Because it was just February, and you can’t really take anything from a small stretch of games.
2023-24 Celtics
- Thread starter 128
- Start date
There are streaks. I'm not going to micro manage game by game results, but IIRC the Celts had a 3 month stretch of indifferent basketball last year, where their elite talent was sometimes not enough to overcome other weaknesses. I thought they played unfocused undisciplined ball and well below their skill level.
They got to the seventh game of the ECF at home.. and their best player rolled his ankle seconds into the game and their sixth man could no longer shoot.. neither of those things was something you saw in February.
I think there’s a streetlight effect here. All of us pay a lot more attention to the Celtics than other teams. There are a few other things going on here. One that jumps to mind is what a favorite looks like.
The second iteration of dynasty Bulls were +350, +100, and +140 to win the title at preseason. The ensuing Laker dynasty had only slightly weaker odds. During the +Durant run the Warriors were odds-on favorites against the field. The Celtics have been the favorites both last and this year, but at +500 and +450.
It’s a big difference because the league is deeper than ever and you can’t expect to waltz through a bunch of cupcakes who will lay down and die when the lead extends past 20.
I don't have a crystal ball, just recaling my observations about how the Celts played last year.
But I warned if the Celts continued to play like they had their season would end in May and not June.
And losing at home in the ECF to the 8th seed, was not my ceiling for last year's team.
But I warned if the Celts continued to play like they had their season would end in May and not June.
And losing at home in the ECF to the 8th seed, was not my ceiling for last year's team.
The point is that anyone who says that Cs are not going to win the championship is going to be right many more times than they are wrong. I mean I could say that the Cs aren't going to win the championship this year because the sitcom that Wyc produced is distracting the players. And when the Cs don't win it, I'll start a petition to cancel the show. You'll be right there with me, correct?
(But you know all of this.)
It's a big difference because in all likelihood, the Cs are not as good as the second Bulls dynasty or the Lakers team that you reference or especially GSW. I mean I love JT but he's not Michael Jordan (thank dog). And this Cs team is unlikely to have 3 (4?) of the top 100 players of all time.
But it's a pretty freaking good team, particularly in this day and age of the salary cap.
Of course not. But they are at least as good as the big three Celtics (+1000 and +350) who faced much weaker competition league wide.
What people are saying is that, had you been a Denver Nuggets fan, you would have made those exact same observations. You would have made them even more forcefully, because the Nuggets had multiple "indifferent stretches" that were worse than those of the Celtics.
You would have been issuing dire warnings that only dumb optimists would have failed to heed.
And, unlike the Celtics, the Nuggets hadn't even gone deep in the playoffs before! Maybe a team that's been there before can take some games off, but a team that's never won? They need to lock in even harder!
I am not saying the Celtics will win the title. The field is and should be favored against them.
I am not saying they have no flaws. They have plenty (although usually not the ones that Celtics fans worry about).
I am saying that evidence pointed to for why they won't win a title is applicable to every other team in the NBA this year, more so than the Celtics. It has very, very little informational value, beyond telling us that the Cs, while good, are not a complete juggernaut that should be favored even against the field.
I live in South Florida, I’m with people at poker tables all the time in South Florida. I made a small fortune wagering on the Miami Heat in the playoffs last year (all documented in Silver Dollar) when their numbers were based off their regular season performance. This was the same regular season performance I heard dozens of people every single day for months say that “they see it coming” with regards to the Miami Heat playoff demise.
The NBA regular season results mean next to nothing regardling playoff basketball which is not to be confused with those teams who continue on their same line during the playoffs unless you could see Tatum and Brogdon’s injuries occuring in Game 7 months ahead of time. I will say that the one thing that could have been forecasted was our lack of an experienced and cohesive coaching staff in the playoffs and even then, games 4, 5 and 6 showed more than ever that the NBA is about the players.
I recal posting this sometime in the early spring last year that based on the Championship markets there is a 3 in 4 chance (or something like that) that this team will fail to win a Title come playoff time. There are a ton of land mines in todays NBA Championship path…many of which are out of our control, such as the Tatum and Brogdon injuries.
Last edited:
Also, people do really seem to want to complain about single games in this thread and analyze them as if they can tell them something. My .02 is that we should just give them a new thread in the forum imo and keep this for more macro team issues.
We can call it the Streetlight Effect thread or something way more clever. But make no mistake - a big issue for some people is that each game only confirms concerns, especially the losses. They can see what is coming and they need to tell everyone what the future holds after watching three hours of hoops and insurance commercials. We should let them tell us unimpeded. Just in another thread.
We can call it the Streetlight Effect thread or something way more clever. But make no mistake - a big issue for some people is that each game only confirms concerns, especially the losses. They can see what is coming and they need to tell everyone what the future holds after watching three hours of hoops and insurance commercials. We should let them tell us unimpeded. Just in another thread.
I've posted this before, but this town tends to have a football mentality about all of its contending sports teams. By which I mean, every game is analyzed to death. This even happened with the Red Sox back in the height of the 2004-2007 era.
We all know the Celts aren't perfect. We all know the reasons they could lose in the playoffs. We are all mentally prepared for those outcomes.
Me, I'm enjoying their greatness and hoping that it translates better in the playoffs than it has the last few years. I love this year's team. I think their ceiling is multiple levels higher than last year. I think that if they stay healthy, they are going to win the title without facing an elimination game.
But until the Jays win a title, there will continue to be some pessimism, fair or unfair.
Edit: and also I think everyone can agree that multiple things can be true at the same time - that shooting variance is a thing in a single game; but even with that, we can acknowledge that their effort and process was not particularly good vs. the Lakers.
Yeah that video is incredibly bittersweet. Among Celtics who never won a title, Smart is 1st in games played and 2nd in minutes (#1? Antoine). It's a shame that he's inactive for both games against Boston this year, but also rather fitting. Much has been made about the Celtics' depth because we essentially swapped 4 rotation players for 2 this past offseason, but we also swapped 3 injury prone guys for 1. The top end talent is greater while the entire group is more reliable.
Smart is my second favorite Celtics player ever besides Pierce, so I’m going to be fighting the tears later.
Also, this is awesome.
View: https://twitter.com/ByJayKing/status/1754207388607934604
Also, this is awesome.
View: https://twitter.com/ByJayKing/status/1754207388607934604
Am I a bad person for hoping that Smart worked with Habitat for Humanity so they can present him with an honorary brick for his efforts?
I'm very glad I don't - yet - have to root against Marcus Smart on a basketball court, or watch him make ridiculous plays against my team.
Gonna be a lot of tears in the Garden.
Gonna be a lot of tears in the Garden.
Amazing how people ignore this obvious fact. The Celtics have been around for 77 years and won 17 championships. No NBA team has won more, and yet that's 60 count 'em 60 non-championship seasons. Same with the Lakers, who — even if you count the Minneapolis years — have only two fewer non-championship years than the Celtics (because they started two years later). "Predictions" and "warnings" that any team, no matter how good it appears, will NOT win a championship are basically worthless.
I decided to look through how the top 6 play against top 10 defenses, as I feel it’s a decent barometer for the playoffs. I’ll post their eFG for the season in the first column, and against top 10 defenses in the next.
Al- 61.9%/59.7%
Porzingis- 59.3%/60%
White- 56.7%/56.2%
Holiday- 56.1%/52.2%
Tatum- 55%/55.1%
Jaylen- 54.9%/51.7%
So Tatum and KP both have been slightly
more efficient versus the best defenses, White pretty much the same, Al a small drop off, and Jaylen/Holiday fall off a cliff. It matches the eye test I think, good defenses still give Jaylen a lot of trouble, hopefully that goes the other way as the season goes on.
I’ll do TS later, just takes a bit more time, will have to manually go through the teams.
Al- 61.9%/59.7%
Porzingis- 59.3%/60%
White- 56.7%/56.2%
Holiday- 56.1%/52.2%
Tatum- 55%/55.1%
Jaylen- 54.9%/51.7%
So Tatum and KP both have been slightly
more efficient versus the best defenses, White pretty much the same, Al a small drop off, and Jaylen/Holiday fall off a cliff. It matches the eye test I think, good defenses still give Jaylen a lot of trouble, hopefully that goes the other way as the season goes on.
I’ll do TS later, just takes a bit more time, will have to manually go through the teams.
Last edited:
Honest question, is that really falling off a cliff? What is the sample size?
It’s a pretty small sample, between 12-20 games depending on the player, but yeah a 3-4% drop is pretty sizable.
It’s just a bit more than halfway through the season, so plenty of time for them to change, just showing how it’s gone thus far.
4% of efg% is .08 points per shot, right?. If Jaylen takes 20 shots a game and Holiday 10, thats 1.6 and .8 points per game. Is that just noise on a small number of games, I'd guess yes.
It’s roughly around 300 shots for Jaylen, over a third of his number for the season. It’s definitely not a large sample, but not that small either.
It’s nothing I’m concerned about right now, I was just curious if it matched the eye test for the whole team. If you’d have asked me which players have struggled more against good defenses, I’d have guessed Jrue and Jaylen.
It’s nothing I’m concerned about right now, I was just curious if it matched the eye test for the whole team. If you’d have asked me which players have struggled more against good defenses, I’d have guessed Jrue and Jaylen.
If you would have asked me I would have guessed everyone on the team.
Also - the top 10 defenses include three teams that won't make the playoffs and just three potential playoff foes in the east (NYK, CLE, PHI)
I am confused - isn't that to be expected? Top defensive teams are tougher to score against. Are we suggesting that they'd need to up their defensive intensity to win those games?
Not suggesting anything lol, just posting the numbers.
A lot of Jaylen’s efficiency stuff is that he doesn’t get to the line much, and his catch and shoot three numbers have been in the tank for years now, which is still a mystery to me.
Last edited:
I think the point is more that some guys are affected by elite defense more than others, and that come playoff time this might matter. Worth keeping an eye on going forward.
I know winning helps make teams likable, but the Cs have somehow collected the most entertaining and fun group of players Boston has seen in a long time. Reminds me a little bit of the 2013 Beards, but that Sox team didn't have this much star-power and weren't the favorites. Last night they just hit every mark and I loved the way Walsh was able to get a little limelight, even in the Smart lovefest.
View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1754347725682794501?s=20
View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1754347725682794501?s=20
Walsh is literally on cloud 9, and deservedly so. Scoring a basket in The Association is both a rare feat and literal dream for even the world's best basketball players.
Scal likes Number 88. The jokes write themselves.
View: https://twitter.com/Denzera/status/1754519654364516805
View: https://twitter.com/Denzera/status/1754519654364516805
What do you think they mean by "You, of all people". Does Scal have some history with neonazis? Or is it just because he has a public voice?
Thats Awesome. Also amazing how much like a 12 year old he sounds "And I was like I am goin for a dunk KP"
It's an absurd criticism to make. Lots of players across sports wear #88, and announcers will say that number many times.
I thought he was on cloud 9 because he absolutely annihilated Hauser in the naming of the mascots contest.
I think just because he's a white guy? This seems a bit over the top. Are we to believe that Neemias Queta, a black dude from Portugal, is repping the neonazi brand? Of course not. What's Scal supposed to say? "I know the 88 looks cool, but Queta should know that some scumbags use that number to demonstrate their love for the Nazis"? What "qualifier" would make any kind of sense on a Celtics broadcast? And should we really think that a professional basketball player turned broadcaster should be up on all the weird ways that assholes snicker to themselves about their secret racism? Isn't kind of better if he's ignorant of the meaning?
It's definitely a stretch for the reasons described above but Scal does have a bit of a (recent) checkered past when it comes to racism. I dont want to wade into V&N territory here so ill let people do their own research (or feel free to DM) but if you look up his podcast during the Robert Sarver stuff and the start of last season he had some pretty reprehensible things to say IMO.
edit: quick add - i do think the guy who tweeted that was attempting to be funny. and failed.
So first of all, no, it's not something he has to avoid, like it wasn't a faux pas or gaffe in any sense. Brought me a "wait, what, did he just say that?" moment while only half-watching.
Scal has gotten a lot of good-natured ribbing relating to being a white guy in a predominantly-black league, to the point of being coined "white mamba". There were jokes all over both here and social media back in the '08 election when it was reported that "all but 1 member of the Celtics voted for Obama", and people would just post Scal's picture in reply. He's brought up teams attacking Hauser based on making assumptions about his defense (subtext: 'cause he's white), brought up Mazzulla's defending of him on that same basis - and dozens of other brief intersections with the topic over the years he's been on TV. It's a topic Scal is quite accustomed to, and handles it with sensitivity and good humor when he has to, because he's on TV for a league (and viewership) that is very sensitive to those matters. So I'd have expected him to be at least peripherally aware that scumbags use that number as a coded reference, and maybe say it's a fun / unusual uniform number, rather than what he said. Not doing so just left him open to more of that good-natured ribbing, which is all the tweet is. Maybe it's better if Scal is ignorant of it, sure, but it also was a bit of a jolt to hear it live.