ESPN reacts to Celtics shuting down Pelicans; Jayson Tatum 23 Pts, Zion Williamson 25 Pts

ESPN reacts to Celtics shuting down Pelicans; Jayson Tatum 23 Pts, Zion Williamson 25 Pts

There for Chris O porzingis say uh Jaylen Brown had 17 points on the night Celtics postgame live Tom Giles scal Celtics get the win 104 to 92 and I don’t really think the game felt that close honestly the way the Celtics kind of distanced themselves in the second

Half but considering the way this game started first quarter in particular pretty good that they were able to to turn the page and turn things up defensively yeah I like what they did and it’s not just I would say halfway through the second quarter you could

Start to see the team all right this is what the Pelicans do and here’s how we got to do it you saw porzingis meeting Zion at The Rim you kept the body on him I thought we did a great job of closing out to their Shooters and we really won

The paint battle after that first quarter so love uh from that moment on but the third quarter is the real difference Celtics come out we’re burning it up on the offensive end but we’re amazing defensively yeah and that was uh the key holding him to 11 points

In the third quarter we’ll talk more about that coming up we also want you to let us know who should win tonight’s Tommy Ward that is your poll question presented by zeni the official eyewear of the Boston Celtics and you’re looking at the five starters for the Celtics as

Well as Al Horford in this one again first time in a very long time that they’ve had their top 10 available and we saw Joe moula go nine deep tonight uh to get this win but christophs porzingis with a big night is as he put in 19 and

10 and really was assertive on the defensive end with those four yeah I think the third quarter him being around the basket was a real problem for New Orleans think about it like Zion has been a force getting downhill attacking but you know if you have guys at the rim

And you can make Zion Williamson after he’s elevating with a body on him now he’s thinking about where porzingis is at it makes a big difference and I thought that that was like the kind of the momentum changer of the game like before like I just said like we weren’t

Amazing in that third offensively but it shows how and we’ve said it seen it all year we can win a lot of different ways today we hung our hat on the defensive end and not only we hung our hat with the physicality in the paint on the

Defensive end and to go further into that because early in the game Zion was going after right he was attacking him the Celtics were persistent though you saw him kind of throw different bodies you know Drew holiday on that one possessions helping over forcing the jump ball but porzingis they they went

After him and and again for him to rack up four blocks in that situation they felt like they stood their ground and that was one of the things you talked about pregame as well was defending at The Rim Yeah you got you got to be able

To do that and and the way that the Celtics use porzingis it’s there was a few times where Zion was where porzingis was on Zion and Zion would just shoulder to chest go right up and lay it up but when he’s off the ball and this is how we’ll see when we play

The Bucks in the playoffs if they if they’re the team that makes it porzingis will be that RoR remember what we went to the NBA finals with Rob Williams was that RoR and we are it it it does make us a special defensive team with Puerto there and all the physicality that we

Have outside of of porzingis at The Rim all right I know Abby is trying to catch up with porzingis so we’ll get you out to New Orleans uh as soon as she’s able to grab him but again a selty skin the win in this one 104 to 92 and this kind

Of felt like the most aggressive game from him maybe is the the way of putting it in in a while for porzingis you know a full he was out for a little bit well that’s what I mean and yeah since coming back so you got to Tom you got to

Understand the game plan here right like um when you play a team that plays Five out like porzingis is going to be less effective but when you play a team that’s physical like porzingis becomes an issue right like sometimes you can’t counter physicality with physicality

Like if you look at Zion and you look at porzingis Zion has so many so much more weight and he’s so much bouncier but porzingis has height and length so porzingis was able to use his length at the rim and he had to be down there battling saw a couple times challenging

Shots turn around and rebounding the ball so today you could see like porzingis had to do that for us to win the game if if he wasn’t that for I’m not saying we wouldn’t have won but we would have to find a different way

Him at The Rim as you can see the points right 37 points in the first quarter 20 points in the second for New Orleans 11 points in the third and I felt like they were thinking about him and then that allows the perimeter players to guard up

On the three so it makes us a much better defensive team when you have that Rim protection all right as mention he standing by with Abby let’s send it back to the Smoothie King Center aby’s got porzingis christops the defense went to another level after that first quarter

What changed for you guys we just knew we couldn’t be in cruise control uh you know these these teams are hungry they need these wins maybe we at this point of the Season don’t need them as much but still we want to come out here and compete at at a high level every

Night and and uh once we we we hit another gear the game just flipped you had a double double to go along with four blocks how were you able to get some Advantage with your size yeah I feel like uh last game just I didn’t

Play up to my level uh on on all aspects of the game and even tonight you know the three ball wasn’t falling for me uh but uh but there are so many ways how me and and us as a team we can impact the game if things are not going perfect for

Us and uh and that’s what I did tonight I just also turned up another another notch and uh and that’s what we’re going to need uh rest of this regular season then even more in the postseason you said to yourself you guys may not need these wins and Joe told us pregame the

Temperature in the locker room has has changed but why was it important to get this one for you guys ah we just we just don’t want to we want to be a hungry team no matter what we want to you know we haven’t done anything and um and and

Then back toback losses to Atlanta it’s not our our DNA you know and it just didn’t sit right with us so uh we came out here tonight and and got us a dub question about it kristofh thank you congrats thank you all right let’s bring in Drew and

Eddie now joining us once again from New Orleans and uh Eddie I’ll start with You Chris house just talking about those two losses in Atlanta didn’t really sit right uh clearly they were more sort of more aggressive defensively and it really sounded like that’s where you saw

This game changing uh in the second quarter yeah it was definitely with their defense and poringa spearheaded he got a couple blocks there in that second quarter and then also I thought the the Jaylen Brown guarding Zion Williamson not giving him a full head of steam to

Come downhill like pressuring him and we turned him over a couple times made it uncomfortable before you know it he missed some easy bunnies and then after he missed the easy bunny he went to the free on line he missed free throws I thought our defense changed everything

And it was the intensity I thought defensive intensity not only the intensity but the connectivity that they had with one another they were on the proverbial string tonight for sure and you know why christops porzingis had such a good game tonight talk to me because I gave him a high five in the

Tunnel on the way in oh listen listen to him listen to him this is a big time match up you know like sometimes physicality is hard to see on TV but you it seemed like today the the Celtics ENT the call to the physicality after the first quarter you know what scyl and

You’ll appreciate this this is the most excited I’ve been to have the Courtside seat as opposed to you know being upstairs where we are in some of the Arenas because I really wanted to see Zion up close and personal and in the first quarter he was amazing man no he

Was amazing but we were giving him the opportunity to get downhill and he was just taking up that space everybody thinks that you’re supposed to Sag off of him because he doesn’t shoot shots he wants to get where he’s going but once he gets like a a a locomotive right

Right coming downhill it’s hard to stop him and his balance is great his uh his center of gravity is off the charts and his strength and explosion is different and and seeing it in person you really respect what he brings to the table so seeing what jayen brown did tonight I

Have a new found respect for how physical he was and you know what I compare it to scy is when we were in Oklahoma City I brought this up a few times since that game but when Jason Tatum said I got Shake gilis Alexander after he was cooking the Celtics for the

First half of that game Tatum took that assignment and really shut him down down the stretch and know case he ended up winning that game but Brown sort of did the same thing with Zion and we didn’t really know how the Celtics would deal with Williamson tonight because we saw a

Lot of Drew holiday he was the main defender on him in the first matchup at the Garden tonight it was mostly Jaylen Brown I give him a ton of credit cuz he was getting beaten up out there he was out here falling on wet spots think he’s

Going to have to throw those shoes away I don’t know what he was wearing but he was slipping and sliding and he was still playing that well yeah that might be the last time he wears those but if if he’s going to play defense like that

And it was it was the shoes was it because of the shoes then maybe wear him again I mean he still played well offensively but I thought defensively just the way he dug in and took the physical challenge against a physically imposing player like Zion Williams we

All know what he brings to the table and Jaylen Brown not one time did he back down I mean it he picked him up at half court you know and sometimes that’s what it takes it’s the small things that that changes how you going to approach it so

The team seen how hard he was playing they seen christops getting blocked shots next thing you know their level went to a they went to a whole another level all right it’s a good win and uh now they can take that win to Charlotte or I guess we’ll be talking to to you

Guys there so Drew and Eddie thank you like J okay uh Celtics get the win by 12 time out here from Joe Missoula the head coach of press conference is brought to you by our Bell Insurance here for Celtics fans here for good here is Joe

Moula it was a lot more Derek going the pick and roll with KP a lot what was what was the difference approach um I think it’s just continuing to find that balance that the the because of their switching they went away from their Valen Unis and they played small and they were switching

More and uh you know we wanted to attack that match up in the D white KP and force those two-on ones uh from the postup so we got really good frequency out of that about four or five times uh and then we changed it and got a you

Know wide open three there so to me that’s just the trust that the guys have in each other to go to different combinations uh depending upon how teams are guarding us uh and how they’re trying to you know defend us this is another one of those things that you can

Kind of like work on like you about poring something switch in the last game through five another one of those elements where you can just keep going to it until it stops working just yeah I mean I think you get we were getting exactly what we wanted we were getting

The ball uh in the post we had great spacing and we were forcing them to either double or collapse from the Baseline we got a layup to Jaylen we got to open three for Derek KP got a uh might have gotten drawn a file so you

Know I think it’s just finding can we get a couple things and really just work to execute depending upon the coverage and uh I thought the guys did a really good job executing that what changed defensively after the first quarter um the guys that we were willing to let

Shoot the ball with contest missed and so I thought we played with effort the entire game I thought uh the points off turnovers and uh some of their non-shooters uh made shots and you know if you take a look at the first 21 points uh the two threes from McCullum

In transition came off turnovers and then they had nine points on guys that we need to get out and contest but that we wanted to help off of and get back to and so um they made those and I think that kept them in the game and then we

Did a better job in the second half of kind of Shifting and getting back to them we did a good job contesting them and those guys missed them and so we were able to keep them out of transition as well so the effort was there uh the

Uh defensive execution as far as game plan was there uh but I think transition and uh some unlucky shot making is kind of what had that close in the first half um but I thought we turned it up I mean we had three 25 point cors in a game we

Also decided you know to do that so um you can’t take away from our guys and and their ability to defend at that high level you get three 25 Point quarters to an 11o quarter has got to make you happy absolutely what did you guys do had seven with four to go I

Thought we could have kept him under 10 yeah what did you do against z z obviously got going early yeah you switching things on him uh I thought Jaylen did a tremendous job of just making it difficult for him again I think you know he still got his average

On free throws but we we did a better job I guess I don’t know what he got but it just felt like we didn’t follow him uh you know I know he he got those but we kept him out of transition uh we kept him out of the paint and the guys

Guarding on the perimeter did a great job of showing help on Zion to his attacks uh he had to pick up the ball earlier in the paint than he normally does and we were able to get out to those guys to contest but I think it started with whoever was on them between

JB and Drew their point of contact and their physicality was tremendous all right so uh let’s get to tonight’s drain of the game which is brought to you by John SE and Dr the name to know when the dra don’t FL Dereck white with this three gave the

Celtics their first lead of the game on the very last second of the first half they went into the break with a two-point lead and Derek white with that three for tonight’s trrain of the game so the Celtics now three and2 on the road trip they’ll wrap it up Monday in

Charlotte 26 and 13 on the road so far this season we’re going to take a quick break be back with scal to talk about the second and third quarter is when foreign spee spe foreign for yes I’ll give it my all And they’re off sh down where in the speed your team has destroyed a tower an ally has been defeated enemy double kill get him to dial it up to 11 ah enemy ultimate your tower has been destroyed an ally has been defeated our R is under attack Enemy onlly our base is under attack and they’re off enemy back enemy double kill enemy triple kill our base is under attack spe let’s out the coming through you h [Applause] First Blood your team has destroyed the tower an ally has been defeated an ally has been defeated enemy double kill enemy onot enemy bloodb enemy dominating enemy double kill enemy triple kill you have defeated an enemy enemy legendary your tower has been destroyed attack thefe

ESPN reacts to Celtics shuting down Pelicans; Jayson Tatum 23 Pts, Zion Williamson 25 Pts