National Celtics discourse
- Thread starter RorschachsMask
- Start date
National media guy that loudly hates Boston sports as much as anyone out there and latches onto any narrative to trash them.. I believe he picked Dallas in 5.
Psychology is 100% part of basketball coaching at this level just as Carlisle taking the podium talking about his assistants already preparing tape of bad/missed-calls against the Pacers to send to the league office. Carlisle was also mocked and criticized for it…..but yeah it worked and they went on to win the series.
The Celtics were forced to respond to these question. Kids already won that part. We don’t know what results and how/if it affects them….the fact that they had to hear this and respond is what a coach should do to try and gain an edge, any edge.
I don’t think anything that is supposed to occur can be considered backfiring. I already know how people respond to psychological ploys since there will never be actual evidence of success. Celtics win by 30, Kidd’s a joke for trying that shit. Mavs win G2, Celtics play like shit, Kidd’s comments had nothing to do with it.
As they should. My point is that Kidd didn’t do nothing….he acted to screw with the Celtics knowing the media would jump all over it and force them to respond while attempting to get in their heads. Maybe it works tonight. We don’t know yet.
Now that you mention it, I can think of a half a dozen things off the top of my head that could make Kidd want to create a distraction.
Yea I don't blame Kidd for trying, nothing wrong with a little gamesmanship
I just think JT will go off since he can play better than he did G1. I liked the look of his 3pt arc for the first time in a while.
Either way, their on-court performances will have little to do with JKidds rankings/needling. The JAYs have heard all the COMPS a million times by now. They will both be Super MAX players for the next decade. Winning a RING is the #1 motivator now. IMO
How would we know if 'it works'? Jayson tries to shoot more? JB underperforms to show JT is the best? I think you're trying to say Kidd is some kind of grandmaster when he's just playing checkers.
How do we know it’s checkers though? We don’t. We only know that taking some actions in the gamesmanship world is better than sitting on one’s hands.
yeah, it’s not a “checkers” vs “chess” thing. It’s basically taking a shot vs not taking a shot.
I don’t think it will work at all but you can’t fault him for at least trying
It doesn't sound like he's saying that at all. It's a totally risk-free shot in the dark by Kidd, if anything.
And to HRB's point, the fact that any people at all are talking about this instead of how unprepared and shitty Dallas looked in game one means it already paid some dividends.
Yes. It also may be a tell to how they are going to adjust defensively on Tatum tonight. How will Mazzulla interpret the comments? What changes should we prepare for? Did his words give off a tell? It’s a playoff coach playing a mind game. If my coach got smoked by 20 and didn’t try to get into the heads of the opponent I’d surely be disappointed.
There is a reluctance amongst the mediocracy to mention the fact that Luka is overweight, out of shape and injured. There is a tendency to describe his defense as “ as good as it can be under the circumstances” rather than good or bad. I can see them seizing upon Kidd’s comments as an excuse not to take on the uncomfortableness of discussing Luka’s shortcomings.
Luka is gonna mostly get a pass if they lose this series, even if it ends in a sweep, but that's gonna be it for him. He's been 1st team all-nba for half a decade, he's no longer super young, and he's made 2 deep playoff runs, including a finals trip. People love to tear that sort of guy down, until he wins a title. Starting next year, he's gonna get hit every year he doesn't win.
Embiid is an odd one, I'm still waiting for that.
Luka has been getting lots of Lebron comparisons, and I don't know if anyone in recent history has been killed as much as Lebron for not winning the title before he did.
I really don't think so. It's going to be about his supporting cast failing in perpetuity (unless he ever wins, then it will just be about how amazing he is). He makes too many amazing offensive plays for anyone in the media to make the reasonable assessment of him a narrative.
In fact, I expect it to go in the opposite direction: after carrying this team to the Finals, if he plays at the same level next year and the Mavs win 50 games, he is going to win the MVP.
I'm already ducking as I type this, but...
I can't help feeling that a lot of the discourse, or at least national perception, is getting shaped shaped by racial assumptions. Luka is perceived as a white guy with less "natural athleticism," and is fawned over for carrying an overmatched team on his back, playing with guts and tenacity despite being wounded ... all of which may be true (myself, I'm skeptical about the wounded part). But then he gets a pass for his glaring lack of defensive effort.
I was definitely getting a racial vibe in national media reactions to the Dallas-Minne series, as commentators struggled to explain the swing in that sequence.
Not trying to derail the thread, and I apologize if I'm pulling the discussion off track. It is true that many commentators seem to be conscious of the danger here. Certainly 10 or 20 years ago the discourse would have been ugly. Maybe that's the story here.
Luka is difficult to account for. His offense is genuinely otherworldly. While his defense has been brutally undercutting his team.
I can't help feeling that a lot of the discourse, or at least national perception, is getting shaped shaped by racial assumptions. Luka is perceived as a white guy with less "natural athleticism," and is fawned over for carrying an overmatched team on his back, playing with guts and tenacity despite being wounded ... all of which may be true (myself, I'm skeptical about the wounded part). But then he gets a pass for his glaring lack of defensive effort.
I was definitely getting a racial vibe in national media reactions to the Dallas-Minne series, as commentators struggled to explain the swing in that sequence.
Not trying to derail the thread, and I apologize if I'm pulling the discussion off track. It is true that many commentators seem to be conscious of the danger here. Certainly 10 or 20 years ago the discourse would have been ugly. Maybe that's the story here.
Luka is difficult to account for. His offense is genuinely otherworldly. While his defense has been brutally undercutting his team.
We’ve went from “the greatest backcourt in history” to “man, Luka needs help” in like 96 hours.
Imagine if JB had a glaring weakness of his exposed in a series, the way Luka's D and conditioning has been. Can you imagine him NOT spending the summer relentlessly improving that?
Conversely, does anyone think Luka will come back in October in amazing shape?
Isn’t Luka somewhat famous for openly doing zero conditioning in the offseason? What a boss
When you see his offseason videos, you get the feeling his biggest regret about the NBA season is that the playoffs overlap with the Monaco Grand Prix.
Can you imagine Luka trying to do that workout that JB did two offseasons ago when he was jumping off the bottom of a pool with weights? Think Luka would drown before long.
There were some articles last off-season about Luka doing more conditioning, like this one: Luka Doncic slimmed down after disastrous Mavericks season (nypost.com) .
BTW, someone should tell Luka that running stairs at his size probably isn't great for his knees.
edit: this article - Luka Doncic's offseason training video should scare the rest of the NBA (thesmokingcuban.com) - hasn't really aged very well.
If the Celtics win the title this year, I am guessing that both Tatum and Brown will be all-NBA second team 2024-25.
As a recreational hobbyist “athlete” who regularly trains to exhaustion but also good luck seeing me hold down a strength and conditioning routine these day, I really get Luka. I too like to pound beers after training. Like I get it, and this guy is busting his ass on offense in the games. Playing the games is not the problem, but he is a professional, not a hobbyist, get in shape , dude.
Of course, his next contract is slated to be 5 years/$350 Million and he's first team all-NBA so clearly doing plenty of good things. So all that's left is a title and that's really up to the GM. At least that's how I'd rationalize that third beer.
Tons of ways for him to rationalize it. Hard for me to imagine Tatum, JB (or LeBron, Jokic, Steph, etc) making that rationalization.
Man, it's great reading a paragraph like this on The Ringer. Gives me hope.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2024/6/10/24175232/dallas-mavericks-luka-doncic-nba-finals-2024
The amount of hate that LeBron got for not being able to lead a cast of crappy roleplayers past the Spurs dynasty at its height and one of the greatest NBA teams of all time was just absurd.
I hope the Celtics PR has created shirts that say
“I am the best player’”
Then players along the lines of ‘I am Spartacus’ in the interviews
“I am the best player’”
Then players along the lines of ‘I am Spartacus’ in the interviews
Post-game workout below (well until Michael Finley intecedes.
View: https://youtu.be/Xo1q_6GY1SA?si=In-yXCCu64XtsU7u