Category: Celtics

Celtics Have a 2 Percent Chance of Getting the Number 2 or 3 Overall Pick at the NBA Draft Lottery Tonight

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Lost in all the excitement of this unexpectedly deep playoff run for the Celtics is the fact that they are still sitting on yet another potential goldmine. The Celtics have an outside shot at having a Top 3 pick fall into their laps this year.

The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight before Game 2 and the C’s will be watching with great interest as they could walk away with Philly’s first round pick (via Los Angeles) tonight. Boston is basically riding a heater after landing the No. 1 overall pick for the first time in franchise history last summer. Tonight will be a heat check from Danny.

To recap last year’s draft day trade that got us here, Danny Ainge traded the No. 1 overall pick to Philadelphia (who drafted Markelle Fultz) in exchange for the No. 3 overall pick (C’s drafted Jayson Tatum) and a future first round pick, which could be Philly’s pick this year that the Sixers had previously acquired from the Lakers. There were some protections on that pick though. The Celtics will get the Sixers/Lakers first round pick this year if it falls at No. 2 or No. 3 overall, which has a 2.87% chance of occuring at the Draft Lottery tonight.

Those aren’t great odds, but imagine the chaos we’d see on NBA Twitter if the Celtics, who are already pushing the Cavs to the limit and are expecting both Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward back next season, get a Top 3 pick? People would be screaming about frozen envelopes and crafting conspiracy theories about Danny Ainge having naked pics of Adam Silver to explain this great run of luck in Boston.

However, the Sixers (via the Lakers) are currently projected to get the No. 10 pick based on the Draft Lottery odds. We’ve seen teams make crazy jumps before (i.e. Cleveland jumping from 8th to 1st in 2011 to draft Kyrie Irving) so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. If the Cavs somehow jump from their current spot at No. 8 to No. 1 with the Brooklyn pick the Celtics sent them in the Kyrie trade I’m gonna snap though. Cleveland has had the No. 1 overall pick 3 times in the last 7 years. So who’s rigging the league for who? It would be hilarious though to watch Trader Danny hoard those Brooklyn picks for YEARS and then jump off the bandwagon at the last second to flip his last Nets pick, only to see it fall all the way to No. 8. Seriously though, Danny should be a stock broker.

If the Philly/Lakers pick ends up being anything other than No. 2 or No. 3 then the Celtics’ return for the Fultz/Tatum trade gets kicked to next summer when the C’s will receive a first rounder from the Sixers. The Sixers have their own pick next year as well as the Sacramento Kings’ first rounder so the Celtics would get the higher of the two next year unless either lands on No. 1 overall then they’d get the other pick instead.

In case you were wondering, the Kings finished 27-55 this year, which was tied for the 6th worst record in the NBA, with no signs of improvement next year. So either way the Celtics could be nabbing another Top 5 pick if not this year then very likely next year.

Celtics Break LeBron and the Cavs in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals

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This is a 7 game series and we’ve seen LeBron take one on the chin before coming back to lay waste to his opposition but last night was the absolute best case scenario for the Celtics who blew out the Cavs 108-83. They looked younger, quicker, more athletic, deeper, and overall just more invested in the game than LeBron and his flunkies.

When LeBron says he has “zero concern” over getting curb stomped in Game 1 though I genuinely believe him. He probably does have zero concern. Thats the problem. The C’s got up early and never looked back. This Cavs team is not built to play from behind, especially if LeBron isn’t scoring 40 points a game. He’s *averaging* 32.7 pts per game in the playoffs and the Cavs need him to hit and exceed those averages every single night if they’re going to beat the C’s. Do I think LeBron can do that 4 out of the next 6 games? Sure. Do I think he will? I doubt it. I think the Celtics will tax him mentally as they throw wave after wave of defenders at him and make him work, really work, to get upwards of 30 points a night. Not to mention he now has to play defense.

This quote from Jaylen Brown over the weekend was illuminating in the way they all view LeBron.

“You’ve got to make him work on both sides of the ball. Usually he’s guarding the least-offensive threat on the floor, so if he’s guarding me, I’m going to make him pay.”

Now unless Aaron Baynes is on the floor, take your pick LeBron and good luck. Despite all the injuries to this Celtics team they are so deep in terms of scoring threats. If he wants to D up Jaylen Brown well then he’s going to have to chase a 21-year old dude around all game. Same with a 20 year old Jayson Tatum. Both those guys are young, long, athletic and can shoot. Horford’s another All-Star so thats more work. Marcus Smart is smaller, but he’s a goddamn pain in the ass. There’s no weak link LeBron can just lean on to get some rest while playing D. This isn’t last year’s team that stood around and waited for Isaiah Thomas to score on every possession.

Now with all that being said, you know LeBron is going to come out SWINGING on Tuesday night. He wants to make a statement, which he has done so many times before. That is why when he checks himself out of a blowout with several minutes remaining nobody really bats an eye because he is great at taking the long view in a series. His team did not have it, hell they were 0-12 from 3 point land in the first half and shot 15% from 3 for the game. They only shot 36% overall. Meanwhile the Celtics were on fire shooting 36% from 3 and 51% overall for the game.

Water tends to find its level so the Celtics will shoot worse and the Cavs will shoot better. LeBron looks around and sees that and calls it an early night because he’s 33 and there’s no reason for him to play 48 minutes in a blowout when he can just save his energy to come out strong in Game 2.

But, if the Celtics can withstand that early attack from LeBron, throw Marcus Morris, Jaylen Brown, Semi Ojeleye at him and get him to struggle even a little bit then they are in the money. If LeBron senses he’ll have to win the entire series on his own he may just shut it down. We’ve seen it before.

Guerschon Yabusele even got 4 minutes in this game. The Dancing Bear is basically a human victory cigar for the Celtics as we got Gino Time in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Insane.

With that we did also see some incredible flip flopping from the broadcast, most notably Jeff Van Gundy. After a Cavs loss to the Celtics in the regular season Van Gundy said the Cavs were still by far the better team and that was BEFORE Kyrie got hurt. Now the C’s get a big win in Game 1 and Van Gundy is rewriting his own history. Where is Old Takes Exposed when you need them?

We could potentially see the Celtics, a completely different Celtics roster and coach, chase LeBron James out of Cleveland for the second time in his career. In 2010 the Big Three of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen frustrated LeBron so bad that he split for Miami just to get reinforcements. We could see that again here as LeBron will almost certainly opt out and enter free agency this offseason.

Before yesterday’s game I said my head tells me Cavs in 6, but my heart says Celtics in 7. I think if the Celtics are going to win this series its going to take 7 games, regardless of the results from Game 1. We’ve seen a young, upcoming dynastic team knock off the aging veteran champions before and it hurt like a bitch to watch. It would be poetic to see the same exact story unfold with the roles reversed on LeBron James now.

Celtics Unable to Complete the Sweep of Sixers (and the Refs)

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The Celtics missed an opportunity to put the Sixers away and end the series last night on a clean 4-0 sweep as they fell 102-93 to Philadelphia. While some serious home cooking from the refs didn’t cause the C’s to lose, it certainly didn’t help. Basically all of Boston’s top players were in foul trouble mid-way through the 2nd quarter, which is unusual to say the least.

Thats 4 rotation players and 2 of your top 3 offensive threats already forced to take their foot off the gas just to make it through the game (Marcus Smart fouled out later anyways). Hell Brad Stevens even had to jump in and get a technical foul just to prevent the refs from tossing Jaylen Brown on a shaky call later in the night.

Aside from all that nonsense though, the Celtics were sloppy, forcing up prayer shots and turning the ball over way too much.

I know we were ready to curb stomp Philly, but they are a pretty damn good team and when you make a boatload of mistakes anybody is going to make you pay for that.

In Scary Terry News, Terry Rozier finished with 11 points, 8 rebounds and a near fist fight with Joel Embiid.

Just to put this into perspective, Joel Embiid is 7’0″ tall and Rozier is 6’2″ Thats a full 10 inches Rozier is giving up and he don’t give a shit. Gotta love the tenacity. And even on a night where he only shoots 4-11 Terry is still feeling himself.

Also getting into it with Embiid was one Marcus Morris who were both jawing and talking shit throughout the game. Morris was able to body Embiid in the trash talk department though.

At least I think it was Marcus?

What really put the nail in Celtics coffin though was this sequence late in the game. Down 10 with 7 minutes to go the C’s were in a good spot to chip away, play D, and extend the game. Instead they uncharacteristically started playing hero ball and forcing a bunch of terrible looks rather than taking what was given to them. Over the next 5 minutes here’s what the Celtics did on offense.

Terry Rozier 3 pt MISS

Marcus Smart 2 free throws

Marcus Smart layup

Jayson Tatum 3 pt MISS

Terry Rozier 3 pt MISS

Marcus Morris 3 pt MISS

Jayson Tatum 3 pt MISS

And that was basically the game. Down 10 points with plenty of time left the Celtics force five three pointers and miss them all. Not great.

The Celtics will now look to close out the series back at home on Wednesday night. The Sixers and TJ McConnell (19 pts) in particular are starting to feel themselves a little bit, but put them back in the Garden and get ahead early and this team will roll over. Lets put this team away so we can actually face the final boss in the Eastern Conference Finals with some gas left in the tank.

My biggest concern? LeBron finished off his sweep of the Raptors so now he’s just chilling on his couch getting extra rest waiting for us…

Vegas Underdog Celtics Go for the Sweep Tonight Against Vegas Favorite Sixers

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The Celtics have been underdogs in each of the first 3 games against Philly this series and are now up 3-0 and on the brink of a sweep. Massholes everywhere are putting Vegas bookies in the hurt locker this past week. The Celtics were +9 the other night for christ’s sake and it took a buzzer beater (and confetti!) just for the Sixers to force OT and lose again.

The Celtics, per usual, are fun as all hell to watch because they’re tough, gritty, smart with the ball, and are playing above their talent level. Once Hayward got hurt 5 minutes into the season, most reasonable hopes of a Larry O’Brien trophy went out the window. Then once Kyrie Irving got shut down for the season, I was content to just win a round. Not the C’s though. These guys are giving the Sixers fits, who are basically the bully on the block that gets punched in the nose and doesn’t know what to do.

Young guys like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are setting records and look years beyond their age. Seriously, these guys have been incredible. I’m done with the Kawhi Leonard trade rumors. I’m not moving these guys for anyone outside of Anthony Davis, let alone both of them for a player who’s battled injuries and has been a general sourpuss for the last 2 years.

Terry Rozier has become a national story as Scary Terry continues to put up huge numbers both on, and off the court (and murdered Eric Bledsoe as a result).

Al Horford has probablyyy heard the Average Al nickname and its probablyyy pissed him off as he’s looked like the max player we all hoped for night in and night out. Just look at the numbers. In the playoffs this year, Horford is AVERAGING 17.9 points (a career high)  and 8.6 rebounds per game.

Not to jinx it, but assuming the C’s don’t completely implode, we’re set up for another classic Eastern Conference Finals rematch with LeBron James. The Celtics bodied LeBron for the first half of his career and legitimately chased him out of Cleveland because he couldn’t get past Boston in the playoffs. The second and third acts of his career have been a different story though as LeBron has been ridiculously great for an unprecedented number of years and taken the Celtics behind the shed a few times along the way. At 33 you’d think LeBron would be slowing down, but nope the guy has gone Super Saiyan and is just putting on an absolute clinic carrying the Cavs to the ECF hitting iconic game winners in the process (soft defense by Toronto is besides the point).

So whether the Celtics are ready to get past LeBron remains to be seen, but goddamn will it be fun to watch. A young, long, athletic, and best of all cocky squad of guys in their early 20s gunning to knock off the best player of my generation will be legitimate theater.

Celtics Go Up 2-0 On the Sixers as Likely ROY Ben Simmons Drops ONE Point

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Likely Rookie (not really a rookie) of the Year Ben Simmons was on fire last night with ONE point the whole goddamn game. I feel like I could get at least 2 points in a game on pure luck alone. You had Philly’s gigantic freak of nature center Joel Embiid hitting freaking fallaway three pointers, yet Ben Simmons can’t get one basket??

The onslaught of memes though are going to take some monster playoff games for Simmons to ever really scrub.

Is Rajon Rondo Resurrecting His Career Purely Out of Spite the Most Impressive Thing He’s Ever Done?

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I’ve never seen a player absolutely thrive on shit talking and haters and proving people wrong more than Rajon Rondo.

Sure, plenty of athletes have a chip on their shoulder, but this is different. This is the same guy that used to smoke kids in Connect Four back in Boston because he was so psychotically competitive.

Rondo’s career looked cooked after he was a disaster in Dallas and then was creating all sorts of drama in Chicago with Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler (all not on the team anymore). He had a brief resurgence in the playoffs with the Bulls (averaged 3.5 steals per game) and putting a real scare in the Celtics before getting injured and missing the rest of the series, albeit in a fire flames short sleeve suit.

Now playing for the New Orleans Pelicans he has looked like the Rondo of old, the guy that was putting up triple doubles in between Pierce, KG, and Ray Allen. He’s averaging a career high 12.7 assists per game in the playoffs to go along with 12.7 points per game and 7.5 rebounds per game. His .484 FG% is a career high in the playoffs to go along with a career high eFG% of .531, with his second best season coming during the 11-12 run with the Celtics when he had a eFG% of .482.

And its all because he thrives on the hate. Ray Allen was chirping Rondo while promoting his new book and Rondo clapped back hard. Rondo is now living off of nothing but his opponents frustration as he goes toe to toe with the biggest instigator in the league in Draymond Green. The dude is thriving off of it.

Just egging Draymond on.

Some of us get up in the morning for our families, for our jobs, for our dogs. Rajon Rondo gets up in the morning with the sole pursuit in life of pissing people off while dropping dimes on the hardwood. And for that, I’m grateful.

 

1st World Problems: I Have to Watch TWO of My Teams’ Playoff Games Tonight

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Do you want to know the definition of first world problems? I legitimately am upset, vexed even, that the Bruins and Celtics have playoff games on at the same time tonight.

Our embarrassment of riches collide as the Bruins play Game 2 of the semi-finals and the Celtics kick off Game 1 of their respective semi-finals as both teams are playing for a shot at the Conference Finals. What a time to be a sports fan in Boston. Combine that with the Red Sox being arguably the best team in baseball and the Patriots being the talk of the NFL with their draft decisions over the weekend. No time to dilly dally.

Is it a chore to go picture in picture so I can watch BOTH of my teams playoff games? Sure. Is it hard work to flip back and forth in between intermissions? Absolutely. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I now have my entire 6 pm-11 pm blocked off tonight. No time to watch The Office unfortunately.

Its time like these I almost envy the complete lack of passion from fans in cities like LA or Tampa. Just go about your day partaking in all sorts of activities. Me? I’ll be in front of the TV with garbage food that I 100% GrubHub’d and a 6 pack of moderately priced IPAs. Thats the cross I bear.

Was Sunday the Best Sports Day of the Year?

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Sunday may have been the best sports day of the year with the Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins each playing home games all while the final round of The Masters was going on.
Patrick Reed won his first green jacket yesterday and I don’t think anyone summarized that battle down the stretch better than the wifey:

Reed had a slim lead heading into the final 9 and Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Rickie Fowler were all gunning for him. Reed was putting his body on the line though, broken hands be damned.

Rory couldn’t capitalize on a couple of missteps by Reed and imploded himself so he was out, but Spieth was putting on an absolute show shooting -9 on the final day to almost come all the way back to take it, finishing 2 back.

Rickie Fowler once again sexed up the whole course with his wardrobe:

Fowler quietly and maniacally hunted Reed down like the goddamn Terminator and almost pulled it out. It ultimately wasn’t enough as he finished 1 back as Reed set himself up to 2-putt his way to the victory. I watched the last 2 hours of The Masters at a bar by the Garden and the energy was awesome.

During all this, the Red Sox were getting their teeth kicked in on Sunday afternoon and after starting the year 7-1 I wasn’t too broken up about it. Eduardo Rodriguez looked lights out in his first start back since knee surgery with 7 K’s through 3 innings though.

Throwing 73 pitches in 3 innings is not exactly peak efficiency though. So I left my house and headed to the bar to watch the end of The Masters. After sitting down with a couple Bud Lattes the bar had both golf and the Sox on and it was some of the best TV I’ve seen all year. Boston orchestrated a huge comeback scoring 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning. All with two outs in the inning. Incredible.


Kind of a kick in the junk that Xander Bogaerts got hurt as he’s been red hot absolutely crushing the ball. But this team looks real good so far. I’m not gonna get crazy after a bunch of W’s against teams like the Rays and the Marlins who are likely going to set baseball back 20 years in the state of Florida this season, but hey you play who’s on the schedule.

Meanwhile the Celtics and the Bruins, who both lost in uniquely painful ways, played back to back games at the Garden. Props to the crew thats responsible for flipping that arena from a basketball court into a hockey rink in like 2 hours. The C’s blew a game to the Hawks that they should have won, but this team is fighting tooth and nail with bench players as we head into the playoffs.

Once the C’s wrapped up the Bruins were going against the Panthers and just need a W to clinch first place in the East. Now they obviously lost following a listless effort from the team, but the buzz around the city was palpable on Sunday.

AND to top it all off it was Rene Night with the Bruins honoring the legendary National Anthem singer who is retiring after 42 years with the team. I was at the game last night and let me tell ya, the crowd was Fired. Up. about Rene. I think possibly more so than they were for the actual game. The Bruins also really dug deep with the giveaways, completely mailing it in by giving away Rene Christmas Ornaments (in April) that were from 2010 to random rows of fans.

There were sports on TV basically from the time you got out of bed until the time you went to sleep. You don’t get that very often, but Christmas came early yesterday.

Celtics Shutting Down Kyrie Irving for the Rest of the Season

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ESPN – In the aftermath of left knee surgery, All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics will miss the rest of the regular season and playoffs, league sources told ESPN. The Celtics are expected to make an announcement soon, sources said. The Celtics and Irving are evaluating further medical options to treat his left knee, sources said.

Well, shit. For a season that was once so promising with the shiny new additions of Kyrie and Gordon Hayward, its only fitting that it ends with yet another injury. This team has been a MASH unit all year long. Just the other night they had their top FOUR point guards out. Hell Jayson Tatum has been running the point the past few games.

A few months back I couldn’t believe the Cavs would deal Kyrie for a package that featured an injured Isaiah Thomas. Well, it seems like Kyrie’s knee has been a ticking time bomb that Danny has fully admitted he knew about before making the deal. So this season is a wash as both IT and Kyrie will end the year on the DL.

Its a real goddamn bummer too because even without Hayward the Celtics looked poised to finally get over the hump in Cleveland to earn their right as sacrificial lamb for slaughter by the Warriors in the Finals. But that right has been taken away from us. Unless Scary Terry averages 30 a night in the playoffs, I don’t see a team of Al Horford, Shane Larkin and a couple of 19 and 20 year olds making a serious run in the playoffs.

So the next truly meaningful Celtics game won’t take place until October. Um, we hope. A friend of mine immediately challenged that notion asking do we really think Kyrie will be ready by October. He’s right, we have no idea. What was originally knee discomfort that was supposed to be helped by rest alone. The Celtics went out of their way to say that Kyrie’s knee was “structurally sound” whatever that means looking back.

That turned into a surgery to just remove a wire to alleviate said discomfort and Kyrie was expected back in the playoffs.

Now he’s being shut down out of nowhere, which means the discomfort hasn’t gone away and an even bigger surgery is a distinct possibility. Long term, if Kyrie is back halfway through next season and everyone is healthy for the playoffs next year then thats fine I suppose. But next year is also the last year of Kyrie’s contract and the Celtics will now have to make the decision of whether or not to offer a max contract (they have to) to a guy with less than 2 full seasons played in Boston due to injury. Not ideal.

This is an incredibly fragile fulcrum point for the next chapter of the Boston Celtics franchise. If Kyrie comes back next year and is back to near full health, Hayward is the desperately needed 2nd All-Star and No. 2 scoring option for the C’s, and Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum continue to develop then the C’s are in prime position to make a run at a title or two.

Or Kyrie’s knee continues to be chewed up dog food and the Celtics are banking on Hayward and a suddenly 32-year-old Al Horford with Brown, Tatum, and Rozier rounding out the roster. Thats a solid 4 seed. Thats not a championship winning team. That puts the Celtics right back into no-mans land and has them considering grinding it out and hoping Brown or Tatum improve enough to be THE guy and lead a veteran team backed by Horford and Tatum. Unlikely. Or they push the last of their chips into the table and take a home run cut on a mega deal for a guy like Anthony Davis or Kahwi Leonard.
Either way, April 5th, 2018 will be a clear line of demarcation to look back on and see that was the day when the Celtics went one of two ways.

UPDATE: Kyrie is getting surgery and will be out 4-5 months. That would put him back on track for the start of next season, but we’ll see.