The Boston Celtics' 107-75 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night was quite sloppy.
Doc Rivers could not have been pleased with his team's effort Monday night.Think your teenage brother's bedroom, your baby sister eating ice cream cake without a bib or the house you saw last week on Hoarders.
The Boston Celtics' 107-75 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night was quite sloppy, like a cafeteria lady had made it specifically for Billy Madison and his grade-school friends.
With Kevin Garnett sitting because Doc Rivers didn't want the 36-year old to play in both legs of a preseason back-to-back, the Celtics started a lineup that might have played together for two or three minutes before Monday, if that. The lack of chemistry was frighteningly evident, contributing to 20 turnovers and several displays of ineptitude that screamed "THIS IS THE NBA PRESEASON AND HOPEFULLY THE CELTICS WILL IMPROVE CONSIDERABLY WHEN GAMES ACTUALLY MATTER."
Because any hope for a coherent string of thoughts was lost when Fab Melo airballed two jump shots in the fourth quarter, I'll leave you instead with a few bullet points of thoughts to actually take away from that mess:
Jared Sullinger's learning experience
Sullinger's first three preseason games unfolded largely without bumps, but Game 4 wasn't such a smooth ride. Still, one gets the feeling Sullinger needed Monday night's struggles to continue his development.
Long, athletic and active, the Philadelphia 76ers are Sullinger's natural kryptonite. Several times, Sullinger made his way to the basket only to have an opponent swipe at the basketball and knock it out of his hands. If meeting Fenerbahce Ulker was playing NBA 2k13 on "rookie" difficulty level, the 76ers were "superstar" -- not quite the best, most mobile frontcourt, but certainly a steep test for a rookie needing to adjust to the NBA's size and length.
What may or may not be a good sign: I felt like Sullinger got stripped five or six times in the post, but he only had two turnovers. I felt like he missed several shots in the paint, but he shot 3 for 6. He finished with nine points and five rebounds in 23 minutes, not All-Star level production but not horrendous for someone meeting his biggest struggles yet.
If Sullinger's as intelligent as he seems (and all the Celtics believe), he'll use Monday as a learning experience and become stronger because of it.
On a positive note there was also this quote from Brian Scalabrine, who isn't fully comfortable yet on camera but still provides great basketball knowledge when filling in for Tommy Heinsohn as a color analyst: "Sullinger has amazing hands. It seems like there's five guys around him and he just goes and gets the ball."
Jeff Green's off-and-on night
In his least effective outing so far this preseason (on this night, that was a common refrain), Green showed a few positives, but not everything was lollipops, sunshine and delicious bars of white chocolate. He finished with eight points and three rebounds on just 3 of 9 shooting, registering a team-worst minus-28 rating in 22 minutes.
Let's get the negatives out of the way first before hitting the positives: Green wasn't perfect defensively and missed all three of his 3-pointers. After four preseason games, he has just 14 rebounds while playing a fair share of power forward. One of Green's tries at defending the pick-and-roll was particularly unseemly: Green barely hedged, allowing the ball handler (maybe Evan Turner) to dribble into the paint with little resistance, ultimately resulting in a Lavoy Allen layup when Jared Sullinger was forced to help.
But as usual, Green also exhibited his impressive potential. One play late in the first quarter showed exactly how the Celtics would like their hybrid forward to use his versatility:
Green, attempting to learn how to utilize mismatches on a more consistent basis, posted up Nick Young and drew a double team. He earned a check-plus for drawing the defense, and eventually found Rondo on the opposite corner with a nice pass. Green's nice pass after commanding so much attention allowed Rondo's court vision to quickly find Jason Terry on the wing. Terry, showing his unselfishness and quick decision-making, threw it almost immediately back to Rondo, who found a cutting Brandon Bass for a layup. Trust me, it was beautiful. SO MUCH GOOD.
Green saw Young defending him again a few minutes later and ran straight to the block again. Knowing there was nothing Young could do with him in the post, Green took his time, pivoted and banked in a 4-footer. The camera didn't cut to Doc Rivers on the sideline, but I imagine he was doing jumping jacks and drinking champagne. Or maybe he wasn't.
Darko Milicic, a roller-coaster ride
Within the first six minutes, Milicic had slammed home a putback dunk; made a sweet pass early to Sullinger for a layup (on which Sullinger was fouled); forgot that he isn't Larry Bird and tried to throw a one-handed pass over the back of his head, which unfortunately found a 76er; and thrown a pass 10 feet to the right of his closest teammate after making a nice drop-step around his defender in the post
Milicic shot 3 of 5, finished with six points, three rebounds and one block, and aggravated an injury on his heavily-wrapped right wrist (which A. Sherrod Blakely reports is strained ligaments). As the title to this section suggests, watching him was a roller-coaster.
Grab bag
We can't learn much about the usual suspects in a sloppy preseason game they didn't seem to want to play, but Brandon Bass is still Mr. Dependable (11 points, six rebounds) and Paul Pierce still isn't bad (16 points, six rebounds). ... Jason Terry didn't score a lot (three points), but pitched in five assists and continues to make a strong case that his court vision is criminally underrated. ... As noted earlier, Melo airballed his first two jump shots. After the third drew iron before bouncing sharply away, Scalabrine said, "At least he hit the rim." Chances are that Melo still needs plenty of development.