IT's defense in the first half was p--- poor but he did a nice job in the second half. Despite being one of the most dangerous scorers in the league, I kind of like the match up of IT on Curry. Curry is a finesse player, he's never going to take Thomas down on the block or muscle him around, even though he's a lot taller. Thomas is so fast that as long as he stays in front of Curry and is able to chase him around picks, he can be a nuisance, which is pretty much all you can ask for with a guy like Curry. I'm grading on a curve here, but I'm comfortable with IT guarding Curry in a way I'm not when he guards other scoring PG's who aren't as good.
I was doing some whining last night about Jaylen not getting involved enough in the offense but at the end of the day, Olynyk finished with the best +/- with +29 and Jaylen was next on the team at +13 (after that, it was Rozier at +9 and Smart/Jerebko at +8). I think Jaylen has superstar potential and he's learning something that not a lot of potential superstars get to learn: how to move off the ball. His activity away from the ball is having an impact on winning while he's on the floor even when it doesn't look, to me, like he's "involved." It's all connected.
Assuming Jaylen gets more aggressive as he gets older and develops his game, he'll be a lot more versatile than a lot of scorers in the game today because of what he's learning now. Such a great thing for a rookie to be able to play on a good team and still be trusted with some minutes.
It took Crowder 3 quarters to settle down and play his game last night but he was ready to hit back-to-back 3's when called on. Similar with Avery, who wasn't shooting great but hit some shots down the stretch and played great defense. This team is full of gamers.
I hate highlights on ESPN. If I was in charge, the highlights of this game would've just been 2 minutes of the Celtics stealing the ball. That's what the game was about for me.
That, and Olynyk playing out of his mind. His +/- was more than double anyone else on the team, shot 7/9 and has 5 rebounds and 5 assists in 26 miuntes. This guy is an enigma but I really want the C's to keep him around for a long time, just to get 3 or 4 of these games each season.