C's Playoff Thread: 2024-25 Edition
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How far could the Celtics go without Jaylen, or with a severely limited Jaylen?
They'd play Tatum 40-42 minutes/game, so don't have to find *that* much extra offensive initiation. They still go 8 deep, and could play Scheierman/Craig a couple minutes in a huge pinch.
Probably it would come down to whether DWhite+KP could create advantages in the non-Tatum minutes, at least for playing Cleveland.
I'd say they could get through Atl/Orl and Det/NYK, would be something like 40/60 underdogs against Cleveland, and no shot against OKC.
As we saw last year though, big injuries happen to other teams too.
They'd play Tatum 40-42 minutes/game, so don't have to find *that* much extra offensive initiation. They still go 8 deep, and could play Scheierman/Craig a couple minutes in a huge pinch.
Probably it would come down to whether DWhite+KP could create advantages in the non-Tatum minutes, at least for playing Cleveland.
I'd say they could get through Atl/Orl and Det/NYK, would be something like 40/60 underdogs against Cleveland, and no shot against OKC.
As we saw last year though, big injuries happen to other teams too.
They won't win it all without Brown. But hopefully he's not really needed in the first round, and the 2 1/2 - 3 weeks off (this week leading up to the first round, and then winning the first round) is enough for him to be ready to rock and roll for the Eastern semi.
They'll need a healthy Jaylen for the Finals.
The CAVs would be a coin flip with a hampered Brown. KP is a wild card, a complete mismatch for DM/Garland
I think they need him for the ECF and the Finals.
I know that the players are human beings and the organization has to manage egos and this, that and the other, but I can’t help but feel like they blew it not shutting JB down earlier.
Let’s all hope it doesn’t matter in the end
A mild preference for Atlanta here, even though Dyson Daniels seems to take particular pleasure in stripping the ball on us.
Daniels averaged 1 steal every 13 minutes against Boston, his 19th best rate. He averaged 1 steal every 4 minutes against Minnesota. Top 5 (all more than 1 per 8 minutes): MIN, MEM, LAL, TOR, DEN. Bottom 5 (all less than 1 per 23 minutes): GSW, SAS, OKC, DAL, SAC (no steals in 39 minutes played). Dude's an outlier.
nobody in our side of the EC bracket scares me even without Brown until we get to Cavs / Bucks / Pacers and the Finals.
I'd shut him down completely for the first two rounds and do everything to try to get him back as close as possible for the ECF and Finals.
I'd shut him down completely for the first two rounds and do everything to try to get him back as close as possible for the ECF and Finals.
Mild preference for Orlando, though maybe less so if Jaylen is out. I could see Trae getting hot and Atlanta taking it to six games. Orlando scoring enough to keep up with the Cs seems less likely.
Definitely not worried about Trae. He struggles getting to his sweet spots with the ball against this Boston group of recent years more than any other team in the league….and this doesn’t even account for the playoffs defensive game-to-game planning where familiarity hurts Trae. This is an example of my response in the other thread about players not actually “fearing” another team but recognizing bad matchups. Boston’s defensive personnel is a nightmare matchup for Trae.
The offensive downgrade is just too big. Even if he were, they'd accept a downgrade there and try to score more than the other team.
Edit: or do things like leave a worse shooter open and try to rotate behind, while shading more bodies to the dangerous offensive player in question.
Sunday is confirmed for Game 1, time TBD (although, why? they're as far east as you can get and both ATL and Orl are east coast teams close to each other) Just put them at 1PM and be done with it,
Game 2 is TBD day too.
Game 2 is TBD day too.
Too bad it's not the Pistons against the Hawks for the play-in or my strange geography fact would land better: Detroit is east of Atlanta. Peach City is 33.7488° N, 84.3877° W; the Motor City is at 42.3314° N, 83.0458° W.
Cleveland is eastern time too, so I think they just want to see which matchup is the absolute worst, and also not announce anything for Sunday at all until they have full information.
He might be, in theory. Yet whenever I watch him play he seems to be totally oblivious to the overall defensive scheme that the other 4 guys on his team are playing. That could be a problem unless there's some guarantee that the ballhandler is keeping the ball and going 1 v 1.
Yeah.. JB is great but the team has been winning all season without 1-3 stars almost every night. One reason they’ve been playing everyone all year, I believe, is so that they can play through an injury in the playoffs.
with that said.. hasn’t the plan all along been for him to get a shot right before the playoffs.. is there a higher probability that that won’t work than it will?
Agreed on the rest, but I don't think that even the docs here can answer that last question. Cortisone shots have super wide outcome bands. The other shit, like PRP...even more so. On the plus side, they almost never make things worse. But they sometimes do jack shit, and other times, they're miracles.
Yeah.. I thought I'd read that on one of these threads.. so worst case scenario the shot doesn't work and we're at the same place we are right now.. which is a hampered JB who can still put in some minutes when needed.
Beating the Knicks without JB would be pretty tough. It would also probably require KP to stay healthy, which is never a good bet. We definitely need White/Jrue to level up, if JB is out or hampered. We know they have it in them.
I'm not convinced the team plans to rest Jaylen Brown for the opening round. Washburn made a comment in the Globe that implied the team expects JB to be ready to play for Game 1 of the opening round.
I'd be very surprised if they rested him. I fully expect him to play.
I've more been musing about what they do if things go downhill, once he starts playing.
Yeah there's no chance he sits, nor should we want him too. At this point it's clear the team doesn't think rest will help him, so what's the point? Obviously the Celtics can beat the Hawks/Magic without him, and probably the Knicks/Pistons, too. If we've learned everything over the years, it's that finishing these series off as quickly as possible pays dividends down the line. Playing 6 games against the Hawks in and 7 games against the Sixers in 2023 absolutely hurt them against Miami. Needing back to back 7 game series to eliminate the Bucks and Heat in 2022 absolutely hurt them against the Warriors. If JB doesn't play for a round or two maybe the end result doesn't change, but the team has to expend extra energy to win those series, maybe even taking an extra couple of games. We've got actual injury prone players (KP) and older guys (Horford/Holiday) that have a limited number of games in which they can afford to go all out, there is real value in going as deep as possible before needing to go 100%.
Definitely not the Magic. F the Wagners and f Paolo. So by process of elimination we want the Hawks. Trae is a turnstile.
I want the Magic, pretty easily at that. Hawks can actually score, and they have multiple defensive playmakers. A hobbled Jaylen with Dyson in the passing lanes? I’m all set.
Magic won’t be able to score enough to win a game, they may not even crack 100 in the series.
Boston has a losing record against both of the potential first round opponents, although the second Orlando loss was against the JV. They lost twice to the Hawks and once to the Magic last season too.
Hopefully, the playoff Celtics won’t have much problems with either. I’d rather see the Hawks, with Jalen Johnson definitely out and Clint Capela probably out
Hopefully, the playoff Celtics won’t have much problems with either. I’d rather see the Hawks, with Jalen Johnson definitely out and Clint Capela probably out
Total agreement. I love his hustle, but he looks like he’s playing rec ball on D. He just flies around everywhere trying to impact at the point of attack.
Yeah I don’t think it matters much from a results standpoint for us but the Hawks would provide us with less of a grind I suppose. Trae’s worst nightmare are Celtics games and not sure how much offense they can produce to keep up with us as we lock him up pretty easily. It really depends on if you prefer a 128-110 final or a 103-86 one.
Here are my questions about this year's team:
- Health: How well will JB's knee hold up - it seems obvious that he'll be less than 100%, but how much less? Will KP stay healthy for the full run?
- Back of the top 6: Al and Jrue were notably less productive this year than last. Is that 1) a thing to be concerned about or 2) just an indication that they have been pacing themselves? TBH, I am more concerned about Jrue than Al. Al is just a machine and he seemed to be turning it up late in the season.
- Deeper bench: With health, I assume we will mostly be going with an 8 man rotation (PP/SH), with LK maybe getting into games where Joe wants to use more double big lineups. Will those guys hold up? Barring injuries, I don't expect to see Queta, Scheierman, JDD, Craig, Tillman, Walsh. Maybe spot minutes for Craig, especially if PP/SH falter.
- The challenges of trying to repeat: Has Joe managed to get the team ready for the playoffs after their win last year and shortened offseason?
It's hard for me to process scheduling your life around the 2025 Red Sox, especially for a regular game against one of the worst teams of all time, but to each their own.
Because there are other games throughout the day and they don't want multiple games at once.
I will be in the land of the Mouse for Friday and Sunday's games. If my wife and sister-in-law have booked a busy itinerary it may be tough, but I'd love to hit one of those and probably a little cheaper than the Garden!
Pardon My Take had Coach Mazzulla on today and he shared the anecdote that basically to keep things interesting despite their locked seeding and the drag of being away 13 days, he and the team treated the 6-game roadtrip at the end of March as a playoff series and tried to take away the one strength of each team that he thought they did better than the Celtics at. The team really stepped up at his "made up" stakes and went a convincing 6-0.
Edit: that may also partially explain the following big loss against Miami when they were comfortably back at home and did not apply or unsuccessfully applied the same pressure to that game.
Pardon My Take had Coach Mazzulla on today and he shared the anecdote that basically to keep things interesting despite their locked seeding and the drag of being away 13 days, he and the team treated the 6-game roadtrip at the end of March as a playoff series and tried to take away the one strength of each team that he thought they did better than the Celtics at. The team really stepped up at his "made up" stakes and went a convincing 6-0.
Edit: that may also partially explain the following big loss against Miami when they were comfortably back at home and did not apply or unsuccessfully applied the same pressure to that game.
It's also about the give-and-take between ESPN and TNT for game choices and windows. TNT has always had the primetime window as opposed to daytime if both networks are broadcasting on the weekend, so if they rightfully want to alternate Celtics games with ESPN that becomes a late game. Sucks, but it will probably stay the same going forward as the NBA carves more and more slots for NBC and streaming.
East Coast 7pm Sunday isn’t exactly problematic. It will end around 9:30. And I am an early sleeper.
We often talk about series-speficis matchups affecting rotation guys like PP and Luke.
So let's talk about those, series by series, in terms of most likely opponents:
Round 1 -- Orlando.
Round 2 -- NYK most likely, but possibly Detroit.
So let's talk about those, series by series, in terms of most likely opponents:
Round 1 -- Orlando.
- Obviously, the 81st game of the year can be thrown out.
- Before that, you have to go back to 1/17, where the C's won 121-94 (Boxscore). C's had everyone heathy. Everyone finished with a positive +-. Pritchard and Sam went 5-8 between them. Luke played <7 minutes, 0 points, 4 rebounds, 0 blocks. Quetta actually got more minutes at 11, and ended with 7 pts and 3 Rebs.
- Back on 12/23, the C's lost 104-108. No JT in this game. Only 8 guys played. Al and KP has 35 and 37 MP respectively. Luke went 20 MP with 4 & 6. PP went 21MP with only 7 points. Same was still coming back form injury and though he played 16 minutes, he didn't even attempt a shot.
Round 2 -- NYK most likely, but possibly Detroit.
- Celts won all 4 vs the Knicks. (Cumulative box score)
- KP only played twice, but the info one was his best game of the year.
- Luke averaged 20mpg, 7ppg, 5.3rpg, and 5 blocks. He even had one start.
- PP averaged almost 25mpg, 9.8ppg, 4.3rpg, and 4.3apg.
- Sam averaged 19.5mpg and 7.0ppg.
- Interestingly, JT missed two of these 4 games, as did Sam. KP, Jrue, JB, and Luke missed one each/ Only DW, Al and PP played all 4.
- Luke averaged 17.5mpg, 7ppg, 6.3rpg, and 3 blocks.
- PP averaged 29mpg, 20.8ppg (!), 3.5rpg, and 4.5apg.
- Sam averaged 21mpg and 11.5ppg.
Interesting re-watching the 1/17 game, which was the only one Boston played healthy.
In the first half, Orlando mostly refused to send help, and Brown and Tatum just repeatedly destroyed smaller players and Carter Jr. They didn't take many 3s, but the ones they got were good, and the paint looks were great.
Orlando has a really good defense, but Boston seems like a horrific matchup for them. (Yes, we say that about a lot of teams, but it's particularly noticeable here because of how good Orlando is against everyone else.)
In the first half, Orlando mostly refused to send help, and Brown and Tatum just repeatedly destroyed smaller players and Carter Jr. They didn't take many 3s, but the ones they got were good, and the paint looks were great.
Orlando has a really good defense, but Boston seems like a horrific matchup for them. (Yes, we say that about a lot of teams, but it's particularly noticeable here because of how good Orlando is against everyone else.)