Boston Celtics: Lessons learned in loss to Houston Rockets

A game in Houston against the Rockets served as a good test to see how the Boston Celtics might look in a competitive playoff game. How should the Celtics adapt moving forward?

The Boston Celtics lost a tough game to the Houston Rockets on Saturday after failing to hold a lead amidst a fourth quarter shootout. The game had every element of a playoff atmosphere with its trash talk, technical fouls and roaring celebrations for clutch baskets.

While fans are wishing they were watching a Finals preview, this game could serve as a forecast for what the Celtics might look like in the playoffs: good enough to compete, but not cohesive enough to win.

There’s no better time than the regular season to learn from mistakes and see what works and doesn’t work against elite competition.

What works:

Kyrie Irving

‘s wizardry. Irving has been absolutely scorching coming out of the All-Star break, but it’s best not to read too much into it because he did it against far worse competition than Houston. While Kyrie had a tough game against the Rockets, he still got every opportunity to work his magic touch with the dribble, as well as play off the ball just as effectively. The shots didn’t fall but he still did this:

Iso Mook. Watching Marcus Morris play basketball is about 80 percent infuriating and 20 percent abusing matchups. By the end of the season, I’m cautiously optimistic about that ratio adjusting towards being a 65/35 split as Brad Stevens figures out his playoff rotations. Morris is a bulky dude and has better offensive tools than the other Celtics of his size. Having a player that can play bully-ball in the year 2018 is great when so many players can’t even fathom why a foul might be called on them and constantly voice their frustration. Houston is far from the worst case of this, but have shown time and time again that their weak points are more mental than physical. The Celtics will be in good shape if players like Morris can use his size to draw fouls in the playoffs where the pace of play inevitably slows and tensions run high.

What doesn’t work:

Spending too much time in the post. It was an off night for Al Horford and I wouldn’t use that alone as reason to say they should go to him less. If Horford could reliably get to the free throw line, I would take no issue with him slowly backing down his defender and eating up the shot clock, but missing the shot is far too punishing for the risk to be worth it. Slowing down the pace of the game at the line could cool off Houston’s hot shooting and result in easier points for Horford, who just needed to see the ball go through the basket more than anything. To the credit of the Celtics, they knew better than to try to beat Houston at their own game. Going to Horford was fine, but the execution was questionable.

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Throwing lobs to players that can’t jump. Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier have considerably improved their playmaking since last season, which has played a major part in the team’s success this year. However, the team has thrown a lot of risky lobs while shying away from attempting moderately contested layups. Last night it was Smart lobbing to a stationary Al Horford, other nights it’s Rozier or even Tatum trying to set up an unsuspecting Greg Monroe. If the lob is coming from a spot closer to the basket than the free throw line, there’s a good chance that the better play was to try for a floater rather than set up a sweet ‘oop for someone with no intention of jumping.