A new episode of The 300s Podcast is hot off the presses! This ep is a grab bag of news as we’ve got headlines everywhere from drug rings to a historical run by the Red Sox to PED suspensions and back to NBA free agency. Click here to listen or download on iTunes or Google Play. Subscribe, rate, and review today!
A new episode of #The300sPodcast is hot off the presses and its a grab bag discussing: Hanley Ramirez had a bad weekend, the #RedSox are chasing 100+ wins but I still don’t feel great, Edelman is fighting the #NFL, and a big announcement from The 300s! https://t.co/0oi7aJtKBK
It came out the other day that Hanley Ramirez was allegedly Pablo Escobar andddd now he’s apparently not. Whoops.
The Red Sox are on pace to win 100+ games for the first time since 1946 and I’m still not sold on this team.
Julian Edelman is pulling a Ryan Braun and appealing his 4-game suspension on the way his test was physically handled more so than the actual results.
LeBron “The Decision” James reportedly doesn’t want a recruiting circus this time around in free agency. Is this the height of hypocrisy or has LeBron learned from getting roasted after The Decision?
The 300s has a very exciting announcement to make and that my friends is what they call a big market tease.
ESPN – James has until Friday to pick up his $35.6 million player option with the Cleveland Cavaliers. While James hasn’t decided yet whether to pick up his player option, sources close to the situation tell ESPN that he has no intention of hearing elaborate pitch meetings from teams. James might meet or speak with a club official or owner at some point, but the elaborate presentations that have become common in NBA free agency over the years are unnecessary after 15 seasons in the league.
Should James become a free agent, league sources believe he and his agents Rich Paul and Mark Termini have enough understanding of the stakes and NBA landscape to handle the process without much fanfare. James went through a much more elaborate courtship when he was a free agent in 2010. The Knicks, Heat, Bulls, Nets, Cavs and Clippers flew delegations in to make presentations to him, and he announced he was joining the Heat in a televised special.
Look, I get it. Who would want to make a big circus around THE biggest DECISION of their lives? Like the last thing you would want as a guy trying to decide his future is have THE ultimate and difficult DECISION you make be aired on live TV?
That sounds incredibly stressful, egomaniacal and even disrespectful to your current team. Making THE biggest DECISION in your life is something you should sit down with your family and not someone like Jim Gray to choose where you want to continue your career.
Yahoo – At present, the Cavs don’t have much to offer James. Despite reaching the NBA Finals, it’s tough to label the current roster as championship-caliber, and Cleveland’s lack of salary cap flexibility nixes the idea of signing a marquee free agent. In order to make stark changes, the Cavaliers likely will have to make a trade. And considering Kevin Love is Cleveland’s best player outside of James, the veteran big man could be the team’s saving grace. “They missed chances to trade their best non-LeBron player, Kevin Love, at something close to peak value, and will have hard time flipping him for even 50 percent of that now,” ESPN’s Zach Lowe writes. “Expect the Cavs to explore what they might get for a package of Love and the No. 8 pick around the draft in a last-ditch attempt to convince LeBron to stay.”
This is the exact kind of shit that got Cleveland in the spot they’re stuck in at this exact moment; forcing personnel moves solely to appease LeBron. Thats how you get a roster full of guys like JR Smith, Tristan Thompson, Kyle Korver, and (ironically) Kevin Love. So now, rather than try and actually build something the Cavs are just gonna double down and reconfigure the team on the fly again in an effort to entice LeBron to resign.
Let me be very clear; this is a TERRIBLE idea.
Completely altering the structure of the team by trading your second best player and a top 10 draft pick only to guarantee LeBron for another year AT BEST is asinine. The past couple of years LeBron has exclusively signed 1+1 deals where its 1 year + a 1 year player option. He then opts out after the 1 year to essentially put the pressure on the team to do what he wants and continuously add to the roster. Which is genius by the way. LeBron snatched all the leverage away and gave it back to the (elite) players. Business savvy as all hell. But its put the Cavs in a terrible bind the past few years, despite reaching the Finals 4 straight years.
Cleveland has essentially been operating under 1 year cycles, not even pretending to think about building for the long term. And don’t tell me that its exactly what they needed to do to win and be successful because the Cavaliers have just as many titles as the Celtics in the past decade.
So the Cavs could trade all of their best assets just to appease LeBron and then if it doesn’t work to his liking he’s gone next year anyways. Then you’re really hosed.
It’s an awful position to be in, but the Cavs let themselves get here so they need to do 1 of 2 things. Either sack up and tell LeBron this is the team we’ve got and we’ll do the best we can, but we’re not going to start purging valuable assets unless you commit to a long term deal. OR just blow up the entire thing and restart with whatever you can get for the assets you currently have.
Steph Curry was putting on a show last night, hitting regular three pointers, hitting fadeaway threes, deep threes, hell he even hit a desperation three. The guy was just downright unstoppable in Game 2 finishing with 33 points. He actually set a record for three pointers made in an NBA Finals game with 9. NINE threes in a Finals game is absurd.
You know who held the record that Steph broke? Yup, Jesus Shuttlesworth himself. Ray Allen had eight three pointers and 32 points in Game 2 of the 2010 NBA Finals. Ya know the one the Celtics lost in excruciatingly painful fashion in seven games.
Well you hear Steph broke a record Ray Allen set while on the Celtics last night and you dreamily think oh man he was great in that series wasn’t he?
He was actually terrible in that series, shooting 37% from the field while going an abysmal 29% from 3. We’re talking about a career 40% 3 point shooter. Rajon Rondo had a better 3 point percentage in that series for christ’s sake. So yes he set an NBA Finals record that stood for almost a decade, but lets not forget the fact that he was downright awful the rest of the series.
Its ironic and cruel that the record Curry broke belonged to Ray Allen’s 8 three pointers in Game 2 of the 2010 #NBAFinals Allen would then go on to drop 2, 12, 12, 19, and 13 with FOUR THREE POINTERS TOTAL IN THE REST OF THE SERIES. #Celtics#Cavs#Warriors#NBAhttps://t.co/ltoNdXGzIh
After that record setting night in Game 2 with 8 threes, Ray hit only FOUR 3 pointers the rest of the series. After dropping 8 threes in Game 2, Ray dropped 4 threes in the next 5 games combined.
Maybe mix in a make?
So I just wanted to thank Steph Curry for reminding me of that.
This has been “The 300s Rehashing Celtics Games From 8 Years Ago.”
Before I even write one word, I will admit this is all coming from a Celtics fan that just got got by LeBron James…again. So I may not be the most objective person in the world, but, the ball washing of LeBron that we are now witnessing is unprecedented. Its the number 1 reason a lot of people just cannot get on board as a fan of LBJ, despite being a once in a lifetime talent.
It hit its peak during this Eastern Conference Finals. LeBron James won the series with a herculean performance no doubt. In the 2018 playoffs he is averaging 34 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. Thats bananas, but going into this series how many people actually picked the Celtics to win while being lead by a bunch of guys in their early twenties?
Lets go to the board!
Oh look three people.
Of the 22 ESPN “Experts” polled, all but three picked the Cavs to win the series, two of whom are Boston writers. And only 5 predicted the series would even go 7 games, so we can’t just turn around now and say it was some miraculous effort that LeBron willed this team to a win after you all picked him to win outright 2 weeks ago.
Hell ESPN said the same exact thing before the C’s played the Sixers too, giving them almost no shot of winning.
So is this a young underachieving team that got exactly as far as it possibly could? Or is this LeBron the savy vet, the all-time great somehow, some way getting past a Celtics team MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS.
Its just recency bias.
Going into this series no one gave the C’s a shot because they were too young and inexperienced. Then the C’s win the first two to flip the script and put the pressure back on the Cavs. After battling back and winning the series though people are legitimately saying this is LeBron’s greatest achievement ever. The guy who has won three titles and is going to his 8th straight NBA Finals, beating the Celtics WHO WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS in 7 games is his greatest feat.
So while most of us still feel like this:
You gotta remember once Kyrie Irving went down we all said if the Celtics can get out of the first round then the rest is gravy. So while this loss stings, I know this team will be right back in it and competing for a title in a few months. This team took LeBron James, the greatest player of our generation, to 7 games on the back of a 20 year old rookie in Jayson Tatum.
So for the national media to come out as if this is some grand upset for LeBron and the Cavs to beat the Celtics WHO WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS is laughable.
Too many people are pointing to the Cavs supporting cast and saying LeBron has no help. Well, first off this is entirely his doing. If LeBron had committed to staying in Cleveland beyond dinner time then this team would be able to build around him with the security in knowing he won’t be jetting this summer. Plus most of these bums that people point to are guys that LeBron the GM forced his team to acquire and overpay for, whether its Tristan Thompson, JR Smith, or even Kevin Love himself. LeBron has forced this team to trade No. 1 overall picks, overpay aging role players, and had such a toxic relationship with a 25-year-old stud in Kyrie Irving that he forced a trade. All of that combined had a Cavs team constantly scrambling and slapping band-aids on a team that was generally building for right now rather than striking a balance and building for the long term. Thats how teams get old and supporting casts get slow. Thats on LeBron so I will shed no tears for that one.
Have we also forgotten the national reaction to the Cavs shaking up their entire roster at the trade deadline? The Cavs were not lighting up the world and Isaiah Thomas wasn’t a great fit so they hit the reset button on their roster and brought in Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., George Hill, and Rodney Hood. The national media all said the Cavs were the team to beat hands down after that.
Now to pretend like the Cavs weren’t always the favorite in the East and this is some grand magic trick by LeBron is just dishonest.
So, no I won’t build a statue for him because his team, who was the favorite to win the series, won the series in 7 games while the Celtics…say it with me…WERE MISSING THEIR TWO BEST PLAYERS.
I must tip my cap to the man though. After torturing him during the early years of his career and chasing him from Cleveland, LeBron has poetically paid the Celtics back year after year. The guy is incredible and as much as he drives me nuts, he is a joy to watch because he’s just that good. Gotta give credit where it’s due, and as Brian Windhorst points out, the guy is money. He may have imploded more when he was younger, but LeBron James just doesn’t choke these days.
“James has won six straight Game 7s over the past 10 years, two of them on the road. He has won seven of the past eight elimination games he’s been in, including three this postseason. And he has now come from 2-0 down to win a series three times in his career. That has happened only 20 times in seven-game series in NBA history.”
The biggest game of many Celtics’ players lives is tonight. Game 6 with the chance to go to the NBA Finals right in front of them. A team that nobody gave a chance after the injuries they suffered is 48 minutes away from reaching the championship round. Now all they have to do is go through LeBron James and his 7 consecutive trips to the Finals.
Every time the Celtics have a big game I am compelled to post this video; it is my favorite Celtics commercial of all-time.
It was a different time and it was a different team. Back in 2012 the Celtics were the aging veterans, the old heavyweight, the last samurai — whatever you want to call it. They were on their last legs and they knew it and thats what made them so dangerous. It took an absolute HOF God Mode performance from LeBron ironically enough to knock that team off, but they had him on the ropes with the opportunity to close him out in a Game 6. Just. Like. Tonight.
This Celtics team could not be any different than that one. This team is lead by 20 and 21 year old guys with only a couple of “real veterans” to round it out. Jayson Tatum is 20 years old and looks like he’s a 10 year veteran, but this is all a first for him. Jaylen Brown seems to have taken on the role of a calming force…in his second year in the league. Al Horford, and Marcus Smart, and Marcus Morris, and Terry Rozier, and Aron Baynes and…and well thats probably it, but thats who we’re rolling with.
Great moments are born from great opportunity and thats what you have here tonight boys. Thats what you’ve earned here tonight.
Think about that headline for a second. The Boston Celtics are one win away from the NBA Finals. No Kyrie, no Gordon Hayward, hell no Daniel Theis! Yet they are 48 minutes away from going back to the NBA Finals for the first time in 8 years.
Granted they still have to finish off LeBron James in Cleveland.
The C’s remain undefeated at home in the playoffs this year at 10-0 yet are only 1-6 on the road. It really is preposterous how much better this Celtics team is at home than on the road, and you could say the same exact thing about the Cavs. The home team in this series has won every game and won it running away. In the first five games the home team has won by 25, 13, 30, 9, and 13. Thats banana land.
So I would very much prefer to have the Celtics finish off the Cavs and drive LeBron out of Cleveland on his home court. BUT, recent history suggests that is unlikely. But I really, really do not want to have to go to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to try and beat LeBron with a trip to the Finals (his 8th in a row) on the line. A game like that could go either way. Young guys like Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Terry Rozier could absolutely ball out and it wouldn’t surprise me. Or they could wilt in the face of a veteran championship winning team while LeBron turns on God Mode for 50 points. So lets just avoid that scenario and take care of business in Game 6.
Boston got back to its winning ways and lead Cleveland by as much as 21 before ultimately winning 96-83. The Celtics had everyone chipping in with 5 players scoring in double digits, which is even more impressive when you consider the fact that Brad Stevens shortened his rotation to just SEVEN players. Only seven guys even got in the game last night: Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, Aron Baynes, Terry Rozier, Marcus Morris, Marcus Smart, and Jaylen Brown. Abdel Nader and Guerschon Yabusele each got 2 mins of garbage time at the end of the game so that doesn’t count. Don’t tell Yabusele that though as he jacked up two 3’s (and missed both) in the 120 seconds he was on the floor.
Jayson Tatum had a coming out party in Game 5 as he was pretty much unstoppable, save for some missed layups that he should have had. Tatum led the Celtics 24 points and was beating defenders off the dribble and pulling up for daggers going 3-7 from deep.
Al Horford was solid with a respectable 15/12 double double on the night and earned a new nickname from The 300s in the process.
As we predicted on this very site earlier this week, going back home was the perfect elixir for guys like Marcus Morris so he could continue to be the glorious dickhead that he is.
In all seriousness though, I don’t think that counts as an official win in the NBA history books because if you didn’t hear, LeBron was tired. The entire second half the ESPN broadcast team reminded everyone how tired LeBron looked.
So that’ll be the storyline everywhere today. Not the fact that the Celtics have pushed the Cavs to the brink of elimination, it’ll be that LeBron didn’t have enough Gatorade before Game 5 so he was too tired. Maybe he should be taking a nap instead of doing all that exhausting reading before the game.
The Cavs were on their heels all night long as we saw guys like JR Smith come back down to earth scoring 2 points going 1-6 from the field and 0-4 from deep. Smith was playing hero ball all night long and I loved it.
The crowd at TD Garden had its fangs out last night too. After Smith banged knees with a Celtics player he was slow to get up and the Boston crowd, remembering Smith’s cheap shot on Horford and prior to that Jae Crowder, had little sympathy busting out the “FUCK YOU JR” chant.
Basically when the Celtics win its because everyone is contributing and they limit the Cavs supporting cast. In Game 5 the Cavs only had 2 players in double digits scoring with Tristan Thompson (1 pt), Smith (2 pts), Larry Nance Jr. (2 pts), Kyle Korver (7 pts), George Hill (7 pts) all falling back to earth.
If there was ever one graphic that summarized this Celtics vs LeBron matchup its this:
So the Celtics have a golden opportunity to close this series out and earn a trip to the NBA Finals in Game 6 on Friday night. Until then though Celtics fans can take their fingers off the panic button.
Despite what I said yesterday about not panicking just yet and how I think the Celtics aren’t in trouble yet, tonight is still an absolute hands down must win. There is zero chance this young Celtics team can go into Cleveland and steal a Game 6, especially after getting trounced there twice already, and then come back and take a Game 7 in back to back games.
Even The Truth agrees:
“The Celtics have to win in six,” he said. “They have to win in six. They have to win this game and they have to get the road win in Cleveland. I’m just not comfortable with having LeBron in Game 7 — no matter where it is . . . Unless you have the Truth on your side, I’m not comfortable with that.”
The Celtics need Jaylen Brown to stop getting stuffed by KYLE KORVER, they need Marcus Smart to stop cosplaying as Ray Allen, and they need Al Horford to play like the max player he is. Sprinkle in a little Scary Terry and just throw Marcus Morris and whoever else out to just make LeBron work and you have a good shot. However, if Brad Stevens doesn’t adjust from the last two thumpings and the Celtics continue to allow bums like JR Smith to bury them, then they’re in for a world of pain.
Thankfully the Celtics have been money at home in the playoffs this year and have yet to lose a game. LeBron can definitely smell blood in the water, but the guy is going to get his. If LeBron drops 45 and 15 and the Celtics lose I can live with that. What I cannot live with is Korver, Smith, George Hill and Tristan Thompson being the reason we lose.
I think getting in front of the home crowd will be an elixir for those young guys and give a little more ammo for guys like Smart and Morris to be the glorious dickheads that they are.
We don’t need another “young, overachieving” Celtics team playing its role as jester before stepping up to get its head cut off on national TV by King LeBron. We already saw that episode in 2015 and 2017.
Don’t forget, the Celtics have chased LeBron out of Cleveland before. Do it again.
Before I bare my soul I will repeat what I said in defense of the Cavs after Game 2; you’re not in trouble in a series until you lose a home game. The Celtics took care of business and stomped out the Cavs in Games 1-2 in Boston and the Cavs have now returned the favor.
If the NBA (and many of its players home/road splits) didn’t have such wild swings in momentum, officiating, and legitimate home court advantage I would be in full on panic mode. Thats also why everyone who has mocked the Celtics for the past few years for being a soft No. 1 or No. 2 seed and how the regular season “doesn’t matter” needs to pipe down. Have the Celtics overachieved the last couple of seasons? Absolutely. Thats exactly why they need that home court advantage over a team like the Cavs. Guys like Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart are notoriously better at home so yes its important for the C’s to grind out those first 82 games in order to secure any minor advantage they can. I’d also like to point out that the Celtics have yet to lose a game at home in the playoffs.
So with all that being said, do I feel great heading back to Boston with this series tied up and LeBron and his flunkies feeling themselves after back to back W’s? Noooope. LeBron has been LeBron and just abused whoever is defending him or has facilitated like the basketball Magic Johnson facsimile that he is. That was pretty much always going to happen, regardless of how much we all pumped up Marcus Morris for being the LeBron Stopper.
What concerns me the most though is how much better the Cavs have gotten each game, in particular the supporting cast of bums like George Hill and JR Smith. Smith is a notorious front runner so I’m confident in the fact the Celtics can get back to their business in Game 5 at home and Smith could very predictably shut it down. George Hill was non-existent in Games 1-2 yet in the 2 games in Cleveland he was a problem, but that could very easily just be a case of role players (like Smart and Rozier) balling out at home.
What absolutely cannot happen though is guys like Kyle Korver just son-ing Jaylen Brown. Korver set up shop in the young forward’s brain, blocking a couple of Brown’s shots and then working him on the glass to go along with his unconscious shooting from 3. Not to mention Jaylen Brown absolutely bricking a wide open dunk.
The Cavs just keep getting better and better the last two games so I’m telling myself (read: hoping) that this is just a home team taking care of business. But Cleveland’s improvement over the last 4 games is just ridiculous. Seriously, look at the Cavs’ FG% and 3-point percentages from Game 1 to Game 4.
Game 1: 36% / 15%
Game 2: 46% / 32%
Game 3: 48% / 50%
Game 4: 50% / 34%
I don’t appreciate the Cavs seemingly getting better every single game after looking like they were on the brink of implosion after the first 2.
The No. 1 problem that Brad Stevens is going to have to fix before Game 5 though is a bunch of guys in their early 20s looking at LeBron getting it going and saying ‘here we go again.’ Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Terry Rozier all grew up watching LeBron go on runs like this. The C’s need a veteran (paging Al Horford) to remind this team how badly they beat up on Cleveland in the first two games. Do it again.
This is why going back home is just what the doctor ordered. The role players need to get their shit together, which is hard for young guys to do on the road. In particular I need Marcus Smart to get back to doing the little things and stop jacking a 3 pointer (1-5 last night) just because the Cavs are daring him to do so.
The Cavs have done an excellent job in finding the matchups they want, including somehow getting Rozier on LeBron more times that I’d like to remember. Stevens adjusted:
Some solid adjustments from the #Celtics include telling Terry Rozier to literally sprint in the opposite direction rather than cover LeBron 1-on-1.
But give the guy a couple of days to digest what the Cavs and that genius Tyronn Lue are doing and I believe they can slow Cleveland down. Speaking of Tyronn Lue, how about the balls on the head coach doing head coaching things last night?
I’m surprised LeBron didn’t just rip the whiteboard out of his hands on the sidelines after that.
And I hate to be that guy, but since the NBA had a ref in Tim Donaghy get sent to fucking PRISON for messing with games, I’m going to go ahead. The officiating has been abysmal in this series. One of the worst examples was the refs wiping out a would be 4-point play and calling an offensive foul on Marcus Morris on a MADE 3 pointer.
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) May 22, 2018
The officiating has been terrible and looks like a blatant design to extend the series and favor the home team. We can only hope that favor is returned in Boston.
The Celtics return to TD Garden to try and right the ship on Wednesday night. The Cavs have a ton of momentum, but again the C’s have yet to lose at home in the playoffs so I will refrain from panicking quite yet. Game 5 is an absolute must win for the C’s though so lets get it.
We brought in friend of the podcast Mattes and we’re talking Celtics playoffs, where the C’s stand after Game 3, and should fans be worried about this Cavs series now?
Oh look three people.
The 300s 