← Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics
HUGE Boston Celtics Comeback Beats Miami | Joe Mazzulla "stupidity" | Vucevic double-double
00:23:10
Boston Celtics rally past Miami Heat after sluggish start, powered by a resurgent Derrick White and bold adjustments by Joe Mazzulla. Can Vucevic’s arrival spark a new offensive identity for the Celtics as they eye a top seed in the East? John Karalis of Celtics On SI spotlights Boston’s 98-96 comeback, analyzing how the Celtics overcame a 22-point deficit by ditching the double-big lineup and unlocking key contributions from Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, and newcomer Nikola Vucevic. The discussion dissects Joe Mazzulla’s in-game adjustments, Jaylen Brown’s honest postgame reflections, and lineup questions involving Luka Garza and Neemias Queta. Plus, hear how Boston’s defense clamped down in the second half and why this gritty win, coupled with the Knicks’ loss, could shape the playoff race. Will the Celtics’ revamped bench and strategic tweaks hold up as the postseason looms?
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Qualifying credit required now on the Lockdown Celtics Podcast, the Boston Celtics overcome Joe Missoula's stupidity. His words to beat the Miami Heat, home of the winners. Hey, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Where does your team every day? Your team is the Boston Celtics. I talk about them every day, Monday through Friday, plus this bonus podcast when they play on a Friday night or a Saturday night. So make sure you're subscribed. Get the show wherever you get podcasts on YouTube as well. Watch it there. Get into the comments section. Share your thoughts with me. If you're new to the show, I'm John Corrales. I'm a beat writer covering the Boston Celtics for Sports Illustrated's Celtics on SI. I've been covering the Celtics for about 20 years now. I've been doing this podcast for 10 and I've written a couple of books about the team. This is a nice win for the Boston Celtics. I'm here at TD Garden. If you're watching on YouTube you can see I like stepping aside and say there's the beautiful parquet. If you're listening, just picture the beautiful parquet sellers get the win 9810 to 96. Later on I'll get to this is going to be an abbreviated bonus podcast. Like to do a little shorter bonus podcast on the weekend. Later on we'll get into Peyton Pritchard and Derek White and all of that stuff. Joe talking about his stupidity and well, let's just get right to that because it plays into the whole slow start where the Celtics came out did not look good. At all. Could not hit anything. They shot 1 4, 21 for 20 in the first half of this game against Miami, they just couldn't hit anything. They looked slow, they looked lost. They looked unlike a team. Like I was watching them in that first half and I'm thinking like, did, did this trade just break them somehow? Did they all of a sudden forget how to play basketball? They didn't look anything like the team, especially the team that we saw in Houston, that they didn't look anywhere close to that. In fact, they looked like the team that I think a lot of people thought they would be when they said, well, this is, this is the Celtics team that could be in the play in. This is a team that, that probably doesn't. We don't expect much from them. That team that we saw in the first half, I thought that was going to be like, that's what they look like. And I, I didn't make any sense to me. And then as the third quarter went on, I just, I tweeted it out. I said, the, the double big is not working with this group right now. And they once again, they started Hauser, Garza, Keda, Jalen and Derek and the double Big, Garza and Keita. It just. Not against Miami. It didn't work against Miami. It worked great against Houston. I thought that that Houston game was just an incredible performance. Can't say enough about how they played against the Rockets, but against Miami, just Miami was too small. And I know in the past double big has worked for the Celtics, but that was Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis. That was a. Two very different bigs. We're talking here about Keda and Garza and if, if the matchup isn't right, like I, I saw Keda switching on to Davion Mitchell and that just went poorly. It asking these guys to guard in space is, is too much to do too often, hey, every once in a while, sure it's gonna happen, right? Every once in a while. A cross match, a transition, a switch. Because you have to switch. Just. You have no choice. It's not the plan. But sometimes just big switches onto a small and you're like, okay, got to deal with it. But doing that on purpose was, was just, it was not working. And why they looked slow. Joe Missoula after the game said, I, I over prepared. I overthought this. And you know, they brought Nikola Vucevich in, who ended up coming off the bench. 11 points, 12 rebounds, 6 offensive, 6 defense rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals. Just a A. At first it looked like, huh, this is not going well for Vuch. And then middle of the third quarter, for the rest of the game, it became, oh, okay, yes, this, this is actually very good. This is. This works. This works. That. Overthinking that. I guess the way Joe said it was he said my stupidity, you know, they overcame my stupidity. I'm paraphrasing. He did use the words my stupidity, but he, he was just kind of like making the point that when you had a new guy and you're working him in and he's looking at the matchups, this might be. Well, they could do this and they could do that and they could do that and they could do that. And we're going to prepare for abcde. And after a while, it just became clear that we need to focus on A and B. And if C, D or E come up, we'll deal with it. But right now we got to deal deal with this. And the Celtics, when I, when I saw them looking slow and discombobulated, I couldn't figure it out. It's because they were thinking too much on the floor. Jaylen Brown said it after the game. I was overthinking. I was trying too hard to do this. And it, it became counterproductive. Right? You prepare to a point, but we've all been there. Every one of us has been at whatever job that we've. We do. And you say, okay, here's. You're new, right? You're new at the job. And some, either you or a co worker or whatever it gets, it gets overwhelmed. There's just so much information where once you get to a certain point your. You just eyes start to glaze over and you go, wait a minute, what am I supposed to be over? No, wait, I'm gonna, I'm over. No, wait. And it becomes, it gets you to a point where there's so much to do that you do none of it right? Everybody understands that concept. That's kind of what was happening on the floor for the Celtics. And then on top of that, trying a little too hard to work Vuch into things. And on top of that, shooting, God awful from three. I think they missed their first three in the third quarter. So they were one of 21 at one point as Derek White after the game was like, 1 for 21 is bad. We probably shouldn't do that again. Which primo advice from Derrick White. And, and ultimately in the first half, that sums up the first half. And there's really not much to talk about after that. In the first half. Second half, the Celtics got away from the double big. It was about seven minutes to go. In the third quarter, the Celtics were down 19. It was like 67, 67 to 46, 67 to 45, something like that. And all of a sudden they said, that was at the height of it. Garza comes out. Keita comes out. Richard and Vuch come in. Boom, 25 to five run. All of a sudden, the Celtics were up two. They give up a layup at the end. They end up going to the fourth quarter, tied at 74. They went from down 22 to tide when they just simplified. They just got away from the double bigs and they said, all right, fine. Miami started switching. Punish the. Punish the switches. Vucevic spent the first half kind of like posting up and trying to post up, and they just weren't seeing them, weren't finding them. In the second half, very simple entry passes. Get it up high, catch high, finish high. And he was just. Just getting layup after layup after layup. And then Pritchard starts cooking. A couple of threes start to fall right you. It. Eventually the shots start to kind of. You start to feel good. Jalen hits a three. Pritchard hits a three. Derek hits a three. Now all of a sudden, it starts to cascade. Vuch comes in, he gets a few easy buckets. The momentum starts carrying over and over and over. And Miami, which has. They've not been a great third quarter team, they've been inconsistent. Before the game, Spoelstro was talking about, like, we need to be consistent. We need to put it all together. You know, we have our. Our runs, our spurts. Like, we're great in. In bits, but we're inconsistent. And it all played out exactly like that here. The Celtics put up 38 points in the first half. Miami scored 37 in the second half. It's like this basket, which is right over my shoulder here. My. My left shoulder. This is the basket in front of the Boston Celtics bench. When the Celtics was shooting there in the first half, they couldn't. They couldn't hit a thing. When Miami switched over to there in the second half, they couldn't hit a thing. It's like that basket was cursed in this game for some reason. Someone put a hex on that basket, and the team shooting there couldn't break 40 points and a half. So weird. But Boston was able to first of all, ramp up their defense and make. Make. Just make the plays. Derrick White was incredible in the second half. He was terrible in the first half. I mean, the worst I've seen Derrick White play, which is confusing, right? That's the confusing part. You watch a game like this and look, you know what? I'll get to Derek White. I'll get to paint Pritchard. I'll get some of these individual performances. We'll do that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash. Season's heating up. Doordash has a way to keep fans in their bag the whole way through. Whether you're watching the highlights, watching the tunnel fits, or just checking in on Your favorite player, DoorDash makes the whole season fun. Every player has their bag with doordash. You have one too. DoorDash keeps your snacks stocked, your gear fresh and your watch party vibes absolutely on point. So if you're stressed out by your team, like maybe the first half at halftime, you order doordash and they come in with some dessert. Halftime dessert. Can't beat that. Then, hey, time to celebrate. The Celtics just won this game. Big, tough game, clutch win. 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Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. You're an everydayer. Joining me Monday through Friday. I do appreciate that. Thank you for being an everydayer. You want to join the everyday club? How about this deal? Use the code vucevich@lockdownceltics.supercast.com Vusovich the new guy's name. V U C E V I C and you get a free month. You've got until December, I'm sorry, February 9th. So you got a couple more days to use the code Vucevich and get a free month. That's five bucks. You can get. You pay five bucks a month if you want. You can pay 50 bucks for the year and get access to our Discord server chats. For Celtics fans, for NBA fans ad free audio is the big thing which is compatible with every podcasting app, all the major ones. So check that out. Locked on celtics.supercast.com Use the code Bosevich for a free month. Derek White, the. The contrast between the first half and the second half was incredible. You could see it in his head. You know, sometimes he doesn't have the best poker face. There was a play where I forget who it was that he filed. He just trucked a three point shooter and he knew happened at the three point line and he just kept on walking all the way down the court down to the other three point line to the Celtics bench because they reviewed it and called it a flagrant foul. And he was just like muttering to himself the whole time. It was just very clear he was frustrated. He knew he was not playing well. Second half, things changed. He hits a couple of shots, he defends and he makes the two biggest plays of the game. A shot on a pass from Vucevich. Well, I'll get to Vucevich in a second. He makes, he makes a shot in the corner. 3. Go ahead. Shot. Game winning shot. Really it's like the, it's like baseball when you say the game winning RBI and it comes in like the sixth inning, the game winning shot. Was a minute and 31 to go and no one scored the rest of the way because Derrick White blocked Davion Mitchell at the rim with 31 seconds to go, preserving the lead, thankfully not tying the game because who knows, it's almost 2am we might still be playing basketball here if they didn't. If he didn't block that shot. So anyway, Derrick White was huge. Peyton Pritchard, like I said before, was really good. His ability to just. He was. Like I said in the last podcast, he was born to come off this bench. Born to be a six man. He's perfect in that role. And once again, he had, what, 24 points. 8 of 5, 8 of 15, shooting 4, 8 of 5 would have been very impressive. How you shoot 8 of 5, I don't know. But Peyton Pritchard could probably figure it out. 8 of 15, 4 of 6 and 3, 4, 4 from the line. So Pritchard did a great job. Vucevich, like I said, 11 points, 12 rebounds, four assists. The 12 rebounds, he's not a big offensive rebounder, but he was in there. He was, he was boarding like. It's going to be interesting to see how he impacts Luca Garza. Now, this is going to be a little bit of the song and dance with Kada. Does we. We talked about it in the last podcast. A little bit. Does Vouch start? Does he come off the bench? He came off the bench in this one. Know how it's going to go for the season, but it could change. Keda has been great as a starter. Does it work? Does it make more sense for him to come off the bench or, I don't know, the Garza stuff. Well, he, his strength is the offensive rebounding. Vucevich's strength is like the defensive rebounding. So you'd think, hey, if you need one or the other, you can, you can put whichever guy you need in. But Vouch came in there and grabbed six offensive rebounds. I don't know. I don't know what we're going to see from Garza. How much Garza is going to be used? Is it going to be a lot? Is it going to be a little. Is he going to get. Start getting DNPs again? Who knows? But right now, what happened in this game was Garza and Keda came out in the middle of the third and then Garza didn't come back in again. He was done for the night. Canada came back in and they kind of subbed them in and out, but it really was mostly Vucevich. That was the Primary guy to close this out. The passing from Vuch is, is an underrated part of his game. You saw a few passes. There was a great pass on a backdoor cut from Ugo Gonzalez. I love a good backdoor cut. There are a couple of others. He made a couple of other plays like that that got missed. But Vuch found that he found a couple of shooters. He, he had four assists. I'm, I'm curious to see what the potential assists were because I'm, I, I would bet that he had maybe probably at least two or three more. He could have had seven or eight assists in this game. So that ultimately is, is going to be a thing that the Celtics can rely on. He can be a nice hub in the, you know, high posts. Kind of, kind of like Al Horford. I, I think the Al Horford comp is going to be the, the best one for how Vuch is going to be used offensively. Certainly not going to be the same defensively. That's a whole different thing. And that's what makes Al Horford, you know, so good. But offensively his skill set fits right in as far as the screen short roll, rolling all the way to the basket, posting up, shooting the three. All of that stuff is going to be really interesting and helpful for the Celtics. So. But the passing was, was really good and he had the assist on, on Derrick White's pass there. Ugo. There was one play from Ugo Gonzalez that I have to the. The steel in the. Was it the first quarter? The steel up the right sideline. The off the dribble just in rhythm pass. I just don't know how he saw it, how he made that play. The dude was running full speed up the right sideline and then whipped a pass that had to go straight. I don't know how you're moving forward, but find a pass from right to left that goes completely straight. It was incredible. Right on the money to Jaylen Brown. Jalen got fouled. But that play, when I sit there and I say that kid is going to be special. That play sums it up. Look that play up because instincts that make the pass the steel, the, the whole thing was top notch. Let's see who else individually. Sam Houser. Bad shooting night happens. Vuch was a plus 11. Bale Scheiman plus 17 in a two point win. Plus 17. Hit a couple of shots. But the rebounding, seven rebounds. A block shot in that third quarter run just out of nowhere. Chase down block. Incredible play. His defense and rebounding will be. That's Keeping him on the floor. So good job by him. Keda. The one thing I want to highlight for Kata and I, I tweeted this out as well, and it's on Blue sky as well. There was one play that he got the ball in the dunker spot. Hard for me to describe this, but back back in December against Milwaukee, he. He got the ball in that dunker spot and he tried to like, finesse a reverse layup, and it just got blocked and it was bad. In this game, he got the ball in the dunker spot, which, if you don't know the dunker spot, it's on the baseline. It's like you're kind of like behind the basket a little bit, but that's where you get the dump offs. You're like, should be like kind of even with the basket, kind of a little bit below on the baseline. He caught it and did the exact thing you're supposed to do. It's a great improvement. It was the exact same play. I hadn't seen it since he used his body. He kind of like. You kind of like jump backwards so you. You're facing the baseline and you jump backwards into the defender, and that creates a space. You kind of like jut your butt out into the defender's leg. He kind of moves back and then you get to finish that. That shot. He did that in this game. I was like, that is progress. So I don't think Kata had like the best game in the world, but he had 11 rebounds. It was. It was okay, but he was. He was part of, like, the confusion. It was not. It was not the best game. He did the. He did get the 11 rebounds, the four offensive rebounds. So he was. He was decent. But that one play, I, I'm. I'm highlighting that because it's just a great sign of progress for him. So nice to see that. Ultimately, this is the Celtics working. Vucevich not looking great for a half, but turning it around, figuring it out. And as Jalen said, it's great to be able to figure this stuff out and get a win. Also, the New York Knicks lost, so the Celtics are alone in second place. So that's good. Next game is super bowl Sunday at 12:30. So I will have a podcast for you hopefully before the super bowl starts, which, if you want to listen to a podcast on Super Bowl Sunday, you can. If you don't care about the super bowl, listen to my podcast or watch my podcast. If you care about the super bowl, listen to it after or watch it after and hopefully the Patriots win. Sorry non Patriots fans. I'm a Patriots fan, but whatever it is, thank you for subscribing to this show. Thank you for listening to and watching this show. Tell your friends that they should be doing the same. Please share the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics Podcast. It's here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's 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 Good Morning Crust. It's a great day to be a bread brother. Morning mornings are not my jam or jelly. Oh come on. 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