We were in nice shape with a Cavs win tonight but still have a significant rest advantage. Whoever wins G7 on Sunday afternoon isn’t going to have much time to recharge and become emotionally engaged in rhe series.
Any delay to to give KP more time is fine with me. The Cavs worry me a bit since they are deep and Jarret Allen is a beast.
Orlando will be more of a pain with their size but Cleveland's playmaking gives them a slightly better chance to pull off the upset, if that makes sense. I think we miss KP more against Orlando.
I don’t think the EC is going to factor in The Finals beginning for KP to be ready as we should dispose of either team max of 5 but likely a sweep.
Marcus Morris started and played 27 minutes, and Tristan Thompson played 12 minutes off the bench. Depth feels like a major issue for them.
The Celtics have been a great road team. I think, like the Miami series, their toughest test to get up for will be that Game 2 after we run them out of the Garden in Game 1. Either way though I don’t see a Game 6 in their future regardless of which team we face.
There are no delays. Games 3-7 would be on the same schedule whether the Cavs won or lost game 6
Feels similar the play in situation with the heat to me. The G7 winner’s best chance at a win might be game 2. Game 1 is going to be a Celts blowout.
I’m not sure we’ve seen ORL play a locked in Celtics team in the last two years. Maybe it’s my green colored glasses, but apples to oranges?
In fairness, you'd think we would've been locked in for that IST game there after Thanksgiving, and we played a pretty competitive first half but then just let go of the rope in the 4th Q. One of the most decisive losses we took in the entire regular season - I think the second biggest loss by margin, and the biggest (@ MIL) we basically never showed up, mentally were checked out from the opening tip. So ORL might have the biggest defeat of the Celtics all year in a game in which we were actually trying.
That was a rest day for Holiday, and KP hurt his calf mid-way through the 3rd quarter (it was a tie game at the time) and sat the rest of the game. I don't take too much from that game, to be honest.
Yes - BOS beat ORL 128-111 on December 15 and then 114-97 on December 17. The 12.15 game was a back-to-back + third game in four days + without Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and even Luke Kornet.
I’ll start by saying that I’m glad you used the word “reasonably” as we dominated the large majority of all 3 games with the one we actually lost being the most one-sides until we casually watched Dean Wade have his career game in the 4Q. I’m their first game we spotted them 10 pts in the 1Q, probably due to being out of rhythm from only having one game scheduled in the prior 8 days, then beat them by 17 in the final 3 quarters. We comfortably took care of business against them the following night then were up 20 the 3rd meeting until Wade happened.
Surprisingly for a team with two bigs, they're pretty bad in OReb% (22nd overall)— perhaps partly a reflection of injuries but also the fact that there isn't a lot of size after Mobley and Allen.
Or Max Strus starts knocking down 25-footers, as he's done against the C's before.
It it is any consolation, it is the same here in Denver, which I love. Gotta save up for a dream Finals match-up!
I don't think Cleveland will just concede Mobley on to Tatum, and then have Mobley float on the perimeter, at least as a default. They probably are going to get to run their more vanilla mismatch+2-3 player actions, and then see what that leads too. This version of Cleveland is not as well coached as Miami, and I think they'll have issues stopping the vanilla stuff, at least initially.
I wonder if we see White/Jrue on Strus, JB on Mitchell, Jrue/White on Garland, Tatum on whoever they play at the 4 (Okoro?), and Horford on Mobley.
He didn't look beat up yesterday. He's got an unbelievable motor. Yesterday, all of the Magic were sucking wind, especially Paolo, and Mitchell was just motoring all over, despite playing 45 minutes. The miles might add up over time but if yesterday is an indication, probably won't happen this year. He's at the peak of his athleticism. And his cardio is absurd.
Not a terrible idea. I think that they'll try a switch approach to start with and see how it works, but there will be different looks thrown for sure.
Mitchell was pretty horrific for most of the 1H then got energized along with the crowd. One thing I’ve noticed about Mitchell is that he is very good at playing into the crowd and uses this to build his aggression. It seems like he’s much more explosive in these moments which of course he isn’t going to have tomorrow night.
Unless someone gets hurt I can't imagine Springer sees the floor besides and crazy blowouts
Yeah the emergency guys last our 8-man rotation are Tillman and Brissett. It’s not going any deeper than that unless there are multiple injuries or multiple players in foul trouble.
