Boston Celtics DESTROYED by Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets

Boston Celtics DESTROYED by Kevin Durant, Houston Rockets

This was a good oldfashioned buttkicking here at the TD Garden. Celtics get crushed by the Rockets. Let’s talk about it right now on the Lockown Celtics podcast. [Music] Uh-huh. Yuck. Be ready. It’s the seed. Who else could it be? What they going to say now? Screaming like JT coral. We kept the madness every game, every practice. Prime time white on the sideline. Rain and Jay, how it started. Raise a business. How we finish? Locked on Celtics, home of the winners. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast Network. Where does your team every day? Your team is the Boston Celtics. I talk about them every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcast when they play in the weekends like this one here. It was a game here at the TD Garden. If you’re watching on YouTube, I am here at the TD Garden where it all happened. Uh, make sure you’re subscribed. This show is free and available everywhere. It is on YouTube. Get into the comment section. Share your thoughts with me, John Carales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I’ve written a couple books about the Celtics. Been covering the team for about 20 years. This is one of the more thorough uh whoopins I’ve seen in that time. Celtics get crushed by the Houston Rockets. 128 to 101. This is a bonus podcast, so when they play the weekends, you get free bonus podcasting. This one uh is not going to take very long. I don’t think there’s much need to go deep deep deep deep into this game. The Celtics uh got crushed. Things did not go well from the beginning. They they started poorly. They finished poorly. It was just a a bad night for the Celtics. Okay, we we saw that coming. We saw it coming. Uh it it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the Rockets are a big team. Like I I walked into the back at halftime and I ran into Brian Scalabbrini. He was like, “These guys are huge.” Like they you see them up close, you’re like, “Yeah, man. The Rockets are a very very large basketball team.” And they took advantage of that size advantage. They they are a good basketball team that that shot incredibly well. And the basically the story of this game is the Celtics played a certain style. It’s the style of defense that they normally play. And maybe they didn’t play as crisply as they could have. Uh maybe they made some decisions that as Pton Pritchard said after the game was like, “Well, maybe we made a couple of like fatigued decisions.” The Celtics are on a stretch of six games in nine nights and their second, you know, they played a three and four, a day off, another three and four, second night of backto-back, all that stuff. It does play a role. The Rockets, who again are very good and rested, they had a couple of days off. You can kind of see all of this coming. We knew this game wasn’t going to go well. It it it went a little differently though because I thought that the Rockets would shoot normally and that they would just crush the Celtics on offensive rebounds. They they didn’t. Um the offensive rebounding percentage was better than Boston’s. Uh even though they had fewer offensive rebounds because the Celtics missed 63 shots and they had 14 offensive rebounds. The Rockets missed 35 shots and had 12 offensive rebounds. So, the Rockets did get a better percentage of the misses, but there weren’t a lot of misses. They shot 65 and a half% from three. They shot 42 of 77 overall. The Celtics, it’s like weird numbers in this game. The Celtics put up 103 shots, which I love, but they only hit 40 of them. They were 14 of 44 from three. Uh, they only got to the line seven times. Uh they they when they got into the middle of the lane, this is where the height really showed itself. When the Celtics got into the middle of the lane, they got blocked. They got blocked on dunks. They got blocked all over the place. When the Celtics when it flipped and they were going to try to block the the Rockets at the rim, they were getting wrists and forearms because the Rockets are just bigger than the Celtics. They’re super athletic. They fly and they can get up higher and block shots while the Celtics get up and hit arm. And so they gave up 35 free throw attempts. And people are going to get worked up about the free throw attempts. I’m not. It’s it’s maybe some of the calls could have gone a different way. Certainly there were a couple that you say, “Okay, these are questionable here and there, but the the 35 free throw attempts were mostly legit.” Uh the Celtics seven free throw attempts you can say okay maybe they could have gotten a few more wouldn’t have made a difference. It’s not it’s that’s has nothing to do with the outcome of this game. Uh I thought I thought the foul calls were kind of appropriate. The Celtics were fouling. Uh they were reaching they it’s part of the aggressive defense that they play. Joe said after the game, part of this is, you know, your your turnover percentage is going to be tied to your foul. You’re, you know, you’re fouling because you’re being aggressive. You’re you’re reaching. You’re trying to go for steals. There was an early steal. Josh Mina on Kevin Durant was perfect. You know, Durant had his back to Minot. Wasn’t really paying attention to him. May not swoops in and gets the steal. That’s how the Celtics want to play. The flip side of that is if you’re being aggressive and you’re kind of helping in from the weak side, they’re leaving shooters in those weak side corners and the Rockets on multiple occasions turned and fired these big long skip passes to get to or or passes to the corner from the middle on drives that drew the defense and they just found corner three after corner three after corner three. Could the Celtics have done better in defending those? Sure, maybe they over overhelped and were were too deep and they didn’t react well or you know that is certainly that certainly could have helped. But the way the Rockets shot there was nothing the Celtics can do. When a team shoots 65 and a half% on you, uh you’re you’re going to lose most of those games. I can’t imagine a scenario unless you also match them that you’re going to win. So, the the offensive rebounding wasn’t even uh they didn’t have a chance to like give Stephen Adams like 20 offensive rebounds, right? Those opportunities weren’t even there because all the rocket shots were going in. So, the Celtics kind of came out strong, which I expected. They kind of quickly faded on that and it was a 13-point lead after one. It got up to 19. Josh Min had a real good stretch. He hit a three. He found Chris Buchet on a nice cut and then went up for an offensive rebound, got a putback. It was a quick 70 run, fueled completely by Minot. Forced the timeout, and then the Rockets came out from there and just took over and never looked back. And it was never never a game after that. So, uh there’s there’s not a lot to take from this. The Celtics played their style of defense and the Rockets made them pay for every decision they made. Good decisions, bad decisions, didn’t matter. The Rockets came in and and hit everything. They they hit everything. They took what is it 23 26 fewer shots than Boston and and made two more. That’s just incredible shooting efficiency. They put up 128 points. Meanwhile, the Celtics, like Jaylen Brown didn’t play much. They they sat him like halfway through the third quarter. They were just like, “This isn’t working. We’re no point in pushing it, especially with the hamstring. Just pull the plug.” Uh Derek White was uh bad in this game. And look, I obviously have a very high opinion on D of Derrick White and he’s having a disaster start to the season. Um, I think he’s going to figure it out. I think this is this is getting to a point where it’s in his head. But also, Derek White has had stretches like this. I remember last December, I think it was, where he had a a disastrous kind of stretch. Like when when Derek goes into a slump, he goes into a slump. It was it But we we know when you watch like there are times where it just it he gets into these funks and he can’t snap out of it for a while. When he finally breaks through, it’s going to look great. I’m hoping that the upcoming stretch of Utah, Washington, Orlando twice gives him some opportunity to to make some shots and and feel better about himself. uh he just needs a few to go in and I think he’ll be fine. But for the beginning of the season, the way he’s shooting that just really really bad. Uh I do think though, look, I’m not I’m gonna I’m not going to spend any more time on this game. There’s really nothing to say after the game. Uh Payton Pritchard was like there’s I don’t know that there’s anything to take away. Like the Celtics are very matter of fact. Like Joe Mazul was like yeah they they were awesome and we sucked. But he didn’t say those exact words, but he basically said those words. They were great. We were not. End of story. And preacher was like, “Yeah, what do you do? You just you got to move on.” So the Celtics finished this first seven games three and four, which is totally fine. I I’ve said this in the podcast a million times. I thought 0 and seven was on the table. One and six felt like, you know, maybe they could maybe two and seven I thought was actually the most realistic one. Now three and six is uh three I’m sorry, three and four. Why do I keep doing that? Two and two and seven is not That’s right. It’s not what I two and five. I go the other way with the numbers like I’m a one and six, two and five, three and four. I I I swear when I get when it comes to numbers sometimes the the the brain it just I don’t know what it is. It just locks up. So I thought one and seven was possible. Two and six was most likely three. One and six. I’m leaving all of this in was possible. Two and five was most likely. You know why I’m leaving this in? Because it fits the performance of what the Celtics did behind me. That’s why I’m leaving this in. I could edit this out very easily, but I’m not going to because the Celtics absolutely sucked in this game and I absolutely suck right now in this podcast. But it doesn’t matter. The Celtics are three and four. Three and four after the opening sevengame stretch. Three plus four equals seven. John, and I’m totally fine with that. I consider the first seven games of the season a total success for the Celtics. Struggle opening things up. Winning three in a row was really good. Uh, yes, there were some factors that played into it. The Pelicans are not good. The Cavs played terribly. Donovan Mitchell disappeared. He clearly wasn’t 100%. Evan Mobley was terrible. Josh Allen was ter uh Jared Allen was terrible. So, okay, the Cavs played a stinker. The Celtics took advantage of that. Uh they had a good lead against the the Sixers. They didn’t have uh Barlo who had five offensive rebounds against them in the first time around. The Celtics, you know, the the guy that killed the Celtics on the board wasn’t there. So, the Celtics, you know, caught a little bit of a break. They took advantage of that. They won. Impressive that they win those games. You You got to win those games. You got to hold off the Sixers. It’s all really, really good stuff. This game chocked it up from the beginning. I knew this game was going to be garbage from the beginning. All of everybody here knew this game was going to be garbage from the beginning. So to come out of this three and four, perfectly happy. Consider it a success. Now, to make it even more of a success, three- one on this on in these next four games would be perfect. Two and two is okay. Okay. So, five and six or six and five is okay. Six and five obviously would be better. I’m I’d be happy with that. So, I would think after 11 games, six and five. Uh, color me happy. Everything is good. uh Celtics are in a spot because if the Celtics are six and five, you do that every 11 game stretch, you end up doing that seven times, you end up seven games above 500. So that’s I I’ll take that. So um before I wrap things up, Baylor Sherman was was good. And this is this is kind of like an important little thing. You take these little bits and pieces from games like this Baylor Shyman comes in. No pressure. Obviously, they’re getting smoked. He hits a few shots and now maybe some of his confidence is coming back. He’s been stacking up these little bits here and there, right? Couple games ago, gets in, plays well for a few minutes. Okay, shows a little bit of something. Last game, comes in, plays well for a few minutes, shows a little bit of something. You build these little positive things up. Okay, you do something positive, you get a little bit more of a chance. Now, he shoots well in this game. He was uh where are you? Baylor, six of seven, four of five from three. Now, obviously, he’s not going to shoot 80% from three, but still knocking down some shots is important. Five rebounds, an assist, uh 17 points, a minus two in a game that the they lost by 27. That’s nice. So, a nice night from Shyman. That That’s good. Now, carry that forward. Take that into Utah. Utah’s not going to be the easiest game in the world, even though like they’re not that great, but they’re a big offensive rebounding team. They miss a lot of shots. There are opportunities for them to get the rebounds, but Shyman’s going to be able to use his size and and get in there and maybe grab some rebounds himself. And that gets him a chance to stay on the floor, maybe hit some shots on the other end. So, in a in a big pile of, you know, crap, what this game was, you get a little nugget of Baylor Sherman being good. So, um I’m not going to go too deep into anybody else. Like, whatever. This is This is just one of those nights. It really is one of those nights. It’s like me trying to do math. Simple math. Uh so, the Elvis got smoked. And that’s the end of the story here. That’s your bonus podcast from me uh on this night. I think it’s an appropriate one. Not much to say about just getting the doors blown off, but I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll digest all of this stuff. This is the Sunday podcast. I’m going to go take advantage of my extra hour of sleep and you should do the same. We’ll be back for another week of podcasting. So, make sure you are subscribed. Bonus podcasts, they play on a Friday. I will be here for a Saturday podcast. So, make sure you’re subscribed. Again, it’s free. It’s everywhere. Become every day or join me every Monday through Friday. Uh, plus these bonus podcasts. Get on to that YouTube page. Let me know what you think. And I would love it if you shared the podcast. Tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Here on the Lockdown Podcast Network, it’s your team every day.

Boston Celtics absorb brutal 128-101 blowout to Houston Rockets at TD Garden. Was this loss inevitable given the circumstances?

John Karalis breaks down the thorough beating, explaining why the Celtics’ sixth game in nine nights against a rested, physically dominant Rockets team shooting 65.5% from three was a recipe for disaster. The analysis covers Derrick White’s shooting slump, Jaylen Brown’s early exit, and why the team’s 3-4 start should actually be considered a success given their brutal opening schedule.

Key topics include the Rockets’ massive size advantage, the free throw disparity that reflected legitimate fouls rather than bad officiating, and Baylor Scheierman’s impressive 17-point performance as the lone bright spot. Karalis offers perspective on the upcoming easier stretch against Utah, Washington, and Orlando that could help the Celtics find their rhythm.

Hear why this blowout loss doesn’t signal deeper problems for Boston.

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