3 thoughts from Boston Celtics big win over Minnesota Timberwolves
By Mujeeb Ahmed
The Celtics continue to experience some of the growing pains due to their youth.
The Celtics are an interesting bunch and have driven many fans wild with their inconsistency this year.
The reason the Celtics are in such an interesting and perhaps a completely unique situation is because they have so many young players in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier and so on yet are in a title contention conversation with proven veterans in Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward and Al Horford.
The Celtics youth shows itself most notably when they struggle to score when their jump shots are not falling or the referees do not call a foul in their favor or when the team is in a rut.
Wednesday night, the Celtics youth issues were present particularly in the second half.
The Celtics were once again dominated in the third quarter as they were outscored 39 to 27 in the third quarter and it was largely due to the same reasons as the third quarter that buried them against the Spurs — a skilled big man scoring at will inside against the undersized Celtics front line and settling for trading baskets instead of committing themselves more solidly on the defensive end.
After building a decisive lead in the first half against the Timberwolves by limiting their star players, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns, the Celtics got away from what built them that lead by making mistakes like allowing deep post position by Towns, easy post entry passes and weak defensive effort.
The Timberwolves were able to make this a competitive game by punishing the Celtics inside and the Celtics made things worse for themselves by taking contested jumpers and making weak attempts at attacking the basket.
Luckily these mistakes are correctable and were corrected in time tonight to get the win against the Timberwolves, but perhaps the more important question is whether or not these mistakes will have been addressed and remedied in time for the postseason.