I have no idea how mentally tough Luka is but I told my son yesterday that if the Cs look as good as I think they will, I have a sneaking suspicion that Luka will do the same thing as Mitchell and Haliburton and beg out of the series because of injuries.
Mike Francesa is a comedy act now, particularly when it comes to the NBA.
I love the edge this whole team and staff has right now. The criticism last year was that they acted like they had already arrived just be making the finals in '22. This whole organization knows now it's time to get this done. They aren't taking any shit. I expect them to come out flying on Thursday. Not sure if that means the shots will fall, but the effort will be 100 and they are experienced enough to put that to good use.
It's fair that Luka is a better offensive player than JT and it's hard to argue that being able to create decent offense when NBA defenses are completely locked in is a super valuable skill, one that has historically characterized "superstars".
Let’s just go off what’s happening right now in the 2024 NBA playoffs.
Good comparison. While it wasn't a change in personnel per se, the switch Ime made in having TL play a rover on defense was almost as dramatic as adding a new player.
The Mavs with JT instead of Luka, with Good Kyrie at PG, would be a formidable team. They would be markedly better defensively and might be as good offensively. They do have some good long distance shooters, and maybe JT opens the floor a bit more for them than Luka. They might be more engaged offensively, as opposed to standing around watching Luka fiddle and diddle.
This national talking point that "Dallas has or might have the 2 best players in the series" is so insane and yet it keeps getting thrown out there.
The more juice the national press throws towards Dallas, the bigger the achievement will be when the Celts whip them in 5.
I was kinda wishing there was a Bronze medal round that pitted Indiana versus Minnesota in a best of 5.
I know the logistics of a contingent start are really complicated but the NBA is a giant, global, entertainment conglomerate. Figger it oot!
My off-the-wall but Adam Silver-aligned concept for how to fix this:
Agreed, this was achievable during prior seasons. As HRB often points out, follow the money.
Football games are once a week anyway, so it makes more sense in football to have a long break like this. A few days to regroup would be fine, but this seems pretty excessive.
This is the silver lining I needed. I’ll continue watching YouTube footage of the 83-84 team for a few more days.
That was beautiful. And he’s 100% right. The Celtics won 64 games during the regular season and have gone, what, 12-2 during the playoffs and some in the media are treating them like they’re some kind of paper tiger. I think these guys are going to come out with a major chip on their shoulder.
Key's actually been kinda funny to watch on Undisputed when it comes to the C's when Pierce is there. They obviously task him with always countering Pierce, and he tries at the start, you can tell he doesn't believe the crap he has to spout, and as soon as PP and Skip get into it he immediately sides with Pierce and completely 180s on his anti-Cs talking points from 2 minutes before
I mean, they very well could. Freaking TJ McConnell and Andrew Nembhard averaged 21.0 and 15.0 points a game on a combined 60-115 (52.2%) from the floor. Kyrie and Luka are much, much, much better than McConnell and Nembhard. It won't be easy keeping the two of them under a combined 60 points a game, if we're being perfectly honest. (They averaged 59.5 points a game combined during the regular season, FWIW)
This gets to the genesis of any argument against Boston winning the title: We've seen them come close and lost a bunch in the past, so they won't win this year, either. The other basic arguments are either totally outside of their control (Dallas unequivocally had a tougher playoff run, which is neither here nor there at this point) or laughably simple and easy to disprove (the team with the best player wins the series, which is why Lebron famously has like a dozen titles). Dallas can certainly win the series (35% seems about right, and all too possible), but most of the arguments in favor are just wishcasting.
Looking at the stats for Tatum and Luka in the playoffs.. kinda crazy but they're getting similar numbers of shots up with Tatum playing more minutes. Luka is scoring at a higher percentage on twos... he's also getting more rebounds and assists. If they were to switch teams.. Tatum probably gets more shots with more minutes and would dominate the ball a lot more than he already dominates the ball with the Celtics. He's already shown that he can average 30 points for a season.. if he had less options to pass to I think he could do that or better with Dallas and he'd have similar counting stats to Luka because he'd play more minutes than Luka does. I do think the defensive upgrade, especially with the other bigs on Dallas would be pretty huge.. You'd have another defender that could challenge the other team's 3s and 4s...and sometime 5s.
It's quite a piece. After mentioning that Boston won both meetings in the regular season, we're told: "But it’s not as if Boston has owned Dallas, or Luka in particular, for very long. In November 2021, Doncic did this to beat Boston at the buzzer:"
Yeah, 35% seems right. Re the bolded: just to split hairs, I'd describe the pro-Dallas takes as "vibe doctoring" more than anything else. It's all about the eye test and intangibles and everything that can't be quantified. It's the equivalent of the scene in Moneyball where the old scouts are all slobbering over players based on how their swing looks while ignoring their on-base percentage.
I thought it was interesting that both Lee and Pelton agreed that BOS “unquestionably” had the better offense and no one thinks that DAL has the better defense - in fact, not only is BOS’s defense better, they agreed that BOS has a defensive gear that no other NBA team “can touch,” but they talk about the series as if it’s a toss-up. I get that Lowe’s employers want people to be excited to watch a competition, but as you point out, he doesn’t have to lean into it quite as much.
Yea but in a new Eastern Conference Playoff rule the Boston Celtics played random girls & boys high school basketball teams for 4 weeks leading up to the Finals. While the Mavs faced the Clippers with 4 HOFers,
Good pull. And of course the 2016 Cavs were still a 57 win team.
"Fascinatingly", here, of course, taking the meaning of "by complete and total cherry-picked coincidence".
Obviously one game variance too.. a lot of my confidence is based on that kind of thing not happening four times.
Means nothing but the same could have been said about the recent Detroit and SA teams, I guess. Thing about the Celtics is that they actually are whelming. They have kicked ass all year. And have top level talent.
It's an outrageous headline. But the article itself (I had to track it down and read after seeing this) is actually quite reasonable, more along the lines of "why do people perceive them as underwhelming?"
Thanks for posting. Seems like much of the narrative is driven by the fact that BOS was down to IND late in 3 games.
The Pacers were also just... pretty good, period, more so than people realize. They initially lost 3 straight after acquiring Siakam in Jan but then went 20-12 down the stretch— exactly the same as Dallas, for that matter, but with a better point differential. Haliburton, Siakam, Turner, Nesmith and a playing-out-of-his-mind Nembhard with a strong bench: that's a legit conference finals roster most years, not just a "they lucked out and don't deserve to be there" team. It feels like people just can't take them seriously mainly because they're so slanted towards offense, and so this feels cheap and gimmicky, like they're not winning 'honestly'.Similar to how people feel compelled to write off the Celtics for their perceived over-reliance on the three-ball. That, plus the fact that it's Indiana and a 6-seed (never mind that they were 3 games out of the 2 seed).
