Wizards (38-30) at Celtics (46-21) Game #68 3/14/18

[FLCeltsFan]

at
Wizards (38-30) at Boston Celtics (46-21)
Regular Season Game [HASH]68, Home Game [HASH]36
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
8:00 PM ET
TV: ESPN, NBCSB
Radio: Sports Hub 98.5, WFED 1500 AM
TD Garden


Probable Starting Matchups
Point Guard
vs
Terry Rozier vs Thomas Satoransky

Shooting Guard
vs
Abdel Nader vs Bradley Beal

Small Forward
vs
Jayson Tatum vs Otto Porter, Jr

Power Forward
vs
Marcus Morris vs Markieff Morris

Center
vs
Aron Baynes vs Marcin Gortat



Celtics Reserves
Guerschon Yabusele
Semi Ojeleye
Greg Monroe
Kadeem Allen
Shane Larkin

Injuries
Al Horford (illness) questionable
Marcus Smart (thumb) out
Gordon Hayward (ankle) out
Daniel Theis (knee) out
Kyrie Irving (knee) out
Shane Larkin (knee) limited minutes
Jabari Bird (back) questionable

Two Way Players
Kadeem Allen
Jabari Bird

Head Coach
Brad Stevens




Wizards Reserves
Tim Frazier
Ian Mahinmi
Jodie Meeks
Kelly Oubre, Jr
Mike Scott
Ramon Sessions
Jason Smith

Injuries
Chris McCullough (G-League) out
John Wall (knee) out

Two Way Players
Devin Robinson

Head Coach
Scott Brooks

Game Notes
The Celtics and Wizards meet for the third of 4 regular season games this season. They will meet once more in Washington on April 10. With this game, This is the 3rd season in a row that they have played 4 times in the regular season. They are 1-1 so far with the Wizards winning 111-103 on Christmas Day in Boston and the Celtics winning 110-104 in OT on February 8 in Washington.

All 4 games this season are set for national TV coverage. I'm sure the reason for all the national TV appearances of these games is that they were hoping for a continuation of the heated rivalry that was brewing last season. However there are just 4 Celtics left from that team and it hasn't been near as heated as it was last season. There is the added wrinkle of the Morris twins playing against each other this season with Marcus on the Celtics and Markieff on the Wizards.

The Celtics are 6-4 in their last 10 games and are looking to get back on track after losing their last game to the Pacers. The Celtics are 23-12 at home. The Wizards are 4-6 in their last 10 games and 19-15 on the road. They are playing in the second of back to back games having lost a tough game against the Wolves on Tuesday night. All their starters except Gortat played over 30 minutes in that game. They are 5-6 so far on the second night of back to back games.

The Celtics are in second place in the East and have fallen to 3.5 games behind the Toronto Raptors, who just keep winning. They are also 7 games ahead of the 3rd place Indiana Pacers. It would seem that they will remain in 2nd place when the playoffs roll around. The Wizards are 5th, just half a game behind the Cavaliers(4th). They are 1 game out of 3rd and 1 game ahead of Philly, who are in 6th.

The Wizards have just John Wall (knee) on the injured list. He participated in an extensive workout with the Wizards on Tuesday, but is expected to miss this game. The Celtics have been hard hit with injuries this week. Jaylen Brown (concussion), Gordon Hayward (ankle), Daniel Theis (knee), Kyrie Irving (knee), and Marcus Smart (thumb) are all out. Al Horford is questionable.

The Celtics have called up Guerschon Yabusele from the Red Claws along with Kadeem Allen, who is one of their 2 way players. Jabari Bird, the other two way player has been out with a back injury and is questionable for this game. I'm not sure at all who will start other than Tatum and Baynes with 3 of the Celtics regular starters either out or questionable.

I'm guessing Rozier will start at point and opted to list Nader at shooting guard rather than Larkin because Nader is 6'6 while Larkin is 5'11 and the Wizards backcourt players are 6'5" and 6'7". I'm also guessing that Marcus Morris will start opposite his twin brother at power forward.

vs
Jayson Tatum vs Otto Porter, Jr
Porter has had some big games against the Celtics and is averaging 15 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists. Jayson is going to need to step up his game with all of the injuries. He will not only need to slow down Porter on defense but will also need to add to his offense to help make up for the injuries.

vs
Abdel Nader vs Bradley Beal
It's just a guess that Nader will start and if he does, I would expect Rozier to be covering Beal on defense rather than Nader. Beal is averaging 23.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 4.6 assists. He has picked up his game with Wall being out and is a tough player to cover.

Honorable Mention
Marcus Morris vs Markieff Morris
Assuming that Al will miss this game since he was unable to practice due to illness, this will be a matchup of twin brothers. Markieff is averaging 11.1 points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game this season. Of course, if Al his healthy and able to start, he will be matched up against Markieff.

Keys to the Game
Defense - The Celtics need to make defense a priority. Defense wins games. The Wizards are averaging 107.2 points per game (11th). The Celtics are averaging 104.4 points per game (20th). However, they will be find scoring hard to come by with all the injuries to key players. The Celtics can't depend on winning a shoot out with the Wizards and so they have to play tough defense to stop the Wizards from scoring. But even then they will miss two of their better defenders in Marcus Smart and Daniel Theis.

Be Aggressive - The Celtics need to be the more aggressive team from start to finish. They need to be aggressive in going to the hoop, in crashing the boards, in fighting for loose balls and in running the court. They also have to be more aggressive on defense. They have to be the team that wants it more. If the Celtics want to get a win in this game, they have to be more aggressive than the Wizards. Their only hope is to play harder than their opponents.

Rebound - The Celtics are averaging 44.3 rebounds per game while the Wizards are averaging 43.0 rebounds per game. The Celtics have to put out the extra effort to grab rebounds and match or exceed the Wizards efforts on the boards if they want to get a win in this game.

Take Care of the Ball - The Celtics need to move the ball to find the open man and to keep the Wizards running. However, they have to make careful passes. If they get careless and turn the ball over, the Wizards will make them pay as they average 17 points off turnovers. The Celtics can't afford to give the Wizards extra points off of turnovers.

X-Factors
Next Man Up - The Celtics are missing a ridiculous number of players and so the player that are healthy and on the court will have to step up and give 120%. They need to make up for both key offensive and defensive players who are injured. The Celtics are going to need a lot from the vets playing Morris, Rozier, Monroe, Larkin and Baynes and also from the 5 rookies that make up the rest of the rotation.

Wizards Back to Back - About the only thing that the Celtics have going for them is that the Wizards played a tough game vs the Timberwolves on Tuesday night. Their starters, other than Marcin Gortat, played over 30 minutes. The Celtics have had off since Sunday and will need to run the Wizards from start to finish and maybe they can wear them down.

[jmost]

Not expecting much tonight, but I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised. Good chance for one of the young guys to step up and show us what they have, like Terry did a while back when Kyrie and Marcus were both out.

[FLCeltsFan]

Starters: Rozier, Tatum, Morris, Yabusele, Baynes
Bench: Larkin, Allen, Nader, Ojeleye, Monroe

Out: Irving, Smart, Brown, Hayward, Horford, Theis,Bird

[Roadrunner]

WAS played last night. I trust CBS line-ups, however find it odd Yabu goes from starting in ME Claws to starting in BOS. I am thinking Stevens wants to space out players, so certain players do not sit out all at once.

[mev17]

Rats, overtime! I hope Tatum's missed FT does not come back to haunt us.

[mev17]

Another missed FT! Overtime again!!! IIRC Tatum also missed a late FT against Indiana, now 2 missed FT in this game that would have given us the win. He needs to work on this!!

[mev17]

I know we were short handed, but it still hurts to lose by one at home when we could have wrapped it up in the 4th quarter if not for a missed FT and letting Wash get the ball back after a miss with 5 seconds left, then missing another Ft with only 3 seconds left in the first OT which would have also wrapped up the game. Nice effort wasted by not taking care of the little things down the stretch -- a real shame.

[Roadrunner]

Disappointing loss. BOS, as Jim Mora would say, gave away the game. Granted, [HASH]2 seed is almost a given now however I would like to know what team's record is in crunch time? Reminds me of year [HASH]2 of CBS, when BOS would lose crunch time games.

[afceltic]

Mar 14, 2018 21:57:17 GMT -5 mev17 said:

Another missed FT! Overtime again!!! IIRC Tatum also missed a late FT against Indiana, now 2 missed FT in this game that would have given us the win. He needs to work on this!!

Yep Tatum blew this one big time. He needs to make those and seems to come up small right now at the FT line. He won a few games for us early with buzzer beaters, but I really wanted to see him seal it tonight to help his confidence.

[FLCeltsFan]

The Celtics had chances to win this but just couldn't make the big plays. But don't forget that they were playing 5 rookies 4 of which were 2nd round picks. And also, no Kyrie, no Al, no Smart, no Hayward, no Theis, no Jaylen. The Celtics were playing the very bottom of the roster and they almost beat a Wizards team that was at full strength other than Wall.

Morris made a mistake and wasn't covering Porter on the perimeter when he hit the 3. Tatum missed a crucial FT. But he made a key play to tie the game. He's a rookie. He will get better and he will hit those big FT's in the future.

All in all, I'm very proud of that group and even though they lost, it was a big win that they were within 1 point after 2 OT's with the number of injuries and the skeleton crew they had to play with.

[jmost]

Fun game. Some good experience for the younger guys.

Beal is a beast.