PHILADELPHIA – Points in the paint are often cited as a key to a game or playoff series. And that makes sense, of course. Shots from the paint are better shots than shots from outside the paint. And if you’re getting more of the former, you’re probably playing more efficient offensively.
But not all teams score the same. You can have an efficient offense without scoring a lot of points in the paint, with the Clippers and Thunder as two examples of that this season.
The Boston Celtics don’t score a lot of points in the paint and they don’t have an efficient offense, either. But their points in the paint has been a key to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Overall, the Sixers have outscored the Celtics 232-206 in the paint over the course of six games. The Celtics have only had the PIP advantage once (Game 3). And Philly has actually scored more points in the paint in their three losses (124) than they have in their three wins (108). The big difference has come on the other end of the floor.
PHILADELPHIA – Before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doug Collins stressed points in the paint as one of the biggest keys.
Then his team proceeded to outscore the Boston Celtics 42-16 in the paint, forcing Game 7 with a 82-75 victory.
This was an ugly game through and through. But the Sixers finally broke through offensively in the third quarter, largely because their guards were repeatedly able to get into the paint. And you had to wonder if things would have been different if the Celtics had Avery Bradley.
The second-year guard, who had made life tough for the Philly guards in the first four games, missed his second straight game with a pair of shoulder injuries. The Sixers’ Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner and Lou Williams took advantage.
BOSTON – Despite their second-half collapse in Game 4 on Friday, the Boston Celtics are seemingly still in control of their Eastern Conference semifinals series with the Philadelphia 76ers, with Game 5 tonight (7 ET, TNT) and a possible Game 7 on their home floor.
The Celtics have won 17 of their last 19 games at TD Garden and are 34-9 there in the Big Three era. Only once in the last five years have the Celtics lost more than one home game in a playoff series. That was in 2009, when they lost Games 1 and 7 to the Magic.
Kevin Garnett missed that entire postseason. And as we’ve already seen in these playoffs, injuries can trump home-court advantage.
Right now, the Celtics’ biggest injury concern is not with any of their veterans. It’s with the youngest guy on their roster, Avery Bradley. The second-year defensive specialist has been dealing with a left shoulder issue most of the season, and it has already popped out twice in this series.
Bradley was not on the floor for Monday morning’s shootaround, and he’s listed as a game-time decision for Game 5.
BOSTON – Through the first three games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Kevin Garnett was shooting 31-for-49 (63 percent) from the field, including an incredible 20-for-31 (65 percent) from outside the paint.
Then in Game 4, Garnett made just three of his 12 shots and was 2-for-9 from outside the paint. The Celtics blew an 18-point lead, scored just 37 points in the second half and got out-executed down the stretch by the Sixers for the second time in the series.
Was it because the Celtics didn’t go into the post enough? Not really. He posted up more than he did when he shot 12-for-17 in Game 3.
Was it because Lavoy Allen, the Sixers’ best defender on Garnett, was on the floor with K.G. for 30 minutes on Friday? Perhaps. They were on the floor together for a total of just 37 minutes in the first three games combined. For the series, Garnett is shooting 9-for-21 (43 percent) with Allen on the floor and 25-for-40 (63 percent) with Allen on the bench.
But maybe Garnett’s Game 4 shooting was just a case of regression toward the mean. He was due for an off night, and that’s just what he had.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – Is anyone else still waiting for the recently crowned (at least by some) “best big man” in basketball to show himself in the Thunder-Lakers Western Conference semifinals?
We’ve yet to see the dominant force that Andrew Bynum was billed to be heading into this postseason. You remember the arguments for him overtaking Dwight Howard as the most dominant low-post force in the league. All of that bluster has faded with each minute of decent-but-far-from-dominant outing from the largest man still working in these playoffs.
No one is denying that Bynum has the potential to be whatever it is he wants to be. The talent, skill and behemoth size package remain in place. But this notion that Bynum was going to use this postseason to cement his place atop the totem pole of the league’s best big men has turned out to be little more than an urban myth.
He’s not even the big man having the biggest impact in this Thunder-Lakers series. That honor belongs to Thunder power forward and the league’s shot blocking king Serge Ibaka. In fact, Bynum doesn’t even rank in the top four of big men in this postseason, not with Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett dominating like it’s 1999 and Pacers All-Star center Roy Hibbert making life miserable for the Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Philly’s rookie big man, who has made somewhat of a name for himself in this series, is listed at only 6-foot-9. But in defending Garnett, speed is more important than size, because KG gets his best post position when he beats his man down the floor in transition.
“You have to do a better job early,” Collins said of slowing down Garnett. “You can’t let him get such deep position. You can’t let him run to the front of the rim and turn and just stand underneath the basket. You’ve got to start maybe meeting him at the free throw line.
“He has the mobility factor over both of our starters. Both EB [Elton Brand] and Spencer [Hawes], he has the speed advantage. So therefore, he’s going to get down the floor, and that’s a problem.”
Not only is it important to defend Garnett early in every possession, it’s critical to defend him in early in the game. The Celtics have made it clear that their biggest offensive priority is establishing the post early and often. So the obvious question is whether or not Collins should make a change to his lineup and start Allen.
PHILADELPHIA – It’s not clear if Brian Scalabrine is ready to retire yet, but he’s already in preparation for his next career.
Comcast SportsNet New England, which broadcasts Celtics games, hired Scalabrine to provide pre-and postgame analysis during the Celtics-Sixers series. So, there he was, in a suit at TD Garden on Saturday, talking about the Sixers just 48 hours after Philly had eliminated his own Chicago Bulls.
The former Celtic got a huge ovation from the Garden crowd when he was shown on the Jumbotron on Saturday. But Scalabrine’s finest moment of this postseason came after Game 3, when he asked Rajon Rondo one of the smarter questions you’ll ever hear in a postgame press conference.
“The adjustment on the side pick and roll,” Scalabrine said, “you guys went to the ‘ice’ or the ‘down,’ or whatever you guys use in your terminology. Do you like that better than going over the top with the ‘show’?”
“I like it better,” Rondo replied. “I don’t think they do. Their offense, we watched the first couple of games, they got into the paint pretty good on the side pick and rolls. And it led to corner threes, it led to the high-low. I think we took a clip from you guys. You guys ‘iced’ a lot of the side pick and rolls in that series, and I think they struggled offensively. I think we did a good job tonight. The bigs did a great job talking, and guards kept fighting over, even when they did step up and set the side pick and roll.”
OK. So what the heck does it mean to “ice” a pick-and-roll?
PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia 76ers had their most efficient offensive game of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Wednesday. And they lost by 16.
This was the Boston Celtics’ night, an easy 107-91 victory to grab a 2-1 series lead and take back home-court advantage. In the wake of their anemic offensive performance in Game 2 and countless articles (including this one) about their inability to score, the Celtics exploded for their best offensive game in a long time.
After going scoreless on their first four possessions of the game, the Celtics did what Doc Rivers has been asking for the last two days. They went to Kevin Garnett in the post on their next two possessions. He gave them two short jumpers over Elton Brand, and the flood gates opened from there.
Rajon Rondo also set an aggressive tone early, scoring 13 points before he recorded a single assist. Garnett owned the Sixers bigs in the post and led all scorers with 27 points. And Paul Pierce finally got into the scoring act. He shot just 6-for-17 from the field, but got to the line 14 times.
All around, the Celtics were sharper than we’re used to seeing them. The ball movement was crisp and contagious all night. And after the Sixers scored 33 points in the first quarter, Boston also turned up the heat defensively.
It’s doubtful that the Celtics can pour it on like this again in this series, and in the playoffs, every game has its own personality. But Boston clearly found a rhythm in Game 3 that can help them going forward.
HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – How many times have you heard someone say it, “that one play didn’t cost us the game?”
Don’t care to count?
No?
We understand.
Technically speaking, one play might not cost you the game. But one crucial play at the right time in a tight game can certainly have a more significant impact on the outcome of said game. And that was indeed the case in Boston last night for Celtics’ forward Kevin Garnett. He was called for an offensive foul on a moving screen on Andre Iguodala as he tried to make space for Paul Pierce with 10 seconds to play in a game the Philadelphia 76ers led 78-75.
The call, made by Michael Smith after Garnett had already been warned by Danny Crawford to watch the moving screens, helped seal the deal for the Sixers.
“I just thought in that situation you let the players decide the game,” Garnett said after his illegal pick took the air out of the building and a spirited, fourth quarter rally from the home team. “But if he felt like that was an illegal pick, then that’s what it is.”
It was glaring (check the video above). But not necessarily a call anyone expected in that situation. To his credit, Garnett tried his best not to make a huge fuss about it afterwards, choosing instead the common refrain that it was one of many mistakes made that led to the final outcome.
“Danny had already given me a warning about how I was setting the picks,” Garnett said. “I’m going to continue to set picks. I’m going to continue to get guys open. That wasn’t, to me, the game. We did things going up to that point in determining the game.”
MIAMI — Chris Bosh will return when his gut tells him to, and right now, that gut is in too much pain to speak.
Such is the case with abdominal strains. They heal on their timetable, not yours. And so the Heat must definitely make do without Bosh for Game 2, and perhaps without Bosh for the entire series against the Pacers, and who knows beyond that. If Miami’s season lasts beyond that.
“The season has to be extended,” Bosh said, after his MRI, “in order for me to play again.”
That doesn’t sound like a guy who expects to suit up against against the Pacers, which means Bosh’s strain is likely in the medium range. A mild strain, he comes back by next week. A severe strain, he misses a handful of weeks, as Kevin Garnett once did, as Mo Williams once did, as Manu Ginobili once did.
“This is something we’re taking day by day,” he said. “It’s not the worse thing that could happen, and that’s the good news. Nothing would surprise me [if he didn't return this series]. These are the cards I’ve been dealt right now.”
