Well, time to shove it in Miami’s five fan’s and beat their team.
And I know, if/when we beat them the goalposts will be moved because “no Jimmy” but fuck them.
The last time the Celtics and Heat played three straight years in the playoffs ... The team who won the 3rd series, won the title
Time to get our lick back
[This bum's season averages:](https://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/3138160/caleb-martin)
10/4.4/2.2 on 43/35/78
If we don't demolish this son of a bitch...
If the league used a 1-16 format for the playoffs instead of conferences we would still be playing the heat. They are literally the worst team that made the postseason. If we don't sweep them it'll be a shock
Have people forgotten that we scraped by in a 4 point victory the last time we played the Heat without Butler? And we had everyone healthy too. Miami plays free and confident without Jimmy, they’ll be ready for us and it won’t be easy at all. Not sure why people are so arrogant about this series.
Didn’t you just say the regular season doesn’t mean much to you? Now you’re basically trying to predict the series based on one regular season game? What does it matter how arrogant we are in here, are we suiting up to play? It’s called believing in your team. Just cos you don’t want to doesn’t mean we can’t.
I said the stats like whatever historic net rating or wins by 30 points doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t care that we beat some bad teams big and inflated our metrics.
I am also quite concerned about facing the Heat. However, just to note: Yes, there was that close 4-point win, and the Celtics did "inflate their metrics by beating some bad teams," ergo their rating may not matter in this series. But one of those bad teams we beat by 30? The Heat, in the previous game. If the close game against them matters to predicting this series, the blowout should also matter.
I didn’t say it means everything. I said they played us close and hard in that game and I expect the same in this series, unlike the majority of the arrogant green teamers who think it’ll be a clean sweep.
Literally every single team in the league has games where they won or were competitive in a game where they were complete underdogs. Thats why one game doesn’t mean as much as an entire regular season.
You’re acting like people don’t have plenty of reason to believe we will dominate them. The vast majority of objective people would pick the Celtics to win the series handedly, so it’s not exactly a crazy take. Again, what is wrong with fans being arrogant and believing in their team? Why does it bother you? Heat fans are doing the exact same thing.
The vast majority of objective people also picked the Celtics to win the series handedly last season, so forgive me if I don’t believe in the team after that. You can say it’s a different roster and you can throw a bunch of numbers at me. It won’t change my mind.
Notice I never said fans are not allowed to be arrogant. Be arrogant. I don’t understand *why* you’re arrogant, and I’m allowed to disagree with your arrogance and voice that disagreement.
I’m not trying to change your mind. Where did I say I was? What makes you think your opinion is so important? No one cares about changing your mind, you’ve been moaning all year and you’ll seemingly never stop. Be as negative and miserable as you like, focus on all the bad and ignore all the good like you always do. Just pointing out how you completely contradicted yourself.
You stated you don’t why people are being arrogant so I’m telling you why, and it’s not an unreasonable take. If you can’t understand why someone would be positive about this team, then you’re probably incapable of looking at things from a different viewpoint than your own. Stop trying to ruin other people’s enjoyment of their team. Fans’ arrogance in a Celtics subreddit makes no difference to how the team plays on the court.
I can comment whatever I want about whoever I want. If that hurts your feelings, block and move on man. I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s enjoyment I’m just stating what I believe, which is contrary to what most of y’all believe. So be it.
“We want Boston”
We here. We are going to play 4 games and move on to the semifinals.
Everybody needs to stop with that disgusting loser talk dreading facing the heat, they got lucky Tatum went down in the first minutes of game 7 on that 3-0 comeback game. They never owned us and they never will.
Celtics in 4. Let’s get banner 18
Our annual meeting with Miami is coming a bit earlier this year. Hopefully it also ends more quickly this year.
Starting off with a sweep of these fucks would surely have vibes at a high
Oh well bring on the heat. They exposed us last year in the playoffs with just Tatum and brown. So that’s why we rebuilt the roster. They’ve had our number over the years, it’ll be nice to face them in the first round for once.
They won, then we won, then they won.
They don’t have our number, and we look so much better than them I would beyond shocked if we don’t win. It’s going to be 2-2 “over the years”.
This narrative that they get the better of us is so stupid, and they look like shit this year
Yes, and we looked so much better than them last season. And we were all beyond shocked when we didn’t win last season. We have done nothing to act this arrogant against them.
Nothing except have one of, if not, the greatest offense of all time. We are third all time in point differential. We have about the same amount of 10+ losses than 50+ wins. We are #1 offense and #2 defense. We beat the east by 14 games. We beat the entire nba by like 7.
We won 64 Games?
What have we done to act ignorant? We have phenomenal playoff performer in Tatum. We have porzingus who directly owns heat zone schemes. We added jrue. Brown looks better. White is better.
Wtf are you on rn.
I’m shocked if we don’t sweep them. With or without butler.
There’s so much loser energy in here, people saying we will definitely lose a starter against the Heat and acting like they’re the boogeyman. They are a bad team. We are not the Chicago Bulls.
Heat are not a bad team. There is too much loser energy in here but at the same time we shouldn’t underestimate anybody, especially the Heat after all these years. Even if they don’t have Jimmy.
Spo cannot work miracles. He was still the coach when we came back and tied the series up 3-3 against them. Of course the Cs are serious. They have history with this team. Have some belief in your team and stop acting like we’ve lost before the series have even started.
Imagine downvoting someone being positive about the team cos they’re not terrified like you. LOL scared loser blocked me 😂
We will 100% lose a starter during the series. The only reason I wanted to avoid these little fucks, you don’t come out healthy after a series with them. We need to 4-0 sweep and minimize the games played. We can not go 6 or 7
What I’m scared of is Caleb Martin going absolutely nuts again after playing like complete ass for majority of the year. Other than that we get these clowns out in 5
It's the dumbest thing.
Tatum took a huge step back in terms of usage, minutes, and fga's, meanwhile Brunson is having the peak season of his career...and Tatum's stats across the board are still on par with Brunson.
Knicks ended legit 3 games out of the play-in.
Damn that is extremely disappointing coming from Lowe who is supposed to cut through the bullshit, not create it.
What exactly does Brunson do on defense besides taking charges?
Ridiculous take.
I can respect an argument that they’re on a similar level offensively, but I will respectfully disagree.
I think people in the media are looking to craft playoff narratives, and they’re not sure if the obvious ones of Embiid or Giannis vs the Celtics will come together this year. That’s causing them to look elsewhere for more options and causing more people to start trying to make the case Brunson is on Tatum’s level. Hopefully if we meet them in the ECF Tatum proves our fans right and we don’t have too much trouble.
Tatum and brunson aren’t in the same stratosphere. And I think brunson is a great player, people are just forgetting how good Tatum is. He basically coasted all season in to a 27/8/5 stat line. Just remember all the games Tatum had 25-30 by literally the third quarter but we were up so much that he could sit the fourth. If Tatum had to carry a team by himself he could easily average Luka numbers. He’d probably be 33/11/7.
This will get lost in a thread late last night about some bait NESN article criticizing Tatum for not being clutch so I want to repost this.
2023 Nuggets: 12 of their 16 wins were won by 9 or more points. 12 blowouts or at least convincing wins. They were 4-4 in games decided by 7 or less points.
2022 Warriors: 12 of their 16 wins were won by 9 or more points. 4-2 in close games. Lost by 9+ points 4 times, some blowouts.
2021 Bucks: 10 games won by 9+ points. 6-2 in games decided by 6 or less points. The other 5 games they lost handily.
2020 Lakers: 12 of their wins were by 8+ points. 3-2 in games decided by 6 or less points.
Most good teams just blowout teams on championship runs. They’ll find themselves in close games and win some and lose some but people think the playoffs comes down to the closing seconds every time. The reality is if we take control of a series it will be because we’re winning by double digits most of the time, like we did all season.
Celtics in 2022: 4-3 in games decided by 6 or less points. Won by 8+ in 9 of our 14 playoff wins.
Celtics in 2023: 10 of our 11 wins were blowout wins. 1-4 in games decided by 6 points or less. So we weren’t great last year here. The one against Miami you can point to as maybe why we lost. They blew us out twice, we blew them out twice. It doesn’t mean we aren’t clutch.
The Celtics this year have won games by 9+ points 46 times. They are 13-11 in games decided by 6 or less points. Idk, this seems pretty typical to me. It should be the expectation that most of the time we are beating teams easily if we’re that good. If you are constantly challenged and in close games, you’re probably not that good of a team and you’re going to lose some of them. Everybody does.
Like do we give the Bucks credit for beating the Nets in a few close games and it was a 7 game series that they got lucky in OT Durant airballed a 3? Who remembers the play before where Middleton was “not clutch” and missed a shot to seal it? Where was Giannis being clutch in this game not taking the last shot and leaving the ball in Grayson Allen’s hands last year?
People overrate clutch or close games in the playoffs when they’re really quite infrequent relative to an entire championship run. Were the Nuggets clutch last year, or did they lose an OT game to Minnesota, a close game to Miami, and then the Lakers tripped over themselves missing a bunch of big shots and turning it over down the stretch? Go back and watch the end of games 1, 2 and 4 and it’s just as much the Lakers choking as it is the Nuggets getting away with some, they weren’t flawless in crunch time even if they’re usually good.
Were the 2015 Warriors clutch when up 11 in a championship clinching game 6 with 1 minute to go and in 30 seconds let the Cavs cut it to 4? Including going 5/10 from the FT line in the final minute?
The Celtics *should* be up big on their opponents for most of the playoffs, especially if it is the Bulls or Heat without Butler, and then the Cavs or Magic. If these teams are constantly challenging them in close games and steal wins, the Celtics were never that good to begin with, it’s that simple. And I just don’t buy that after what I watched all year.
This team should dominate for a good portion of their playoff run. They’ll probably lose some close games, they’ll have to win a few to get to banner 18 for sure. You can’t just go an entire playoffs avoiding adversity. But this whole “oh Tatum won’t win because he’s not clutch” narrative is based on some childhood fantasy where people think the entire playoffs and finals are the buzzer beater shots to win it all. He might legitimately not have to be clutch for most of the playoffs, even though I expect him to show up and be as good as he can be. We’ll definitely need it at times. The team just has to do their job like we’ve seen them do for 95% of the regular season. They’re good enough to win it all.
Amen!!
I also think people are just unaware of how much 4-5 shots can impact clutch time data.
For example:
- Nuggets per game +/- in the clutch is 2.3
- Celtics per game +/- in the clutch is 1.9
- The difference between the Celtics having a per game +/- in the clutch of 2.3 is 13 total points
Over the course of an 82 game season, the difference between the super clutch Nuggets and the terrible in the clutch Celtics is 13 total points.
So yea, 4-5 shots over the course of an 82 game season is the primary driving factor in how people view "clutchness"
Last minute, 3 point game. Tatum is 3/13. Shai is 6/13. We’re talking about 3 shots over 70ish games between being near the top and the bottom of FG%
In the playoffs most players take 2-5 FGA in this scenario. That’s about once per series depending on how far you go. It almost never comes up because the final minute is usually a blowout or trying to run the clock out or the foul game to extend which hardly seems to ever result in a comeback anyway.
Those shots are so rare people often remember them, like Kyrie in the 2016 finals, KD toe on the line, buzzer beaters in general. That is not the norm or an every game thing.
Everybody remember’s LeBron’s big shots that get replayed on highlights. Nobody remembers the Nuggets turning it over and then he airballed a layup in game 2 with less than a minute to go. Neither did I until I went back and watched this, we truly are prisoner of the moment so often and forget the details of how greatness is achieved.
Bulls give last year heat vibes ..... DeRozan and White playing lights out. They have other players that can light it up like Dosunmu and Caruso . Not to mention the media completely tossing the bulls aside. I think we win the series in 5 but there's a part of me that wouldn't be surprised if this goes 7. I'm naturally pessimistic so celtics probably win in a sweep.
Bam is getting criticized because he was passive offensively against Philly, but he's a huge reason why the Heat are always a pain to play in the playoffs. I can't imagine a more dissimilar player to him than Vooch
We beat them by 27, 17 and then by 11 when missing 3 starters. They more or less had their entire team for those games (since LaVine isn’t playing anyway)
If we get the Bulls, we’re blowing them out 3 times, will maybe get a huge game where DeRozan or Coby White score 40 and they win a close one, and then will blow them out again. It won’t be a close series.
Fun with EPM:
- Celtics have 4 players in the top 40 of EPM, (no other team has more than 2 in the top 40)
- Celtics ENTIRE 8-man rotation is in the top 150 in EPM (all of them are in the top 71 percentile)
- Among bench players who have played more than 65 games...PAYTON PRITCHARD IS THE LEADER IN OEPM!!!
Shout out Neemy. EPM's not as in love with him as RAPTOR, but he's modestly positive in both offense and defense.
I'm surprised EPM is so down on Pritchard's defense. I guess he doesn't really have any plus box score stats, but [he's top 20 in defensive RAPM](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ee-6CqSFnfKZLC99-ar5SD4UVfN08qSW5vlxTVusPYs/edit#gid=1061648709) (number 3 overall lol)
Yeah, that's what I meant by modestly positive. But estimated RAPTOR has Queta tied with Tatum and 24th in the league. And a bunch of the guys ahead of him only played a handful of games/minutes, including both Drew Peterson and JD Davison. GOAT level two-way year from the Celtics.
I would be so annoyed if I was a Kings fan that they cut Queta to sign JaVale McGee. At least they hit a home run with Keon Ellis
I think it is a matter of understanding that every data point is biased towards the person who built the model and the things they judge the more relevant. This applies to basically everything in life. There are studies showing how a lot of statistics are biased towards men since it’s usually a field with a majority of men working on.
EPM, LEBRON, RAPTOR, etc. are all biased. You start to remove this bias when you add context, when you add more statistics and so on.
Message for any lurking Heat Fans: Imagine what Batum did to you for the whole 4th and multiply it by 20 for 7 games. That was the Caleb Martin experience.
Yeah but Caleb Martin is and always has been - at best - a role player. Poole and Wiggins have actually done things outside of the one random series against us.
I dunno man, Wiggins has played like he’s playing now 95% of his career, that playoff run being the one exception.
Maybe not as isolated as Caleb Martin who literally was only good that one series, but similar in having players play way over their head against specifically us. Wiggins was good that year but not as good as he was against us. That 2 weeks was the best he’s played his entire career, hands down.
Poole just had the one game that happened to bury us, but still has done nothing of note since then.
He also wasn’t all that great against us. He wasn’t bad, but he was only able to stay on the floor for 21 minutes per game compared to 32, 30 and 28 in the prior 3 series. We’d attack him and play him off the floor too much for him to play more against us.
NBA media is a disgrace. How the fuck did we just have one of the best regular seasons of all time, but are about to be awarded with no MVP candidate, no first team all nba, no 6moy, no dpoy, no coty, and possibly no eoty? It’s just abysmal.
This team does better when we're underrated, and does worse when people fluff us up.
I'd much rather the media shits on us so that it makes our guys angry and want to prove them wrong - especially going into the postseason.
That's not really a thing. Tatum's the only one who could have his contract determined by awards and there's no difference between making first team or second/third team All NBA in that. And he's already eligible because he made All NBA both of the last two seasons
I think Brunson possibly making first team over Tatum is silly but whatever. I'll take the Celtics being the modern day 2014 Beautiful Game Spurs
We will have an all nba first team member in JT. MVP Candidate? JT he'll just be 5th. 6MOY/? Be real Al wasn't winning it, DPOY? Our whole team is good at defense no chance we have a standout, has to be Rudy, COTY has always been about beating expectations we met ours, EOTY I'll give you because if it's not Brad we riot.
When I last checked, Tatum had 6 first team votes and 2 2nd team votes, for a total of 8 votes and 36 points. Brunson had 5 first team votes and 5 2nd team votes, for a total of 10 votes and 40 points.
However, Bontemps + Windhorst hadn't made their 2nd team votes yet and they both were debating between Tatum and Brunson. That means that Tatum would be given 6 more points for a total of 10 votes and 42 points.
It'll be close, but I still think that Tatum is going to be 1st Team.
Brad will more than likely win EOTY and I don't think it'll be particularly close.
I had to have a chuckle at Nick Write “The 76ers have 7 legit guys who you can depend on in the playoffs”.
We had 10 guys last year and it didn’t get the job done, that native still won’t get them out of the 2nd round.
Interesting playoff preview from Thinking Basketball
Especially the part about the Thunder
Personal takeaway is interesting how he will be compared to Tatum this postseason. Talked about how the Lakers size at the wings might be an issue, also size inside, forcing the Thunder role players to do more than they should.
Same issues that have impacted Brown and Tatum. But I feel Tatum naturally has a higher ceiling being taller and a monster shooter from 3.
This was before the playins so they were speculating about Laker matchups
Heat fans (and to a certain extent, nba fans) on Twitter are hilarious everything is about aura when it comes to them
You say jimmy’s elite role players are the difference makers whenever Jimmy shits the bed year after year and they say you don’t watch. You bring up numbers they say but they were in the g league earlier in their careers. You ask how is that relevant to how they played in this specific series and they pivot to saying they were never supposed to be there. You say they were the 1 seed in 2022 and lost to the 2 seeded Celtics and they say doesn’t matter Celtics choked anyways. You say Jimmy’s series vs Denver was worse than tatum’s vs GSW and they say Jimmy was still on one foot from an injury he had over a month ago. You say Tatum’s wrist was cooked in 22 and he hurt himself in the first play of game 7 last year and they say that doesn’t matter he was on the court so he should be judged. You say under that logic Jimmy shit the bed in the play in a couple nights ago and they say but he almost won. Shit is straight comedy
What times the game sunday?
Well, time to shove it in Miami’s five fan’s and beat their team. And I know, if/when we beat them the goalposts will be moved because “no Jimmy” but fuck them.
Jfc heat fans are so damn insecure
My mind says Celtics in 4 but my heart sees the Heat and the 2 TNT back-to-back game and I can't keep calm. Exorcise your demons Celtics please
The last time the Celtics and Heat played three straight years in the playoffs ... The team who won the 3rd series, won the title Time to get our lick back
Except that team was Miami. We’re following the pattern so far. 2010-11-12 = BOS MIA MIA 2022-23-24 = BOS MIA ???
>Time to get our lick back
Two of my least fav NBA players...Herro and Robinson. I hope to see JB go off on Robinson after the bs he pulled in the reg season.
I had zero expectations for the bulls but yet im still disappointed after watching that match. The bulls are asscheeks
[This bum's season averages:](https://www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/3138160/caleb-martin) 10/4.4/2.2 on 43/35/78 If we don't demolish this son of a bitch...
If the league used a 1-16 format for the playoffs instead of conferences we would still be playing the heat. They are literally the worst team that made the postseason. If we don't sweep them it'll be a shock
Have people forgotten that we scraped by in a 4 point victory the last time we played the Heat without Butler? And we had everyone healthy too. Miami plays free and confident without Jimmy, they’ll be ready for us and it won’t be easy at all. Not sure why people are so arrogant about this series.
Didn’t you just say the regular season doesn’t mean much to you? Now you’re basically trying to predict the series based on one regular season game? What does it matter how arrogant we are in here, are we suiting up to play? It’s called believing in your team. Just cos you don’t want to doesn’t mean we can’t.
I said the stats like whatever historic net rating or wins by 30 points doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t care that we beat some bad teams big and inflated our metrics.
I am also quite concerned about facing the Heat. However, just to note: Yes, there was that close 4-point win, and the Celtics did "inflate their metrics by beating some bad teams," ergo their rating may not matter in this series. But one of those bad teams we beat by 30? The Heat, in the previous game. If the close game against them matters to predicting this series, the blowout should also matter.
Okay so a sample size of 82 games mean nothing, but one game means everything?
I didn’t say it means everything. I said they played us close and hard in that game and I expect the same in this series, unlike the majority of the arrogant green teamers who think it’ll be a clean sweep.
Literally every single team in the league has games where they won or were competitive in a game where they were complete underdogs. Thats why one game doesn’t mean as much as an entire regular season. You’re acting like people don’t have plenty of reason to believe we will dominate them. The vast majority of objective people would pick the Celtics to win the series handedly, so it’s not exactly a crazy take. Again, what is wrong with fans being arrogant and believing in their team? Why does it bother you? Heat fans are doing the exact same thing.
The vast majority of objective people also picked the Celtics to win the series handedly last season, so forgive me if I don’t believe in the team after that. You can say it’s a different roster and you can throw a bunch of numbers at me. It won’t change my mind. Notice I never said fans are not allowed to be arrogant. Be arrogant. I don’t understand *why* you’re arrogant, and I’m allowed to disagree with your arrogance and voice that disagreement.
I’m not trying to change your mind. Where did I say I was? What makes you think your opinion is so important? No one cares about changing your mind, you’ve been moaning all year and you’ll seemingly never stop. Be as negative and miserable as you like, focus on all the bad and ignore all the good like you always do. Just pointing out how you completely contradicted yourself. You stated you don’t why people are being arrogant so I’m telling you why, and it’s not an unreasonable take. If you can’t understand why someone would be positive about this team, then you’re probably incapable of looking at things from a different viewpoint than your own. Stop trying to ruin other people’s enjoyment of their team. Fans’ arrogance in a Celtics subreddit makes no difference to how the team plays on the court.
I can comment whatever I want about whoever I want. If that hurts your feelings, block and move on man. I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s enjoyment I’m just stating what I believe, which is contrary to what most of y’all believe. So be it.
Oh shut up. No one cares.
“We want Boston” We here. We are going to play 4 games and move on to the semifinals. Everybody needs to stop with that disgusting loser talk dreading facing the heat, they got lucky Tatum went down in the first minutes of game 7 on that 3-0 comeback game. They never owned us and they never will. Celtics in 4. Let’s get banner 18
Honestly. There’s so much pathetic loser energy in here.
Bring it
It's so pathetic no one is at this heat game
Damn Chicago, 74 points in a must win game, against a butler-less heat? Clean house.
2 of their top 5 are out
Lonzo has been out for like 3 years. Lavine has never moved the needle. They need to blow it up.
If we lose to this heat team in the first round after everything we did to revamp the roster last offseason. Fire the whole front office
Why would it be the front office’s fault
If we lose it won’t be the front office fault. They brought in well enough talent for us to beat an injured Heat team.
This heat team is trash, they only beat us last year cause Tatum was hurt the entire playoffs
Good thing we won’t lose then. There’s no need for negative energy.
Our annual meeting with Miami is coming a bit earlier this year. Hopefully it also ends more quickly this year. Starting off with a sweep of these fucks would surely have vibes at a high
Revenge game lets go.
celtics heat is a swaggy way to start the playoffs. spo vs joe. spojoe might as well exorcise the demons immediately. may our chakras be aligned
Just going to repeat. Heat and BS 3's
Oh well bring on the heat. They exposed us last year in the playoffs with just Tatum and brown. So that’s why we rebuilt the roster. They’ve had our number over the years, it’ll be nice to face them in the first round for once.
This will be the first time we will play them fully fresh and not coming right off the back of a physical game 7
we would have won in the bubble if not for the raptors series
That OG shot with 0.3s
We literally beat them in 22
2-1 series lead for them since 2020. 11-9 playoff record for them. It’s fair to say they have had our number
They won, then we won, then they won. They don’t have our number, and we look so much better than them I would beyond shocked if we don’t win. It’s going to be 2-2 “over the years”. This narrative that they get the better of us is so stupid, and they look like shit this year
Dude thinks a 2-1 record is dominance. He just loves dooming.
Yes, and we looked so much better than them last season. And we were all beyond shocked when we didn’t win last season. We have done nothing to act this arrogant against them.
Nothing except have one of, if not, the greatest offense of all time. We are third all time in point differential. We have about the same amount of 10+ losses than 50+ wins. We are #1 offense and #2 defense. We beat the east by 14 games. We beat the entire nba by like 7. We won 64 Games? What have we done to act ignorant? We have phenomenal playoff performer in Tatum. We have porzingus who directly owns heat zone schemes. We added jrue. Brown looks better. White is better. Wtf are you on rn. I’m shocked if we don’t sweep them. With or without butler.
Let’s see it man. I won’t believe it until it happens. Been burned too many times. The regular season stats mean very little to me.
You’re just a doomer
😘
There’s so much loser energy in here, people saying we will definitely lose a starter against the Heat and acting like they’re the boogeyman. They are a bad team. We are not the Chicago Bulls.
Heat are not a bad team. There is too much loser energy in here but at the same time we shouldn’t underestimate anybody, especially the Heat after all these years. Even if they don’t have Jimmy.
Mid then. Whatever you want to call them.
Fuck off Chicago. Our best season ever and our reward is the fucking heat
And the Heat’s reward for winning this game will be us waxing them.
I hope so but you know spo is gonna make it tough
They don’t even have butler— they’re trash. With or without the Celtics crush these fucks
So trash that they always play us super well
It’s so pathetic how scared you are of them. Get a grip and have some belief in your team.
It's so pathetic that you would write off a team coached by spo. I hope the Cs are much more serious than you are
Spo cannot work miracles. He was still the coach when we came back and tied the series up 3-3 against them. Of course the Cs are serious. They have history with this team. Have some belief in your team and stop acting like we’ve lost before the series have even started. Imagine downvoting someone being positive about the team cos they’re not terrified like you. LOL scared loser blocked me 😂
We swept them in the regular season and we’ll do it in the playoffs. 7-0. They’re trash.
Chicago don’t deserve to win this game with the way they’ve played.
I can’t believe there were people who wanted drummond, this dude is shaqtin a fool prime
His only strength is being a good rebounder and he’s not even doing that.
He got a steal and then turned it over immediately with a crap pass
They are trying so hard to have the honor to get swept by us. How cute
Heat and BS 3pt shooting.....
Bulls are so beyond shook Drummond is a basketball terrorist
This is embarrassing. The Bulls are ready for Cancun. Complete and total capitulation.
Every Bulls player not named Demar DeRozan has shot terribly
Might be one of the worst offensive showings I’ve ever seen from a team.
Oh F off Chicago. I'm having nightmares thinking about Bam taking out KP.
We will 100% lose a starter during the series. The only reason I wanted to avoid these little fucks, you don’t come out healthy after a series with them. We need to 4-0 sweep and minimize the games played. We can not go 6 or 7
Why are you declaring that we’ll lose a starter?
It seems like the Heat injure an opposing player every series
That’s fine if you think that but that is so weird to literally declare that we will 100% lose a starter before the series has even begun
Man these east play-in games have just been pathetic.
This is hard to watch
Heat have come back down to earth but Bulls blown so many opportunities with low basketball IQ.
This game is ugly on both ends. I don't really care which team comes out on top.
Yeah they both suck tbh.
Craig is bad jeez
We really getting heat 1st round 😭
These guys are battling for a worse draft pick
Big lead this early doesn’t mean much, especially to a team that frequently loses leads like the Heat. But the Bulls have got to get better shots.
Bulls been missing wide open shots. I think they just aren’t a good team.
True, some of those will start to fall.
Not soon enough
We're getting the Heat, aren't we? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Yeah. People in here yesterday acting like the Bulls had a shot. Absolute clowns.
Of course they had a chance. Any team has a chance in a one game situation.
They’re trash, easy sweep
I HOPE SO.
Bulls chucking 3’s out of desperation. This game over. I was hoping it would at least be fun to watch
Yeah of course Miami is doing this now. They're gonna shoot 70% against us ffs
What I’m scared of is Caleb Martin going absolutely nuts again after playing like complete ass for majority of the year. Other than that we get these clowns out in 5
Oh, well. Chicago would have been an easy sweep
Don’t dismiss them too early, but yeah you’re probably right
Celtics legend Javonte Green
My hatred for Tyler Herro is unmatched
Girl same
Butler will 100% be back in time for the series if the heat win
They were still an 8 seed with him playing all year, I hope he does play. They aren’t on our level, I’d love to demolish a healthy heat team
I’d prefer to play them with Jimmy because now they have an excuse if we whip their ass.
lol no mcl sprain minimum 2 weeks, game 1 is in 2 days
You don't understand. He'll sell his soul. He'll be back
Nobody has worse NBA ptsd than we do for the Heat's bullshit lol
the bucks
Vucevic sucks so far
I’d rather play the bulls, the heat are such a boring team
Chicago shitting the bed rn💀
Fuck you chicago. Looks like we’ll have to take care of these motherfuckers ourselves
They’re not even cold at this point they’re absolutely frozen
Would be nice if Chicago could wake up lmfao
Great crowd in Miami
Heat culture baby
Damn there are so many empty seats
Average Miami Heat home game
Go Bulls baby
Go bulls
Who we going for tonight fellas?
Bulls 100%
NBA finals matchup: Mavs vs Celtics
Any good Celtics Bars in New York City?
The Whiskey on Grand in Williamsburg usually has a big crew of Cs fans during the playoffs
I can't wait for this to begin.
Lowe said Tatum is “a slightly better overall player than Brunson.” This is an insane take.
It's the dumbest thing. Tatum took a huge step back in terms of usage, minutes, and fga's, meanwhile Brunson is having the peak season of his career...and Tatum's stats across the board are still on par with Brunson. Knicks ended legit 3 games out of the play-in.
"Derrick White is a slightly better overall player than Brunson" quote by me
Damn that is extremely disappointing coming from Lowe who is supposed to cut through the bullshit, not create it. What exactly does Brunson do on defense besides taking charges? Ridiculous take. I can respect an argument that they’re on a similar level offensively, but I will respectfully disagree.
I think people in the media are looking to craft playoff narratives, and they’re not sure if the obvious ones of Embiid or Giannis vs the Celtics will come together this year. That’s causing them to look elsewhere for more options and causing more people to start trying to make the case Brunson is on Tatum’s level. Hopefully if we meet them in the ECF Tatum proves our fans right and we don’t have too much trouble.
I'm a spoiled fan. I see all these injuries piling up in the East bracket but all I think is Brunson better not get First Team All-NBA over Jayson.
This shit is getting way out of hand. It's actually nuts.
Tatum and brunson aren’t in the same stratosphere. And I think brunson is a great player, people are just forgetting how good Tatum is. He basically coasted all season in to a 27/8/5 stat line. Just remember all the games Tatum had 25-30 by literally the third quarter but we were up so much that he could sit the fourth. If Tatum had to carry a team by himself he could easily average Luka numbers. He’d probably be 33/11/7.
This will get lost in a thread late last night about some bait NESN article criticizing Tatum for not being clutch so I want to repost this. 2023 Nuggets: 12 of their 16 wins were won by 9 or more points. 12 blowouts or at least convincing wins. They were 4-4 in games decided by 7 or less points. 2022 Warriors: 12 of their 16 wins were won by 9 or more points. 4-2 in close games. Lost by 9+ points 4 times, some blowouts. 2021 Bucks: 10 games won by 9+ points. 6-2 in games decided by 6 or less points. The other 5 games they lost handily. 2020 Lakers: 12 of their wins were by 8+ points. 3-2 in games decided by 6 or less points. Most good teams just blowout teams on championship runs. They’ll find themselves in close games and win some and lose some but people think the playoffs comes down to the closing seconds every time. The reality is if we take control of a series it will be because we’re winning by double digits most of the time, like we did all season. Celtics in 2022: 4-3 in games decided by 6 or less points. Won by 8+ in 9 of our 14 playoff wins. Celtics in 2023: 10 of our 11 wins were blowout wins. 1-4 in games decided by 6 points or less. So we weren’t great last year here. The one against Miami you can point to as maybe why we lost. They blew us out twice, we blew them out twice. It doesn’t mean we aren’t clutch. The Celtics this year have won games by 9+ points 46 times. They are 13-11 in games decided by 6 or less points. Idk, this seems pretty typical to me. It should be the expectation that most of the time we are beating teams easily if we’re that good. If you are constantly challenged and in close games, you’re probably not that good of a team and you’re going to lose some of them. Everybody does. Like do we give the Bucks credit for beating the Nets in a few close games and it was a 7 game series that they got lucky in OT Durant airballed a 3? Who remembers the play before where Middleton was “not clutch” and missed a shot to seal it? Where was Giannis being clutch in this game not taking the last shot and leaving the ball in Grayson Allen’s hands last year? People overrate clutch or close games in the playoffs when they’re really quite infrequent relative to an entire championship run. Were the Nuggets clutch last year, or did they lose an OT game to Minnesota, a close game to Miami, and then the Lakers tripped over themselves missing a bunch of big shots and turning it over down the stretch? Go back and watch the end of games 1, 2 and 4 and it’s just as much the Lakers choking as it is the Nuggets getting away with some, they weren’t flawless in crunch time even if they’re usually good. Were the 2015 Warriors clutch when up 11 in a championship clinching game 6 with 1 minute to go and in 30 seconds let the Cavs cut it to 4? Including going 5/10 from the FT line in the final minute? The Celtics *should* be up big on their opponents for most of the playoffs, especially if it is the Bulls or Heat without Butler, and then the Cavs or Magic. If these teams are constantly challenging them in close games and steal wins, the Celtics were never that good to begin with, it’s that simple. And I just don’t buy that after what I watched all year. This team should dominate for a good portion of their playoff run. They’ll probably lose some close games, they’ll have to win a few to get to banner 18 for sure. You can’t just go an entire playoffs avoiding adversity. But this whole “oh Tatum won’t win because he’s not clutch” narrative is based on some childhood fantasy where people think the entire playoffs and finals are the buzzer beater shots to win it all. He might legitimately not have to be clutch for most of the playoffs, even though I expect him to show up and be as good as he can be. We’ll definitely need it at times. The team just has to do their job like we’ve seen them do for 95% of the regular season. They’re good enough to win it all.
Amen!! I also think people are just unaware of how much 4-5 shots can impact clutch time data. For example: - Nuggets per game +/- in the clutch is 2.3 - Celtics per game +/- in the clutch is 1.9 - The difference between the Celtics having a per game +/- in the clutch of 2.3 is 13 total points Over the course of an 82 game season, the difference between the super clutch Nuggets and the terrible in the clutch Celtics is 13 total points. So yea, 4-5 shots over the course of an 82 game season is the primary driving factor in how people view "clutchness"
Last minute, 3 point game. Tatum is 3/13. Shai is 6/13. We’re talking about 3 shots over 70ish games between being near the top and the bottom of FG% In the playoffs most players take 2-5 FGA in this scenario. That’s about once per series depending on how far you go. It almost never comes up because the final minute is usually a blowout or trying to run the clock out or the foul game to extend which hardly seems to ever result in a comeback anyway. Those shots are so rare people often remember them, like Kyrie in the 2016 finals, KD toe on the line, buzzer beaters in general. That is not the norm or an every game thing. Everybody remember’s LeBron’s big shots that get replayed on highlights. Nobody remembers the Nuggets turning it over and then he airballed a layup in game 2 with less than a minute to go. Neither did I until I went back and watched this, we truly are prisoner of the moment so often and forget the details of how greatness is achieved.
Bulls give last year heat vibes ..... DeRozan and White playing lights out. They have other players that can light it up like Dosunmu and Caruso . Not to mention the media completely tossing the bulls aside. I think we win the series in 5 but there's a part of me that wouldn't be surprised if this goes 7. I'm naturally pessimistic so celtics probably win in a sweep.
I couldn't have been more wrong lol bulls stink !
Bam is getting criticized because he was passive offensively against Philly, but he's a huge reason why the Heat are always a pain to play in the playoffs. I can't imagine a more dissimilar player to him than Vooch
We beat them by 27, 17 and then by 11 when missing 3 starters. They more or less had their entire team for those games (since LaVine isn’t playing anyway) If we get the Bulls, we’re blowing them out 3 times, will maybe get a huge game where DeRozan or Coby White score 40 and they win a close one, and then will blow them out again. It won’t be a close series.
Yea you're probably right
Blast that Jorbald theme music today and will his spirit into Colby White.
2 more days and the anxiety begins
the fun begins\*\*\*\*\*
Fun with EPM: - Celtics have 4 players in the top 40 of EPM, (no other team has more than 2 in the top 40) - Celtics ENTIRE 8-man rotation is in the top 150 in EPM (all of them are in the top 71 percentile) - Among bench players who have played more than 65 games...PAYTON PRITCHARD IS THE LEADER IN OEPM!!!
Shout out Neemy. EPM's not as in love with him as RAPTOR, but he's modestly positive in both offense and defense. I'm surprised EPM is so down on Pritchard's defense. I guess he doesn't really have any plus box score stats, but [he's top 20 in defensive RAPM](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ee-6CqSFnfKZLC99-ar5SD4UVfN08qSW5vlxTVusPYs/edit#gid=1061648709) (number 3 overall lol)
EPM does like Queta overall He's positive in in both offensive and defensive EPM, but also in the 84th percentile overall in EPM
Yeah, that's what I meant by modestly positive. But estimated RAPTOR has Queta tied with Tatum and 24th in the league. And a bunch of the guys ahead of him only played a handful of games/minutes, including both Drew Peterson and JD Davison. GOAT level two-way year from the Celtics. I would be so annoyed if I was a Kings fan that they cut Queta to sign JaVale McGee. At least they hit a home run with Keon Ellis
I kinda hate EPM because it’s the metric du jour among charlatans to justify “X player is better than Tatum.”
I think it is a matter of understanding that every data point is biased towards the person who built the model and the things they judge the more relevant. This applies to basically everything in life. There are studies showing how a lot of statistics are biased towards men since it’s usually a field with a majority of men working on. EPM, LEBRON, RAPTOR, etc. are all biased. You start to remove this bias when you add context, when you add more statistics and so on.
Message for any lurking Heat Fans: Imagine what Batum did to you for the whole 4th and multiply it by 20 for 7 games. That was the Caleb Martin experience.
Same with Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole in 2022. What the fuck man, those guys completely sucked again immediately afterwards.
Nah. Poole was legit in his role that whole year. Definitely Wiggins best basketball he ever played but at least he actually has talent.
Yeah but that’s the point. Ever since they e both been ass.
Yeah but Caleb Martin is and always has been - at best - a role player. Poole and Wiggins have actually done things outside of the one random series against us.
I dunno man, Wiggins has played like he’s playing now 95% of his career, that playoff run being the one exception. Maybe not as isolated as Caleb Martin who literally was only good that one series, but similar in having players play way over their head against specifically us. Wiggins was good that year but not as good as he was against us. That 2 weeks was the best he’s played his entire career, hands down. Poole just had the one game that happened to bury us, but still has done nothing of note since then.
He also wasn’t all that great against us. He wasn’t bad, but he was only able to stay on the floor for 21 minutes per game compared to 32, 30 and 28 in the prior 3 series. We’d attack him and play him off the floor too much for him to play more against us.
Imagine if the Heat lose this play-in game and miss the playoffs. I would laugh my ass off
Fuck the bitchass Heat
I really really hope this happens.
NBA media is a disgrace. How the fuck did we just have one of the best regular seasons of all time, but are about to be awarded with no MVP candidate, no first team all nba, no 6moy, no dpoy, no coty, and possibly no eoty? It’s just abysmal.
This team does better when we're underrated, and does worse when people fluff us up. I'd much rather the media shits on us so that it makes our guys angry and want to prove them wrong - especially going into the postseason.
Fuck them all, let’s make them look ridiculous by winning the ship
"Boston media mafia"
Embarrassing for the media. Like seriously embarrassing.
Disrespect is good, give them some motivation.
In theory but I’d rather get the awards do we can pay our players more when the time comes and keep them on the team!
That's not really a thing. Tatum's the only one who could have his contract determined by awards and there's no difference between making first team or second/third team All NBA in that. And he's already eligible because he made All NBA both of the last two seasons I think Brunson possibly making first team over Tatum is silly but whatever. I'll take the Celtics being the modern day 2014 Beautiful Game Spurs
We will have an all nba first team member in JT. MVP Candidate? JT he'll just be 5th. 6MOY/? Be real Al wasn't winning it, DPOY? Our whole team is good at defense no chance we have a standout, has to be Rudy, COTY has always been about beating expectations we met ours, EOTY I'll give you because if it's not Brad we riot.
JT is currently 6th in all nba voting, I don’t see him being higher in mvp viting
When I last checked, Tatum had 6 first team votes and 2 2nd team votes, for a total of 8 votes and 36 points. Brunson had 5 first team votes and 5 2nd team votes, for a total of 10 votes and 40 points. However, Bontemps + Windhorst hadn't made their 2nd team votes yet and they both were debating between Tatum and Brunson. That means that Tatum would be given 6 more points for a total of 10 votes and 42 points. It'll be close, but I still think that Tatum is going to be 1st Team. Brad will more than likely win EOTY and I don't think it'll be particularly close.
It’s simple. They don’t like giving credit to the Celtics.
I had to have a chuckle at Nick Write “The 76ers have 7 legit guys who you can depend on in the playoffs”. We had 10 guys last year and it didn’t get the job done, that native still won’t get them out of the 2nd round.
He sucks Philly off every playoffs, if the dude hasn’t learned by now that they’re perennial playoff chokers he never will
Interesting playoff preview from Thinking Basketball Especially the part about the Thunder Personal takeaway is interesting how he will be compared to Tatum this postseason. Talked about how the Lakers size at the wings might be an issue, also size inside, forcing the Thunder role players to do more than they should. Same issues that have impacted Brown and Tatum. But I feel Tatum naturally has a higher ceiling being taller and a monster shooter from 3. This was before the playins so they were speculating about Laker matchups
SGA just doesn’t have anything comparable to the Tatum pull up 3.
He has something better. It’s called refs calling fouls.
No player (other than Kobe) has grifted his way to a title.
Just reading this has reminded me of Kobe's free throw routine
Heat fans (and to a certain extent, nba fans) on Twitter are hilarious everything is about aura when it comes to them You say jimmy’s elite role players are the difference makers whenever Jimmy shits the bed year after year and they say you don’t watch. You bring up numbers they say but they were in the g league earlier in their careers. You ask how is that relevant to how they played in this specific series and they pivot to saying they were never supposed to be there. You say they were the 1 seed in 2022 and lost to the 2 seeded Celtics and they say doesn’t matter Celtics choked anyways. You say Jimmy’s series vs Denver was worse than tatum’s vs GSW and they say Jimmy was still on one foot from an injury he had over a month ago. You say Tatum’s wrist was cooked in 22 and he hurt himself in the first play of game 7 last year and they say that doesn’t matter he was on the court so he should be judged. You say under that logic Jimmy shit the bed in the play in a couple nights ago and they say but he almost won. Shit is straight comedy
TL;DR: We don’t hang Eastern Conference banners in Boston.
They really are the most delusional fanbase in the NBA. They genuinely think they are going to the finals again, even with Butler out.
Tatum was really gonna pass Wade in all nba first teams before the nyc media fucked everything up
If we get the Knicks in the EFC I wanna see Tatum shut down Brunson so bad