Chris Mannix: ‘We have to be real about what this Celtics team is’

Chris Mannix: ‘We have to be real about what this Celtics team is’

Oh, the Celtics lost their season opening game last night. 117 116 to the Sixers. Payton Pritchard missed a shot at the buzzer and a chance to beat Philly. That was one of many missed opportunities for the Celtics to win the game. So, what exactly went wrong in last night’s opener? Well, for starters, the Celtics blew a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter. The 76ers scored 42 points in the final frame. The final play or plays were supposed to be for Jaylen Brown, but of course Peyton Pritchard had the ball in his hands as the seconds ticked off the clock. Defensive struggles against the Athletic 76ers backcourt. And once again, stop me if you heard this before, but the uh Celtics shot a lot of threes, but didn’t make a lot of them. 25.6% from beyond the arc, making just 11 of 43 shots from long range. All right, welcome into Arbella Early Edition. Treny Casey alongside Kayla Burton. Chris Manx from SI is with us as well. Who deserves the most blame, Kayla, for last night’s loss? Who are you pointing the finger at? I’m pointing the finger at point number three, which was the defensive collapse. Like I think when you’re up by 13, I know this is a new team sort to say like in terms of the different personnel that’s going to be out there. But I’m blaming the the deficit paired with the defensive struggle. Like I went back to the fourth quarter and three straight plays Tyrese Ma Tyrese Maxi has been balling. I mean, just absolutely playing out of his mind. But that fourth quarter specifically, he scored three straight times and you have Derek White going under the screen when he’s already hit four three-pointers before the fourth quarter. So, I I can’t wrap my mind around you going under the screen. I know it’s a game-like situation. You have Joel Embiid setting the screen on you, so that’s difficult. But then you have him come down the court again and a defensive collapse once again. So, I just think focusing locking in defensively, we can get into the three-pointers, Chris. You can get into all the the other, you know, tits and tats of of what went wrong, but I just think when you’re up 13 in the fourth quarter, you got to find a way to hold on. And I will throw in this. Jaylen Brown needs the ball in his hands at the end of the game. Point blank period. Yeah. Well, let’s get into the three-point shooting, which was abysmal. I don’t disagree with you that the defensive deficiencies were a big problem in that fourth quarter. Even with the change that the Celtics made this past offseason, they still have some highlevel defensive guards, specifically Derek White and Jaylen Brown when he’s in that backcourt position. They should not be allowing Tyrese Maxi to run wild on them. A rookie like BJ Edgecom to run wild on them like that. They did a great job in that front court u with Joel Embiid struggling the way he did. I thought Kea was a revelation um at the the center spot, but the three-point shooting, they lost a lot of key three-point shooters, some of their best three-point shooters this off season, and they’re still jacking them up at the same rate they were last season. I think that’s going to be something to watch season long. Do they reduce these number of threes given their personnel or do they try to push through it and make a bunch of guys who are not really great three-point shooters into more prolific ones? Yeah, and that to me is one of the the things I think that bothered me most about last night because listen, the team played with a lot of energy. What I think you’re going to get a good effort from this team um night in and night out, but the reality is Chris that after Jaylen Brown and Derek White, you don’t have a lot of consistent shooters out there. Peyton Pritchard is better off the bench. It’s why he was the sixth man of the year. Um Anfred Simons again scores in bunches but isn’t great defensively. like you have a lot of bodies. I think Joe Mazoula might have used 10 players in the first 10 minutes. So, you went deep into his bench, but your quality depth isn’t there and that to me Joe Mazoula has to find a way to use these guys to their best potential. Chris, yeah, I think there needs to be some adjustments. Look, there are still some pretty good three-point shooters. Sam Hower among them is traditionally a very good three-point shooter. But given this new personnel where names Keith is playing a bunch of minutes, Chris Pushet is playing a bunch of minutes. I think they need to adjust their style of play. The Celtics, they claim they want to play faster. That’s kind of a mantra for teams that have had some personnel losses in the offseason. We need to see a lot more of that. A lot more going to the basket, a lot more attempts to finish at the rim. They’re just not capable of being the same efficient level three-point shooting team that they were a year ago. Their personnel won’t allow that. So, if they keep jacking up these threes at the same kind of rate, I think you’re going to see a lot of the same outcomes in games like this. Yeah, Joe has taken on some heat. Listen, it’s one we should qualify all of this with it is one game and the Celtics lost it by one point. So, it’s not like the season is crumbling, but I do think some some fears were realized last night, Kayla. in that you don’t have high level talent beyond your top two guys. You have streaky shooters and you maybe have a defense. You got the effort there, but maybe not the talent on your roster. And Joe Mazul is taking some heat and people are already starting to question whether or not he can get the most out of the players. It’s one thing to do it when you got a bunch of all star. It’s another to do when you’re trying to sort of piece together a middling team and win games that I know that’s a legitimate concern for Boston fans and and a question that arises, but it is way too early folks to start saying that, oh my gosh, this season is a bust. Like, it’s it’s day one. These guys are trying to figure out each other. Jaylen Brown still still needs to host more dinners is what he’s basically saying to make sure that they’re all on the same page. I just think that they have to start understanding where each guy wants the ball. Chris mentioned it, just working the ball inside out. I do think that Joe Missoula is a three-point shooting coach. I don’t know if they’re going to get away from the three. I don’t think they have it in them. I think they love to shoot the three. And I think that’s going to be an identity of this team whether they make or whether they miss. I will say if they continue to play the pace that they play at, they just have to have that same steam at the end of the game in the fourth quarter. I feel like their steam just started to die out and that’s where the 76ers capitalize. And I will say too, to add to Chris’s point, when you’re missing threes and you saw those numbers, you do need to work the ball inside and out. Payton Pritchard loves to get in the paint and he did so at the end but missed the layup. He’s gonna get Shooters shoot. Great shooters shoot whether you make or whether you miss. And I feel like that’s the identity. That’s the mentality of this team. But they have to learn to adjust as the game flows. If shots aren’t falling, how do we work it inside? Nimi had a couple of dunks at the end. Keep feeding him. Feed the guy until he fouled out. But that’s what you want to do. Chris, Kayla mentioned chemistry and kind of figuring out, you know, everybody’s idiosyncrasies, really understanding where guys are going to be, sort of their tendencies. Did you see anything in last night’s game that you said, “Okay, if they clean this up, we may have a different outcome and we may be watching a different style of basketball.” Look, I think the ball movement wasn’t as fluid as it’s been in the past. I think Jaylen Brown is still adjusting to his new role as kind of the alpha of this team. And with that new role comes a lot of new defenses. Jaylen Brown is going to be looking at a lot of the defense that were geared towards Jason Tatum over the last few years. Jason Tatum has been an iron man for this team. Now Jaylen Brown is becoming the focal point of this offense and that’s going to take uh some adjustment there. But I think we have to be real about what this team is. Like I I don’t want to call them a middling team because I think they are better than that. But they kind of are a middling team. They lost. They had one of the great talent exoduses in recent end of NBA memory. They lost an MVP candidate, a couple of all-star caliber players, one of the best veterans in the league and Al Horford that was scooped up by the Golden State Warriors. They lost a lot of guys and they didn’t replace them with proven talent. So, unfortunately, because of this talent drain, there are going to be games where even when they play to the best of their abilities, they’re just not going to match up against those types of opponents. Yeah. with that talent drain. Kayla, what did you think about Jaylen Brown’s end of game execution? Um, and how he really just kind of ran the last three plays and then I I don’t even blame him for not being able to get the ball on the last play. It’s It just seemed like there weren’t guys out there that were able to set screens and get him the ball. Like, they had no choice, I think, but to get it to P. But that’s on JB. JB has to demand the ball. Jason Tatum, if he’s out there, the ball’s in his hands. The team knows it. He knows it. Missoula knows it. shoot the the opponent knows it. So when it comes to Jaylen, he has to Chris mentioned his alpha kind of mentality. He still has to work his way into understanding what that truly means and also getting his guys to understand that both he and his teammates have to know we got to get Jaylen the ball. No ifs, answer, but we got to find a way to get him the ball. If he wants to take on this number one leadership, I am him kind of guy. Ball should be in his hands. No ifs, ands, or buts. Like yes, Payton Pritchard, he loves to get into the paint. loves to do his little move, work his way, miss the layup, fine. But after that, or even before that, Jaylen Brown should say, “Hey, everyone stop. Give me the ball. Let’s run it.” Like, he needs to start to adopt that mentality. And I think this honestly is a lesson learned for him. In fairness, he did try to call a timeout, but there was some miscommunication, so maybe that’ll get cleaned up. The don’t go anywhere. We are not done talking basketball yet. The Celtics are in New York to face the Knicks on Friday night. Celtics pregame live team will get you ready starting at 6:30. It is presented by TG Bank. And remember, you can stream our coverage of the Celtics on NBC Sports Boston or stream it on the NBC Sports app and NBCportsboston.com. Celtics live stream is brought to you by your New England Cadillac dealers, the official luxury vehicle of the Boston Celtics.

Chris Mannix joins Arbella Early Edition to discuss the Celtics’ opening night loss to the 76ers