ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

they made the finals last year I think they probably could. Jimmy has to retire first though

they beat jimmy last year so thats clearly not the limiting factor

he has more dog in him now though

sounds painful

it’s just so funny to me, sorry, the way these conversations go, particularly as someone who’s been watching the best player in the league for the past 3 seasons and keeping tabs on this sort of meta stuff. for one thing, the thing people forget is that before jordan came along, this wing fetish didn’t really exist. (to be fair, the changes to illegal defense and hand check rules had something to do with this.) then, just as jordan experienced, the consensus about lebron was a guy who couldn’t get through at the highest level, until of course he did. giannis went through the same thing, and now it’s jokic’s turn. the status quo bias is strong enough, and talking heads are desperate/lazy enough to retrofit narratives, that these conversations are always a couple of seasons behind, and then we all feign surprise that it actually happens.

you really just want to have the best players and, ideally, for those players to be healthy and not be loser attention sinks. there is an element of luck every season and all you can hope for is that the group you put together has a chance to win

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

i agree it's all a bit overblown... you have two wing players who have been in the east finals like 5 times already let's not overthink this. that said! i knew jaylen brown wasn't great at dribbling and stuff but i've heard ppl talk about this more specifically and in the playoffs the last two years his assist and turnover totals are:

assists - 139
turnovers - 126

tatum is much better but even his playoff totals the last two years (226 assists to 142 turnovers) are a 1.5/1 ratio. compare to i.e. jimmy butler who is at 151 assists to 53 turnovers the last two playoffs for a 2.84/1 ratio.

i ultimately think this is picking nits, but the playoffs are becoming a nit picker's game. can you primarily have the ball in the hands of two guys who, combined, are giving you 1.3 assists for every turnover? still to me the solution is not to break up that pair but to find better guards to put around them. if you look at the warriors last year, denver this year, this miami team... i don't think marcus smart can be the best passer on your team. but that's not the Js fault

theyre both shooting horrifically, and their bad shooting is affecting their defensive intensity. you only break up that pair if one of them is over it and wants out (jaylen seems to be playing like he wants out + all the weird comments/vibes this year + being a kyrie apologist)

smart, brogdon & white are all signed for at least two more seasons after this one for essentially the same salaries (between $19m-$22m), i wonder if they look at that group as having too much skill/role overlap and move one of them for a more "true" PG

yeah i remember the celtics need a proper point guard being the constant talking point before their big turnaround + finals run last year

wasnt brogdon supposed to be that?

that said they are still 2nd in the playoffs in offensive rating it's the defense that's slipped relative to the regular season

seems like a well built roster is just underperforming due to bad coaching and bad vibes

xp yeah he could be, maybe should be

coaching thing is obviously a weird circumstance specific to this season the bad vibes are harder to solve for

i feel like the bad vibes started when grant got benched

i think when you put a player like brogdon as the sixth man the signal you're sending explicitly or implicitly is "you're here to score." maybe you're "leading the second unit" i.e. playing a bit more of a traditional PG role, but i don't think that's what he's being asked to do for boston. even if you look at per 36 or per 100 possession numbers from this year he put up by far his lowest assist total since his milwaukee days.

maybe that changes if you dump smart and put brogdon in the starting line up and give him the keys to orchestrate the offense in a more traditional sense but if you have tatum & brown the ball is gonna be in those guys hands a ton, especially in crunch time possessions, so the idea of putting a "real" PG in there might just be a pipe dream at the end of the day

maybe theres no bad vibes beyond the ones from losing though. who knows. they made the conference finals and then had some bad games vs a running hot team, not really a refutation of the boston celtics as contenders imo

brogdon is a willing passer but he is not creative at all

i feel like smart typifies the celtics issues so they should probably dump him first. they need a new mindtype

nothing wrong with all your shot creation coming from two wings (or two anything). they just have to be good enough at it to win games

i feel like the bad vibes started when grant got benched

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 8:12 AM

grant is not going to die wondering and i respect that

also the celtics are doing some very unusual and bad things on defense to the point that im not sure if the scheme is completely cooked or if the players are deliberately ignoring it

there is some inexplicable stuff on defense for sure, one has to wonder if it stems from mazzulla clearly looking at the team thru an offensive lens. even his big adjustment for game 3 was to take his best defensive player off the floor in order to insert a guy (derrick white) who butler has been repeatedly picking on in iso all series

jimmy has also been victimising williams. there are so many structural issues with the celtics defense though that lineup management is not even that big a part of it

celtics game plan so far: three and a half minutes smart, team basketball, get a 4- or 5-pt lead, then just stop running actual plays.

brogdon was brought in to be a 6th man. the idea was to limit his minutes and keep him healthy because he always wears down/gets hurt. it's worked great.

i do think some of the hand-wringing about wing creation or true point guards or whatever is overblown, this team doesn't have a top-5 player and was always going to win with defense and depth and not having major weaknesses....they still play defense ok but struggle to adjust and take advantage of being able to play different coverages and styles because they're horribly coached on that end.

tatum was a top 5 player this year per RPM type stats for whatever thats worth

he probably looks good in aggregate stats because he plays a ton and contributes in a lot of different categories but he's obv not top-5 on any given night

he was 4th in mvp voting!

the most trustworthy stat as we all know

yeah! totally deserved that MVP placing, i'm just talking about a different criteria

there are overlaps in all these tiers but I think you could def say he’s at the top of the second tier or whatever, if your supporting cast is good enough I think he can be the best player on a title team

he was 13th in EPM this year but third in EPM wins. he’s still young and stays on the court, good combo

i’m a tatum defender but if you go back thru the last two playoffs and ask yourself how many times he was the best player in the series you’ll find that the answer is not very often

haha I was just going to say that I feel the need to gently rib you for referring to tatum as the best/most important player in the league on separate occasions several months apart this year when there’s actually a better version of him on your team

he doesn't score consistently enough in playoff settings yet, i think he can and maybe will in the future but he just gets shut down way too often

He has really great halves though

nice run from boston here

that stat about al horford only having shot three FTs since march 21 was insane

uh oh if Jimmy's gonna start making those shots again...

this is the first time all series the heat’s role players have gotten gunshy

the celtics ending the quarter by purposefully switching butler onto tatum leading to a horrible shot and then a transition dunk for butler was weird

alright I'm gonna have my eyes on Tatum the whole quarter

oh damn that was sick

ok Cs aren't blowing this one

alright let’s go 7 game series plz we deserve it

haha and you have absolutely no self-interest in suggesting that

:)

game 7, baby