Going with Tillman instead of Kornet to replace KP makes a lot of sense. Tillman defense is great and can switch which fits the Celtic’s gameplan against the Mavs.
Well yeah, you’re choosing a guy who does one thing well (switch defensively, even if he can’t hit water from a boat offensively) for a guy who basically…does nothing? (I guess he scores ok on postups, but I can’t imagine “Luke Kornet postups” are too high on the Celtics offensive pyramid.
Celtics are way better and Luka is super annoying. Simple as.
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The other thing to remember is that the Minnesota series, and everyone’s 2 minute love affair with Daniel Gafford and especially Derrick Lively, tricked everyone into forgetting that Dallas’ defense this year was definitionally average (as in, basically at league average, ranked middle of the pack) because they shut the water off on an extremely flawed offense in the conference finals.
I don’t want to be TOO beholden to the tempo free stuff Dylan posted above because playoff NBA basketball is pretty different from the regular season (mostly from a rotational standpoint - lots of minutes in the regular season go to guys who will DNP an entire playoff run), but the Celtics obviously established a level of play in the regular season beyond any other team, any impartial observer would have said before a single game had been played that they had the best roster (not close). Add to that, the matchups broke extremely favorably for them (both in the aforementioned WC weirdness AND the fact that every team they played had their best player get shot with an elephant rifle) so they could sort of coast and survive the entire absence of their 2nd or 3rd best player…
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I think he’s just pretty clearly been not 100%. And he was moved down to questionable for yesterday’s game for whatever that’s worth. Mavs were able to hide Luka’s injury/defense against the TWolves but can’t really do that against the Celtics cause there’s no one to hide him on.
He’s never been good at defense but he’s not usually THIS bad.
But yeah the Mavs are just not a championship caliber team. They were super hot from 3 against the TWolves, and now have cooled off and are having to decide whether to play THJ or Josh Green and neither is good! Thunder just weren’t up to the moment, also they shot horribly IIRC and Lively punked Chet
Unfortunately the playoffs this year have been riddled with injuries so we never got to see a good and healthy team push the Celtics to see if they could consistently execute late in the game. Had the Nuggets not pooped their pants in G7 then we’d have gotten a fun final series I think. Celtics probably would have overwhelmed the Nuggets too but Jokic would have enough to get them a couple wins, especially with an injured KP
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OKC series
- Dort and Chet turned their 5-out O into grossness
- Chet got punked on the boards
Wolves series
- Ant and KAT were miserable
- Couldn’t get back in front of Luka on ball screens
Mavs in general made more 3s than you’d expect
I mean, the Celtics are basically going to run through the whole playoffs with just two BS losses where the other teams combined to shoot 50% from three.
The gap between these two teams is just massive.
They’re about to go 80-20 this year with an insane NetRtg to back it up. But no one is really thinking of them in that upper echelon of elite all time teams even though technically their resume stacks up. And that’s gonna be because the injury riddled east then Mavs coming out of the West just never gave a team that could scare them
I also think there are tons of narrative things in there too that large parts of this Boston core have had repeated disappointments (I’m not endorsing the view, but I think it’s hard for the commentariat to turn from “chokers” to “historically great” on a dime, and I think large numbers of people have been waiting/hoping for the proverbial “other shoe” to drop on them for awhile). Like being awesome in the regular season isn’t new to this group (#1 last year by over a point, #2 the year before (short of #1 by 0.1 points, over #3 by over a point, also closed the final 50 games as the #1 team with a bullet).
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How happy are we that Izzo got the wrong Hauser?
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Regular season net ratings aren’t super important at this point, to be honest. Just given that it’s an entirely different game when talking a series of 4-7 hyper focused, matchup driven games versus a 1 of 82 matchup against a different team every night.
As good as the Celtics have been statistically, the reason no one sees them that way is due to how they implode offensively. Quite simply, in close games their stars cannot get easy looks.
Luka is by far the biggest reason reason that the offense continuously gets easy looks and keeps them from these offensive doldrums. I’m not making this about the crying to refs. That is just simply too much of a flaw to ignore.
It’s why I said it’s both. Dallas probably loses this series even with a great Luka performance. It’s also not impossible for them to have won the series, particularly because of no Porzingis. It’s not like I’m saying Luka needed to have 40/15/10 or he’s bad. I’m saying he needs to not be a total defensive liability while also committing fouls 90 feet from the basket out of frustration which leads to him not even being on the court for the last 4 minutes of a 3 point game. That’s all pretty avoidable.
There’s no way Joey is actually taller than Sam, right? that doesn’t seem to track. Maybe he’s just thinner/more athletic which makes him look taller idk. Cause shooting wise they put up pretty similar profiles in college which would maybe make you think Joey has a chance. Sam was just better at everything else though, probably enough to make him a viable NBA player while Joey is not
Not to be dogmatic here but the way the Celtics always avoid struggling in close games is being exceedingly good at not playing them.
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celtics are somehow underrated. i think people will try to downplay this ring because of the path they had, but they are legitimately one of the better teams we’ve seen in a few years imo.
I don’t want to tread too deeply into the Hauser discourse, but Sam scored 20 ppg in the G League, and made over 40% of nearly 11 attempts a game from 3, he took one about every 3 minutes.
Joey is at 6 ppg, shooting 32% on 4 attempts a game, taking one about every 5.5 minutes.
I think, there’s been, basically since Joey’s second year of playing college basketball, a pretty distinct qualitative gap between them.
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It’s the maddening part about the Celtics.
As good as they are, last night a 21 point lead went to 3 points in a matter of 5 minutes.
They’re a historically good team with a pretty large, exploitable flaw.
They’re a team that puts out 5 of the best 30 or so players in the league, but none of them are top 5. And specifically in terms of being a heliocentric clutch offensive star, Tatum is barely top 10? If you can withstand the avalanches they become so much more beatable late in games.
Yeah for sure obviously a gap. Was just saying shooting wise only they have very similar stats in college. Or at least Joey’s senior year, I should say. And apparently maybe Joey is taller. Sam’s role is a tall person that shoots well so by that logic you’d think Joey would have a chance. But obviously Sam is way better at everything else which is what gets him there, so the shooting and height themselves aren’t enough
I really don’t enjoy watching Tatum generally (I don’t like how he plays offensively, and I think only Luka is more insufferable in terms of ref-whining) but compared to most other #1’s, Tatum is probably the one who LEAST allows his shooting/scoring to color the rest of his game. Tatum picks up high-level defensive assignments, passes the ball, makes hustle plays, etc.
You’re probably right he’s not on par as a heliocentric star (that’s mitigated by having 5 other really good teammates) but I think provides a ton of value in ways lots of his peers don’t.
I’ll be honest, I was surprised when I saw Sam was only listed at 6’8"
That’s what I’m saying! There’s no way Joey is taller, right?!