Celtics Greg Monroe dominant vs. Rockets - feed the Moose for points in the paint


For the second game in a row, Boston Celtics fans saw why the team acquired Greg Monroe. He is big and strong and can dominate on offense in the low post. In Boston's close loss to the Houston Rockets last night, Greg scored 18 points on 66.7% on field goals and a perfect 6/6 from the foul line. All six of Monroe's successful shots came in the paint, and four-of-six were assisted. The Moose must be fed on a regular basis to optimize his talents.


Greg also had six rebounds in the game, along with two blocks and a plus/minus of +23. These are the NBA's Taylor Snow's thoughts on Monroe's impact on the game:

After spending the past month diligently learning the Boston Celtics' system, Greg Monroe's hard work is finally starting to pay off. The newly-added veteran big man had his second consecutive solid outing for the Celtics Saturday night, as he played his heart out during a hard-fought, 123-120 loss to the Houston Rockets.

While the Celtics were barely edged by the league's best team, they completely blew Houston out of the water when Monroe was on the court. He tallied 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting, corralled a team-high-tying six rebounds, and had a game-best plus/minus rating of plus-23 during just 19 minutes of play.

"I was just trying to be aggressive," said Monroe, who also shot a perfect 6-of-6 from the free-throw line. "I found my spots, got a lot of easy buckets from my teammates. That was really it. When I feel like I have opportunities to be aggressive, I try to do that."

The video below shows us a few things. Two of Greg's "easy" hoops come from nice passes from Marcus Smart. A total of three assists to Greg were via Smart and one from Kyrie Irving. Feeding the Moose leads to easy hoops. Secondly, Hack-a-Moose won't work. In the last eight games, Monroe is 17/20 on free throws, an 85% rate. Greg's performance was a high point in the close loss to Houston. We will be glad that Danny Ainge decided to go with him, and that Greg chose Boston as his destination.



Follow Tom at @TomLaneHC

Photo via Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports
Video via DownToBuck


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