And this is the crux of it all. Tatum has been terrible. It's hard to win when your best player is terrible.
No, the crux of it all is they went 25-100 from 3 over two games when if they even go 27-100 they're up 2-0. Everyone - players, coach, fanbase - has lost their fucking minds.
So nobody should be accountable for this epic choke job?
I mean, this is also true. The margin has been nearly as close as humanly possible over two games, we could point out 20 different ways they could be up 2-0. I'm pointing out Tatum specifically because my confidence in this matchup was, more than anything else, based on how comfortable Tatum has looked and felt vs the Knicks. Instead, this is as bad as he's ever looked shooting the ball in a two game stretch in the playoffs.
I think it's much more likely they pulled an inside straight against repeatedly decimated opponents a year ago and this and the 23 squad are who they really are. But I guess we well see. To not see a pattern at this point is to willfully put on blinders. Which is fine, we all do it sometimes, but watching these team late and close is like watching 5: year olds play soccer - chaos personified. No one knows what the hell to do.
I (respectfully) disagree, before Brunson even started his drive to the middle Holiday had him wrapped up and they let them play. I think the plan was for the Cs to score quickly, then foul quickly so they could get the ball back with enough time to call a pla... no sorry to run Tatum hero ball to end it.
You're right. They should trade everyone, Process it, and find players who have more of a fire in the belly.
1st they didn't though2nd if they made one more three in the first half of each game I doubt your certainty of winning both games. They shot wee enough to have big leads in both games and to be winning late in each game, then play awful ball at the end of each game to lose.
They are useful trade currency when they are in the out years - see Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.
And the past 2 seasons. And they won all the close games against Dallas.
Yep. His first year, Mazzulla resisted calling momentum-driven timeouts to, in his words, "let them work through it". He learned why most successful coaches take those, to refocus the team. And now he largely takes those when he should. However, this was not one of those, not the type we criticized him for not taking early on. There is probably value to him drawing up an ATO play, but it's cancelled out (perhaps entirely) by the value of still having that timeout if you miss - as you point out. And with 12 seconds left instead of 5, that value-add of the ATO is smaller, you have more time to read and react, more time to try multiple things before committing.
Grady Little was a shit fucking coach who had no business managing the team from the start.
Exactly this, 100%. Couldn't agree more. Hell yeah. Bravo.
Maybe that's bc they lack the toughness that EJ cites. They don't have what it takes to knock down super-open, practice-like shots in the ECSF. Other than the past four years in the ECSF.
That’s nuts. Holiday was overly aggressive because he’s been around the block and knows that there would never be a whistle in actions leading up to the shot. He just happened to get his arm in an obvious shooting foul…..but nothing prior to that was with intent to foul it was with intent to disrupt knowing he’d never be whistled for a foul.
To my eye, it looked like he got beat and was trying to foul him to reset the possession almost.
DW amd JH provided a lot of crunch time scoring. They were the "3rd scorer" the celts have needed the entire J's era (along with the sometimes-available Porzingis).
John Karalis argued in his column that not calling the time out was the right move. They should have had time to bring the ball down, get a shot off, try for rebound, and then foul (at which point they would have needed the time out).
This team was built on trades of first round picks and trades of many players for one (Kemba + 1st for Al; Brogdon and Rob Williams and a 1st for Jrue; flotsam and jetsam and a 1st for Brogdon; Smart and flotsam and jetsam for KP; flotsam and jetsam and a 1st for White), which the second apron restricts. Literally all of our top players except for JT and JB were added that way.
When things get tough, this Celtics team becomes allergic to inside out play.
Most of these decisions are extremely marginal: neither changes win probability a ton either way, and you're probably talking about a 35-40% chance to win the game either way, at best.
I think it is entirely likely that they would have lost anyway had the time out been called. I just think things were going so bad with the way the team was currently playing that failing where they did was almost a foregone conclusion, so they should have called time, advanced the ball, and tried to run a play.
