Gameday Preview: Celtics Take on Pacers in Game 2 of Back-to-Back Meetings
Photo by Andy Lyons | Getty Images
Fresh off of a heartbreaking loss to the Pacers a couple days ago, the Celtics are still in Indiana and ready to get their revenge.
Boston is now 1-2 on the year and if it weren’t for a miracle bank-shot from Jayson Tatum against Milwaukee, they could be staring at a winless season. Their first matchup with Indiana started off promising, but slowly turned into a game where the C’s decided to stop playing defense. It seemed as though the Pacers were getting whatever they wanted on the offensive end, and the “third quarter Celtics” reared their ugly head once again. Indiana shot 75% from the field in the third quarter to Boston’s 36.4%. The C’s just weren’t locked in at all.
Robert Williams III and Payton Pritchard both showed out, however, adding some positive light to an otherwise tough game to watch. Jaylen Brown continued his solid play, but interestingly enough didn’t get the ball in the final minutes of the game when it mattered most. He only took two shots in the final four minutes of the game, and one was a desperation heave near the end of the shot clock. Meanwhile Tatum seemed to take over in the fourth quarter and it ended up losing Boston the game. Obviously the loss was by no means solely Tatum’s fault, but the final possession the C’s ended on was absolutely atrocious.
As for Indiana, they played pretty well in their last contest (which was obviously against Boston just a couple of days ago). While they didn’t shoot the three particularly well, that has never been their game and they absolutely dominated the Celtics inside the paint, out-scoring the guys in green 60-42 in that area. Domantas Sabonis was a beast inside, Malcolm Brogdon put on an elite show of efficiency, and even Doug McDermott got in on the action. McDermott seemed as though he was able to get whatever he wanted at the rim, which is unacceptable considering the type of player he’s known to be (a three-point specialist).
Going into their game tonight, a large focus for the C’s has to be cutting down on the turnovers. They had 18 on the night, most of which were completely unforced. The Pacers did end up having 11 steals, but looking back the C’s were just sloppy whilst handling the basketball. Other than that the most important things should be tightening up the defense and keeping the basketball moving. Indiana had it way too easy on the offensive end the other night, and I can’t imagine Brad Stevens was very happy with Boston’s defensive aggression. As well as that, the Celtics played a little bit too much iso ball, culminating in a terrible final possession from Tatum.
Make sure to tune in to our pregame show, the Banner Town Buildup, live on twitter @GuyBostonSports! We are live 30 minutes before every Celtics game, so come through at 6:30 PM EST! The Celtics tip-off against the Pacers at 7:00 PM EST on NBC Sports Boston.
