← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Celtics CRUMBLE in Season Opener | More POSITIVES than NEGATIVES?
00:30:25
Celtics stumble in season opener against 76ers. Is there a silver lining to this loss? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down Boston's performance, highlighting Derrick White's impressive 25-point game and Neemias Queta's unexpected impact off the bench. The analysis covers Joel Embiid's surprising ineffectiveness, Jaylen Brown's efficient scoring, and the team's fourth-quarter struggles. Karalis explores how this early setback could become a valuable learning opportunity for the Celtics. Tune in for expert insights on Boston's evolving strategy and key adjustments needed for future success.
Loading summary
Transcript11 lines
- [00:02]
A
It's the Locked On Podcast network your team every day.
- [00:12]
B
If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Grainger. Grainger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers. Plus, you can rely on Grainger for easy reordering, so you never run out.
- [00:31]
A
Of what you need.
- [00:33]
B
Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:42]
A
Well, that might be the least annoying Celtics loss that I've watched. They gave themselves a chance, but too much of a rookie kill them. Historic night right now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast, huh?
- [00:56]
C
Yep, yep, yep. Be town be ever ready. It's the seas. Who else could it be? What they going now screaming like J.T. corralis we kept the madness every game, every practice prime time depp&d white on the sideline Rennie J. How we started raising ban is how we finish Locked on self this pot home of the winners.
- [01:18]
A
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 is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them Monday through Friday bonus podcast when they play like a Friday night game in New York. I will have a bonus podcast after that, so make sure you are subscribed to get this free podcast anywhere you subscribe to podcasts you can watch show on YouTube. Get into the comments section. Share your thoughts with me. I'm John Corrales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I've written a couple of books about the team and I've been covering this team for like 20 years. So lots to talk about here. After the Celtics lose to the Sixers later on, I will break down the positives and the negatives. A lot of positives. There are a few negatives for sure. This is a team that's still very much a work in progress, I think. I hope that I set the proper expectation that this beginning of this schedule, first of all, was going to be tough. This was tough in a different way. That it might not go the way you you'd hope it would go and that it's going to take a little while for the Celtics to get the cohesion. I think we saw that in this game. But let's start with the simplest analysis because sometimes that's just the best. They had a chance. They gave themselves a chance to win. They faced a Sixers team that, you know, I clearly thought that Joel Embiid was going to be more effective than he was. He was absolutely the most ineffective I've ever seen. Joel Embiid, and that's counting the Olympics. I don't know what's going on with his knee, but I, I'm actually like, watching him out there, I'm like, this might be the end. This might be the end for Joel Embiid as we know him. I don't see how he could possibly get from what we saw in this game to MVP level Joel Embiid. I don't know what that process is going to be like, but every time he was out there, I was like, oh my God, absolutely. Attack this guy. He, he had Sam Houser on a switch and he didn't bury Sam Houser into the basket and dunk on him that he passed. I think he passed out of that or he passed out of the one with where you got Jalen Brown. And look, Jalen's a tough defender and he'll get in there and he'll push and all that stuff, but when Embiid has position, has the ball in the post and he's going up against Jalen, Jalen's kind of cooked. The whole way Jalen defends Embiid is to not let him get comfortable and make the catch. So anyway, Embiid was out there and the Celtics, it took maybe a few more possessions than I would have hoped, but as soon as it was obvious like, oh my God, this guy can't move, they, they needed to put him in every, every action and they started to. He only played 20 minutes. He was on a minutes restriction. But they won. They won this game by one and he was a minus 16. So I'm just. Anyway, regardless, I don't need to go on a whole big Joel and Bead thing. Vijay Edgecomb and Tyrese Maxey carried, carried the Sixers to this win. And you don't expect those guys to combine for 74 points. After the game, Peyton Pritchard said, we were ready to live with the three pointers that Edgecomb took. And he was five of 13, 38 and a half percent. He's a rookie, you know, and there's no track record for him in the NBA. Some guys don't shoot well in college, some guys do and then they come into the league and it's kind of the opposite. They figure out or something goes wrong or whatever. So the Celtics were ready to live with vj. Vj Edge Combs shooting and he hit five three pointers on them. And you could easily, when I say the simplest analysis, could very easily say this was an outlier game. Edgecomb is a rookie. He's not going to average 34 points a game. This might be the only game this season where he makes five three pointers. And if he had made three or you know, four, if you just made one less Celtics would have won this game. And the difference between winning and losing so often comes down to like a handful of plays. And so I don't want to, I don't want to overreact to a loss in the first game of the season when yes, you got Joellen bead 4 points A minus 16 in a complete non factor. But you also got VJ Edge comb with the most points. They were the most points in a debut since Wilt Chamberlain like 60 plus years ago. So you got to go all the way back to that for a debut like Edgecomb have. So if that had gone more normally, this would have been a different game. Payton Pritchard at the end, the layup that got blocked was, that was tough. He admitted after the game that he had, you know, it was a bad read. He should have kicked it out to Simons who was open left slot and Hauser was open in the left corner. And so Pritchard kind of made that mistake. And then Pritchard got the inbounds the second time and tried to draw a foul instead of going straight, just straight up for the shot. I think maybe get a little caught up in that trying to like, hey, if I can't hit this shot, maybe I can get the foul and get two free throws. And so but he, he had a chance. He had a chance. He could have, could have taken a fade away, could have just made the right read in the middle of the lane and let Simons try to be the hero or hower. They had time. And this is part of the growing pains, I think because that's not. First of all, it's not a position that Pritchard has been in. When he has gotten the ball in a spot, a similar spot, very often it's because, oh crap, no one else is available and I'm the option and I have to try to make a play. He's not used to being the guy that the play wasn't drawn up for him, but he's not used to being the guy that's like, hey, I can draw a couple in kick. That's part of his job now. He's always been the Jason isn't open or he passed it. Jalen wasn't an option. He passed it. Derek, Kristaps, those guys, they. The defenses overreacted 1, 2, 3 times, and the rotations have gotten to me and now I can go do my thing. He now has to be the guy that, that makes the rotations happen. And if there's a kick, it's to someone else like Simons or Hauser. He has to be available. He has to, he has to be aware that those guys are available as outlets. Pritchard is not necessarily the outlet anymore. So that, I think is one of the biggest takeaways. The dynamic has changed to a point here where Pritchard has this opportunity and sure, go ahead, try to make something happen. I don't begrudge him that. But it's a great learning experience right away for him to be like, okay, no, you know what? My role is different. Sure, everybody trusts Pritchard to take a shot there. He has proven he is not afraid of those moments, but he also is not used to that moment, not in the NBA. And it's good to learn. This is, this is the, the classic line 1 of 82. This is not the end of the world. And as long as you're taking positive things out of this, they. They will use that to get better again. I go back to previous shows where I've said this multiple times. They're going to struggle, I think, early on, kind of like they did here, struggling to close things out, struggling with bad decisions, bad reactions, bad defense, all of that stuff. Until they get to a point where some stuff becomes second nature and they learn from these mistakes and they build on it. And I do think the Celtics in February, March and April, even as currently constituted, forget a potential Jason Tatum comeback. Just these guys, as currently constituted, assuming that they stay relatively healthy, I think that exact situation gets handled much differently. It may. May include Jaylen Brown, it may not. You know, he might be doubled and tripled or whatever. And I just think they handle that differently with a little bit more poise. So I think there is room for them to improve. A lot of room for them to improve. So they still had a chance to win. So my, my biggest overall positive from this is even though there are mistakes, even though Edgecomb had one of the most impressive rookie games ever, even though Tyrese Maxey went absolutely nuts and had a 40 piece, they still hung in there, they still had a chance to win at the end. And they, they, they just. There are. The mistakes that they made are correctable. Mistakes. And that's kind of all you can ask for in that situation. So generally feeling positive, I'll come back and be even more positive. We'll talk about the positive players and we'll save, we'll save the negatives for later. And I don't think the negatives are all that bad. So all of that is coming up next. Today's show is brought to you by Mint Mobile. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no bs. I said yes to making the switch and getting premium wireless for just $15 a month. Mint makes it simple. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your own phone and keep your same number and contacts. So that's a really cool feature. If you like getting the same quality service that you had before, you can get it for a fraction of the price. Setup is super easy. You can keep your number and get up and running in minutes. So say yes to saying no. Make the switch@mintmobile.com lockdown MBA that's mint mobile.com lockdown MBA upfront payment of 45 is required, equivalent to 15amonth limited time new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Today's show is also brought to you by Rougette. Let's be real. Making excuses doesn't solve anything. We've all heard them before. It's just stress. I'm tired or it happens to everyone sometimes. But when it comes to performance, sometimes your body just needs a little extra support. And that's where rougiet comes in. Rugeet.com is fast acting. It offers fast acting doctor prescribed treatments for ED designed to help you stop making excuses and start making moves. Rougy it makes it easy to get started. You just get connected with a board certified doctor, 100% online. No waiting rooms, no in person appointments, nothing awkward like that. And if you get subscribed, the treatment ships discreetly straight to your door. The process is fast, simple and private. It's all handled by real doctors. It's about confidence, connection and getting back to the moments that matter. Visit rougiet.com locked on MBA to get 15% off your first order. That's R U G I E T rug yet.com locked on MBA, don't forget to use that code locked on MBA so they know we sent you. Rougiet. Stop making excuses. Start making moves. Thank you for making lockdown Celtics your first listen. Every day busy busy night in the NBA. They got it all covered on lockdown NBA game night so make sure you subscribe to the locked on NBA feed. I'm there on Wednesdays. I had fun covering the opening night games with Jake Madison. Those were some fun games locked on NBA game night on the lockdown NBA feed covers every game seven days a week. Let's get to the positives here from the the Celtics loss, the one point loss. Let's start with Derrick White who I think listen, I'm going to spend a lot of time this year gushing about Derrick White. I think Derek is. I, I would argue that he's the best overall basketball player on the team. I just his, his, his knowledge like Jaylen Brown is better as you know overall talent wise. But Derek has like between IQ ability, you know, stability, consistency, all of that stuff. Derrick White I think just is incredible. So 25 points for him. Hit a huge third quarter, 13 point third quarter. He did not shoot well. 7 of 20 overall, 4 of 13 from 3. It, it's a little disappointing that he didn't shoot well because he had a ton. Those 13 threes, I was all for them. The Celtics didn't shoot well at all. 11 of 43 from 3. But I was totally fine with White taking those shots. In fact I tweeted out about, I don't know, halfway through the first quarter. Not even that. The way Joel Embiid was playing, the Celtics needed to involve him in everything. Run pick and rolls at him and just watch Derrick White step into wide open three pointers. When we get the shot quality and the looks that he got, I guarantee you of those 13 three pointers probably 10, 11 were probably wide open or open. Derrick White will generally knock those down. He's going to have, if he takes those 13 again, he'll have a 10 for 13 night in there somewhere. So I'm not worried about shots falling, not falling. It's about the process. It's about did you take the right shots? And I thought Derek White took pretty much all of the right shots. 4 assists, 3 rebounds. If a couple of shots fall. I think the Celtics assist numbers do go up. So I thought, I thought White was, was incredible as usual. A block, a steal. You know I, I could keep going if we wanted to, but there's only so much time in the podcast And I got to get to Nish ka, who had 17 points, eight rebounds. The the fourth quarter, I thought this was going to be like, the story was going to be Keda closing things out in the fourth quarter. That would have been a fun one where he was 4 of 4, 8 points, 3 rebounds. And I was like, oh, my God, Kada. Kada is closing this out. Just pick and roll, pick and roll, pick and roll. Derrick White found him. Guys just kept find finding him, and he kept finishing. He even had one where I thought he was getting tired. And I think this might have contributed to some of the negative stuff from him in this, because I thought that that one, that last alley oop, he didn't dunk it. The ball bounced a couple of times. It was. I don't know if you can have a shooter's touch on an attempted dunk that you were a little too far away for, but that. That's kind of how it bounced around. But hey, we'll take it. Kata was. Was pretty good. I thought he. He did a really good job for the most part. But again, when we look at negatives in. In the files and all of that stuff, Keda did commit, well, he fouled out of the game, and he committed a couple of bad ones. The. The offensive foul, I'm sorry, that. That lean in with the hip. They're gonna call that. They're gonna call that the. The foul where there might have been an argument. And I didn't hear what they said on tv, but they were talking about verticality on press row. We're talking about, like going straight up. And maybe he got the ball, but I think the. The body he got, there was enough contact there. And keda spent like 99 of that play going straight up, but he was also moving forward. And if we're talking about principle of verticality, it's not just keeping your hands up straight. You have to jump up and land in the same spot. That's verticality, where you jump up to meet somebody at the rim, block the shot. And even if your bodies collide like you own that space from where you stand till infinity up high. And so you can go as far up as you can jump. As long as it's in a straight line, it doesn't matter if there's contact. But when you jump forward like he did, that's going to get called. And at the end, he did kind of swipe down. So that was a tough one. It was a good effort, but a couple of tough calls there. But I thought overall it Was really great to see Keda playing like this to, to add that to a good performance in that last preseason game. Look, I, I, I've said what I need to say about Kata, you know, before. I'd love to see more consistency. I'd love to see him. 25 minutes a game from Cato would be great. This is kind of exactly the type of game that you want to get from him. 27 points, eight rebounds. Did he, I don't know. I thought he had a block shot, but apparently not. But a couple of blocks would be nice. But I thought this was just generally a, A nice game. 17 points and 8 rebounds from your starting center is, is, is good. And that, that's good production. I thought he handled things well. It was a good job from him. Jalen Brown was good, especially early on, but overall, 25 points shot 50% from 2, 50 from 3, 5 of 6 from the line. Oh, I didn't mention that. Derek went to the line seven times, mostly in that third quarter. The aggressiveness has to be there. And I thought the Celtics played with some decent pace and that contributed to a lot in that third quarter. And when the Celtics played with pace and moved and attacked, they got to the free throw line. Earlier in the game, the first quarter, second quarter, they were taking a lot of jumpers and the Sixers were attacking and the Sixers got to the free throw line. So ultimately they both evened out and they both hit 23 free throws. But it was a lot for the Sixers early. It was a lot more for the Sixers. For the Celtics later on, it's just a matter of being aggressive. And I thought, you know, Jalen got aggressive, Derek got aggressive. Beyond the three point shooting, the, the pace of play, the Celtics did push the pace. At one point they were up to, I think 24 of their offense was in transition. That dropped a bit in the fourth quarter. They slowed down too much. I'm mixing my positives and negatives now, but I thought, I thought Jalen had did a good job. 25 points, six rebounds, four assists. Three of those assists came early. Just want to see a little bit more of that. But again, the Celtics shot poorly, so he probably would have had six or seven assists. It could have been a 25, six and six or 25, six and seven night for him. Again, I need to see him rebound a little bit more. He had, he had said that after the game too. Six rebounds, that, that's fine, but you need to get in there and get a few more. So he was Good shout out to Anthony Simons, who, who did a nice job as well. He finished with. Where is Anthony Simons? 5 of 10 shot 13. He hit for 13 points, 4 rebounds. His defense, there were a couple of times where he picked up full court. That was good too. So generally, I thought most of the guys played well. I think Pritchard played well except for the three point shooting. So the starters all played generally pretty well. The negatives, let's get to the negatives when we come back because the fouling, the rebounding, the slowing things down and all of that stuff, the timing, that's all next. Today's show is brought to you by skims. When I found out that skims was making underwear for men, I was, you know, intrigued. My wife heard they were making underwear for men. She said, you're going to love it because she loves skims. She has a ton already. And she said if they're anything like, you know, mine, you're gonna love them. And I do. Okay. Issue. There are always issues, guys. We know with underwear, whether you're wearing briefs, boxers or boxer briefs, if you get the wrong fit, it can be uncomfortable. And we're not shy about being like, oh, we gotta make our little adjustments and all of that stuff. You don't have to really do that with skims. I wear skims when I'm out, out and about. Or I really like wearing skims when I work out because there's no need for adjustments. They stay where they need to stay. They feel good. They are nice and cool. Everything that you want from lightweight material. It really feels like you're, you're kind of wearing nothing at all. You forget about it. And trust me, I've been at the gym when I haven't, you know, it's been uncomfortable. I don't like that. So I love the fact that the skims boxer briefs move with me. And they're, they're just, they're gonna be great. So go buy them. Go shop skims men's@skims.com that's S K-I-M S skims.com or, you know, you can go to a store if you want, but skims menskims.com you're gonna stock up. Let them know we sent you when you do it. After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and then select this show in the dropdown menu that follows to let them know that we sent you.
- [24:41]
D
If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Grainger knows You need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Grainger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800-granger clickranger.com or just stop by Granger are the ones who get it done.
- [25:12]
A
Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen. Every day you want to win your fantasy basketball league, check out Lockdown Fantasy Basketball with Josh Lloyd. He's going to help you win your league. Lots of ads, lots of drops. He's going to give you the real scoop on guys like Vijay Edgecomb. If you haven't, you know, maybe some people are, haven't picked him up or whatever. He's probably gone in most, most drafts but you know, you never know. So Josh Lloyd's gonna have you covered on Locked on Fantasy Basketball, the absolute number one. So the number one show on this network for a reason and the number one fantasy basketball podcast around. So go check that out. Let's get back to the game. The negatives. So they did play with pace. They that pace did go away and that's a problem. You need to play with pace. Jalen said it after the game, people say you got to slow down in the fourth quarter and he's like why keep playing fast, keep playing the way you got. That got you there. That's kind of what the Thunder did. The Thunder didn't slow down in fourth quarters. Not as dramatically, not like the Celtics did last year. And I think, I think Jalen is right. They slowed down a little too much. I think they got that lead. They got a seven point lead with 444 to go and all of a sudden they give up 19 points in the last 4 minutes and 44 seconds. That is hard to do and I think that's just a lack of attention to detail your Jalen said tendencies. You're, you're not forcing Maxi to to his left. You're not getting back, you're not boxing out anymore. You're giving up some offensive rebounds, a couple of put back dunks there. Second chances will kill you down the stretch. You got to clear out those rebounds down, down the stretch the last 34 minutes of the game. There's nowhere to go when you make mistakes, right? You make a mistake at the beginning of the game. Joe Missoula will sub people out and all of that stuff. Can't really do that as Much you can't make a point in, in the last few minutes of the game because you want your guys out there, you want the guys that are going to finish that, that you feel like you're going to give you a chance to win. And too many, too many of those mistakes. I think the fouls were sloppy. Nine fouls in the last five minutes of the game. Nine fouls. And that's outrageous. And, and look, I feel like most of those were legit. The offensive files, I know the one with Hauser is, Is up for some debate. You just, you can't put your hands. He put his hands, you know, in a kind of like a grabbing motion. It's just. It looks like a foul. Even if he didn't gain an advantage, it looks like he gained an advantage and that's going to get called. And there's nothing you can do to challenge that because he can say, I didn't pull him, I didn't do anything. But you put your hands on his shoulders. You moved a certain way, he moved a certain way. That might have been just the natural way people were moving at that time, but it looks like a foul. And so nothing you can do there. That's unfortunate, but you got to put yourself in those, in a better position. And again, this is Sam Houser. He's not one to set a lot of picks. And this is where the reads, the chemistry, the timing, this is why I'm not so worried about that stuff. You're gonna, you're gonna have those calls go against you sometimes anyway. But I just feel like that's correctable. The, the screen from Keda is correctable. The, the boxing out, rebounding correctable. They should have won this game. They should have won this game. And honestly, if this was like a, a season where they were fighting for a top seed, they were equal with the, the Knicks and the Cavs. And every win would be so important that you. A loss like this could be the difference between a one and a three seed. If the Celtics were a contender out west, that would be like a huge talking point. It's not, it's not a big deal. Like right now, I say, great, get these out of the way now. Have a, have a clutch game in the first game of the season and fail if you need to. And then, you know, now Peyton Pritchard knows right now everybody knows now we have a better idea of options off of a thing like that. It's not always going to be Jalen getting the last shot. And it's. It's I think something that you can go to Tatum and be like, look, you're not always going to get the last shot either. So let's, let's all learn together how to navigate this. I, I, I feel like they will learn from how they defended Maxi. That's obviously was terrible, but overall I come out of it, I come out of it like, okay, good stuff, good stuff, mostly bad stuff for a few minutes and it hurt you, but generally a pretty good game. I'll, I'll re watch this game. I'll break things down. I'll come back tomorrow and dive even deeper. We'll get some of the numbers from the game and we'll see exactly where they did really well, where things started to fall apart. So we'll revisit this in tomorrow's podcast and then a bonus podcast on Friday after the Knicks game. So make sure you are subscribed. This show is free. It's daily Monday through Friday. When they play on a Friday, when they play on a Saturday as well. I will do a podcast after those games, so subscribe. Watch the show on YouTube, get into the comments section. Join your fellow everydayers, the people who are with me every Monday through Friday that make this show their first listen every day. Become an everydayer yourself and then 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.
- [31:37]
E
This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. Every day we make decisions, but on Prize Picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don't miss the excitement of this football season with Prize Picks where it's good to be right. Playing Prize Picks is such a fun, simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Josh Allen's passing yards or Saquon Barkley rushing for a touchdown and you're in the game. Download the Prize Picks app today and use the code lockedonnba to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code locked on NBA for 50 bucks in lineups after your first $5 lineup. Prize picks it's good to be right a prime members.
- [32:15]
F
You can listen to this Locked on podcast ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Thank you for making Locked on your first listen every day. For your second listen, go find Locked on Fantasy Bas Josh Lloyd hosts the number one fantasy basketball podcast, giving you daily tips and helping you win your league, all while making you a smarter NBA fan. Find Locked on Fantasy Basketball on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, part of the Locked On Podcast network. Your team every day.