Boston Celtics CRUMBLE as Charlotte Hornets DOMINATE | What went Wrong?

0:00Now, on the Lockdown Celtics podcast, if you ever wondered how the Celtics would look if the preseason expectations were right, well, now you know, after watching how they played against the Charlotte Hornets. Hey there, welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast, right here on the Lockdown podcast. Now, record is your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday, plus Bonus Podcasts on the weekends when they play like Friday night, Celtics play the Mavs. I'll have a bonus podcast there, but also during the week I dropped the bonus podcast as I very plainly hinted that I would. So during the week, you'll get bonus podcasts as well. Make sure you're subscribed. Get the show in your feed on YouTube and get into the comment section there. I'm John Corales, beat writer for Celtics on SI. I've been covering the team for about 20 years, doing this podcast for about 10.

1:02And today's show is brought to you by, well, game time. Today's show is brought to you by game time download the game time app creating account using the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Celtics got smoked, smoked by the Charlotte Hornets. They never led. So in the second time, the season that they have not led in a game, they didn't do anything that they normally do. They looked terrible, basically throughout the game. Any brief period of, hey, maybe they're getting some momentum here. That went away quickly. They looked like how I think they would look like if all of the preseason expectations, if all of the stuff that people have been saying about them before the season started, if all of that stuff actually came true, I would say if they lived down to the expectations, this is what the team would have looked like.

2:02So later on, we'll get into the bigs who were awful. For the first time this season, all the bigs were terrible. The second segment, I'll get into the things that the Celtics didn't do that they normally do that would keep them in games like this, like the offense of rebounding and causing turnovers. I want to start with the buzz saw, the absolute just kind of, what the Hornets are doing right now, six wins in a row, ten road wins in a row, the wins by 15 plus games, they've won all six games by 15 plus, the Hornets right now are just rolling. I was listening to a little bit of lockdown Hornets on my way home just to, I just kind of wanted to see what their reaction would be and let me tell you, they are over the top over there.

3:02They are talking about championship contention right now. This win over the Celtics has got them giddy, giddy. So yeah, I would recommend going to check it out because they are flying high, no pun intended with the whole Hornets thing. The Celtics came out just frigidly ice cold, unsustainably bad, no matter how you slice it, awful shooting, they were, they shot 30 of 79 overall, they were 10 of 36 from three. So not only did the Hornets limit their three point makes, they limited their three point attempts, the shots in the paint, five of 12 for the Celtics in the restricted area.

4:09Compared to what were the Hornets, nine of 13, I just want to pull this over here and take a look. Nine of 13. So they made four more with one more attempt. The Celtics just missed layup after layup after layup and that was part of why they were unable to do some of the things they normally do. When you're five of 12, so you miss seven shots at the rim, it's hard to get those rebounds. Those turn into opportunities at the other end where it's a five on four, right? The guy who takes the layup misses and invariably his momentum is taking him away from the basket. Joe talks about this all the time and it's one of the most under-disgust elements of basketball where, yeah, light ball turnovers are the worst thing that can happen. They're dribbling, they steal a ball from you, they go the other way, and there was plenty

5:11of that too. There was plenty of that as well. But that being the worst thing that could happen, a missed layup can often be the second worst thing that can happen. More than piling up the miss threes and all of that stuff, people say, well, you miss the three, you get the long rebound, the team can get going the other way. Yeah, you also have everybody's momentum is kind of going back this way. You even have the guy who shot the ball can get back. He could be the first one back to stop a fast break. Whereas the guy who shot the ball and missing a layup, that guy is under the rim. He's probably out on the baseline somewhere. Maybe he's fallen. Maybe he's complaining to the ref and that invariably gives you a disadvantage or gives the other team an advantage. So the Celtics, their inability to hit from basically anywhere on the floor, they had a little bit of success later on in the paint.

6:13They are non restricted, which they were 14 of 27, but and there were two of three from the left corner. Everything else was just, they just couldn't hit a thing. So number one on the things that cost the Celtics was, they couldn't hit shots, while the hornets were plus nine in three point makes. So right away, that's a 27 point hole. You've got to make up that 27 points somehow. And the Celtics couldn't do that in either end and what you don't have is the shot margins. You don't have the Celtics shot 10 fewer shots and the free throws were basically even. So the Celtics had 20 free throw attempts and the hornets had 21. So the shot attempt numbers are pretty accurate here. There's no like sometimes it'll look like, oh, the Celtics only had 79 shot attempts,

7:16but they'll have 30 something free throws and they really had a lot more shot attempts. They just got fouled on a bunch of them, but this is all equal. It's all leveled out. The Celtics just couldn't find another spot anywhere in this game to make up for what they couldn't do shooting wise. That margin right there, losing the three point battle by 27, you lost the game by 29. That's it. That right there, you can just wipe it, that's where you lose the game. And it's true in the most, in the most basic way, that is where you lose the game. But all the other stuff the Celtics couldn't do and couldn't make up for, that's why they lost it as badly as they did. And listen, the bottom line for the Celtics in this one, they didn't have it, they never had it in this game. Jalen after the game was talking about how the, you know, it's on me, I'm the leader,

8:21we had no energy, it's uncharacteristic, which it is. The Celtics had no energy. Helbe building didn't even have any energy. Everything that could have gone wrong in there, including why am I doing this podcast from my home studio because the alarm was going off in the building. So nothing went right at TD Garden. The alarm after the game, when we were working the back started going off and so I couldn't, I just left and just didn't record my podcast there like I wanted to, had to come home. Everything was going wrong for the Celtics. And it happens. Again, in the most basic way, you can just say, you didn't shoot well, they did. You didn't have the energy, it happens. You move on. You flush it. In a lot of ways, I mean, obviously, Joe Mazula is going to say, you never flush, you never just flush anything because there's always, you can go back and look and see 15 plays.

9:21Like he said, there's always 15 plays you can go look at. And there are for sure that the Celtics could have made a difference here. A lot of them were just layups that if you made the layup, things would have changed. If you want me to sum up this game in one sequence, we'd go to the end of the third quarter. End of the third quarter, the Celtics made a little bit of a run. They were about three minutes to go at the end of the third. They put together an eight to three kind of spurt where they were down, they started down 22. They go down 17. Okay. They get a stop. They come down. Brown gets a pick from Nicola Vucovic, Vucovic and does an amazing move, an amazing move. Goes left, crossover right, Pinoy step over, goes to his left and it's right there. The ball was hanging on the rim literally three full seconds.

10:23You just three seconds, 2001, 2002, 2003. That's a long time for a ball to be sitting there on the rim. It's usually like boiling in and out, fraction of a second. Even just a couple of bounces, it's one second. They are almost three seconds of the ball sitting on the rim by the time it went from Jalen Brown's hand to the rebound. He makes his great move, he blows the layup, right? It just lips out and you're like, oh man, this is brutal. And they get the ball, they go the other way. And in the span of 33 seconds, they put up six great buckets. So the Celtics, instead of that layup falling and being down 15 with about a minute left,

11:25it's more than an opportunity, there's three more chances to score, right? With 59 seconds on the clock, the Celtics can come down and get stops and get three more opportunities, that would be the three. So there would be two more opportunities for that. So you come down, you go up 15, you go down 15, if you can come down and get a stop, come down, score 13, you have the potential to be down 11, even 10, it was an A3 run. If you put together an 11, 3, 12, 3 run over that, you know, it's just score a few more buckets, there you get that bucket and two more, the entire dynamic of this thing changes, everything changes. But he misses the layup, they score six straight points and he go into the fourth quarter, now 23. So that's the microcosm of this game, where the Celtics just, when they finally mustered

12:35some level of momentum, they miss a layup and Charlotte just comes down, boom, boom. And you're like, you got nothing, deflated that game over at that point. Second chances, turnovers, staples for the Celtics, absolute staples, they couldn't get either of them, I'll talk about that, when I come back, today's show is brought to you by five hour energy, it's time for the five hour energy flavor draft with 18 flavors to choose from, including new options like confetti craze, free rainbow and cotton candy, there's something for everyone, the board is set, the flavors are ready, and I got the number one pick for the five hour energy flavor draft, you, the confetti craze, fruity rainbow, cotton candy are all sweet, but no sugar, this is the big thing here. Now if you have a sweet tooth, these are great ways to satisfy a sweet tooth, get your

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14:42five hour energy dot com, five hour energy dot com, or you can pick one up at Amazon. Today's show is also brought to you by game time, there's nothing like being in an NBA arena, the crowd, the energy, the moment, getting tickets though, that's tough, that part is not always been easy, and especially though, if you're a Celtics fan, maybe that Charlotte game down in, down in Charlotte in a few, a couple of weeks there, maybe you want to use the game time app, if you're down in that way, to get your hands on some tickets, it's very easy, you have all in pricing, so if you're not familiar with the arena down there, you open it up, you'll see what the price is, whatever it says, if it says $75, then that's what you're going to pay it, check out, you get a view from your seat, if you don't know what the section numbers are, you say, huh, what does this seat look like, it'll show you on the app, this is what the seat looks like, then if you want to do a zone deal where you pick the section, and the game time picks the seats, then you will save a little

15:44extra there, it's great for last minute options, it's quick, it's intuitive, stress-free from start to finish, we'll take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with game time, download the game time app, create an account, use the code locked on for $20 off your first purchase, I've used the app a few times, so I don't get this, but you, if you, this is your first purchase, you get that locked on, the code locked on for $20 off, download the game time app today, remember if you're using the web, it's gametime.co, gametime.co, thanks for making locked on Celtics, your first listen every day, check out locked on NBA, locked on NBA game night, game night is seven nights a week covering every game in the league, and locked on NBA is during the week, Monday through Friday, five days a week, they're both in the same feed, so you want to catch up on the games and catch up on the big storylines, you get both podcasts in the same place. The Celtics normally, in games like this, give themselves a chance by getting offensive

16:44rebounds, by protecting the ball, and by turning the other team over. They did none of that in this game, none. This is the most amazing stat to me in this, is that the Celtics only had five second chance points, five, they had zero in the first half that is so unlike the Celtics, because that's what they live on that. Joe Missoula has his guys playing with energy almost all the time, and again, look, if you've played basketball for any extended amount of time, you know that sometimes the game like this happens, right, you just, you ain't got it, and it's just never, it's never getting there, you, and unless you, like, get that layup and get that momentum and get that crowd behind you, it's just not happening, and we've all had those days at our own jobs,

17:44right, how many times have you gone to work and just been like, my brain is mush today, I got nothing, I got nothing for nobody today, so I'm done. I'm going to online shop today, that's what I'm going to watch YouTube vids, and whatever, whenever the boss walks by, I'm going to quick change and make it look like I'm working, but I'm doing nothing today. Can't do that when you're a member of the Celtics, can't do that in a pro setting, you're going to get embarrassed by, you know, in front of 19,000 people happens, all right, it happens. They didn't have the energy, they couldn't go out there and grab the offensive rebounds like they normally would, and a lot of those, like I said before, were mislamps, and so it's hard to get those, but the Celtics energy wasn't there, wasn't strong enough to go in and crash the boards, and to only get five second chance points, Celtics shot 30 of 79, that is 49 misses, 49 misses, and you got nine offensive rebounds, that's, I don't even know

18:48what that percentage is, but I'm going to do it real quick, I have a calculator, so they missed 49 shots, they 18.4, around 18.4% of their misses, this is just a terrible percentage. The Celtics have been up, well, they've been much higher than that, in fact, while I'm talking, I'm going to pull up the stats because that is possible here, isn't it? Well, maybe not, maybe, well, it was possible, and then it is not. But I can tell you what, their offensive rebounding percentage is super high, and okay, here it is, I got you, I know I'd get there, 34%, this is high quality podcasting, 34% and what I say they were before, that's obviously a horrible, horrible, horrible offensive rebounding

19:53rate, so to miss 49 shots, I only get nine offensive rebounds, with the team that you have, with Namiish Keda out there, one offensive rebound, he only played 16 minutes, I'll get to him in a second, Nicola Vutavic, 16, almost 17 minutes, one offensive rebound, Luca Garza got into the game for 15 minutes, zero offensive rebounds, what Luca Garza, none? The only person who crashed and got rebounds was Hugo Gonzalez, who had four, Jalen had one, Sam had one, Nini had one, Baylor had one, Vouch had one, that's it, and then Hugo had four, so he had almost as many as everyone else combined, you're not going to win game, if you're going to miss these shots and it happens, you need to get offensive rebounds, and what, shout out to Joe Mazula, because I talked

20:55about it after the Nuggets game, I said, you know, you have, when you're missing these shots, you've got Luca Garza there, why not use him, and you know, Joe learned that lesson himself, right, it's not like he listened to me, but the team didn't have it in Denver, they ran out of gas, their legs went away, and I said, hey, why not have, you know, an energy guy, a rebound guy, and to Joe's credit, the next time that happened, he did go to Luca Garza, Luca didn't have anything in this game either, and then the turnovers, so okay, you're not getting offensive rebounds, can you turn the other team over, nope, five turnovers total, and I think it was three before garbage time, so heading into garbage time was three turnovers for three points, and the Celtics overall 16 turnovers for 21 Charlotte points, that's, so you lose on the shot margin,

22:03you lose the turnovers, you lose the offensive rebounding second chance points, you lose, that's it, you have no chance, you have no chance if that's the case, so what do you, what do the Celtics do, I mean, this is, couldn't, couldn't hit, couldn't, didn't have the, just didn't have it, didn't have anything, the bigs were the worst absolute worst game that the Celtics front court has played, I'll get to that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by TurboTax, it is tax time, but for a lot of us, the old way of doing taxes is a lot, it's a lot, trying to book an appointment that's not the most convenient, sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers, emailing back and forth wondering if they really get your situation, but this year you're getting a major upgrade into it, TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide, you can meet face to face with a real tax expert and your

23:05documents get uploaded, uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot, just like that, you're done, TurboTax experts work to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real time notifications as you go about your day, it's the relief of walking in and meeting a real person and walking out knowing your taxes are being handled right, head to TurboTax.com slash local to find a store near you and book your appointment. Thanks for making lockdown Celtics, you're first listen every day, you're in every day or here with me Monday through Friday, why not join the every day or club, the every day or club gives you ad free audio compatible with Apple podcast spotifying every other major podcasting app, it's also giving you access to the every day or club discord server, which includes a group chat just for Celtics fans, just for NBA fans, so you've got that and more at lockdownseltics.supercast.com, lockdownseltics.supercast.com, I'll drop that link in the show notes for you as well. This was, you know what I said at the top,

24:09if the preseason expectations that people had for the Celtics were accurate, this is what the team would look like. Jalen Brown played, played okay, but not great, seven of 19 shooting, his efficiency since January 1st has been bad, so he needs to, he needs to get that efficiency back up, but either way, 20 points, 11 rebounds, which was good, seven assists, which is nice, seven assists on the night where the team shooting 38% is difficult, so that's meaningful. So it was, it wasn't, an okay game for Jalen, but not a great game, he missed a ton of laps, and that hurts. But the questions, the preseason question was, could Jalen get the job done? And you know, it's okay, this is okay, not great. Derek White was good, he was the only guy that really came and played well, nine of 17, three of nine, eight of eight from the line, three assists, a steal,

25:15beginning of the third quarter, it was all Derek, and they kind of got away from that. Again, the Celtics, getting away from something that worked, sure, if I go back and look at it, the Hornets defense had some adjustments that they made to kind of change how that went, but either way, Derek White was going, and that really didn't do much for the Celtics, but okay, so you get Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, big ol' fail for Peyton Pritchard, 0 of 6, 0 of 5 from 3, zero points for the second time in three games, zero points for Peyton. I don't know if he's hurt, he kind of is grabbing at a risk or something, but either way, but he had a big gain in between those two, so it's not like he's incapacitated, he's just a rough time right now for Peyton, so

26:17and then you get to the bigs, so preseason expectations of Jalen, could he do it, this would be the worst case scenario. Peyton, could he do it, this is the worst case scenario. The bigs, the so-called worst front court in the NBA, something that I was sitting there saying, yeah, they might be, okay, they proved that wrong, but in this game, that's exactly what they were, so when I said, this is what life would be like, if all those preseason expectations came to fruition, that's how it actually went versus them proving everybody wrong in every meaningful way, this is what the game would look like, this is what the Celtics would look like, and that's not a team that's 41 and 21. The bigs, Nimi, he banged knees or something, they were looking at his right knee, something happened early on, he subbed out, was not even two minutes into the game, they were checking his knee, and then he got back in the

27:21game and he looked, I mean, just, it was, it was Nimi of last year, he was just flailing around and fumbling around and turning the ball over, it was the absolute kind of worst case scenario for Nimi, okay, it happens, it's one game, I'm not really worked up about it, it just happens, but that was literally his worst game, and I don't know what the knee thing was, he came back in and played, so I'm assuming it's not a big deal, Vouch comes in, nothing, he gives them nothing, he hits one three pointer, gets the line a couple of times, you know, a few rebounds in the cyst, he had a block, but nothing, right, so this wasn't a case of, okay, Vouch comes in and saves the day, nope, he didn't have anything either, so Joe goes to Luca Garza, Luca Garza has nothing, you know, he hit a couple of shots, he gets in there,

28:25was three of five, he had nine points, two rebounds, zero offensive rebounds, he also had a block, but meaningless, none of the bigs, none of the bigs performed well, everything that could go wrong went wrong in this game, Jalen's big, quote unquote, big night was inefficient and he missed a ton of layups and had three turnovers, Derek White, 29 points on 9 of 17 shooting is great, but they couldn't sustain that, couldn't, couldn't get him to carry them any further, no matter what he did in the beginning of the third quarter, he scored eight straight points and made no dent, no difference because the defense was just brutal, the drop coverage going back to the bigs, the drop coverage was, it was bad, it was problematic,

29:26and I gotta go look at it again, but it's, you can do drop coverage effectively, but you just have to make sure that everybody's on the same page, everybody's communicating, because you have to navigate the picks a certain way, you have to make sure that you're getting a certain certain kinds of shots, and if you're allowing the wrong kind of shots, then the drop coverage can kill you, hornets were 7 of 11 in the paint non-restricted, you want to keep them in that long two area, that six of 16 in the mid range, that was great, why couldn't they keep them in that six of 16, why were they giving up so many three pointers, which is what the hornets do, they love to take three pointers, so the defense was kind of brutal along the way, they got, they basically got nothing from anybody, Hugo had his moments,

30:27Baylor Shireman had a couple of moments, but nobody had anything sustained, except for Derek in the third quarter, and they got away from that, so flush it, move on, Dallas is next, that could either be the biggest game on the schedule, because Jason Tatum is coming back, or it could be, obviously Cooper Flag, or it could be nothing, because Cooper Flag has been hurt, and maybe he's not ready to play, maybe Jason doesn't play, so I don't know, I'm betting that it's going to be a big night, so we'll see, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, we'll figure it out together, so a new podcast tomorrow, plus a post game bonus podcast on Friday night into Saturday, so make sure you're subscribed, we're gonna get your podcast, watch the show on YouTube, and I would love it if you shared the podcast, tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the lockdown sell this podcast, here in the lockdown podcast, the network is your team,

31:29every day,