Tag: Ante Zizic

Celtics Eat a Bag of Dicks in Game 3, Lose by 30

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Well that was less than ideal. The Celtics never lead once in Game 3 and lost to the Cavs in an absolute blowout, 116-86. From the jump the Cavs were the hungrier team, the Celtics looked slow and sloppy with 15 turnovers and they got absolutely worked on the glass with the Cavs crushing them in rebounds 45-34. Cleveland was just more engaged and aggressive on defense and of course shooting 50% from behind the arc helps.

Kyle Korver went 4-4 from 3, JR Smith went 3-4, and LeBron went 3-3 himself. Thats a lot of firepower raining down on the C’s from deep. The Cavs were obviously a 3 point heavy team in the regular season, but it was a stark contrast from the first two games when the Cavs shot 32% and 15% respectively from deep.

Cleveland also stopped relying entirely on LeBron to bail them out. Something I pointed out in Game 2 was how the Celtics had several players in double figures while the Cavs had just 3 (barely). Well in Game 3 the Cavs had SIX players in double digits and the Celtics looked like a high school team.

With that being said LeBron was still incredible with a “quiet” 27 and 12 and was making plays like *this*

Jaylen Brown came crashing back to earth with 10 points after being the Celtics best player the first two games of the series. Marcus Morris was 2/8 from the field for 9 points and was a dreadful -28 on the night. The bad Marcus Smart reared its ugly head after getting his tires pumped up by everyone in Boston for the past week and a half for doing all the little things. In Game 3 he jacked up 4 three pointers and made exactly none of them.

As soon as you saw Guerschon Yabusele enter the game with 4 minutes to go in the first though, you knew it was gonna be a bad night. If the Dancing Bear is in that early you’ve already lost.

Celtics are 1-5 on the road in the playoffs now.

I’ll take the crab juice.*

Al Horford took FOUR fucking shots all night.

Its like everyone ragged on Al all season long for being too passive, for not shooting enough, then he cranked it up in the playoffs and looked like a legit stud. Then in Game 3 he took his foot off the gas and somehow the whole game went to hell. Thats not Tristan Thompson being a Horford antidote; thats Al slipping back into the average monicker.

Everyone on the Celtics took their foot off the gas on Saturday night and I guess thats the danger of such a young team, which shouldn’t really be a surprise. But for god sakes LeBron James is Jason Voorhees; do not let him up off the mat. He’s not dead until he’s dead. If this series comes back to Boston tied 2-2 I will not sleep well.

Home cooking was a factor as well with Jaylen Brown having four fouls before the fans were back from getting beers at halftime. His fifth foul was a disaster of a defensive effort and well deserved, but it was interesting to note that Boston’s clear cut best player in Games 1-2 is immediately chucked into foul trouble in the first road game of the series.

Silver lining of the night was former Celtic (draft pick) Ante Zizic chucking one off the back of the goddamn backboard. I legitimately laughed out loud despite the 30 point shellacking.

Uncle Drew still looks like possibly the worst movie of all time and Kyrie Irving isn’t even able to blind us to that fact with his play on the court.

I honestly think Mark Jackson might strangle the life out of Jeff Van Gundy before this series is over. These guys legitimately do not like each other and with a 30 point blowout there was plenty of time for these two to subtweet each other live on TV in front of America.

Game 4 will be a pivotal point in the series as the Celtics will either snap out of it and be one step away from offing LeBron or the series will go back to Boston tied and I will be more nauseous than a pregnant woman. Game 4 tips off Monday night at 8:30, see ya there.

*If you get that reference then you and I are now good friends.

Danny Ainge Should Tell the Cavs to Piss Up a Rope if They Asked for Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Look, I never wanted to trade Isaiah; thats my guy. But, the Celtics have burned that bridge to the ground so going back isn’t really an option now. And the Cavs know it. According to several reports yesterday, the Cavs are now looking for a pot sweetener to complete the IT deal as concerns about his hip linger.

Hell, Kyrie was already disgruntled in Cleveland and asking to be traded. So if the trade doesn’t go through it doesn’t really affect the Cavs any more than it would have two weeks ago. But the Cavs made this deal KNOWING Isaiah had a hip injury. He suffered that exact injury playing against you for christs sake. So I find it pretty hard to believe that Danny Ainge was playing the role of snake oil salesman about how much healthier IT is or is not.

Especially for such a widely publicized injury. It happened in the Eastern Conference Finals. So I think the Cavs are purely posturing and just trying to hold Danny’s nuts to the fire and squeeze out some additional assets.

Except reports came out that they were asking for Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum ON TOP of everything else the C’s gave them, including the Brooklyn lottery pick. There’s only one reply for such an outrageous request.

I mean you’ve got the Celtics already selling Kyrie Irving jerseys, you’ve got Jae Crowder working out in Cavs shirts, there’s no going back on this deal now.

But, to reiterate my point and to borrow a GIF from one of Big Z’s recent blog posts, this needs to be Danny on the phone with Cleveland.

However, now there are conflicting reports the Cavs never made such a request. Who the hell knows. Get in there and clean this shit up Woj. Either way, if I’m Danny I tell the Cavs you’ll get nothing and you’ll like it. That or a second round pick.

Celtics Sign the Viking Known as Aron Baynes

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Tormund Motherfucking Giantsbane! I am all in on this move. A big man with an undercut and a massive red beard? Sign me up.

In case anyone was unclear, I just want to repeat that the Celtics now have a goddamn viking on the team.

Okay now that we’re clear on that, lets get down to the details. Baynes is a 6’10” center and the Celtics are a team in desperate need of someone who can bang the boards. ESPN compiled these stats in their story on the signing. Baynes isn’t much of a scorer, as he only averaged 4.9 points last year, but he did grab 4.4 rebounds in only 15.5 minutes per game last year. Not to mention the guy “grabbed 21.6 percent of all defensive caroms when he was on the floor last season.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty damn good to me.

Detroit averaged a defensive rating of 105.3 last season, which dropped to 98.5 with Baynes on the court, which is huuge. And according to ESPN his overall rebound rate last year was 15.8. The best the Celtics had last year was 13.1 from Kelly Olynyk. And for anyone who watched even a handful of Celtics games last year you know that Olynyk SUCKS on the boards. If Kelly Olynyk can get Pat Riley to pay him $50 fucking million dollars then I can be president. So any upgrade there is money in the bank.

While it may be a bit of a ragtag crew, the Celtics now have Aron the viking, second year big man Ante Zizic and the Daniel Wall himself, Daniel Theis signed out of Germany. Not to mention the Dancing Bear, second year Guerschon Yabusele if the C’s can fit him under the cap and squeeze him on the roster.

Not a ton of star power there, but when you consider who they are replacing (Olynyk and Amir Johnson) there’s nowhere to go but up.

 

Gordon Hayward Joins the Celtics and #WycFireworks are ON!

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Holy hell what a start to Free Agency. Blake Griffin as a potential Celtics target was already off the table before I even had a buzz on Friday night. And then the Pacers flipped out and dealt Paul George to the Thunder for peanuts. So before I went to bed on Friday night I was already rattled and blogging in a panic as the Celtics had firmly placed all of their eggs in the Gordon Hayward basket. If Danny didn’t land Hayward then the Celtics were basically smoked.

Then comes the 4th of July and its reported that Hayward is a Celtic! Wait, nope actually Hayward hadn’t signed with anyone yet!

Was he having second thoughts about leaving Utah? Was he pissed off the news leaked before he could talk with the Jazz? Did that fucking snake Pat Riley swoop in and steal Hayward at the 11th hour? Nah, turns out he was just checking his Players Tribune article for AP style and hadn’t hit publish yet.

Burn those #20 jerseys Jazz fans because ya boy is officially shipping up to Boston.

Isaiah Thomas. Al Horford. Gordon Hayward. Avery Bradley/Marcus Smart. Ante Zizic (?)
Is that a team that can beat the Golden State Warriors? Probably not. Is that a team that can beat LeBron and his suddenly on the verge of imploding Cavs? Definitely. And thats all you can ask for. Lets get to the fucking Finals and cross that Warriors bridge when we get there. The fact that Danny has landed two legitimate All-Star max contract players in back to back offseasons without having to trade any of our top picks is a fucking feat and he should be commended for it.

BUT, as the Wolf once famously put it:


As Felger likes to say, this team may very well be the Bridgies, the team that gets you to the team that wins a title when all your young guys grow up. And that may be true, but I’d much rather have a Bridgies team thats going to the Finals and competing for titles WHILE YOU’RE STILL GETTING BETTER AND STILL BUILDING. The future is bright in Boston. The future is bright and it is green. #WycFireworks for everyone.

PS – All of this excitement was dampened a bit because we had to say goodbye to the one and only Kelly “Maple Jordan” Olynyk. C’s had to renounce his rights to make cap space. Don’t cry because its over, smile because it happened.