← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Celtics CRUSH Pelicans, FINALLY get first win | Can They BUILD on This MOMENTUM?
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Celtics break through with dominant 32-point win over Pelicans. Is this the turning point for Boston? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal dissects the Boston Celtics' first victory, highlighting key performances from Josh Minott and Anfernee Simons. The analysis covers crucial game margins, including forced turnovers and defensive rebounding, that propelled the Celtics to success. Karalis explores how this win compares to previous losses and what it means for upcoming challenges against tougher opponents like the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tune in for expert insights on how the Celtics can maintain this momentum and replicate their winning formula against stronger teams in the NBA.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast. Network your team every day calling all daydreamers and date nighters. Come immerse yourself in the rich culture of Texas and dig into our mouth watering barbecue. Trailblazers can explore our natural wonders and beach lovers will wonder why they've never felt so relaxed before. You're invited to discover experiences you can only find in Texas. Visit traveltexas.com and plan your trip today. Let's Texas if you're looking for new ways to get ahead, then you're our kind of person. We're Udemy and we help learners like you upskill in AI, productivity, leadership and management and more. Learn at your own pace from real world experts. You can also prep for certifications that show employers what you know upskill for the career you want want@udemy.com now back to your regularly scheduled listening. And now a next level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep day. You've got AT and T5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn more@att.com 5G Network Celtics get the first win of the season Anthony Simons looked great. Josh Minot starts. He looked good. But how different was this from the first three games really? Let's talk about it right now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Who else could it be? What they gonna say now screaming like JT care. We kept the madness every game, every practice. Prime time. Depp and D. White on the sideline. Rennie J's how we started raising business how we finished Locked On Celtics Pot Home of the winners hey there. Welcome back to the Locked on Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Word is your team Every day your team is the Boston Celtics. I cover them, I talk about them Monday through Friday. Bonus podcast when they play in the weekend. This upcoming weekend, two games Friday and Saturday. So I'm on a two week straight stretch of free podcasts for you. So subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Watch the show on YouTube, get into the comment section there. Share your thoughts with me. I'm John Corrales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I've covered this team for about 20 years now and I'VE written a couple books about them as well. Today's show is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase of tickets to whatever you want. Last minute tickets, especially. Celtics are celebrating a win. Yes. Oh, I've got applause, sound effects. I don't have to do it. Celtics get the win. That's awesome. Big win. 30 plus point. 32 point win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Later on, I'll explain why this wasn't that different as far like flow wise. It really wasn't that different from the first three games. The difference really was in the margins which I will talk about in the first segment. In the second segment, I'll get into some of the, the, the good performances like Namishkeda. He, he was great. I'll talk about him in the second segment. Some of the other role players. Let me just start with this first one of the season. Super important. This is one of those. It wasn't like the, the longest losing streak, three games. Even though the Celtics hadn't lost three games in a row for a couple of seasons now. I think that's more the aberration. Three losses in a row is, is not uncommon. Just happened to be at the start of the season, which I think we all saw coming. Or I tried, I tried to say that 0 and 7 was not out of the question. Okay, great. It's not. 0, 7, 1, 6, 2 and 5 still kind of in that possibilities. Cleveland, Houston coming up. There's. There's another Sixers game. So there's some tough matchups coming up. So they needed this win. They really needed to get this win so they could feel good. Right. Some of this is they're trying to build something here and you need to win games to have that positive reinforcement. You need to win games to feel good. You need to win games so you can get on that damn bus and joke around with each other and not feel bad so you can get on that team playing and like play some cards or at least you know, have, have a fun conversation and, and not feel like, you know, ah, well, it's all right. We'll get them next time. These wins are important. It's important for the fans. You know, you sit there, you're like, yes, all right. I'm invested in this team. I watch this team. And they're, they're, they did it. They won this game. They're supposed to win this game. They did. No, Zion Williamson, they started, you Know, they play a generally small lineup, and that's, you know, that's a game the Celtics are supposed to win, and they did. They came out strong, struggled a little bit in the second quarter, but they turned things around. The margins are where they won this game. I've talked about this before. The Celtics forced 14 turnovers. They only turned it over 12. But in the first three games, they did kind of something similar, but they were still giving up more points off turnovers this time, plus nine in points off of turnover. So that's important. Points in the paint. Celtics win that margin. Second chance points, the one that's killed them. They won that 23 to 16. They only gave up 11 offensive rebounds. That's. That's really good. The Celtics actually had more offensive rebounds. In fact, I think by now the advanced stats are out. Yep. The Celtics defensive rebounding percentage, 70.7. All right, so it's basically 71% of the available defensive rebounds the Celtics got. That is exactly where they need to be. They don't need to be up at like, the mid to high 70s. They don't need to be the best team in the league. 70 to 71% is exactly where the Celtics need to be to win games. You do that, you're going to be okay. So they, they took advantage of this situation. I do think that the Pelicans were in the. In that same kind of like early regular season mode. You are doing your own stuff, right? You're. You're just. You're going to play the way you want to play. You're not adjusting to the other team so much. I mean, there, there are tweaks to your scouting report, how you defend and. And whatnot. But that's kind of all more within. This is how we want to play, whereas in the playoffs, it would be okay. We're going to change completely. We're going to do this, this and this, because that's their weakness. And we're going to have to take advantage of this weakness. If this was a playoff series, maybe they would have crashed a little bit harder. So I don't think the Pelicans were as aggressive as the Knicks. The Pistons, especially those two teams were really, really aggressive. Crashing and going for offensive rebounds. The Sixers, to a little bit of a lesser degree, but still aggressive. The Pelicans were not, not as aggressive. So the Celtics were able to take advantage of that. They also were. Because of the personnel that the Pelicans were throwing out there. Joe Missoula said it after the game. They. They weren't as aggressive in their pick and roll coverages. So they were always able to keep somebody between player and the basket, which as I've said before, the Celtics defensive scheme contributes to the defensive rebounding problems. They are aggressive gambling. They. They send two to the ball. They gamble for steals and I'm picking rolls. They like to trap. They like to do different things that can sometimes allow straight runs to the basket from somebody behind the play to go in and get tip ins, put backs, keep the ball alive, tip outs. That wasn't really how the Celtics played. The, the Pelicans knowing that they didn't. They didn't have to be aggressive. And so it worked out. They. They beat a team they should have beaten. And it, it does, it does kind of play into what I said at the beginning of the season where the Celtics probably not good enough to beat the good teams. Your New York's, Cleveland might be a tough game here. The, the. The bad teams like the Pelicans, especially without Zion, those are the teams. The Celtics are too good. You know, they're. They're going to beat those teams and if things go well like they did here, they, they could win pretty easily. Whether the Celtics are an above.500 or below.500 team is going to depend on these middle, the middle ground games. Right? The teams that are evenly matched that can kind of go either way. How do you do against those teams? And that will determine are. Did the Celtics finish with the 44 wins that I predicted or is it going to be 38 wins? And, and that's going to depend on going out there and winning these margins, winning these things, going out and forcing the turnovers and capitalizing on it, keeping the, the other team off the boards to some degree. Now 71, are they going to be able to do that consistently? I don't know. I, I think they can get to a point where they do at least close to it. 69, 70%, something like that. That's going to be good enough if they can crash at the rate they were crashing. They got 45% of the offensive rebound, so this time it was flipped. The Pelicans were a terrible defensive rebounding team. This is what the Celtics want to do. They want to get the offensive rebounds so they can make up for whatever deficiencies they have. And they did that in here. So they got more shots. They got 11 more shots. Not not only that, they shot better. So that, that's a, a recipe for disaster for the Pelicans. They put up 53 three pointers. They hit 18 they won that by nine three pointers. So 27 plus 27 there. Like I said, the, the offensive rebounding battle, obviously the assists, when you're making more baskets, you're going to rack up more assists. They, they, they won every margin except for free throws. And if there's one little nitpicky thing about this game is that the Celtics did foul a little too much in stretches and that's a tendency that they have at the beginning of the season. We're going to have to accept that they're going to be more fouls because the Celtics are more aggressive in some of their defensive chances that they take. They are going to be slapping down on the ball, they're going to be reaching in to try to get steals. You're going to get the occasional reach in and all of that stuff you're going to get just because they happen. Your occasional illegal screen, especially with the centers that they have. But the out of position, give up an offensive rebound, you know, overreaction kind of slap at the ball type of stuff. Those are the ones that need to cut down. So Celtics still fouling a little too much. They gave up 28 free throws. Pelicans hit 25. Celtics were 12 of 15 from the line, so they made up for it with their three pointers. But it's still something that there's, there's always something to fix. Let's get into the individuals when we come back. Josh Meiner Minot gets the start. I wasn't going full New England there. It's just Josh Minot gets the start, Anthony Simons with the big finish and Namish Keda. We'll talk about them all when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Fanduel. We're in the middle of basketball season now, middle of football season now. You want to get in on the action, you go to FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. 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So I'll be watching the Tuesday night games with Jake for your Wednesday podcast, Locked on NBA Midday gets all the big stories, all the big storylines, debate show style. Wherever you found this podcast, you'll find that one too. Let's get to some of these individuals because there were a lot of good performances here, starting with Josh Minot, who got the start. He was a plus 42. Plus 42 in a 32 point win. And in the fourth quarter he was plus 26. So Josh, instant impact, and I'm not talking about the impact that his body made with the floor after that dunk, which he said didn't hurt at all. He was fine. He got right back up. Everybody had a laugh about that after the game. So that was fun. But look, Minot, I've talked about him a bunch. I did a feature on him at Boston Sports Journal. This is, this is the, his, his opportunity, his big opportunity. And he's not, he's not trying to miss it here. He's, he got his first career start and 15 points, nine rebounds, a steal, a block. It feels like he had more than a steal and a block, but that, that's a testament to the, the game that he played. Just a really good game overall. A big, long, versatile defender. And he did the exact same things that you want a guy in that position to do that spot. That starting spot seems to be kind of rotating. Ugo Gonzalez got it in the last game. We all made a big deal of it. And then he gets the DNP in this one. So I, I don't know. I, Joe, Joe is, you know, doing his own thing with these rotations and, and these starting lineups. And we've talked about how it's going to be situational and here we are. I don't know why Ugo got the dnp. Coach's decision, but may not matter. Josh got it a couple of games ago, right, in New York. He didn't play, but, and he wouldn't get garbage time in Detroit. And all of a sudden now he gets the start. And so Ugo gets a DNP in the first game, then gets to start a couple of games later and then gets another dnp. So I think just as a side note for Ugo, I, this is, this is why I, I say he's gonna probably, or he probably should split time between the Boston Celtics and the main Celtics because while I love to see him get the rotation minutes in Boston, I, I need to see him getting 35 minutes of game time. And that, that's something that's only going to happen in Maine. I want to see him run in offense and all that stuff that I said in yesterday's podcast, that still holds true. So whether it's on an off day for the Celtics, maybe the Celtics have a Thursday off and Maine is playing on that Thursday and you send them to Maine to play on that game then, then sure, that's a great opportunity for him to go do that. Maybe that's how they stagger this. Maybe they send him for a week, have him work on some stuff, then he comes back and he misses a couple of games and it's not a big deal. However they do it, they just need to do it. And so I, I thought that he might have just been part of the rotation a little bit, but it's so early that we can't make anything of anything. We can't make anything of certain starters, we can't make anything of guys not playing. That's just how it is. So we have to wait and see on Ugo. Great game. Josh Minot, very cool to see. Great game. The Mishkeda, he did a great job. Had a stretch of. Was it like an offensive rebound, put back, come down, block a shot, come down alley. Like he really was active. And Joe said after the game, he has to do it all the time. He can't just, he can't just be good sometimes. He's got to be good all the time. And that's, that's the challenge for Keda. And Joe has said it before, it was, it's easy to be third string, right? Sometimes you play, sometimes you don't. You come in, you just do a certain thing. You just rebound and block shots and run and be crazy and you're good. Start. Your starting center now you have responsibilities. You have to be this. You can't just be like, oh, good sometimes. You have to just be good all the time. And as Joe said after the game, the connective stuff, coming down, setting a good screen, rolling hard, taking a defender with you, opening up a driving lane, opening up a passing lane, that kind of stuff, getting in there for offensive rebounds, giving the team extra possessions, all of those little things, that's what Kate has got to do. This was probably certainly the best Keter game of the season. Four games only. Best we've seen him play since the Euro basket Tournament and, and the best Celtics performance he's had in a long time. Since last season sometime. So, yeah, this, this was great. This was great. This is the type of thing I, as the resident KEDA critic, if this is the type of stuff that he can do on a regular basis, then I come around and I, you know, don't harp on certain things, but great performance. You want to see it happen against bigger centers, more mobile centers. Let's see how he does against Cleveland. But this is a good one. This is a great place to build. Anthony Simons. I probably should have mentioned him already, but. 25 points, 6 of 13 from 3, 9 of 17 overall. He had 12 in the, in the fourth quarter. The big turning point in this game was DeAndre Jordan driving. It's. It's a six point game. DeAndre Jordan, who side note, I loved Joe Missoula. The report from Abby Chin. I loved him telling his team after DeAndre dunked on them a couple of times. The he was like, you don't get to pick and choose when you're your best self. You know, you always have to be your best. That was, that was great. He was like, this dude was sitting on his couch two days ago and now he's dunking all over you. You cannot, you cannot let that happen. Which is 100% true. You cannot let that happen. So shout out to Joe for, for challenging the team. They responded after that, but Jordan's coming down, he's going up for a layup. Derrick White swallows him up, goes down as a block, gets the ball up to Simons. He hits a three pointer and he's off to the races. He had hit a basket earlier, but that was the stretch. That was the beginning of. I think Hauser had hit a three before that, but it was a 25 to four run. That was, that was basically the beginning of that run. That was the big turning point moment. Simons was great and he talked about it after the game. Joe talked about it after the game. The, the comfort level that you have because Jaylen Brown sat two minutes into the fourth quarter with his fifth foul. And I said at the time, I'm not mad at this. He gets to rest and he'll just come in later. But Simon saw this as an opportunity. Like, all right, hey, I get to be me. I get to do what I do. And I compared it to. I think I've made this analogy before, but, you know, you wear a suit and you're all kind of like buttoned up and like you get. When you take off the suit and you get all comfortable, like that was Simon's like, all right, I got my sweats on, I'm comfortable. I'm me. Let's, let's roll. And he was back in a familiar role. He, you know, when he gets hot, he gets scorching hot. And he carried the day in the fourth quarter. So amazing fourth quarter performance from him. It's exactly what the Celtics needed. Timely shots, somebody to make shots in the fourth quarter so you don't get blasted with the offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter. You make shots in the fourth quarter, oh my God, you can come back and win these games. So that's it wasn't even a comeback necessarily, but you know what I mean. So shout out to Anthony Simons a couple more Luca Garza. I'll even shout out like Peyton Pritchard, Baylor Shireman. Let's talk about those guys in a couple of seconds here when I come back. And including why I think this game wasn't even much different than the first three games. That's coming up next. 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Josh Lloyd is going to help you win your fantasy basketball league because he's gonna get, he's up to date on who to add, who to drop, who's hot, who's not and that is the type of stuff that's going to make your league look at you and go how does, how does this person know all the right moves to make? Why is this person running away with my, my league? So check it out. Lockdown fantasy basketball. Wherever you found this podcast, a couple other names just to shout a lot, a lot of good performances. I don't think see a bad one in, in this game necessarily. Derrick White was, I, I thought Derek White actually I liked Derek White. He did not shoot well at all. He is a, he is in a slump but I thought defensively he was good and he seven assists so he, he moved. He just, he didn't shoot. He did not shoot well. I was almost like he didn't shoot good, he did not shoot well. And, and that's part of a slump. I do think that the pull ups that he's taking are a lot tougher. He needs to get into a better rhythm and I do trust him to get into that better, better rhythm. Same with Peyton Pritchard. White was one of nine. Pritchard was two of seven. Pritchard lived in the lane. He was like a pest. He, he, I thought he had a great game and if he hit one more shot his, his three point percentage would have been fine. So. But 11 points for Derrick White, 18 points, eight assists for Pritchard, who continues to go in and grab offensive rebounds. He had two, obviously. Kada had seven offensive rebounds. I don't know if I mentioned that. Seven offensive rebounds for him to go along with the four blocks. Pritchard, I thought Pritchard was good. He just. Just finds his way. He's. He just, I don't know, man. He puts his head down, he gets in the middle lane, he creates himself some space. So he was good. Luca Garza, three or four from three. He still overreacts defensively, but that's something that he's gonna have to fix over commits to certain things. He just has to be in better position. But the three of four from three was huge. Shout out to Baylor Scheireman. I thought, you know, scout did a good job of like really kind of highlighting that. Charman did a couple of little things. A sacrificial cut that opened up a driving lane, you know, some rebounding and that got him a chance. And he hit a big shot in this game. It was only one for three, but it was an important shot for him. And, you know, 3.6 rebounds and a steal. He. He went out there and these are the little things that earn you some minutes. And I can't be out on any of these players yet. And Chairman has an opportunity to earn himself some. Some minutes. So those are the individual performances. I will say though, and this, I don't think this game was entirely different from the. The other three games as far as flow and the opportunities that presented themselves. The Celtics have started hot before. They started out with a 14 point lead. Second quarter, they did some inexplicably bad things in this game as well, just like they did in other games. And that hurt them. And they, you know, the lead was dropping down to, I think got down to like 5 at some point in the second quarter. But this time around, they went on a run and they made the plays, they got the rebounds, they didn't give up the offensive rebounds and they rebuilt a lead heading into halftime. Third quarter, they came out hot, just like they came out hot in other games, but somehow they, you know, fouling a little too much, missing some shots. The other team starts, you know, putting a few possessions together, they start getting a little bit hot. It was the fourth quarter and there they are down up only 5. And we've seen this before. They've had these leads before and seen them start to dwindle. And scout was like, I'm starting to get a little nervous here. I shouldn't be nervous because the Celtics have seemed to be in control. It was a very similar flow to this game. But then what they didn't do was give up a ton of offensive rebounds. What they did do was hit the timely shots. They actually had somebody that started to go off and close the door on the other team in the fourth quarter. They did those things. They turned the other team over and scored those things that they weren't able to do against the other teams. They did them here. And that's why I said earlier where they struggle against the good teams, it's not that they suck and get crushed by the good teams. They are actually in these games. They had a chance to beat the Knicks, they had a chance to beat the Sixers, they had a chance to beat Detroit, but they weren't able to do the other thing. They weren't able to keep them off the boards. They weren't able to hit shots. They weren't able to execute when they, you know, on. On certain plays and certain opportunities. But when the competition isn't as good, just like we saw in the preseason, you do execute. You do actually do those things. So it's not that the Celtics played an entirely different game, and we're like, wow, okay, Stylistically, this was different. Stylistically, this was a very similar game as. As the other three. What they did was they hit a few shots, turned the other team over and didn't give up a million offensive rebounds and get crushed in second chance points. So it's. It's not an outlier as far as, oh, they played super uptempo, and they just. They. They put. They put a couple of things together that we haven't seen before. That's not. It's not what happened here. They did things that they weren't able to do in the first three games, and this is their challenge. This is their challenge for consistency. Can you do that against Cleveland? Because they're probably going to have a similar type of flow to the game against Cleveland. They'll come out strong, they'll come out hot. Then substitutions will start to happen, and certain things will go wrong. And can you get that back? Can you cut their water off? Cleveland is a much better team. Can you cut their water off? When they start going like you did against New Orleans, who isn't that good, that's their challenge. If you're going to get good with this roster, and I can't rule anything out with this roster, right. They. I don't know if they're going to be a 35 win team or if they're going to be a 45 win team. Now, 35 seems more likely based on what you saw in the first few games. But they could put something. This could be the impetus for putting certain things together where you say, okay, hey, look, when we stay between the man and the rim, we get some rebounds. Do that against the good teams. Do that against Cleveland and Houston and Philly, again, do that. That might be the thing that turns this around. It takes one game to have some things click, but that's the challenge. Can you do this against teams that can make you pay for your mistakes? When they made the mistakes against New Orleans, they didn't have to pay the same price. Part of it's because they didn't have to play the same defense and part of it is because, you know, the, the Pelicans had shots that they couldn't make. And part of it was guys like Minot and Simons played out of their minds for stretches that we hadn't seen yet. Some of this is simply going to be guys getting more comfortable. Simon's getting more comfortable, Garza getting more comfortable. Minot, Gonzalez, all of these guys getting more comfortable. That is certainly part of this as well. The more comfortable they get, the more you're able to execute. So there are a bunch of different roads. The Celtics can go down. This was a good win. Obviously, you win by 30, you celebrate that for what it is. Now can they build on that and get some consistency? That's going to be the important part. Can you do this against the better teams? And we're going to find out. Wednesday night, Cleveland, let's see what they do against the Cavs. If they beat the Cavs, that'll be a big, big feather in their cap. Let's see if they can build on this momentum. I will be at that game. I will be there talking to everybody. So I'll have a post game podcast after that. Obviously there's another podcast with you before that. I got 13 straight podcasts for you. They're all free, they're all available wherever you get podcasts. They're all on YouTube. You can get there, get into the comments section there. Share your thoughts. Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? Do you think I'm full of crap? Whatever you want to tell me, go ahead and tell me in the comment section. But I would love it if you shared the podcast and told everybody that they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast network. It's your team every day a prime members. 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