00:00 The thing that sticks with me is something John and I talked about in the first half.
00:03 They really got great production out of the bench in this one.
00:06 And not just that they outscored the Knicks with those three guys or that all of them
00:11 played well, which they did.
00:14 They integrated them well with the other starters.
00:17 I think you saw a little bit more of two bench guys with three starters, John, as you like
00:21 to see out there.
00:22 And Tatum, obviously.
00:23 And they changed the rotation a little bit because normally you were leaving Holiday
00:29 on the floor with Brown.
00:31 And this time it was White left on the floor with Brown when Tatum went out on that first
00:35 sub.
00:36 And they changed that up a little.
00:37 And if you noticed, a couple of these games, there were some weird lines where it all looked
00:44 good, but then you'd look at the plus/minuses and the disparities.
00:47 And Tatum's plus 42 and Brown is plus 9, but Brown led the team in scoring with 29.
00:53 So the lineup combos with Brown in them didn't seem to be working as well.
00:58 It looked like Joe tried to tinker a little bit tonight and try a different combo.
01:02 Yeah, the one they really liked in the fourth quarter was Pritchard-Hauser-Holiday-Tatum.
01:08 And Tatum goes the whole fourth quarter.
01:09 But the first half rotation, the first quarter one, which you didn't like, that got Tatum
01:14 some valuable rest early where you didn't have to play him over that 40-minute mark
01:19 late.
01:20 So the rotations were good here tonight.
01:21 You only went minus one in that first quarter rotation, and then you went plus eight in
01:25 the third quarter, one that you mentioned there where they're pressing and doing all
01:28 that other stuff with Pritchard up there.
01:30 Thought Pritchard looked great.
01:31 Hauser's on fire, not much more to say than that.
01:34 And Horford, I thought, has switched well.
01:38 Pritchard closed the half too instead of Holiday.
01:40 It was interesting.
01:41 They liked him.
01:42 They liked him in that spot.
01:43 Wow, Horford really gets some high praise.
01:45 He's switched well.
01:46 Horford hasn't played great this year by any means, but the one thing he's doing for them
01:52 that's still super valuable are those small lineups where he switches.
01:55 He can still get out on a Brunson and stop him, which is just incredible at this age.
01:59 And I was looking at some of the Raptor stats, and he's a plus zero offensively, but plus
02:04 two, two points added per 100 there defensively.
02:09 So he's still impacting the floor on the defensive side of the ball, according to the analytics.
02:14 So he's not shooting well.
02:16 He's not making those eye-popping plays that he would in spots the last few years he was
02:21 here.
02:22 But Horford off the bench, still the valuable contributor as a backup there.
02:26 So they're moving in a good direction with that second unit.
02:30 Do you feel good about Al?
02:32 Defensively, yeah.
02:34 Offensively, it's rough.
02:36 He's not shooting well.
02:37 He dropped that pass and turned it over down low.
02:40 He's not a threat.
02:41 He doesn't have great gravity on that end of the floor.
02:44 And even his pass- That's a lot of bad stuff you just rattled
02:46 off, Bobby.
02:47 He's a plus zero.
02:48 So what do you expect?
02:49 You just threw his name through the mud.
02:51 He's a plus zero?
02:52 Yeah.
02:53 It comes for all of us.
02:54 That math, that math's not mathing.
02:57 There's moments, there's senior moments with Al this year I haven't seen as much.
03:01 So as you said, kind of- Look at Sherrod's face.
03:05 No but defensively is what you're looking for.
03:08 No, no, he's talking about what Bobby said.
03:10 They're pairing him with Porzingis a lot.
03:12 So you don't need the offense as much at that center spot.
03:16 He's just spacing out there, which is fine.
03:18 And his shot will come.
03:19 We know he's a better shooter than- I was just about to say that, man.
03:22 I'm not worried about it, honestly.
03:23 He's not shooting.
03:24 It's not that he's- He took two shots tonight.
03:27 One of them was a dunk.
03:28 So it's like- I'm okay with him not shooting at this point.
03:32 Because they don't really need that from him.
03:33 They need him to defend, rebound, be good on switches, and get the hell back off the
03:38 court and keep the score- Right.
03:39 They don't need him to score.
03:40 Theoretically, he should be wide open in the corner like every single time down though.
03:45 Yeah, but theoretically, I'd rather him keep the ball moving if he's wide open to get a
03:50 great shot.
03:51 Because to me, if he's open, that's a good shot.
03:53 I don't want necessarily a good shot from Al when he's on the floor.
03:56 I want great shots when Al's on the floor.
03:58 And he needs to keep the ball moving, unless it's a dunk or layup at this point.
04:01 He's supposed to be 40% three-point shooter.
04:04 If he's wide open, they should want him taking that shot.
04:06 Well, 40%.
04:07 You know how many- He's got a 10-3 tonight.
04:09 His attempts have dropped dramatically though.
04:11 I know.
04:12 That'd be impressive for him to still shoot 40%.
04:14 Right.
04:15 He's in a weird- I mean, he is in the toughest spot in this roster.
04:18 I know why you wanted him.
04:19 He's had- He's the toughest- Yeah, I was just going to say, he's, out of all the Southeast
04:22 players, it might be stating the obvious in some regard, but he has to make the biggest
04:26 adjustment.
04:27 And I think he'll be fine, honestly.
04:28 I'm not worried about him pulling at all.
04:31 I think Father Time is helping him make that adjustment.
04:33 Right.
04:34 I think Father Time is helping him make that adjustment.
04:36 Just taking fewer shots, playing fewer minutes, doing less.
04:39 Because to John's point about JB, and I think it's applicable to Al, less is more at this
04:44 point in Malmortford.
04:45 Definitely.
04:46 Defense, rebounding.
04:47 Offensive rebounding, I think you could see a little bit more from him.
04:51 That's probably where he's going to make his biggest impact on that.
04:54 And passing, I still think he can do a little bit of.
04:57 But it's a tough adjustment.
04:58 I mean, he's only come off the bench 14 times in his entire career before this season.
05:03 And now he's doing it every night.
05:04 Didn't do it a ton at Florida either, if you look back.
05:08 So it's a change.
05:09 And I've talked to him here and there early this season.
05:11 And his general tone about it is, "Don't love it."
05:17 Not to quote him, but "Doesn't love it, but it's what we got to do."
05:21 I think it would be fair to ask him how he is adjusting to it.
05:26 We have a few games in here, a few weeks in.
05:31 What's working, what's not working for you?
05:33 Does it take a little bit longer for you to feel like you're kind of rolling in that offense?
05:37 And is that why maybe the shots are down?
05:40 What he's told me is, when you're starting, you're trying to set the pace of the game.
05:46 And when you're coming in, you're just trying to be an energy guy.
05:49 So we talk about with the Neesmith and Bresets of the world, I think that's how he's looking
05:53 at his role.
05:54 Like, just run around, defend, crash the boards, and boom, that's your game off the bench.
06:00 He's viewing it as an energy role, rather than being completely integrated into the
06:04 game plan as a starter.
06:06 That starting lineup's obviously been everything for them.
06:08 They're mixing in a few guys here and there when they need to.
06:11 But in that second half, John, they were ready to let those starters roll in the third quarter
06:16 until the 10-minute mark, when they finally made some subs there.
06:20 So Mizzou is playing tight with this.
06:22 And we've talked about how they've been light with Bresets the last couple of games.
06:26 And Stevens hasn't shown his face, Bant and all these other guys.
06:30 It's just Mizzou's coaching style.
06:32 He is very, very tight with this rotation.
06:35 And again, it's very clear who's in his circle of trust.
06:39 And it's just these eight guys and nobody else.
06:41 And so this isn't the night to get in on the bench.
06:45 But it's still a concern with-- you want to see if anyone else can step up.
06:50 You really don't need 9, 10, 11 players.
06:54 But you have all these guys there.
06:56 You'd like to see if any of them have any use for you at all.
06:59 And I don't know who the next man up is.
07:02 I really don't know.
07:03 I don't think they know either.
07:05 I don't think Joe knows either.
07:07 I don't even know who they want it to be.
07:10 You know what I mean?
07:11 It's like, you've got to have your clubhouse favorites.
07:14 I'd love to see-- I like this guy's skill set.
07:16 I'd like to see him come through.
07:17 And I know Breset kind of got first whack.
07:19 And then when a big is down--
07:20 It's definitely Breset, yeah.
07:21 And when they're down a big or they rotate, Cornette gets his minutes.
07:26 But yeah, I don't know.
07:27 I really don't know.
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07:45 But yeah, why so tight tonight?
07:47 It was almost like a playoff game with the eight-man rotation.
07:50 I just think that was the energy.
07:51 That's what I talked about.
07:52 Knicks, yeah.
07:53 That's the way the Knicks were going, right?
07:54 Yeah, man.
07:55 And Mazzullo, like he said, he told us after the game, he loved that.
07:57 He loved that from New York.
07:58 I think that's going to happen against these teams that you're getting that second go around
08:03 under what, less than a week?
08:05 You know what I mean?
08:06 Same thing's going to happen against Philadelphia.
08:07 They're going to go up to Toronto for that end-season tournament game.
08:11 I think they're going to look-- it's going to be a much more harder game for them to
08:14 win.
08:15 But I think Mazzullo prefers it this way.
08:17 He's challenging, not back-to-back, but facing teams in his division twice in the same month
08:25 or within a two-week span, I think helps these guys.
08:28 You're going to get that intensity from opposing teams that have a worse record than you.
08:33 I mean, Philadelphia is the exception here, but we'll see how they look on Wednesday night,
08:38 especially one week after their last loss.
08:41 You had to play this way to win this game, Sherrod.
08:45 Absolutely.
08:46 I mean, the thing-- and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but whenever you play
08:50 the Knicks, you know it's going to be a physical game.
08:52 You know they're going to try to play bully ball any and every opportunity they get.
08:56 And I thought Tatum, I thought Jaylen Brown, I thought everyone on this team embraced that
09:01 physicality and found ways to handle their business and not let it deter them from the
09:05 goal, which was to come out here with a win.
09:08 And to me, it's part of their growth.
09:10 The ability to beat teams in a multitude of ways so that teams can't get comfortable with
09:15 any type of style that they can take advantage of.
09:18 You know, the Celtics have the ability to kill you from three-point range.
09:21 They're one of the best two-point shooting teams in the NBA.
09:24 They've got guys who can defend at multiple positions.
09:26 They now have at least one guy that shows the ability to get you some points off the
09:30 bench.
09:31 And so when you're game-planning against them, there's really no comfort-- there's no comfort
09:35 blueprint you can go to and think, "This is going to work.
09:38 This is what we got to do to win."
09:40 And that-- because the Knicks, I thought for the most part, played their game tonight.
09:44 I thought they did a lot of things that they wanted to do.
09:47 It's just that the Celtics are better.
09:50 The Celtics are-- they just got more weapons.
09:53 They got more talent.
09:55 They're just a better team.
09:58 And it came easier, the Celtics.
10:00 You see the looks that they create.
10:01 These last two games especially, don't you think?
10:05 Yeah.
10:06 Something's clicked, I think, these last two games, where they look a little bit--
10:14 Last three, really?
10:16 I mean, that's what you're supposed to do when you're a great team, though, right?
10:20 Very cohesive, right?
10:21 Right.
10:22 And that's what a great team's supposed to look like after you lose back to back, especially
10:26 on the road, in the way they lost those games, right?
10:28 Won them over time.
10:29 These things take time.
10:30 And that's what's kind of impressive, is it's hard to judge because some of the early impressive
10:36 games were Indiana with-- They shot the hell out of the ball in a lot
10:41 of those games.
10:42 And Washington, but they shot like crazy.
10:44 I feel like this last little stretch here has been super impressive and really looking
10:51 a little bit more together.
10:52 Because we said, Bobby, first five, six games, they shot well, but still a lot of ISO.
10:58 And it felt like it was just dependent on the shots going down.
11:01 It feels a little different.
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