Tag: Jaylen Brown

The Celtics Affinity for Blowing Games Continues as They Blow Game 6 and Blow the Series

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In a weird, pandemic interrupted season that stretched 11 months and 27 days the Celtics went from an unmitigated disaster last summer watching two max contract players leave for nothing to landing Kemba Walker and going on a run to the Eastern Conference Finals. Despite all the missed opportunities that arose once the NBA season resumed, the Celtics accomplished what so few teams ever can; rebuilding on the fly. As Kemba said in his post-game press conference last night, “This is our first year together, we are going to have some time to grow.” He’s not wrong.

Now that the back patting is over, lets take a look at the epic choke job the Celtics completed last night. For whatever reason this team struggled mightily when it came to neck stepping time. Whether they’re too young, lack a killer instinct, or just don’t have a defined closer on the team, whatever it was, this team struggled to finish games. We saw it in the Raptors series that they were lucky to escape in 7 and it carried over to the Eastern Conference Finals where the Celtics blew late leads in Games 1 and 2. The latter of which led to an all-time dysfunctional locker room blowout before winning Game 3, dropping Game 4, and winning Game 5 to force a 6th and decisive game. It looked like Boston’s talent was going to do what it had in the previous round, overwhelm their gritty opponent. They even forced the Heat to go away from their vaunted zone defense as the Celtics finally figured out a consistent way to penetrate and disrupt.

However, when it came to crunch time the Celtics once again WITHERED. The Celtics defense imploded as the Heat scored at will.

BRobb also tweeted out the Celtics’ clutch stats (idk ask BRobb for the definition of that one) and they’re just as bad as you’d expect.

With 9 minutes to go in the game and Boston up by six, the Heat went on a 26-6 run to officially stomp them out. Even worse was their absolutely moronic, panic stricken shot selection down the stretch.

Where the hell is Brad Stevens during all that? The Heat went on something like a 19-6 run before he decided to call a timeout with 4:30 remaining. By that point though it was too late and too big of a hole and then the C’s really were forced to start jacking up 3’s.

One of my biggest complaints, but it’s probably more about the league in general than the Celtics specifically, is there insistence on chucking threes even when they’re clearly not falling. Boston went 15-46 (32.6%) from 3 for the game, 4-22 from 3 in the 2nd half, and an atrocious 2-14 in the 4th. In the 4th the Celtics shot 37% from the field including 14.3% from 3. Meanwhile the Heat shot 66.7% from the field while only taking 3 three pointers in the 4th and nailing them all. For the game the Heat went 13-27 from 3 for a 48.1% clip, nearly 16% better than the C’s.

The Celtics never had an answer for Bam Adebayo all night. Daniel Theis fouled out again while getting worked by the “point center” and rookie Grant Williams probably did the best job covering the big man, but Bam was just on another level dropping 32 and 14.

I also want to point out that while I respect Jimmy Butler’s MJ-esque toxic competitive streak, I also would have been fully on board with Jaylen Brown getting ejected for knocking him out after that dirty play under the hoop.

No foul was called because the NBA officiating is hilariously inconsistent, but don’t let that fool you. This was a dirty, dangerous play and could have seriously injured Brown. Don’t be surprised if these two get into a scuffle down the line because I guarantee Brown will not forget about that play.

So where do the Celtics go from here? This is definitely a team at a crossroads with no clear path to improvement. Bench scoring is obviously a need, they need more defined roles, but more than anything the Celtics need to add some veteran grit and balls. Every great team has veteran players and character guys that can consistently get buckets and/or act as a mentor to younger teammates. Think Eddie House, James Posey, Sam Cassell, and PJ Brown on the ’08 Celtics. They need to add some grit to their bench rather than filling it with all their mediocre draft picks from the last 3 years who can’t create offense. Danny Ainge has created the greatest G League team ever assembled with all those draft picks, but that has not translated to consistent productive NBA players outside of Smart, Tatum, and Brown. Three core players no doubt, but the C’s have failed to develop much in the way of bench talent. That is only made more glaring when the C’s are getting lit up by rookies like Tyler Herro in Miami, who the C’s apparently loved pre-draft.

Grit seems to be the main thing they lacked this postseason as the Celtics routinely blew late leads only to get bailed out by the skin of their teeth on talent alone. Well that string of luck came to a swift end last night as the Heat showed them what a team with a lead is supposed to do. It steps on your neck and closes it out.

So do the Celtics looks to reconfigure their roster or just hope the deep playoff run provides valuable experience? Felger and Mazz producer Jimmy Stewart was floating rumors of a potential Marcus Smart trade last week if the C’s got bounced.

I think Tatum is completely untouchable at this point as he should be. He definitely needs some more seasoning to his game (stop routinely settling for fadeaway threes) and generally has some maturing to do, but you don’t trade elite talent for no reason.

Other than that they could move Jaylen Brown but I just cannot get on board with trading him or Smart. That would be a MASSIVE “addition by subtraction” gamble that I would not be willing to take and I dont think Danny Ainge would either.

There was speculation that the team lacked clearly defined roles and too many guys thought it was their team. Theres only one basketball and if everyone wants to play hero ball and take the last shot then you’re going to run into trouble.

It’s not a hot take but I think their best bet is to hope yet another brutal postseason exit helps their young core build the testicular fortitude required to make the jump next year. I keep thinking of that scene from “The Last Dance” documentary where Michael Jordan details how he got his brains beat in by the Celtics and Pistons for years before finally getting over the hump. Even with 6 rings on his fingers, Jordan admitted those early struggles were necessary to give him the experience and the drive to finally break through.

The most unfortunate part though is this was the easiest path to the Finals the Celtics were going to have any time soon with a depleted/dysfunctional Philly team, Giannis getting knocked out early, no Kawhi or LeBron in the East, oh ya and the Nets will be rolling out Kyrie and Kevin Fucking Durant next season. So while I want to preach patience, I can understand if Celtics brass doesn’t feel the same way.

We don’t even know when the next NBA season will begin thanks to the COVID interruption. Training camps for next season would have normally started around now, but Adam Silver has hinted at a Christmas or even January start for the 2020-21 season. Until then we’ll have plenty of missed opportunities to regret as we watch LeBron James inevitably win another title. Hopefully this Celtics team uses that as motivation and comes back ready to take over the East and finally, legitimately threaten for the Larry O’Brien trophy next year.

Celtics Blow Another Game and Are Now One Loss Away from Elimination

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And just like that the Boston Celtics are one game away from elimination in the Eastern Conference Finals. One more underwhelming performance and the Celtics will be on the wrong end of a gentleman’s sweep. It’s infuriating to watch because before Game 4 the Celtics led for the large majority of minutes played only to blow leads late. Game 4 itself was just a sloppy game for Boston all around despite the near miracle comeback in the closing seconds.

Jayson Tatum was AWFUL in the first half going 0-6 including four three pointers to go into the half with zero points, which was the first time he’s done that all season. He must have found a bottle of Michael Jordan’s Secret Stuff from Space Jam in the locker room though as he dropped 28 points in the final 24 minutes of the game.

His explosion in the second half just made Tatum’s first half struggles look even worse by comparison though. He is arguably the most talented player in this series and he was constantly dribbling out the shot clock and settling for shitty fadeaway threes. So much so that the studio analysts at halftime wondered aloud if he was injured. Why is a 6’8″ career 83% free throw shooter not attacking the rim if his shot isn’t falling? That is something that Tatum needs to understand better if he is going to take the next jump to superstardom.

This team still struggles mightily against the zone defense that my high school team used to play. Marcus Smart seemed to be the only player capable of driving and effectively kicking the ball out to shooters. It was something that Van Gundy pointed out during the game as Smart was the only player that was looking at the rim as he drives before kicking it out. Otherwise the defenders are just waiting for the outlet pass. The Celtics have been rendered completely helpless against the most basic defense for long stretches of this series. The broadcast team even suggested this may be the longest a team has ever stuck with a zone defense in any playoff series ever. Ay caramba.

If not for Gordon Hayward this team would have already been en route to their offseason vacations. While he didn’t light up the stat sheet in Game 3 he was a tangible force moving the ball and making a couple clutch shots. In Game 4 he was much more comfortable shooting the ball as he finished with 14 points. Hayward is the only player the Celtics can bring off the bench to consistently get buckets at this point, which is killing them. The rest of the bench had 8 combined points on Wednesday night. In Game 3 the bench scored a combined 11 points outside of Hayward, a respectable 16 (9 from Kanter) in Game 2, and 18 in Game 1 with 11 from Brad Wanamaker.

Tyler Herro is a goddamn baller, plain and simple. To be honest, we probably should have expected this dude to become an assassin based solely on his Draft Night fit.

Allegedly Danny Ainge was set to take the Kentucky shooter at No. 14 in last year’s draft before Pat Riley snatched him up right before the Celtics at No. 13 overall. I don’t know if I believe that as Danny tends to draft project athletes with high ceilings more than shooters, but goddamnit has Herro made it hurt to watch what could have been. He absolutely crushed the Celtics in Game 4 with a cool 37 points and was generally unstoppable with a clean look.

Marcus Smart continues to be the ultimate enigma making incredible and boneheaded plays within seconds of each other. Like when he laid out onto the floor to knock a loose ball to Jaylen Brown, who was then fouled. The Celtics then inbounds the ball at half court and Smart gets the ball only to immediately lose his handle and turn the ball over.

The No. 1 most hated play of the night goes to the C’s doubling the ball handler late in the 4th and leaving Goran Dragic wide fucking open for a 3 on a night where he scored 22 points. And you could see on the replay that Smart thought Jaylen Brown was going to rotate and cover the shooter as he was visibly upset and clapping at the young forward.

The officiating was generally awful both ways, but hey Tony Brothers was on the court so did we expect anything less? I also don’t get the Hayward foul call on this three pointer from Goran. I know he is technically “in the shooter’s space” but jesus christ what’s he supposed to do there?

The final play of the game was also a disaster. Down 3 with 1 second remaining the Celtics were out of timeouts so it was kind of a fire drill hail mary play, but I still hated what they came up with. Needing a TB12-esque picture perfect throw the Celtics opt for center Daniel Theis to make the inbounds pass. I understand Theis isn’t really a 3 point threat there, but he’s also the worst passer on the floor being asked to make a pinpoint cross court pass with 1 second remaining. Not surprisingly he heaved one into traffic that never had a chance.

Is Bam Adebayo hurt? He was holding his wrist constantly in the last few minutes of the game after a collision with I believe Jaylen Brown under the hoop. He stayed in the game, but even the broadcast made note of how he was constantly waiving off the athletic trainers despite being in obvious pain. If Adebayo is injured that would be a huge factor in a do or die Game 5 as the Celtics have had no answers for the big man.

Unrelated Thoughts:

Iggy got OLD

Shoutout to me for this elite t-shirt from 2010

So the Celtics have an off night before Game 5 on Friday night to consider whether they have the fortitude required to push this series to the brink. They’ll need to win three straight against a Heat team that has been tough to beat when it comes to neck stepping time in the 4th quarter. If the Celtics bow out in five it would be a huge letdown, especially in a season where the path was seemingly cleared for them to reach the Finals. No Giannis, no Kawhi or LeBron in the East, just a scrappy Heat team led by a guy in Jimmy Butler that is on his fourth team in four years. After some serious collapses down the stretch and the much publicized blowout in the locker room after Game 2, if this team doesn’t make a series out of this I would not be surprised to see Danny make some tough decisions with the construction of this roster.

Until the final buzzer sounds though I’ll hold out hope just because we’ve seen crazier things happen. In times like this I like to think back to that infamous Kevin Millar quote back in 2004. “Don’t let us win today.”

Celtics Fail to Close Out the Raptors and the Refs as They Force a Game 7

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The Celtics fell to Toronto 125-122 in a double OT nail biter Thursday night that ESPN deemed an instant classic, but it seemed like more than just the Raptors were going against them.

Despite holding the Raptors scoreless over the final 4:23 of regulation, Boston still couldn’t escape with the win.

I’m not going to put this loss entirely on the refs because Kyle Lowry played out of his mind with 33 points, including the go ahead bucket in double OT, and Kemba Walker was a no show with 5 points on the night. The refs were garbage, but I need to reiterate once more; Kyle Lowry BALLED OUT last night.

The Celtics were a mixed bag around Kemba’s atrocious offensive performance. Jaylen Brown was unstoppable in the first half with 21 points, but cooled off to finish with 31 (on 30 freakin shots) He did dominate the boards with 16 rebounds though. Despite finishing with 29 points, Jayson Tatum was largely inefficient going 9-21 from the field. Marcus Smart quietly went off for a triple double (23 pts, 11 rebounds, 10 assists) including SIX three pointers. The man is an enigma and the C’s would be lost without his energy, his balls to take 3’s he has no business making, oh and his NBA First Team Defense

Granted he is a bad, bad man with the ball in his hands, but Lowry was flopping all over the place last night. I do find it interesting how the national broadcast describes it as Lowry “selling” fouls whereas Marcus Smart is just a flopper.

Lowry nearly killed Jaylen Brown under the hoop too. Credit to Brown for not getting up and slugging Lowry right here. This easily could have been a technical because this is how dudes get seriously injured.

Now I feel like we are always questioning or complaining about the referees in these games, but the numbers speak for themselves.

It just undermines your confidence in the game because the NBA always seems to find a way to extend a series in the interest of more compelling storylines.

Speaking of the garbage ass refs, there were a host of questionable calls down the stretch that saved the Raptors time and time again.

The War on Theis seemed to finally come to an end as he was rewarded with a foul call….but then Toronto challenged the call and won.

Kemba not getting a foul as he got hacked going for a layup at the end of regulation was criminal too. I could only find the video from a dude in Colombia, but this guy is obviously pretty pissed off too.

This non-call blew my mind as Nick Nurse was just about on the court and calling for the goddamn corner 3.

That could have easily been a tech. Jaylen Brown was especially unhappy with Nurse after the game saying “Grown men should be able to control themselves. Especially the coaching staff.”

But thats enough acting like someone pissed in my Cheerios as the Celtics need to shake it off and get ready for war in Game 7. Luckily we’re in the Bubble so the C’s don’t need to travel to Jurassic Park for a do or die game, but this is probably the biggest game in a lot of these guys’ careers. Brown and Tatum weren’t expected to topple LeBron James in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2018, Brad Stevens wasn’t expected to reach the Finals with a bunch of young guys and Al Horford, and Kemba Walker wasn’t expected to do much with that sorry Charlotte team. But they sure are expected to win this series and they will never hear the end of it if they lose tomorrow.

This will be a massive missed opportunity if they lose Game 7 with a path to the Finals cleared for them. With the Bucks getting knocked out early, the Celtics just need to take care of business Friday and then “all” they have to do is beat Jimmy Butler to reach the NBA Finals.

Time to get ready for war.

The Process Ends Today

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, today is the today The Process finally ends, and how sweet it is to be the team that does it. The Sixers were always going to have a hard time beating the Celtics once Simmons went down for the year, but there was a glimmer of hope after Game 1 when Hayward got hurt. However, whatever light was left on their season was thoroughly stamped out by the drubbing in Game 2 and the lackluster finish in Game 3.

Just in case you didn’t watch, the Sixers were actually up 94-92 with under two minutes to play. But then they blew it. Embiid forced a terrible pass that was stolen by Smart, then got stuffed by Tatum, who then went on to block Richardson the next time down the court. The C’s finished on a 10-0 run to win 102-94. And that, my friends, is the end of the Philadelphia 76ers as we know them.

Yesterday afternoon, news broke that the Sixers, down 0-3 in the series, actually CANCELLED PRACTICE the day before Game 4. If that’s not throwing in the towel, I don’t know what is.

Image
“Get me TF outta here.” – Joel Embiid, probably.

As much as Embiid seems to fade in the fourth quarter, obviously you can’t blame this on him. As Scal said, Brett Brown should already have sold his house and started looking for a new job, but I don’t think it’s his fault either. The fault lies solely in the hands of Elton Brand.

Tobias Harris, Joel Embiid, Al Horford, Sixers, Celtics
Even in this picture Embiid looks tired from carrying these stiffs.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that Simmons and Embiid are a great core to build around. Beyond that, you need shooters. How easy is it for the Celtics to double team Embiid and just let mooks like Furkan Korkmaz and Alec Burks chuck bricks. You need real shooters around Embiid. Shake Milton and Josh Richardson are solid bench players, but that’s all they are. The real question is, why pay Tobias Harris more than any other Sixer ever with a $180 million max contract, and then pay Al Horford another $109 mil for 4 years on top of that? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??

Nearly $300 million on Harris and Horford has resulted in a combined 19.6 PPG, 17.3 RPG (fine), 6.7 APG, 1 steal and 1.6 blocks per game. They have hit exactly 0 threes in 13 attempts and have shot 34.9% from the field and 71.4% from the line. To put those numbers in perspective, Joel Embiid is averaging 30 and 13. It’s absolutely mind boggling that Brand thought JJ Redick and Jimmy Butler could be replaced with this kind of production. Sixers fans are crying themselves to sleep thinking about how they drafted Markelle Fultz over Jayson Tatum.

What the Sixers need to do is start by firing Brand and Brett Brown. Some people think Embiid will be traded, or even demand a trade, but I think that would be a bad move. Those two aren’t the problem. They need to get rid of the garbage contracts and add wing players who can shoot and play defense. DeMar Derozan, Marcus Morris, Evan Fournier, Goran Dragic, and Jordan Clarkson would all be good fits, assuming they can afford any of them. But they probably won’t, so us Celtics fans will continue to laugh, flaunt Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and bury them once again.

The Celtics Are Back! Their Jumpshots? Still on the Way

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Okay, so maybe the C’s didn’t get the W we were all hoping for. To be honest, if you had to pick one game the Celtics were likely to lose out of the seeding games, this was clearly the one. Yes the Bucks were without Eric Bledsoe and Pat Connaughton, but it’s not all bad. As a matter of fact, I feel pretty good about the first game back. Here’s why:

The Bucks are a great team. There’s no denying that. On the surface they don’t appear to be much more than Giannis throwing down Stretch Armstrong dunks and Kris Middleton chucking 3’s, but they are. They have great depth, plenty of shooters, they protect the rim (how many times did Tatum get stuffed at the rim? 4? 5?), and they get out fast in transition. But, despite all of that, Kemba’s minute restriction and Jayson Tatum playing the worst game of his professional career, this game was tied with 90 seconds to go. And I’m good with that.

Bearing that in mind, here are my takeaways from the game. I’ll start with the things I liked:

-Mike Breen saying BANG!
-Jaylen being aggressive. I always love to see JB attacking the paint. He didn’t shoot the ball well, but he got to the line 9 times, hitting 7.
-Going off that, the whole team did a good job of getting to the Free Throw line, something Celtics teams of the past have struggled at. Smart shot 8 FT’s, and the team as a whole went 27-34. That may be an off night for James Harden, but it’s good for the green.
-Marcus being Marcus. Whether he’s flopping, knocking down 3’s that make me say “don’t shoot!”, or turning defense into offense, I love it all. If I had to put money on one Celtics player not missing a beat, it would be Marcus Smart. The guy is an animal and I love it.
-Gordon Hayward doing a bit of everything. Gordon got off to a slow start in the first half, but he finished with 17 points, 9 boards and 6 assists. The Celtics are at their best when he contributes in every facet of the game and quietly fills the stat sheet. He did that last night.
-Kemba looked unimpeded in limited minutes. His burst was there, he hit three 3’s, got to the line, and made a few nice passes. Brad has indicated that he will increase his minutes tonight, so I look forward to that.

-Not a Celtic, but Sideshow Rob-in Lopez. Man, I wish this guy was a Celtic. His game is ugly, but he’s entertaining to watch. The way he moves makes me think of some weirdly athletic combination of Sideshow Bob and Jason Segel. He knocks down 3’s with his feet together, hits post moves with arms rotating like helicopter blades, and mean mugs the entire time he’s doing it. Hilarious.

There was a lot not to like as well, with these two plays being the most obvious. Now, I have to agree with the Bucks that the second play was a block. Smart was there before contact, but he was still moving out of the restricted section when Giannis rose into his shot. That’s why it was called a block.

In my opinion, that play never should have happened because he punched Theis in the kidney a minute earlier. Wanamaker had a foul for less contact on a screen earlier in the quarter and he got called, so it’s not hard to believe the refs simply didn’t want to foul out Giannis. A minute after the first no call the block happens, the Bucks go up 3 with 90 seconds left, and that’s the game.

NBA Meme Team on Twitter: "Anybody notice that Mark Jackson says this in just about every post-game interview? http://t.co/y9ASh7Rxb1"

Some other things I didn’t like:

-Mark Jackson.
-Fouling jump shooters. I think this was a product of being rusty because both teams did this early and got better as the game progressed, but please stop.
-Everything about Jayson Tatum’s game. Yikes. He SUCKED. The stat sheet says he went 2-18, but that’s generous considering the first basket should actually have been credited to the Bucks when two players failed to make a rebound and knocked it in themselves. That means Tatum actually shot 1-17 (a solid 5.8%), was a team worst -13 and made one of the dumbest defensive gambles in that unnecessary reach that led to the play above. DO NOT REACH ON GIANNIS WHEN HE’S 5 FEET BEHIND THE ARC!

To reiterate what I said at the start of this post, I’m fine with the way things went. Sometimes you get calls, sometimes you don’t. The Bucks are good and this wasn’t a playoff game, so I’m not worried about it. Tatum and the rest of the team have 7 more games to find their shots, hopefully starting with the Blazers tonight. Until then, go green!

Jayson Tatum Has Officially Made His First NBA All-Star Team

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Boston.com – Celtics forward Jayson Tatum will join teammate Kemba Walker in the 2020 NBA All-Star Game next month in Chicago.

“I am extremely blessed and grateful,” Tatum said in a statement released by the team. “Third year to make the All-Star team it is a surreal feeling. I’m just very excited and it is a dream come true.” Tatum will be one of seven reserves representing the Eastern Conference, joining Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler also of the Heat, Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers, Khris Middleton of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Domantas Sabonis of the Indiana Pacers.

I have been sky high on Jayson Tatum for a long time, which is not exactly a hot take for a No. 3 overall pick, but I do expect big things for the young man. If you were able to take a look at the most frequently used words on my twitter account, “Tatum” has to be up there.

For the last two and a half years I’ve been predicting that one day Tatum will be First Team All-NBA so being named to the All-Star team in year 3 is a great first step.

Some people are saying that Jaylen Brown should have made the team over Tatum as he has a better FG% and 3 point %. Although Tatum has a higher efficiency rating and is averaging more points, rebounds, and assists per game than Brown. So both were deserving, but I think Tatum should get the nod.

Tatum is the youngest All-Star the C’s have had since Antoine Walker and while he might not have a signature dance move (yet), Tatum has the potential to be the best homegrown player since Paul Pierce.

Now on to my favorite Tatum content on the internet.

The Gamblers Guide to Betting on the Celtics and the Atlantic Division This Year

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So we’re two weeks into the 2019-20 NBA season and the Celtics are a solid 4-1 with wins over the Knicks (twice), the Raptors, and an incredible comeback win over the Bucks. Their only loss came on opening night to the Sixers, made worse by the sight of Al Horford in a Philly jersey. The Celtics look like they’ll be a pretty good team made better possibly with addition by subtraction. Kemba Walker looks like a match made in heaven as a guy who can drop 30 a night, yet is more than happy to pass up a last shot to blossoming superstars like Jayson Tatum.

What made that Tatum game winner even better was that it was the exact same play that the Celtics ran in Orlando last year leading to Kyrie throwing a fit on the court for not getting the ball. Oh and Kyrie continues to be an absolute PILL in New Jersey, memorialized by Jackie MacMullan’s great piece last week. Enjoy the ride, Nets fans.

Now for the most important part: the gambling.  Its a little early to overreact one way or the other and the Celtics’ unlikely come from behind double digit win over the Bucks probably skews things a little bit. But pick your spots with this C’s team and you could make some decent cash as they continue to surprise people.

  • Philadelphia 76ers
    • ESPN Projected Finish: 57-27, 2nd in the East
    • Key Storylines: Addition of Al Horford, Finally Getting Over the Hump, Overcoming Lack of Depth
    • 5-0 Against the Spread

The Sixers took their biggest weakness last year, a lack of bench depth, and doubled down on it. They lost Jimmy Butler and JJ Reddick, but picked up big man Al Horford to pair with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. The Sixers have arguably the best starting 5 in the league, but the end of the bench is pretty barren yet again. With that being said they are 5-0 and the current No. 1 seed in the East so while they don’t have much margin for error, they are one of the most talented squads in the league.

  • Boston Celtics
    • ESPN Projected Finish: 48-34, 3rd in the East
    • Key Storylines: Loss of Kyrie Irving and Al Horford, Addition of Kemba Walker, Addition by Subtraction, Jayson Tatum the All-Star
    • 3-2 ATS

If the Celtics are going to go anywhere this year its going to largely be due to Jayson Tatum. Sure Kemba Walker is the latest max free agent in town and Jaylen Brown just got PAID, but this team needs Tatum to become an elite wing player this season if they want to do some damage. I’ve been predicting big things for Tatum despite a less than stellar second season. So far this season he looks excellent averaging 22 PPG while shooting 40% from the field, an impressive 48% from three and an abysmal 75% from the line. Along with Pascal Siakam, Tatum was voted by ESPN as the most likely player to make their first All-Star team in the East, both earning 68.2% of the votes. With Tatum and likely Kemba making the All-Star team, an improved Brown, a finally looking like a basketball player again Gordon Hayward, and All-World defense from Marcus Smart, this team could be in business. As we seem to say every year since KG and Perk left town, the Celtics will need someone to step up as a rim protector/rebounder/big man presence. Whether thats Enes Kanter, Daniel Theis or Robert Williams evolving into the role, the C’s will need someone to step up if they want to compete with the Sixers.

  • Brooklyn Nets
    • ESPN Projected Finish: 45-37, 5th in the East
    • Key Storylines: Addition of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, Kyrie Still a Pill
    • 2-4 ATS

This will be a much safer bet next season when Kevin Durant returns to the court, assuming he’s healthy, but in the meantime they will be a fun team to watch. Despite all his bizarre antics and issues with the media, Kyrie Irving remains one of the most electric one on one players in the league. While thats not necessarily the best path to winning a title, it definitely will steal the Nets some games they have no business winning.

  • Toronto Raptors
    • ESPN Projected Finish: 45-37, 6th in the East
    • Key Storylines: Defending Champs, Loss of Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, Growth of Pascal Siakam
    • 4-2 ATS

Man what a roller coaster ride 2019 has been for Drizzy Drake’s favorite squad. Sorry let me clarify, I meant Drake’s hometown team the Raptors not his other favorite squad the Golden State Warriors. Winning their first title behind a Herculean effort from Kawhi Leonard solidifying his spot as the best player in the NBA…to Kawhi walking away and now defending their title with Pascal Siakam and not much else. Siakam was voted by ESPN as the co-favorite to earn their first time All-Star bid in the East. Its hard to be mad as the defending champs, but they went from the favorites (especially with a rapidly imploding Warriors team) to a team that will be scrapping for a bottom half seed in the East this year.

  • New York Knicks
    • ESPN Projected Finish: 26-56, 13th in the East
    • Key Storylines: ….lottery picks and 2020 Free Agency?
    • 1-6 ATS

If you bet real, actual, American dollars on the New York Knicks then you are on your own. Sure Marcus Morris is great to watch when he’s on, but you are banking on the latest iteration of James Dolan’s madness here. Maybe if you get them in a parlay, but other than that I cannot advise gambling on this dumpster fire.

So to wrap it up, who has the best shot at winning the division? Lets not get ahead of ourselves and ask who’s going to take down LeBron and the Lakers or Kawhi and the Clippers in the Finals quite yet. As of late October, the Sixers had become -200 favorites to win the Atlantic, improving from -160 on opening night. The Celtics remained the second-favorite, but were well back at +420, only a shade ahead of the new-look Raptors at +490 with all odds via Sports Betting Dime. Expect those odds to be a little closer together when they’re updated next. Boston’s impressive 116-105 win over the 60-win Bucks made a statement that Brad Stevens’ team is going to be a tough out this year.

I LOVE the Celtics at +420 to win the division. Sure that means catching the Sixers and winning 50+ games, who ESPN has them finishing 9 games behind, but those are odds to bet on. The Sixers at -160 is almost even money and forget it if Embiid misses time with the annual injury or load management concerns. The Raptors feel pretty unlikely to leapfrog both Boston and Philly so I’m not sold on them, and I think this season is a holding pattern for Brooklyn and yet another rebuilding year for the Knicks. So slap down some cash on the Celtics and enjoy the ride.

Al Horford Says Celtics Weren’t “Going to Be Able to Coexist” With Kyrie Irving

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Boston Herald – As far as on the court, it’s certain Horford wasn’t interested in playing another hand from the same deck. I asked him if his decision would have been different if Irving had remained.

“I’m not sure that has anything to do with it for me,” Horford said. “I just think that if Kyrie would have stayed, I don’t know if it would have worked. There would have had to be some major changes as far as players, because it was just clear that the group that we had just wasn’t going to be able to coexist.”

And what about if he’d known Kemba Walker was coming. Horford paused.

“I don’t want to get caught up in the past,” he said, “but, yeah, that would have been totally different.”

Longtime Celtics writer Steve Bulpett caught up with old friend Al Horford and the big man had some interesting quotes on the dumpster fire that was the Celtics last year.

Horford reaffirmed what everyone has been saying for the past 6 months; this team just could not gel. Whether you want to blame that on Kyrie being a piss poor leader or on the young guys feeling themselves a bit too much is up to you, but the issue was real.

Kyrie is the guy that openly and bizarrely announced to the media that the Celtics needed a “15 year veteran” to help the team win. Maybe a Sam Cassell or Kendrick Perkins type at the end of the bench could have helped play the role of mentor/player-coach, but this group shouldn’t have needed that.

Lets just kill the Kemba/Horford talk right now too because of the way the NBA cap works in all its mysterious ways, it would have bene just about impossible for the Celtics to fit Kemba and Horford on the team. The only reason they were able to sign Kemba was *because* Kyrie and Horford left, not in spite of it. When one guy leaves it doesn’t automatically open up that salary space under the cap. Infuriating, yet true. The cap is not crap in this league.

The Celtic’s early playoff exit and subsequent gutting is all the more frustrating because of just how talented this team truly was last season.

“I just feel like we had so much talent, just a lot of talent, and we all wanted to do great things. There were just too many of us almost. I just feel like we had so much that it was very, very difficult to essentially keep everybody feeling good and focused on where we wanted to get to. And I do believe that that just kept getting in our way.”

You had 3 All-Stars in Kyrie/Horford/Hayward, a defensive POY candidate in Smart, a couple of future All-Stars in Tatum and Brown and a ton of excellent role players. Except Hayward was coming back from his injury and the ONLY way for him to get right was to play, which obviously took minutes away from Tatum and Brown. Sprinkle in the fact that Kyrie seemingly preferred to play with veterans because the young guys just didn’t “get it” or have the winning experience (despite Kyrie having a grand total of one title). Then you had guys like Terry Rozier and Marcus Morris in contract years playing hero ball trying to get paid. Plus you still had former first round picks like Robert Williams and Guerschon Yabusele trying to carve out roles. To top it all off was Brad Stevens who couldn’t get the team to buy in and Danny Ainge who refused to make any changes to the roster. Thats a recipe for a disaster in hindsight.

Appearing on Anna Horford’s podcast (yes, Al’s sister) Cedric Maxwell actually blames the Celtics more than Kyrie.

“I think the Celtics, for the most part, babied Kyrie too much,” Maxwell said. “When you baby a player for so many times and you’re kissing his ass the whole time, I think, for the most part he has no recourse.”

I mean, he’s not wrong, but still Kyrie is a grown ass man. This isn’t like blaming the parents for spoiling a 5 year old kid. Kyrie is a 27-year-old Duke graduate participant with eight seasons in the league.

Goddamnit what a waste of an opportunity. The Warriors were on their last legs, Giannis was a one man show, the Sixers weren’t deep enough, LeBron was broken down and in the West, and the C’s just could not get their shit together to make a run. Kawhi Leonard won the title almost singlehandedly in Toronto and I firmly believe a cohesive Celtics squad could have taken the Raptors. Unfortunately that team never figured it out and here we are.

The Celtics aren’t a favorite, a top 5 or even a top 10 pick to win it all in most polls this year because of the talent that left town. The C’s acted swiftly and made the best of a bad situation by bringing another elite talent in Kemba Walker to town, but now Boston goes back to being a plucky underdog rather than a pre-season juggernaut. Maybe thats for the best.

Team USA Better Assemble the Next Dream Team After This Disaster at the FIBA World Cup

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ESPN – The U.S. will leave the World Cup with its worst finish in a major international tournament, assured of finishing no better than seventh after falling to Serbia 94-89 in a consolation playoff game Thursday night.

The previous worst finish for a U.S. men’s team in 45 tournament appearances was sixth at the 2002 world championships. The Americans — the top-ranked team in the world — will be either seventh or eighth in China, depending on the outcome of their consolation finale Saturday.

Just a couple of days after getting bounced by France in the FIBA World Cup (Team USA’s first loss in 13 years, snapping a 58 game winning streak), they were officially embarrassed today, losing to Serbia in the consolation game. So no gold medal, no bronze medal, now not even a 5th place finish for the most disappointing Team USA in my lifetime.

I understand its just FIBA, I really shouldn’t care. Maybe I care more because half the team is made up of Celtics and it reflects poorly on my hometown team’s chances this season. Sure. Or maybe its just embarrassing for the US to send a team of kids and scrubs to represent the country before getting their teeth kicked in. This ain’t the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team.

This team was in trouble from the second that Turkey game ended last week and we all knew it.

I also get that its become more and more popular for NBA stars today to obsess over their bodies and to manage their workload. The NBA season is long and LeBron can’t lead Team USA every single year, but where was James Harden or Anthony Davis? Steph Curry? Kawhi Leonard? Russell Westbrook? Kyrie Irving? Paul George? Klay Thompson?

Even guys like Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Damian Lillard could’ve carried this team to gold. So its a tough spot to be in because the US is expected to win gold every single year, but we invented the damn game and have more than 90% of the best players in the world. I don’t think being the best is asking all that much.

USA Basketball better look at this as more than just a down year; its am embarrassment to the sport. I have enough embarrassment to go around from the US Mens Soccer Team, but at least they’re just not very good. The basketball team can and should dominate. So bring me the next Dream Team. Bring me an outrageous collection of talent and just run other teams out of the gym. Its time for the USA to re-establish its dominance on the hardwood.

How Team USA Could Save the Celtics

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Image result for celtics team usa

After what was an absolute tornado of a start to the NBA offseason, things have since settled down quite a bit. Most guys around The Association are now currently lounging out by their opulent backyard pool oases or living it up on some private Carribean island, getting as much R&R as possible before things start ramping up again in late September.

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Go ahead. Live it up for now, Bron Bron.

But for some – like the Celtics’ very own Kemba Walker, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum – there is no rest for the hungry. This past Monday marked the start of training camp for Team USA out in Las Vegas, and the aforementioned quartet make up just four of the 15 players vying for the final 12 spots on the roster that is set to play in the 2019 FIBA World Cup, which begins on August 31 in China. (The U.S. is scheduled to play its first contest on September 1 against the Czech Republic.)

While many of the league’s stars have already chosen to refrain from playing in the tournament in order to prevent injury and not gas themselves out for the upcoming NBA season, the new core of the Celtics is choosing to flout that sentiment entirely. Gone are the days where megastars like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, and James Harden lead the way for our nation’s squad; instead, the roster now seems to be structured more so with slightly less talented “stars” who will need to learn how to play together and execute true team basketball in order to be successful.

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Oh how quickly things can change…

This type of environment is one which could help anyone become a more complete and well-rounded player. But there are perhaps very few others in the league who need a crash course on just how to play in this type of atmosphere more than those who were on the Boston Celtics last season.

Look, I don’t think we need to rehash the many examples of why the 2018-19 Boston Celtics were a piss-poor excuse for a professional sports team. I think it’s in the book. However, I will say that very few times in my Boston sports fandom have I disliked one of my own as much as I did that “team,” and fortunately the franchise did take some steps in the right direction to help right the ship this offseason – most notably by jettisoning selfish brats like Kyrie Irving and Terry Rozier and then, in turn, replacing them both with an absolute class act like Kemba Walker. Above all, I also like how Danny Ainge decided not to give up, or give away, the still incredibly promising young assets on the roster, including Smart, Brown, and Tatum.

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See. There were still some smiling moments on the team last year.

While all four still need to officially make the roster, it seems pretty much like a foregone conclusion. Even if that’s not the case, they all seem inflated by the experience so far, and each of them should at least get something positive out of their time in the desert. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Kemba had this to say about his current Team USA mates and the opportunity being presented to them this year (h/t ESPN.com):

“This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a lot of us. I think a lot of us are happy those guys pulled out because this is our chance. It’s our chance to get on the big stage and showcase our talent. A chance for us to do something new. It’ll be a new-look team. Everybody is kind of doubting us, but I think we’re hungry.”

Of course, he is talking about Team USA as a whole, not specifically he and his Celtics brethren. But still, that attitude is one that will hopefully translate from the court in the Far East all the way across the world to the locker room and inner depths of the TD Garden next season.

Seriously, though, look at how happy the four of them look together:

Not one of those smiles look forced (although Jaylen’s is admittedly a bit suspect). That’s some genuine, Grade-A, non-pasteurized cheesing going on right there. What a crew!

Mattes, come on, dude! It’s one freakin’ picture. It literally means nothing. Let’s see what actually happens when real, meaningful NBA action starts.

OK. Fine. Valid point. But after a season in which we were bombarded with negativity and depressing results, I’m choosing to be hopeful from what I’ve seen so far. And above all, Kemba seems like he could truly be this team’s saving grace – a real deus ex machina for a franchise which looked headed for a major setback at the beginning of the summer – because of the way he carries himself and his willingness to do anything to win. Here’s what Smart said about his new teammate after the four went out to dinner earlier in the week:

You see, my wishful thinking is not just based on pure speculation, folks.

So, again, while we have quite a ways to go before the regular season, and while summer basketball has diddly squat to do with what will happen in the months ahead, I’m going to try and continue looking on the bright side. Either way, it’ll be fun to see the future of the franchise showcase themselves on the world stage and prove to everyone that this team still has the talent to be a force in 2019-20. For the first time in months, I have hope for the future of my basketball team. I’ll take that as nothing but a win.

(THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE: Welp. Now Smart is now apparently going to be out “indefinitely” with left calf tightness, and nobody is sure when he’ll get back out on the court. But the point remains the same. The camaraderie already built up over the past week or so has been vital, and hopefully Smart heals up in short order.)