It's an absurdly pessimistic take:As a side note, if sports fans want to see what an emotional hedge looks like in online print form, mosey on over to today's KOC piece from The Ringer. In short, he is pretty adamant that TLs injury kills the Cs finals chances. I suspect I am on an island but I simply don't agree with him.
"Can't rule out"? One round?But you can’t rule out the Celtics winning a round because as elite as their defense has been, they’ll still be good without Williams.
That's it? No chance against Toronto, Chicago or Brooklyn?Boston should be able to win a first-round matchup against Atlanta, Charlotte, or Cleveland without Williams.
Then, he twice mentions the possibility of a first-round matchup with Brooklyn as though it's (a) likely and (b) doomsday.
I don't think KOC is dumb— I think he wants to avoid taking a wishy-washy "well, it depends" stance and so is instead going on all-in on the under for the Celts finals chances— which is clearly the right choice— and then engaging in some motivated reasoning to support his stance. But it definitely feels that this is still in the "well, it depends" zone. A team that has been posting near-historic point differential the last 3 months— you don't think this team can possibly get through the first round and then beat, say, Philly in the second without TL? Really? From that point, as others have said, who knows? Maybe we get TL back at 75-80% for two series, and it's just enough. Or maybe our opponents run into their own crushing injuries or bad luck.
In general, it feels like people are having a hard time differentiating between the massive disappointment of losing TL— that we don't get to see him and the C's at full strength— vs the reality that the future is still highly uncertain and stuffed full of variables.
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