Podcast Advertiser/Host
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- [12:05]
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John Corrales
Wembanyama with Sam Houser was out. And so Joe went with Ugo Gonzalez. And before the game was like, wow, man, they Ugo, that's an interesting choice. But Victor Wimbanyama came off the bench. And because he came off the bench, Joe wanted Jordan Walsh to match up with Victor. And like, as soon as one Benyama came in, Jordan Walsh came in. And as soon as Wendy came out, Jordan came out. Very specific matchups that they went to. And so I thought Jordan did. He actually did a good job early on, but then he had a couple of missed rebounds. He gave up one. I forget who it was that got the offensive rebound, like, right over his head. Joe was pissed. He was angry. Calls a timeout, just, you know, a coach went to give him the dry erase board and he slapped it and went across the room, the floor, and he went over and just yelled at Jordan about getting the rebound. And Jordan sat, and then Ugo. Gonzalez had to come back in. And it's just like, I think Ugo is a great defender, but him against Wemby, it's just not the same. I think what made Walsh work against Wemby for, you know, a bunch of this game was obviously Walsh isn't as tall, but he has, like, really good length, his arms. You know, he. He's got that quick kind of like, poke, and he can make it. He can really be disruptive when a guy is trying to dribble. So I thought he made Wembanyama uncomfortable. So when. When Gonzalez had to come in, like, all of a sudden Wemby started getting a little bit more. I won't say confidence. I think he's got. He always has confidence, but he was like, okay, here we go. I feel better about this matchup. Kind of went at him a little bit. So I. I think that the inability to grab the rebound was a problem for. For Jordan and him having to come out. Joe having to teach him, you know, put him on punishment was. I think that hurt the team because, like, Joe's pretty strong about that. If you're not going to rebound, you're not going to play. And that's the hard, fast rule. I think it hurt not having Josh Minot. He's out with the sprained ankle. I don't know if, you know, I thought Amari Williams might get some, some run, but that. That didn't work. Like, that didn't work out the way I thought it would. I thought maybe the size and length, you know, would have. Would have worked against Wembanyama, but they. They didn't do that. So I think that that kind of turned things around for the Spurs. Actually, Wemby kind of got going a little bit there and Baylor Scheireman comes in and also gets a shot at guarding women. Yama and playing physical. Look, you force him out to beyond the free throw line and he takes like tough fadeaways and tough turnarounds and he makes them. And that's all you can do is just say, we're going to force him into this and he makes a shot. He makes a shot. No big deal, right? Like it's Victor Wembanyama. What are you going to do? This is what he does. So you can't get too caught up in that. But I thought Baylor did a good job. Jordan did a decent job. If Jordan could have just. If I could wish for anything in this game, it's that Jordan got that one offense, that one defensive rebound that would have kept him in the game and kept him on Wembanyama. And just to see how that would have progressed down the stretch or at least throughout the first half. And maybe Womenyama doesn't have like the best game in the world and he didn't ultimately have the best game in the world, but 21 points, six rebounds, three block shots, 8 of 17 shooting, 1 of 4 from 3, four free throws. Like, that's. It's a decent game, but it's not like, oh my God, Wembanyama is going crazy. So I thought the Celtics did a pretty good job. I thought there was a good defensive game plan from Joe Missoula. See, let's just go quickly down the box score. Namish Kato was good. Nine points, 13 rebounds, four offensive rebounds, two blocks. I thought he did, you know, a nice job. He was very much, you know, he started the game. He was he match up against Luke Cornett and he did a good job. Like Luke. First of all, side note, on Luke Cornett, the trivia video, which was on Twitter, I'm sure it's going to be on the Celtics, all their socials, YouTube and all that. The, the Luke Cornett video was. Was perfect. They did a great job. It was a minute and a half long, which was like a huge kind of. I mean, that's a long tribute video. But they captured the humor and all of that stuff. He's beloved for a reason. And yeah, I thought that that was really fun. But he did not have a good game at all. You had seven rebounds. He had that one put back at the end of the game, but he was largely kept in check. And the Mishkeira is responsible for. For that. And so, you know, good job there. Luca Garza had another good game. You know, 11 points, six rebounds, three or four from three more offensive oriented game, but still getting in there on the, on the boards too. And he had that one block of wembanyama. Peyton Pritchard, not a good game. Not surprising. This is a big, tough team against the Spurs. Just four points on 2 of 9, shooting of 0, 3 from 3, 5 rebounds, 4 assists of steal that. This is, I think a tough matchup. Just a tough matchup for Peyton. I mentioned Derek White, who look, did not shoot well ultimately, mostly in the second half, but like I said, with 7 of 13 in the first half. So that means he was 4 of 13 in the second half. Tough shooting, but he played, I thought he played great, like defensively. But it's played 42 minutes. Jalen played 43 minutes on the back to back third game of four nights. That's. That's a lot. You're asking a lot from those guys. And then Anthony Simons, a bad, a bad offensive game for him. 2 of 8 shooting just five points. The. The day after, literally the day after I wrote the big story about him being just this smooth, you know, incredible player and on this big hot streak. I'm glad I wrote the story yesterday because if I saved it for today, it would not have applied. But okay, one. One off night for him. Not a big deal. He needs to bounce back against the Indiana Pacers on Monday, so. But yeah, stinker for Anthony Simons, that, That's how it goes. All right, we're gonna wrap it up there. Not much more to get into here. I'll just get deeper into the game tomorrow, kind of re. Watch some things and we'll, you know, get a little bit more in depth on some of that stuff. So. But hey, look, you're gonna lose sometimes. Losing by five to the spurs is. There's nothing wrong with that. Again, I think this was actually a really good game. They. Maybe under different circumstances they would have executed a little bit better down the stretch. But hey, it. That's how it goes. And maybe if they've gotten a few more free throws and also they were what, one of, or was it three or four? But regardless, if they'd gotten a few more free throws, maybe that could have changed things too. So all right, well, that's that. I hope you enjoyed this abbreviated almost 15 minutes of podcast and it's still a fair amount so. But I hope you enjoyed it. If you are new to the show, welcome aboard if you're an everyday or with me every Monday through Friday plus these bonus podcasts. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate you being here and being part of this and making this your first listen every day now. Would love it if you share the podcast and told everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here in the Lockdown Podcast Network your team every day.
- [21:20]
Podcast Advertiser/Host
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- [21:36]
John Corrales
Gas snacks, tolls.
- [21:38]
Podcast Advertiser/Host
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- [21:42]
John Corrales
You're in a good mood. What's your deal?
- [21:44]
Podcast Advertiser/Host
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- [22:06]
John Corrales
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