My main takeaway there is that the eye test is right: they don't consistently have let-ups at any point in the game, which is indicative of player buy-in and execution...the most important job of an NBA coach.
Their preferred starting line up has started together in one game only, and they are the best team in the league, two thirds through the season. Time to get healthy and go on a 18-5 run to close the season
That's cool. Here's an article that talked about how the FSG's Serie A team came to visit and the two coaches talked about cross-concepts (though it doesn't go into details): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/29/sports/celtics-put-their-heads-together-with-an-italian-soccer-club-see-how-they-can-mutually-benefit/
I think the All Star game was mostly interesting for these kind of insights - how the players perceive themselves and how they are received by their peers. JT pretty clearly is accepted as an inner circle guy and JB being selected 2nd by LeBron suggests to me that he is closer to being held in that esteem than I thought.
Wonder if they have talked to Monty then. Hockey is all about triangles and it's a more comparably sized playing surface and game speed.
It's an interesting motivational tactic from his coach, with very low downside and some possible upside. Hopefully it triggers a 2020 style post-ASB Tatum explosion.
Tatum is fulfilling his destiny, a path he started on as a young teen who was trained from age 13 to be an NBA player, with NBA players. We Celtics fans are incredibly lucky to have witnessed his ascent from skinny teenager who willed his depleted team to a couple of buckets away from the Finals, to MVP candidate as an all around superstar who can from 50 points on any given night.
Yes. It seems that the players' opinions of themselves and each other matches the analytics more than the opinions of the general public do. That's not that shocking but nice to see.
I don't think anything of it. If he wants to be considered the best player in the NBA, then lead the Celtics to a championship. I know he was worn down last year, but that's part of the deal if you're the superduperstar. You play heavy duty minutes and carry the burden of the team. That's the deal. That's what you sign up for if you are demanding to be THE MAN.
Yeah, triangles (not the old Tex Winters triangle offense) are what makes that style work. It's super interesting stuff to me.
This doesn't get brought up enough imo. I don't mean in the sense of excuses, either. I mean that the Celtics were able to ROLL people last year only when that starting 5 was together. When TL went down, there was a tough adjustment period, and they never rolled people again during the playoffs, although they did steal the Nets' souls and gut through some tough series.
Didn't know that about hockey as I stopped watching it a long time ago. I don't see anything about JMazz (or any other basketball coach) incorporating hockey concepts but it would be fascinating to see it done since hockey is all about constant movement too.
This explains a lot….being that there are no timeouts called by the coaches in soccer.
Well even Tex Winters saw the parallels. From that 2008 article:
Yeah, that was mentioned in a BSJ article about timeouts: https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2023/01/13/nba-notebook-why-joe-mazzulla-avoids-calling-timeouts-for-celtics.
Yeah, i'm not worried about the workload really. I agree with others that Tatum is a specimen and likely works harder on his "off days" than he does on game days.
Yep, Tatum's infrastructure, Mom/Hanlan/Deuce, is a big part of the JT package. They eliminate all the 'Off-Court distractions" that can hurt young superstars.
I think it was obviously right for Joe to support Tatum yesterday. It is just the par for the course thing to do in today's star driven NBA. The point of it, from Mazzulla/Celtics perspective, was to (in effect) say to Tatum, "you're our guy and we are with you/have your back on this."
This is true. If the Celtics don't win this year/Tatum struggles in playoffs, the fanbase will give him some flack over this. Even though one thing has nothing to do with the other, it could be viewed as sort of "talking the talk before walking the walk."
I agree with both of these posts (snipped regardless). But the bolded really jump out. Yes, RINGZ matter and bestow credibility of course. But you both are noting the BRANDING part of things. Kyrie has never been a better player than Paul George, not for any length of time really. They're in the same ballpark, but in general George has been better throughout his career. And yes, Kyrie has a ring, while George doesn't. Both have a weak playoff record otherwise, really similar. George has a lot more playoff games and has flamed out less frequently. Yet, we had a conversation about how Kyrie is a once-in-a-generation player because handle and wow, what a finisher he is. I maintain that most of that shit is marketing. Kyrie is a branding genius, up until the point that he decided to expose his own antisemitism at least. The good news is that Tatum and Brown seem to be getting the recognition that they deserve among their peers and now fans without having to star in a movie and TV commercials. I'm still rooting for both to stay here forever, so I hope that the increased exposure helps Jaylen land a deal here that he can't refuse.
I don't disagree that George has been a far better player than Kyrie, but I think your selling Pandemic P short here. He has a long and glorious history of flaming out in the playoffs, particularly since leaving Indy (although he had some brutal elimination game performances there as well). In 2018, he scored just 5 points on 2-16 shooting in an elimination game against the Jazz. In 2019, he played superbly in an elimination game against the Blazers, but was embarrassed by Dame with the series ending buzzer beater ("that's a bad shot"). In the bubble, he was a big part of the 3-1 blown lead vs the Nuggets and was just 4-16 with 10 points (including at least one 3 off the side of the backboard) in the game 7 loss. He has underwhelmed often enough that people were legitimately surprised when he played well in the 2021 playoffs, much of those games without Kawhi.
George has been terrible, agreed. Everyone seems to know that.
Thanks for the detailed summary!
All fair. I do wonder what Kyrie's career narrative is if he doesn't make that shot. He was excellent in that series overall (27/4/4 with good efficiency), but if Cleveland hadn't completed their comeback, it would be lost to history (he averaged 29/4/4 on even better efficiency in the following year against GS, but nobody cares because Cleveland lost). As you note he's been a complete non-factor in the playoffs since leaving Cleveland, kind of remarkable considering the teammates he's had.
They got one of the few guys who might crack their playoff rotation in trade, and nobody on the buyout market would.
Who closed the gap at the deadline? We added the rotational big we needed for frontcourt depth and took a free flier on Snell as wing depth if needed/if he can still play. Those were the two “needs” which as others have noted previously was still a stretch as to how much of a need it even was. Short of trading for Poeltl what else did you want Brad to do?
Brad did a great job of buying assets at off times or at slightly lower prices, as opposed to paying the panic price or for name value at the deadline.
The temperature is balmy.
Priorities for the Celtics:
Bucks brought in Jae Crowder, who would at best be 9th in the Celtics rotation. Jalen McDaniels is not a bad get for the 76'ers but he really doesn't move the needle that much. Unclear that Danny Green would see any minutes in Boston. The West is still a big scrum; Bryant was a nice pickup for the Nuggets, but the Celtics didn't need him. Suns were the only other team that truly bumped the needle.
Yeah I agree here that Poeltl would've been great but don't particularly fault Brad for not making that move. And that's because we need to remember what the Poeltl-to-Toronto deal was for:
This. Trading assets for a Poeltl rental would have been a poor use of resources given that they don't have a lot of minutes available. If they so choose they also get Muscala at reasonable cost for next year.
I am unsure if we can even consider Crowder a wing anymore. Defensively he needs to play the 4 almost exclusively
The DARKO and LEBRON numbers on him are very strange. Basically "has never been better" on defense and "has never really been worse" on offense.
Yea I don't think we've seen the Cellar in more agreement on how the Celtics/Brad have proceeded recently & over the last 18mths. Getting 1.5 seasons of Muscala for two 2nds at his salary ($3.5M/yr) is the proverbial no-brainer.
