CELTICS 2010

yeah. what usually complicates these things is guarantee dates because sometimes you don’t know what moves might be available at the deadline to guarantee a guy.

yeah its a risk but seems like a worthy one, also they love horf so

oh it doesn’t fully guarantee until jan 2023, nice

celtics play seven quarters of their old bad iso heavy offense vs the pistons i guess just to try to make it more fair then finally decide to play their new look team ball for the 8th quarter lol

good game by pritchard btw, got more minutes than white, guess they wanted shooting in there and figured the pistons couldnt really take advantage on the other end

pritchard is more than respectable for a 26th pick

couple articles out today trying to figure out why computers like the celtics so much

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/3/1/22955727/nba-boston-celtics-championship-odds

https://www.espn.com.au/nba/insider/insider/story/_/id/33348162/how-boston-celtics-vaulted-back-championship-contention-nba-best-defense

i kind of feel the same about them as i have all year which is that talent wise they are a very solid but not great team, obvs theyve been playing extremely well which is heartening tho they are getting some luck with opponent shooting, but the thing that imo really gives them a shot this year is right now at least no one else is looking dominant, says in one of those pieces 538 has them favored to win it all at %18 but also gives them a 30% chance of losing in the first round lol, which just about sums it up

i guess the other thing that gives me hope for a playoff run is their starting five has been killing it

In their 322 minutes together on the floor, the Celts' starters are outscoring opponents by 26.6 points per 100 possessions. Folks, that is ludicrous. No other five-man group with at least 200 minutes together is even close to that. The defending champion Milwaukee Bucks' best five-man group (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday, Bobby Portis and Grayson Allen) is at plus-13.2. The Golden State Warriors' best five-man lineup features three All-Stars (Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Andrew Wiggins), and they're a plus-8.2, not even one-third as good as what the Celtics' starters have done.

and obvs starters play more in the offs

and i will say that success from the starters isnt one of those things where theyre efforting their way to wins, playing playoff basketball in the regular season, they do have another gear particularly on defense that they only use occasionally

would be nice if they could hit a 3 now and then lol, their playoff fate could easily swing on getting hot or not from deep

yeah definitely. lately it feels like when they make their threes it’s a blowout, and when they don’t it’s a loss

they had a few outlier blowouts in a row that has really goosed their net rating or whatever the computers use to calculate these things. the improvement is real, and the defense is real, but how real the new-look ball-movement is when it gets physical in the offs will be intertsing to see play out

yeah keeping the ball movement rolling throughout the whole shot clock is going to be a huge challenge for them, its so easy to revert back to bad iso habits when the first action they try doesnt work

not having jaylen or jayson really ever initiate the offense would be good for playing good offense too

couple articles out today trying to figure out why computers like the celtics so much

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/best-net-rating-since-january-1

saved everyone some effort

and i will say that success from the starters isnt one of those things where theyre efforting their way to wins, playing playoff basketball in the regular season, they do have another gear particularly on defense that they only use occasionally

― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 11:14 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

agree with this, they *should* be a really strong playoff team if they can stay out of their own way on the offensive end. they're probably still a guy short but the east is a total free for all as far as matchups and roster strangths/weaknesses.

Aren't Boston's plus/minus numbers skewed by 3-4 ridiculous 50+ point wins? Not that they don't count.

blowouts are good! doing a lot of blowouts is pretty much a thing only good teams do

lol grant williams (who is having a nice game) just got the ball in the corner, but for whatever reason he was at like 18 feet instead of behind the 3-point line and you could see his brain break for a second as if it was illegal to shoot from there. luckily he bounced back with a nice dribble move for a layup.

someone get this man some ryan gomes or glen davis tape

great win after losing jaylen and committing a million fouls in the first half, sure hope he doesnt miss much time the schedule is turning pretty rough now

definitely. earlier versions of this team would have just punted after that first half and instead they came out and pretty much beat the shit out of the hawks.

good sign i guess

Ime Udoka on Jaylen Brown's ankle sprain: "Rolled it & had some swelling & soreness. He tried to give it a go in the back and wanted to come back out and play. But we felt big picture, where we are in the season, just be smart."

Hope is it's not serious, team will see tomorrow.

— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) March 2, 2022

sounds pretty minor

Celtics’ Jaylen Brown ‘unlikely’ to play against Grizzlies because of ankle sprain, still not expected to be out long-term https://t.co/PGBcSI977b

— Souichi Terada | 寺田惣一 (@SouichiTerada) March 2, 2022

2nd double digit win against a quality opponent without jaylen, celtics are playing good, horf was ridiculous tonight

tatum was just doing whatever he wanted in the 4th

lol

How did Ime Udoka turn the Celtics around tonight?

"I'm coach of the month."

— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) March 4, 2022

tatum was just doing whatever he wanted in the 4th

― lag∞n, Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:05 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's interesting, ja ended up scoring 38 to tatum's 37 but being there everyone in the building was waiting for him to do crazy stuff and outside of the one nice alley oop, we just didn't feel him as a force. the celtics did a good job of walling off the rim and while he hit a couple threes it was too late to matter.

tatum otoh was having a nice, fairly normal game for 3 quarters and then as you say completely took over the 4th. the grizz have a bunch of defensive-minded players and no one could do anything with him.

ime agrees

Ime Udoka thought the Celtics were sharp on Ja Morant for the most part: “It’s the quietest 38 I’ve ever seen.”

— Jay King (@ByJayKing) March 4, 2022

In my experience Udoka

got baby a little bear in a horford jersery

https://i.imgur.com/trQjlXg.jpg

aww

That’s pretty sweet.

Awwwww

grant trending

In the course of ten days we've gone from @ChrisForsberg_ projecting 4/$32-36M for a Grant extension to @jacksobd saying 4/$40M to @JaredWeissNBA saying "mid-teens per year" and now Zach giving him love in "10 Things"

— Ryan Bernardoni (@dangercart) March 4, 2022

horf has been so good this year even without his shot falling just such a gamer super active, the play at 1:15 here where he grabs the rebound dribbles past all the grizzlies and sets tatum up for a dunk was wild thats a 35 y/o center manufacturing a fast break bucket where there really wasnt one

35-years-young Al Horford turning back the clock ☘️

21 points, 15 boards, five dimes. That's just vintage Big Al.

Full highlights ▶️ https://t.co/pMi1zgQr8k pic.twitter.com/Vz3FLSTiIn

— Tomek Kordylewski (@Timi_093) March 4, 2022

excellent

basketball is the best game

thats a fact

the kemba for horford exchange illustrates something really enlightening about the difference between a guy who is useless (with all due respect) if he’s not scoring vs. a guy who can do a ton of other useful things if he’s not scoring. al still impacts games regularly with his defense and passing and rebounding.

Celtics introductions (1999) pic.twitter.com/V0l8X0xkzb

— 90s NBA (@NBA90s) March 6, 2022

aw hell yeah vitaly potapenko the ukraine train got in trouble for cutting a tree in his yard down

lol

#Celtics bringing their best 👘 game in honor of Marcus Smart’s 28th birthday!! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/tBGjMrrLR6

— Abby Chin (@tvabby) March 6, 2022

ridiculous stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Dhj6DOVs

He has looked unstoppable the last few games. Such a pleasure to watch him work. Huge win, playoff atmosphere for what felt like the whole game

yeah great game felt like the celtics pretty solidly outplayed them but a lot of random stuff went the nets way

notable in the full highlights how many unfortunate defensive switches the nets executed with someone pretty hopeless ending up on tatum.

yeah their supporting cast is pretty suspect

true and the rest were kyrie switching on lol

their guard rotation is not strong defensively

wow this game was pretty good huh?

in a way it’s slightly alarming that the celtics can play out of their minds at home against maybe not the best defensive team in the east and still have it be that close but i guess you are dealing with two crazy talents (and i do mean crazy! speaking of which i wasn’t thrilled that kyrie embraced tatum like that after the final whistle, breathing all over him etc)

they really went at it, just all out shit - ridiculously fun to watch