LIVE: Celtics vs Thunder Postgame Show | Garden Report

  • 7 months ago
The Garden Report goes live following the Celtics game against the Thunder. Catch the Celtics Postgame Show featuring Bobby Manning, Josue Pavon, Jimmy Toscano, and A. Sherrod Blakely as they offer insights and analysis after Boston's game vs OKC.

This episode of the Garden Report is is brought to you by:

Fanduel Sportsbook, the exclusive wagering parter of the CLNS Media NetworkRight now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! So, visit https://FanDuel.com/BOSTON and kick off the NFL season. FanDuel, Official Partner of the NFL. 21+ and present in MA. Hope is here. First online real money wager only. $5 pregame moneyline wager required. First online real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. GamblingHelpLineMa.org or call (800)-327-5050 for 24/7 support. Play it smart from the start! GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234.

SeatGeek! Use code DREAMERSPRO for $20 off your first SeatGeek order! Visit https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/DREAMERSPRO !

With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Go to https://HelloFresh.com/CLNSFREE and use code CLNSFREE for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. That’s free breakfast for life at HelloFresh.com/CLNSFREE with code CLNSFREE!

#Celtics #NBA #GardenReport #CLNS
Transcript
00:00:00 (upbeat music)
00:00:02 - Can you say hard hats folks?
00:00:06 Hard hats, munch pails, steel tool boots.
00:00:09 - Anything short of a championship this year is a fail.
00:00:11 - It's time to look at this boomer right here.
00:00:13 - You've just got so much talent here.
00:00:15 - Somebody said we need to apologize for Jaylen.
00:00:17 - Can I call the John?
00:00:18 What are we apologizing for?
00:00:20 What did we say?
00:00:21 What did we do?
00:00:21 (upbeat music)
00:00:24 (upbeat music)
00:00:27 - What up world?
00:00:33 It's Jimmy Toscano and the real Bobby Manning.
00:00:36 What's going on Bobby?
00:00:37 - What's up?
00:00:38 Happy New Year, Jimmy.
00:00:39 - Happy New Year to you, sir.
00:00:41 Glad to see you survived it from New York.
00:00:44 I survived it here in Boston.
00:00:45 The Celtics did not survive Oklahoma City tonight.
00:00:49 Falling to the thunder.
00:00:51 The, I would say title contending thunder,
00:00:55 127 to 123 behind a hell of a performance from SGA himself.
00:01:00 We'll get into the thunder I'm sure.
00:01:07 Just their quick turnaround to the team that they are today.
00:01:11 But obviously with Giddy and Chet Holmgrove
00:01:16 hitting some shots, big shots tonight.
00:01:18 The thunder were too much for the Celtics team
00:01:20 that just didn't quite bring it
00:01:22 on the defensive side of things.
00:01:23 Certainly not for four quarters.
00:01:25 And then it was the classic tail Bobby
00:01:28 of teams of the past, too little, too late.
00:01:31 They clamped down on one end.
00:01:33 They start to score in bunches on the other.
00:01:36 I think they went on, I saw the graphic on TV.
00:01:40 It said 27 to one at one point to come within a few points.
00:01:44 - 27 to 11.
00:01:46 - So I think that it's biggest,
00:01:47 it got to 29 to 13 to get within two.
00:01:50 - 27 to 11?
00:01:52 - Yeah.
00:01:52 - I may have said the wrong thing,
00:01:53 but that makes more sense.
00:01:54 'Cause they were down what, like 20-ish, 18 or whatever.
00:01:57 Yeah.
00:01:57 And then making that comeback late in the fourth there
00:02:01 behind some good Pritchard minutes.
00:02:03 Tatum did a couple of things good,
00:02:05 but again, it's so Jackal and I with him right now.
00:02:09 I thought it was a quiet performance from Jaylen Brown
00:02:11 who found some foul trouble early on the game
00:02:14 and just never got going at all.
00:02:15 This was supposed to be a good matchup for him.
00:02:17 Really early bright spot.
00:02:18 Well, Pritchard aside,
00:02:20 I thought your real bright spot obviously
00:02:21 was in Porzingis.
00:02:23 But again, you can't talk about Porzingis
00:02:26 without talking about the toe on the line
00:02:29 that really came back to hurt the team.
00:02:31 - What'd you say?
00:02:33 Didn't get a great look at it.
00:02:35 - I didn't think the broadcast did a great job
00:02:37 of really zooming in and letting us really get a look,
00:02:39 but it did seem that it was too close
00:02:44 for them to overturn, certainly.
00:02:46 And you know, like Porzingis,
00:02:48 you had a parking lot to work with.
00:02:51 You were wide open.
00:02:52 I mean, he's got those long legs.
00:02:53 You gotta get, it's just a bonehead mistake.
00:02:56 I'm sure he's kicking himself about it.
00:02:57 But yeah, that was huge
00:02:58 because that would have turned it into a one point
00:03:02 possession or one possession game there.
00:03:03 - Yeah, one point game with a timeout.
00:03:05 So no matter what the,
00:03:07 I know Nessla Thunder hit a three the other way.
00:03:09 You would have been in position to play this night.
00:03:12 - I'll let you talk for a minute here, Bob.
00:03:13 Just your thoughts on just the way the game
00:03:14 sort of finished up for them.
00:03:16 - Well, I knew, I think everybody knew
00:03:18 this was going to be a tough one for the Celtics.
00:03:20 They gave up 150 and just got blown away
00:03:22 in this building last year.
00:03:23 They gave up 127 tonight to this team
00:03:26 that just plays at a frenetic pace.
00:03:28 An MVP candidate, frankly,
00:03:30 and it's J. Gildriss Alexander,
00:03:32 who was that good tonight,
00:03:33 able to just get a shot off against anybody.
00:03:36 But you look at some of the decision-making
00:03:38 in terms of just the coaching in this game.
00:03:41 They go to Peyton Pritchard late, overdrew Holiday.
00:03:45 Yeah, feeling the need to get something different
00:03:47 at the guard position there,
00:03:49 which is of course interesting.
00:03:50 And Pritchard was really good.
00:03:52 Holiday early got the Shea assignment
00:03:54 and just got blown by routinely,
00:03:57 not to say that other guys wouldn't have been that spot.
00:04:00 But I did think that they were put
00:04:01 a little bit more size on Shea in this game.
00:04:04 And that's what they did late with Tatum.
00:04:06 So they did some things late in this game
00:04:08 in terms of Pritchard's usage and Tatum guarding Shea
00:04:11 that if they got to a little earlier,
00:04:14 might've gotten them going earlier in this game.
00:04:18 So it was good that Joe put them
00:04:19 in a position to come back here,
00:04:21 but probably slow to react to the way things
00:04:24 were going earlier in this game.
00:04:25 I thought too late,
00:04:27 whatever they did to force more turnovers really worked too.
00:04:30 I mean, they were just turning over Oklahoma
00:04:32 possession after possession in that fourth quarter.
00:04:35 And that's something that they've struggled to do.
00:04:37 - It was just ball pressure.
00:04:38 - Yeah.
00:04:39 And it's as simple as that, Jimmy.
00:04:41 Like we've asked Joe throughout the year,
00:04:43 why don't you force some more turnovers?
00:04:44 And he's like, you know, you can do stuff,
00:04:46 but you can't make the other team turn it over.
00:04:49 Like they have to do it.
00:04:50 And, you know, he's just kind of chalked it up
00:04:53 to happenstance that the Celtics don't rank
00:04:55 very high in turnovers.
00:04:56 But that was something that happened last year too.
00:04:58 So I think in terms of the way they're playing defense,
00:05:00 it's a little bit more than just bad luck.
00:05:03 The reason that they don't rank very high in assists here,
00:05:05 in forced turnovers here.
00:05:07 So I just under killed them in pace.
00:05:09 It took the Celtics like a quarter and a half
00:05:11 to score a fast break bucket.
00:05:13 Once Porzingis got those back-to-back blocks in the second
00:05:16 that sent Brown out, they finally got on the board there.
00:05:19 So the Thunder looked more athletic.
00:05:21 They looked more explosive overall.
00:05:23 You had more guys who were able to get shots off
00:05:25 on their own in this game.
00:05:27 Jalen Williams killed them.
00:05:28 Chet killed them at times.
00:05:30 And then of course, Shay was the leader of the team tonight
00:05:34 in everything they did out there.
00:05:35 Giddy too.
00:05:36 It's a really good team.
00:05:38 So I don't think the world's ending with this loss,
00:05:40 but you don't like going down 18,
00:05:43 being the best team in the league.
00:05:45 - We're gonna bring in Joe Sway Pavone into the building.
00:05:47 What's up Joe Sway, how you doing, dude?
00:05:49 - How are we feeling about this game?
00:05:52 - We're feeling mixed.
00:05:53 Yeah, we're not feeling good.
00:05:55 The chat is largely disappointed, I would say.
00:05:57 A lot of people saying that Thunder are the better team.
00:06:00 A couple of people in here saying,
00:06:01 well, here's one from Kieran, good loss overall,
00:06:04 which I don't think good loss
00:06:07 is ever something you wanna say.
00:06:09 - It's tough to say that this year.
00:06:11 You don't have to act like the world's ending.
00:06:13 - Imagine if you aligned the question with that, Bobby,
00:06:16 to Joe Mazzuolo, he would not like that.
00:06:18 - No, absolutely not.
00:06:19 I mean, there's some players tonight
00:06:20 that really didn't step up to the plate.
00:06:22 So Joe Sway, I'll let you sort of run with it here.
00:06:24 Me and Bobby have been able to make a couple initial takes,
00:06:27 but just your thoughts on maybe,
00:06:29 we talked a lot about the ending,
00:06:30 but I mean, this game from start to finish,
00:06:33 what kind of stood out to you and what happened, I guess,
00:06:36 for the Celtics to go down as big as they did there
00:06:38 in that fourth quarter?
00:06:39 - Well, what happened was SGA went off,
00:06:42 the Celtics, I mean, the Thunder did a really good job
00:06:44 of just taking away everything, in my opinion, from Jalen.
00:06:47 And Jalen went back to chucking three-pointers
00:06:51 and trying to not put the team on his back,
00:06:53 but trying to get himself going,
00:06:54 and it just wasn't working.
00:06:55 I thought they did a really good job defending the wings,
00:06:58 took Tatum a little bit to get going,
00:06:59 but to me, it really came down to the other guys.
00:07:04 Jalen Williams, just guys who could create off the dribble.
00:07:06 Even Josh Giddey got going in certain spurts,
00:07:09 Lou Dohrt as well.
00:07:10 I just think, I thought the Oklahoma City Thunder
00:07:12 did a really good job of just being more aggressive.
00:07:15 A lot of the times, I feel like the Celtics
00:07:16 just gave away too much space, whether it was, I guess, SGA,
00:07:21 whether it was, I guess, Chet.
00:07:22 I thought the guys got really comfortable out there.
00:07:24 It's interesting, Bobby, I caught the tail end
00:07:26 of what you were saying about Joe Mazzuola
00:07:28 forcing turnovers, and I think that's pretty much it
00:07:30 when you're talking about what's missing.
00:07:32 I just feel like they weren't taking away enough space.
00:07:35 They weren't in these guys' faces until it mattered most
00:07:38 in that fourth quarter where they went onto that run,
00:07:40 and 16 to three run, it was too little, too late.
00:07:42 Well, that clock was rolling.
00:07:44 A lot of that had to do with the Oklahoma City Thunder
00:07:46 being able to not only build on that lead,
00:07:49 but building that momentum with guys like SGA
00:07:51 and Chet Holmgren on the bench.
00:07:53 To start that fourth quarter, the way they got out.
00:07:56 I was happy for Joe Mazzuola to call that timeout
00:07:58 as early as he did, but then there they went again, right?
00:08:00 The Oklahoma City Thunder, and you gotta give
00:08:02 all the props in the world, of course, to Derek White,
00:08:04 because without him, this thing is not even a game
00:08:06 in those last couple of minutes.
00:08:07 You know, the defensive stops, the threes,
00:08:11 you know, just getting the guys going
00:08:13 in the back-to-back threes, essentially,
00:08:15 is what really woke up the team, in my opinion.
00:08:18 And, you know, Tatum tried to do a little bit, too.
00:08:20 You know, I thought that he was very patient
00:08:21 in trying to get his offense going,
00:08:23 but then Chris Taspor-Zing is at the end,
00:08:25 you know, misses the layup, where, you know,
00:08:27 he could've got the three-point play opportunity,
00:08:29 but then all that is when, that's what happens
00:08:31 when you're just flat-out beat by a team
00:08:33 that just had your number tonight, you know?
00:08:35 That's the Oklahoma City Thunder, you know?
00:08:36 You're gonna point to those last couple of moments
00:08:38 in the final minute, or final two minutes,
00:08:41 but at the end of the day, I mean,
00:08:42 OKC deserved this one.
00:08:43 You wanted to see the Celtics go out there and steal one,
00:08:45 or at least force overtime in that last minute,
00:08:47 but, you know, Jalen misses a free throw.
00:08:49 You know, those little things, the little mistakes
00:08:51 is what really did them in at the very end,
00:08:53 but let's face it, I mean, these guys didn't really
00:08:55 deserve to win this game, if you think about it.
00:08:58 - Seven losses this year, Jimmy.
00:08:59 I feel like this is the third, probably,
00:09:02 that was decided early, so they haven't had
00:09:05 many games like this, and it's gonna go down
00:09:07 as a clutch loss, right, 'cause they lost by four late.
00:09:09 - Yeah, I was gonna say, because of what they did
00:09:11 in the fourth, but I hear what you're saying.
00:09:13 - Yeah, so, Jimmy, though, and I'll let you
00:09:15 make your point after, where do you think
00:09:17 they rank in forced turnovers?
00:09:19 - The Celtics? - Yeah.
00:09:21 - What you tell me?
00:09:22 It sounds like not high, because we were talking
00:09:24 about it earlier. (laughs)
00:09:25 - He's got a big smirk on his face.
00:09:26 - Yeah.
00:09:27 - 27th.
00:09:28 - Interesting, so.
00:09:30 - You knew it had to be bottom.
00:09:31 - I knew, yeah, to make his point,
00:09:33 it had to have been pretty bad,
00:09:34 but I wanted Bobby to be able to hammer it home.
00:09:37 - If you go back to that EMA year,
00:09:39 the 2022 team that was really dominant,
00:09:41 they were only 13th that year, but the year,
00:09:44 the first Missoula year, last year, they came in at 26th,
00:09:49 so they've been bottom five, 10, both years
00:09:52 here under Missoula after ranking fairly high,
00:09:54 and again, there's not a lot of separation
00:09:56 between the teams here, but you need a few more a game,
00:09:58 and it looked like they were able to force those late,
00:10:01 early, as Joe Sway said, just not enough ball pressure,
00:10:04 not enough intensity on the defensive end.
00:10:05 I thought their transition defense sucked in this game.
00:10:08 It was horrible. - Oh, terrible.
00:10:09 Yeah, it was.
00:10:10 - And they've done that at times this year.
00:10:11 I think they've cleaned it up over the last month
00:10:14 or two here, but early in the season,
00:10:15 they had some bad moments too,
00:10:17 and a team like this is able to expose that.
00:10:19 I mean, that should have been number one
00:10:20 on their priorities coming in was getting back,
00:10:22 but missed layups, turnovers, the Celtics turned the ball
00:10:25 over a ton early, I thought that was the story
00:10:27 of the first quarter.
00:10:29 That's just gonna empower everybody on the Oklahoma side.
00:10:32 I mean, everybody on that team, Joe Sway and Jimmy,
00:10:34 are fast, athletic, great finishers
00:10:38 who love to get out on the run,
00:10:40 and the Celtics really let them do that.
00:10:42 - Good rebounders too.
00:10:44 I thought that killed the Celtics as well.
00:10:45 - Yeah, yeah.
00:10:48 - But they don't rebound.
00:10:49 - Yeah, that's what came.
00:10:52 - Isn't that what, like the Thunder don't rebound.
00:10:58 - So I thought the Celtics were, again, I mean,
00:11:01 and I know the Thunder, they've got those stretch bags now
00:11:03 with Holmgren and Giddey,
00:11:06 and those guys are hitting threes tonight.
00:11:08 It seemed like the Celtics were willing
00:11:09 to give those shots up,
00:11:11 'cause certainly they weren't really up in their face.
00:11:13 It seemed like those were pretty wide open shots
00:11:16 for a lot of those Thunder players.
00:11:18 - And then 4-7 from Giddey is not normal.
00:11:22 - No, right.
00:11:23 So I mean, you just kind of have to tip your cap,
00:11:25 I guess, in that situation.
00:11:27 But even SGA, 5-8, and then, who's this dude, Wiggins,
00:11:31 Aaron Wiggins off the bench, who's two.
00:11:34 So I mean, these shots were falling left and right
00:11:37 for the Thunder.
00:11:39 I'm always gonna be disappointed
00:11:41 when it's a premier sort of matchup
00:11:46 and the Celtics fall short,
00:11:48 because these are the games that,
00:11:50 you can go ahead and say, oh, they're 26-7.
00:11:52 Well, how many of those wins don't matter in the long run,
00:11:55 because it's against a garbage team
00:11:57 that they won't see in the playoffs.
00:11:58 I wanna see statement wins.
00:12:00 So I'm thinking, okay, they lose on the road in Minnesota.
00:12:04 Now they lose on the road here in OKC.
00:12:07 Yeah, these are Western Conference teams,
00:12:09 and obviously you won't see them again
00:12:11 until the finals, if you do.
00:12:13 But this is where the team has had trouble,
00:12:15 in the NBA finals.
00:12:16 And so these are the matchups that I circle,
00:12:19 and I'm sure a lot of Celtics fans circle on the calendar,
00:12:21 because these are the statement games
00:12:22 that you wanna show up,
00:12:25 and you wanna prove that you can go in on the road
00:12:30 and play tough for four quarters.
00:12:32 And not, if you're Jaylen Brown,
00:12:34 this was a matchup that a lot of people thought
00:12:36 was gonna be huge for him,
00:12:37 for him to show that he can be a plus defender in the league
00:12:42 and contain an MVP caliber player.
00:12:46 He couldn't.
00:12:47 He picked up two fouls
00:12:48 before the ball was even tipped off practically.
00:12:51 And then he kind of disappeared.
00:12:53 Jaylen, Jason Tatum.
00:12:54 Yeah, he played commendable defense,
00:12:56 really good defense down the stretch,
00:12:57 but where was that before?
00:12:59 You can't go down 20 points and then say,
00:13:02 "Oh, I'm gonna start playing defense."
00:13:03 Peyton Pritchard is getting put in the game
00:13:06 to spark the team.
00:13:07 That's unacceptable as far as,
00:13:09 no offense to Peyton Pritchard.
00:13:10 - They do call him Sparky, right?
00:13:11 - They do call him Sparky.
00:13:13 Some of the greats call him that.
00:13:15 But let's be honest.
00:13:19 All we talk about is,
00:13:21 oh, they've got the best five, six guys deep in the league,
00:13:25 and you need to go to the seventh,
00:13:26 and you need to go to Pritchard and Hauser,
00:13:28 and we need to commend Joe
00:13:31 for pulling a rabbit out of a hat here
00:13:35 in a game where there shouldn't be any need to do that.
00:13:38 So that's disappointing for me, for sure.
00:13:42 - It's interesting too.
00:13:43 I'm looking back.
00:13:44 It looked like wide open the game on Shea.
00:13:46 They put Shea-
00:13:47 - Yeah, I thought that was different.
00:13:49 Yeah.
00:13:50 Sorry, go ahead, bud.
00:13:51 - Chad, they put Drew on the big.
00:13:53 So it looked like the plan was to try to get Drew there
00:13:57 on switches, right?
00:13:58 They were expecting probably more pick and roll,
00:14:00 but Shea was just kind of attacking them head on,
00:14:03 and the individual defenders on Shea
00:14:05 weren't able to contain them
00:14:06 until they switched to Tatum late.
00:14:08 So I think that's an obvious second guess,
00:14:10 is not going with more size against them.
00:14:12 I actually thought,
00:14:13 I think I said in the chat earlier this afternoon, Jimmy,
00:14:15 that this would be a good one for Jalen,
00:14:17 as you mentioned there.
00:14:18 It just kind of fell on out of this game with fouls early,
00:14:21 and, you know, attached to Dort,
00:14:23 who's just kind of standing in the corner.
00:14:24 I didn't think that was making good use of him,
00:14:26 especially if Shea was going to attack head on,
00:14:28 'cause I feel like that's where Jalen's at his best,
00:14:30 is just kind of honing in on a matchup
00:14:32 and sticking with it.
00:14:33 So overall, we can point to a bunch of different stuff.
00:14:36 I feel like Joe just kind of came into this game and said,
00:14:39 "Let's just roll with the same game plan
00:14:40 "and stuff we've been doing the last couple of weeks here."
00:14:43 And it didn't adapt well to this game,
00:14:45 where the Thunder are just a little bit
00:14:47 of a different opponent than they've seen
00:14:49 over the last couple of weeks here.
00:14:50 - They just seem prepared for it, honestly, Bobby,
00:14:52 especially like the tendencies
00:14:54 and the way SGA was going to try to maneuver his way
00:14:57 straight through the paint, like you said,
00:14:58 because he, in my opinion,
00:15:00 it could see how the Southerns have been defending lately,
00:15:02 especially with guys like Derek White and Drew Holiday,
00:15:04 and how those guys have been interchangeable
00:15:06 and top of the key.
00:15:07 He made sure that they weren't comfortable with doing that,
00:15:08 especially early out, you know,
00:15:10 I mean, early in the first quarter,
00:15:13 you know, they just set the tone, in my opinion.
00:15:15 And I felt like, you know, Drew, obviously,
00:15:18 as you can see, the way the fourth quarter went for him,
00:15:19 I mean, he'd never really found that rhythm in this game.
00:15:22 And, you know, Missoula went with Pritchard
00:15:25 to finish out the comeback that came up short.
00:15:29 - And it's a good time to talk about Drew, Jimmy.
00:15:32 He hasn't, he's been phenomenal defensively this year.
00:15:36 So today's a little bit of an abnormal result
00:15:39 for him on that end.
00:15:40 And it's like, again-
00:15:41 - It's a tough cover too, buddy.
00:15:43 I mean, we gotta get SGA's props.
00:15:45 That's a tough cover.
00:15:46 - On the other side.
00:15:47 So that's not why Drew landed on the bench, though.
00:15:49 It's the offense right now.
00:15:51 And you get seven assists in this one,
00:15:53 but we came into this year, Jimmy, saying,
00:15:56 all right, Jalen's gonna have the toughest time adapting.
00:15:58 And he had a bad night tonight,
00:15:59 but overall he's had a great, you know,
00:16:02 month plus before this.
00:16:03 So he figured things out in terms of
00:16:05 where he fits in on the offense.
00:16:07 Drew, I'm not knocking what he's doing.
00:16:11 - Let's talk about Drew.
00:16:12 Let's talk about Drew.
00:16:13 - Everything he's done for this team has been really subtle.
00:16:17 You know, obviously defensively, he's commanding things.
00:16:20 He's been awesome on that end.
00:16:21 He's passing well, he's rebounding well.
00:16:23 But he just doesn't seem super involved in the offense.
00:16:26 And I know it's tough when you have five stars out there,
00:16:29 but in the second units,
00:16:30 can you get them involved as a ball handler?
00:16:33 You know, in the starting lineup,
00:16:34 can you put them in, you know, screen and roll actions
00:16:38 to kind of have them involved in the roll
00:16:39 and, you know, catch the ball there and make plays.
00:16:42 Sometimes it just feels like he's floating a little bit.
00:16:44 And in this game, the miss is piled up
00:16:45 and he ends up on the bench late.
00:16:47 - I wanna bring in our friend A. Sherrod Blakely,
00:16:53 who's joining us here.
00:16:54 Sherrod, you can hear- - What's up, fellas?
00:16:55 - What's going on, Sherrod?
00:16:56 - You Gucci?
00:16:57 - Oh, you and your young lingo.
00:17:01 - Sorry.
00:17:02 (laughing)
00:17:02 You good?
00:17:04 - I'm good, I'm good, Jimmy.
00:17:05 - I just think the cinema's coffee.
00:17:06 Look at you, Sherrod.
00:17:07 I like you, I like your type.
00:17:08 - I'm just messing with you, Jimmy.
00:17:09 I'm good though.
00:17:10 - Yeah, you knew what I meant.
00:17:12 - I knew what you meant.
00:17:12 - You gotta learn that.
00:17:13 You're a professor.
00:17:14 You gotta be able to understand the jargon, the lingo.
00:17:18 - Unfortunately, you're correct.
00:17:20 - He's hip, that's why.
00:17:22 - Yeah. - Yeah, he's in it.
00:17:23 - Celtics look- - Yeah, I mean-
00:17:24 - What do you think, Sherrod?
00:17:25 Celtics look kind of mid tonight?
00:17:27 - You know what?
00:17:31 This was a game that I thought was more about
00:17:34 what Oklahoma City did
00:17:35 than not necessarily what the Celtics didn't do.
00:17:37 Oklahoma City's a good team.
00:17:39 They're a top five,
00:17:40 and they got a top five MVP candidate in Shea Gilders.
00:17:44 They've got probably the rookie of the year
00:17:46 on their roster as well.
00:17:48 And then you start looking at the guys that contribute,
00:17:51 the guys that they have that are playing.
00:17:53 They're a good team.
00:17:54 I mean, and to their credit,
00:17:56 they withstood a serious blow by the Celtics
00:18:00 in the fourth quarter and came out with the win.
00:18:03 They made their free throws, they got big shots,
00:18:05 they got some breaks that they didn't necessarily plan for,
00:18:08 like Porzeisias' foot toe in the line.
00:18:10 - Yeah. - Again, they did,
00:18:13 Oklahoma City did enough good things in this game
00:18:16 to deserve the win.
00:18:17 And obviously, I think you guys touched on it earlier,
00:18:19 Drew Holiday seemed to have taken a holiday off on this one
00:18:23 and just was not effective.
00:18:25 And I will say this about Joe Mazzullo.
00:18:28 I gave him props for this game
00:18:30 because Drew Holiday was not very good
00:18:32 and he stuck with Pritchard longer than he normally would.
00:18:35 And I thought that decision gave the Celtics a chance
00:18:39 to possibly win this game.
00:18:41 Whereas I think if you- - That changed everything.
00:18:42 - Yeah, I think if you'd have stuck with Drew,
00:18:45 they probably would lose this game by 15 or 20 points.
00:18:48 I thought Drew was just that non-impactful.
00:18:50 Whereas Pritchard was making plays
00:18:53 and his presence alone was, I thought,
00:18:55 helping them just kind of rally and chip away at this thing.
00:18:58 So I give Joe props for actually making,
00:19:01 I thought, a pretty important coaching decision
00:19:04 down the stretch that gave them a chance to win.
00:19:07 - Yeah, there's no moral victories, Josue,
00:19:09 but it feels like when you come out of this,
00:19:12 seeing in December for Pritchard, said a lot for him.
00:19:15 He really got going there, but you know,
00:19:17 how's it, you know what you're gonna get more or less,
00:19:19 his role's a little more limited.
00:19:22 When you add up all the different things
00:19:23 Pritchard can do for you, he's looking like that,
00:19:26 not the sixth man, 'cause that's kind of alpha this team,
00:19:28 but he's that seventh man.
00:19:30 If you're gonna cut down the seven guys in the playoffs,
00:19:32 he might be that guy right at the end there
00:19:35 when you cut things off and really go tight.
00:19:38 - Well, we've seen in the past too,
00:19:39 when the Sutherlands are down double digits,
00:19:40 that's been the guy that typically
00:19:42 sort of gets that extended minutes,
00:19:44 you know what I mean?
00:19:45 When he just to kind of get him going, get his flow going.
00:19:47 You know, but now I feel like this season,
00:19:49 he's finding other ways to be effective,
00:19:50 whether it's making the extra pass,
00:19:52 whether it's like-- - So good on the boards.
00:19:54 - Yeah, the rebounds creating,
00:19:55 like he's just constant energy on both ends.
00:19:58 And I think that's why you're able to earn yourself
00:20:01 a whole fourth quarter the way he did,
00:20:03 especially in this type of game
00:20:04 and that type of atmosphere, you know,
00:20:06 and guys usually rally around that as the Celtics did.
00:20:08 I mean, of course they fell short,
00:20:10 but you look around and you're like,
00:20:12 man, Peyton's still in here, Peyton's balling.
00:20:14 You know, you wanna obviously complete the comeback
00:20:16 because you're on the cusp of it,
00:20:18 but also you see someone like Pritchard
00:20:20 getting that opportunity.
00:20:20 So it's too bad that it didn't turn out the way,
00:20:24 or at least the Celtics were unable to force overtime,
00:20:26 but it's a great opportunity for him.
00:20:28 And obviously it's something that he can build off.
00:20:31 - And I don't wanna-- - No, I also--
00:20:33 - Go ahead, Jimmy, you got it.
00:20:34 - Yeah, no, I don't wanna make it seem like
00:20:36 I don't appreciate what Pritchard did tonight
00:20:38 or what he's on the team to do,
00:20:40 'cause I think this was a good example of that.
00:20:42 I just think I'm a little disappointed
00:20:44 that some of the stars, again, Porzingis aside,
00:20:47 but the guys that are supposed to be,
00:20:49 you know, bringing it for four quarters,
00:20:52 you know, Tatum, Brown,
00:20:54 who we can talk about a little bit later,
00:20:56 Drew, we've already discussed,
00:20:57 Horford didn't do much tonight either, obviously.
00:21:01 And I just feel like against a team,
00:21:06 a contending team, Shiraz, a team that,
00:21:08 you know, again, they're out West,
00:21:09 so you most likely, maybe you'll see him again, who knows,
00:21:13 but this is a team that the Celtics should be able to,
00:21:16 they shouldn't go down 18 in this team.
00:21:20 - Yeah. - Right.
00:21:21 - You know what I mean? - Right.
00:21:22 - So I'm gonna go back to it.
00:21:22 The ending, yeah, sure.
00:21:23 You just take a look at the final score.
00:21:24 Okay, yeah, and it was a good game, it was entertaining.
00:21:26 Commend them for the comeback,
00:21:27 but how many times over the last few years
00:21:29 have we seen this happen?
00:21:32 They go down big because they don't play
00:21:33 complete basketball on both ends of the court.
00:21:35 They put a charge in there late in the game,
00:21:38 but ultimately comes up short, they run out of time.
00:21:40 And this reminds me of that.
00:21:42 - Yeah, I mean, Jimmy, I agree with you.
00:21:44 Probably the only thing I was really, really,
00:21:47 really disappointed in this game,
00:21:48 and there were things I wasn't crazy about,
00:21:49 but disappointment was the fact that, to your point,
00:21:52 they allowed themselves,
00:21:53 they dug themselves a tremendous hole.
00:21:56 And remember, OKC did a lot of good things
00:22:00 with Shade Gooders' Alexander on the bench.
00:22:03 That stretch where they pushed it up to like 15, 16 points,
00:22:07 he was doing the same thing you and I were doing,
00:22:09 just sitting back, chilling, watching things play out.
00:22:12 And that can't happen.
00:22:13 You can't allow an MVP candidate on a team
00:22:16 to sit on a bench and that team,
00:22:19 not just maintain the lead, but extend it.
00:22:23 And that was really disappointing to see that happen.
00:22:26 But again, credit Oklahoma City.
00:22:29 I mean, there's a reason why they've been one of the top
00:22:30 teams in the Western Conference most of the season.
00:22:32 They're good.
00:22:33 And you look at some of the bodies that they've put to bed.
00:22:37 They've beaten Denver, they've beaten Minnesota.
00:22:39 - They've smoked Denver.
00:22:40 - Yeah, I mean, so let's not pretend as if this was a team,
00:22:44 this ain't Detroit, all right?
00:22:46 - Right.
00:22:47 - This isn't-
00:22:48 - Let me know.
00:22:48 - This isn't one of the-
00:22:49 - No, I mean-
00:22:50 - Yeah.
00:22:51 - This isn't your squad, that's right.
00:22:52 - This is a legitimate team that beat you
00:22:54 when you played, you didn't play a great game,
00:22:56 but you had stretches where you looked really good,
00:22:59 but it just wasn't enough to get the win.
00:23:01 And it wasn't as if you played a bad team.
00:23:03 So I'm not mad, disappointed that they,
00:23:05 to your point, Jimmy,
00:23:06 disappointed that they put themselves in such a hole
00:23:09 that they had to just fight and claw
00:23:11 just to get back in the game.
00:23:13 But as far as like the opponent and how things played out,
00:23:16 this is what good teams are supposed to do at home.
00:23:18 - Yeah, you know, to Jimmy's point though,
00:23:21 you anticipated that like, you know, showdown,
00:23:24 you wanted to see like a 140 to 145,
00:23:26 you know what I mean?
00:23:27 Like that type of a knockout.
00:23:30 - Not that many points, but.
00:23:31 - I mean-
00:23:32 - They even did defense jokes, right?
00:23:33 - You know what I mean though.
00:23:34 - No, I do, but-
00:23:34 - You look at what Vegas had on this game,
00:23:37 and just in general, both teams with the winning streak
00:23:40 on the line, you know, Celtics coming in with six straight,
00:23:43 it's just, it was that type of atmosphere,
00:23:46 but you want to see the Celtics match that
00:23:48 all the way through.
00:23:49 And I felt like it came down to the fourth quarter
00:23:51 and just like, oh man, you know,
00:23:52 we got seven minutes left, we're running out of time here.
00:23:54 And they kind of snapped out of it, but yeah,
00:23:57 credit to the Oklahoma City Thunder though,
00:23:58 in a few weeks, this could be the number one team
00:24:00 in the Western Conference.
00:24:01 I mean, they're that close, obviously,
00:24:04 when you look at this winning streak that they're on.
00:24:06 - Now-
00:24:07 - Yeah, I didn't want to get ahead of myself
00:24:08 coming into the year,
00:24:09 but I thought they could be a home court team
00:24:11 just based on the flashes you saw last year,
00:24:12 and this guy right here,
00:24:14 already emerging as an MVP candidate a year ago,
00:24:16 plus Chet joining the mix here.
00:24:18 Kayson Wallace has been really good, their draft pick.
00:24:22 This is a team that could make the finals.
00:24:24 I don't think you can rule them out.
00:24:25 Like they, the way they played Denver,
00:24:28 the way they've played other teams in the West,
00:24:30 and this record through the first quarter of the season,
00:24:33 they're young, they probably need a little bit
00:24:35 of a veteran presence here.
00:24:37 You know, I think that's the one thing
00:24:38 they've really lacked through this rebuild,
00:24:39 and it doesn't seem like they are interested
00:24:41 in adding to this group,
00:24:43 just given the picks and the young players they have here.
00:24:45 So that could limit them,
00:24:47 along with the lack of playoff experience,
00:24:48 but it wouldn't be stunning at all
00:24:50 to see a Thunder Celtics finals.
00:24:52 - No, but the one thing, Bobby,
00:24:53 that gives me reason to pause is that
00:24:57 they're a good team,
00:24:57 and talent-wise, from top to bottom,
00:24:59 they're right there in that mix,
00:25:00 but teams like Oklahoma City,
00:25:03 I'm not sold on them or even want to rent them
00:25:07 based upon the fact that playoffs are best of sevens,
00:25:10 not one game elimination.
00:25:12 And I don't know if they have the ability
00:25:15 to sustain the level of play that we saw in this game,
00:25:18 and withstand the kind of run that the Celtics
00:25:21 put on them over the course of a seven-game series.
00:25:24 To me, they are going to be a feast
00:25:26 or famine post-season team.
00:25:27 They're either gonna get to the conference finals,
00:25:29 or they're gonna get knocked out in the first round.
00:25:30 I don't think a second-round exit is in their future.
00:25:34 I think they're either gonna be early,
00:25:36 early out of the playoffs, or go really, really far.
00:25:39 Because to me, I just don't,
00:25:43 I can't buy into this team as being pretty good
00:25:46 and make a little bit of noise.
00:25:47 They're either gonna go out with a whimper,
00:25:50 or they're gonna go out with a bang.
00:25:52 There's no in-between, I don't think, with this team.
00:25:54 - Yeah, first being the Wild West, too, Shara.
00:25:56 I mean, you got news that could be,
00:25:58 like, this could be one of the best
00:26:00 in-season tournaments that we've seen.
00:26:03 I mean, excuse me, play, I knew it was gonna do that.
00:26:04 I knew it was gonna do that.
00:26:06 Play-in tournament that we've seen,
00:26:08 I mean, look at the way the Western Conference
00:26:09 is breaking down in the bottom portion, right?
00:26:13 I mean, going into the playoffs,
00:26:14 it could be the Lakers, it could be one of those teams
00:26:16 waiting for OKC.
00:26:18 So yeah, it'll be interesting, for sure.
00:26:19 Western Conference, it'll be interesting.
00:26:21 But the Oklahoma City Thunder, I think it's a safe bet
00:26:24 that they'll be one of those top two,
00:26:25 oh, top three Western Conference,
00:26:27 maybe four teams that stays in that vicinity,
00:26:31 if you ask me.
00:26:31 So Home Corps is for sure in their future.
00:26:35 I mean, it's early, but I don't see them dropping off
00:26:39 into outside of the top five in the West.
00:26:41 - Well, let's say they're playing one of the winners
00:26:43 of the play-in tournament, right?
00:26:46 Let's say that winner is Dallas.
00:26:48 Would you feel confident that they're gonna beat Dallas
00:26:50 if, let's say, it's the Lakers?
00:26:51 Would you feel confident that they're gonna be
00:26:52 the winner of the Lakers? - That's what I mean.
00:26:53 Those are the teams I'm talking about.
00:26:54 - Yeah, yeah, so I mean, as good as they are,
00:26:58 I don't think anyone would be shocked
00:26:59 if they play the winner of the play-in tournament
00:27:02 and if it's someone like Dallas or the Lakers,
00:27:04 that they get smoked in the first round.
00:27:05 - Right, right.
00:27:07 - What happened with Jaylon Branson tonight?
00:27:09 - He was horrible.
00:27:11 He was bad in every sense of the word.
00:27:13 I mean, there's just no even like
00:27:15 mints and words about that.
00:27:16 He was bad.
00:27:18 - Yeah, I mean, not just on offense too.
00:27:20 We're talking about Shade Gildriss Alexander here.
00:27:23 - Couldn't guard him.
00:27:24 - This is one of the reasons why this loss
00:27:26 in this game is disappointing to me
00:27:28 is because this is a marquee matchup, right?
00:27:30 This is a game that I think a lot of people had said,
00:27:33 you know, I wanna look and see how this matchup goes.
00:27:35 And there's a lot of people who say Jaylon Brown can be,
00:27:39 he can be a great defender in this league
00:27:42 and he should be in the conversation for, you know,
00:27:46 one of the all defensive teams.
00:27:47 - I disagree with that, but keep going.
00:27:49 - Right, right, but there are some people
00:27:50 who feel that way and I'm sure you feel that way.
00:27:52 - Besides Jaylon?
00:27:53 - Besides Jaylon?
00:27:54 (laughing)
00:27:55 - Yeah, right?
00:27:56 - 'Cause like, literally, like Jimmy,
00:27:57 not even trying to be funny about it,
00:27:58 but like Jaylon's the only one who's kind of talked
00:28:01 about Jaylon as an all NBA defender.
00:28:03 - Yeah.
00:28:04 - Right.
00:28:04 - I don't think.
00:28:05 - No, I mean, I'm not talking about it.
00:28:06 - You sure, Jimmy?
00:28:07 You sure?
00:28:08 - I'm not saying that he is, but I think there are--
00:28:10 - I'm not seeing it in print.
00:28:11 I'm not seeing it in podcasts.
00:28:13 I don't see it in reports.
00:28:14 - There's some stats out there, Bobby.
00:28:15 I think you showed me a stat recently.
00:28:17 - I haven't heard one person say it.
00:28:19 - There was some article that somebody had him
00:28:20 as like an honorable mention of an honorable--
00:28:22 - Yeah, let's hear that.
00:28:23 - Is that Jaylon Vlog you're reading, Jimmy?
00:28:25 Jaylon Brown?
00:28:26 - No, Bobby's got the data.
00:28:27 Bobby's got the data.
00:28:28 Let's go, Bobby.
00:28:29 What you got?
00:28:30 - Bobby's like, it's my article.
00:28:31 No.
00:28:32 - Point being, point being.
00:28:33 - He's swear throwing shit at Bobby's article.
00:28:35 You ain't right, Jaylon.
00:28:36 - No, I know Bobby wouldn't write that.
00:28:38 (laughs)
00:28:39 - I like his defense this year.
00:28:41 I mean, opponents are shooting 41% against him,
00:28:44 which for a wing is really good.
00:28:46 I said it at the top of the show.
00:28:47 When he's able to hone into an individual assignment,
00:28:51 he can be awesome.
00:28:52 You know, I think it's the switching
00:28:53 and some of the more team-based stuff
00:28:55 that throws him off on that end.
00:28:57 But I mean, he's been really good this year,
00:28:59 at least in comparison to the last two years.
00:29:00 Now, all defense is a tough threshold to break through to,
00:29:05 but I think in terms of just leveling up his play
00:29:07 on that end of the court this year, he's been better.
00:29:09 It was the offense that was the problem for him tonight.
00:29:11 Trying to force up shots over multiple bodies in the lane.
00:29:14 I usually like that aggressiveness,
00:29:16 but he wasn't really able to get to the cup.
00:29:18 He was more, you know,
00:29:19 forcing up hooks and floaters inside,
00:29:20 missed all his threes.
00:29:22 I like the transition aggressiveness early
00:29:24 that drew those two free throws out to Porzingis' blocks,
00:29:27 but that's about all he got here.
00:29:29 And he tried to do too much in isolation in the half court,
00:29:32 which can lead to turnovers, which can lead to bad shots.
00:29:35 I mean, he is always taking difficult shots.
00:29:38 And this is the thing for him and Tatum in this game.
00:29:41 Brown's pace isn't a problem.
00:29:45 You know, like he'll turn the ball over
00:29:47 and make mistakes by trying to force the issue.
00:29:49 But in certain games, I think that's appropriate.
00:29:52 In this game overall,
00:29:53 I feel like they just didn't know when to go
00:29:55 and didn't know when to slow it down and execute
00:29:57 because they had bad sets in the half court
00:30:00 throughout this game,
00:30:01 but they also had opportunities to run
00:30:03 where they just didn't take them.
00:30:04 And, you know, I thought Tatum struggled
00:30:05 in that regard early before he kind of calmed down
00:30:08 and had a, you know, I thought a really good game.
00:30:10 But, you know, Brown, does this concern you
00:30:14 outside of just a bad night where with a lot of misses?
00:30:16 Like he's been so good over the last month plus here
00:30:19 that I'm not panicking off this one.
00:30:21 The three-point shooting, as usual,
00:30:23 has been a little weird with him.
00:30:24 And that's going back a couple of years now.
00:30:26 But this one to me is just an off night
00:30:28 and a tough matchup where the other perimeter defenders
00:30:31 and the switching on the, you know,
00:30:33 defensive side for Oklahoma State
00:30:35 is just so athletic and long.
00:30:37 - And that, Bobby, that last point you made
00:30:39 about their athleticism and their length,
00:30:40 to me, that's what makes this type of team
00:30:43 a difficult challenge for the Celtics.
00:30:45 - It's in check something, oh man.
00:30:48 - Well, the thing about, Porzeisias
00:30:49 used to be matched up with someone
00:30:50 that he can either take down on a block
00:30:52 because they're too little, or he can, you know,
00:30:54 just rise over them with the three ball.
00:30:56 And Chet is looking him basically eye to eye.
00:30:59 Who's basically a younger, more athletic,
00:31:02 better ball handling version of himself.
00:31:04 I don't think he shoots the ball as well as Porzeisias,
00:31:06 but he's a good shooter.
00:31:07 He is a, he's a good shooter.
00:31:10 And that, that being said,
00:31:12 Porzeisias still got you 30 and some change.
00:31:14 So he was able to do-
00:31:16 - Porzeisias is awesome.
00:31:17 - This was one of, I thought this was one of,
00:31:19 if not his best game individually.
00:31:21 He took on a matchup that was not significantly
00:31:24 in his favor and he maximized it.
00:31:26 He was great.
00:31:27 Tatum, Brown, Drew Holiday, those three in particular
00:31:31 were average to below average most of the game.
00:31:35 And Tatum, I thought, did a lot of good things.
00:31:37 So especially when he switched out,
00:31:38 I thought on Chet late in the game.
00:31:41 But part of that had to do with the fact
00:31:43 that Chet was in foul trouble.
00:31:45 And Tatum was smart enough to take advantage of that
00:31:48 at both ends of the floor.
00:31:49 And so if you're the Celtics,
00:31:52 you're disappointed that you lost the game.
00:31:54 But when you start looking at just the type of team
00:31:57 you played and you start looking out East,
00:31:59 are there any teams that look similar to OKC?
00:32:02 I say no.
00:32:03 - Indiana.
00:32:04 - But Indiana doesn't have a top five MVP candidate.
00:32:08 - Are you sure?
00:32:09 - Yeah, I was gonna say, man.
00:32:11 - I was right up there, man.
00:32:12 - He just had a 20 assists, zero turnover game.
00:32:15 - Listen, listen, listen.
00:32:17 - He doesn't cook like SGA.
00:32:18 - He's a good player.
00:32:20 And frankly, he should be in the all NBA conversation.
00:32:23 There's no doubt.
00:32:24 - He's still a college chef.
00:32:25 - Would I consider him a top five player?
00:32:27 - Absolutely nothing without him.
00:32:29 - I agree.
00:32:30 But is he a top five MVP candidate?
00:32:33 I don't think so.
00:32:34 Top 10, if we're saying top 10.
00:32:36 - He's sick, but he's not top five.
00:32:38 - I know the point you're trying to make, Shura.
00:32:42 - He's very good.
00:32:43 I just don't, I'm not quite ready to put him
00:32:45 in that category because the one thing that Shea has done
00:32:48 that I think people overlook is his impact on winning.
00:32:52 He puts up numbers, but his team wins.
00:32:54 And you can say-
00:32:55 - And good point in the chat here too,
00:32:57 the Pacers defense is as bad as it gets.
00:32:59 So that's a key difference for sure.
00:33:01 - You start looking at that OKC roster from top to bottom
00:33:05 and they've got some good players,
00:33:06 but other than Chet and Shea,
00:33:10 is there anyone that you're looking at like,
00:33:11 damn, he's really, really, really good.
00:33:14 Not really, they've got good players,
00:33:16 but they don't have any good-
00:33:17 - Yeah, they got nice solid role players.
00:33:19 And you look at Indiana and Halliburton,
00:33:22 to me, there's not a huge drop off in the role players
00:33:27 that he's playing with versus the ones that Shea is.
00:33:30 And yet you look at the records,
00:33:31 it's a pretty stark difference between the two.
00:33:33 That's why I can't put him in that category.
00:33:35 But Halliburton is a great player.
00:33:37 I mean, just because you're not a top five MVP
00:33:39 doesn't mean you suck.
00:33:41 I don't think Tatum's a top five MVP candidate
00:33:43 and he's really good, obviously.
00:33:46 - I know, man, how many years are we gonna do this?
00:33:48 This is the year he's gonna be in the conversation,
00:33:49 'cause I don't think this is the year.
00:33:51 But anyways, what I was gonna say though
00:33:53 about Jalen real quick,
00:33:53 I just feel like teams,
00:33:55 especially teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder,
00:33:57 that have the athletic wings,
00:33:59 they have the switchable guards that can play wings,
00:34:03 guys that can cause fits on the defensive end
00:34:05 of the floor when they feel like it, right?
00:34:07 And tonight was one of those games.
00:34:09 Like they were ready for this challenge.
00:34:11 And I felt like once they saw what Jalen was doing,
00:34:13 they wanted to take him out of his comfort zone.
00:34:16 And that's exactly what they did,
00:34:17 especially in transition, forcing him to his left.
00:34:19 I felt like that was a big, big struggle with him
00:34:21 in this game.
00:34:23 You know, he would go down the middle
00:34:24 and I felt like sometimes if he wasn't turning the ball over
00:34:27 he just couldn't find the move he wanted to make
00:34:29 to attack the rim.
00:34:30 And even though he was trying,
00:34:31 he just couldn't find his rhythm.
00:34:33 And then the three-pointer started, you know?
00:34:35 It was sort of that pattern he couldn't get out of,
00:34:37 I felt like.
00:34:38 - Guys, before we move on to the next part of the show,
00:34:42 we want to remind everybody that our good friends
00:34:45 at FanDuel are the reason we can bring this show
00:34:48 to you guys today.
00:34:49 So you want to make sure you go to fanduel.com/boston
00:34:54 and get free, hold on a second,
00:34:56 get $150 in bonus bets when you place
00:34:59 a winning $5 Moneyline bet.
00:35:04 We got some, what is it?
00:35:06 The final week of the NFL season coming up here, guys.
00:35:08 I know fantasy football is over,
00:35:11 but the final regular season week is coming up.
00:35:13 There's a lot to play for in terms of seeding.
00:35:17 There's a, you know what the other thing is?
00:35:19 There's some info out there, you can look it up,
00:35:21 but there's a lot of players now that have to perform
00:35:24 to a certain level to hit their bonuses, right?
00:35:28 So you find those players, right?
00:35:30 You put a couple of bucks on them,
00:35:32 hitting the overs on whatever their numbers are.
00:35:34 It's a good way to make a couple of bucks.
00:35:36 But again, if you want to cash in
00:35:37 on the FanDuel Sportsbook deal that we have going on,
00:35:41 you can get $150 in bonus bets
00:35:43 when you place a winning $5 Moneyline bet.
00:35:47 So you want to go to your app,
00:35:48 want to go to FanDuel Sportsbook,
00:35:50 download the app, check out those Moneylines
00:35:54 for the week coming up and place your bets for that.
00:35:58 And then I want to also give a shout out
00:36:00 to our good friends at HelloFresh,
00:36:05 hellofresh.com/clnsfree, use the code CLNSFREE
00:36:09 and get free breakfast for life.
00:36:13 I know Bobby is still working through his breakfast for life
00:36:18 swimming in muffins right here.
00:36:19 - Yeah.
00:36:21 - But no guys, honestly, HelloFresh is great.
00:36:23 You know, even though the holidays are over,
00:36:28 the supermarkets, the grocery stores,
00:36:30 all the markets are still busy.
00:36:31 I was there today at one of them
00:36:32 and the shelves were practically still empty.
00:36:35 So this is a great way to cut out that whole issue
00:36:38 with HelloFresh.
00:36:40 You can actually save money
00:36:42 with fresh recipes delivered cheaper than takeout,
00:36:45 cheaper than those expensive supermarkets
00:36:48 that are still charging an arm and a leg,
00:36:50 thanks a lot inflation.
00:36:51 Pre-portioned ingredients,
00:36:52 you'll never waste money on excess food.
00:36:55 And if you're like me,
00:36:57 you got home at eight o'clock tonight
00:36:58 and you tossed on the game.
00:36:59 You didn't have time to, you know,
00:37:02 be whipping up this elaborate meal from scratch.
00:37:06 So HelloFresh kind of does all that work for you.
00:37:09 And you're able to just get it cooked up.
00:37:12 Everything's fresh.
00:37:13 Everything's, you know, farm to table, good stuff for you.
00:37:16 So again, that's hellofresh.com/clnsfree.
00:37:19 Use code CLNSFREE and get free breakfast for life.
00:37:24 Okay, guys, let's reset here for a second.
00:37:26 Celtics come into this one, they drop 127 and 123.
00:37:32 We talked a little bit about just the
00:37:35 (audio glitches)
00:37:37 being able to really put together four quarters of effort.
00:37:39 And Bobby, I thought you would have screened this by now,
00:37:41 but you haven't.
00:37:42 It's the defense.
00:37:44 It's the defense, isn't it?
00:37:45 I mean, we can talk about Jaylen Brown 0 for eight from three
00:37:47 and yeah, that's obviously a cause of concern.
00:37:50 But when I look at these two teams,
00:37:52 I don't see a Thunder team
00:37:55 that should have been able to score as easily as they were.
00:37:59 And I know that Holmgren had a few threes
00:38:00 and maybe he doesn't hit,
00:38:02 but what's this team gonna do to really, I guess,
00:38:07 clamp down?
00:38:08 I mean, you talked about it earlier, Bobby,
00:38:09 they don't force turnovers.
00:38:11 It seemed like OKC was able to score in transition
00:38:15 whenever they wanted to tonight.
00:38:17 And so I guess we'll start with you, Bobby,
00:38:19 but I wanna go around the block on this one.
00:38:22 - Yeah, there's a couple issues there.
00:38:25 Obviously the individual defense wasn't great in this game.
00:38:28 And I think that can wane at times for this group.
00:38:30 I think they leave the middle of the floor open
00:38:32 a little bit too much in that mid-range area
00:38:34 for some great mid-range shooters on that Oklahoma team.
00:38:38 These kind of rosters
00:38:40 that are a little bit more comfortable shooting there,
00:38:42 I think give the Celtics some more issues
00:38:44 than the teams that are just dedicating their offense
00:38:48 to reaching the rim or getting out and shooting threes.
00:38:51 So that's something the Celtics are willing to give up
00:38:54 that some teams like taking.
00:38:56 So I think that's a first issue here.
00:38:58 The turnovers you mentioned, the rebounding,
00:39:00 Joe Sway mentioned earlier,
00:39:01 10 offensive rebounds for Oklahoma,
00:39:03 a little bit more than you wanna see.
00:39:04 And Joe talks about that a lot.
00:39:06 There'll be possessions
00:39:07 where the first shot defense is good.
00:39:09 And then you're giving up offensive rebounds.
00:39:12 Those are almost always gonna be really good
00:39:14 scoring opportunities off of those.
00:39:16 So that was an issue tonight.
00:39:18 Can't figure out how to force turnovers.
00:39:20 So you end up being the slower team in this game.
00:39:23 Off that, 14, too many for the Celtics, 12.
00:39:27 A solid number, mostly carried by what they did
00:39:30 in the fourth quarter there.
00:39:31 And then as I mentioned earlier,
00:39:32 I think you probably needed more size
00:39:36 at the point of attack against Shea.
00:39:37 And Celtics played a little too big at times in this game.
00:39:41 It felt like they went to those double big looks
00:39:43 that have been pretty good for them,
00:39:44 but really weren't tonight.
00:39:45 And then I think they made some good adjustments late
00:39:48 in terms of just going small and more versatile and fast
00:39:52 and perimeter based out there.
00:39:54 Because the Thunder really aren't a big team inside.
00:39:59 Like you're not really worried about them posting you up
00:40:02 or a big man in there scoring a ton at the basket.
00:40:05 Chet, as Sherrod mentioned there,
00:40:07 is more of a perimeter based player in terms of his offense.
00:40:11 So the transition's what killed you tonight.
00:40:14 And that one's just as simple
00:40:16 as getting back a lot of the time,
00:40:18 but it also goes back to some of the dumb things
00:40:20 the Celtics were doing on offense tonight
00:40:21 with the turnovers and everything else.
00:40:22 So there were a lot of issues defensively in this game.
00:40:25 They've been good on that end, Jimmy, this year.
00:40:27 I really haven't had issues with their defense this season,
00:40:31 but tonight wasn't a good night.
00:40:33 - It just didn't put up enough fight and resistance
00:40:35 to what OKC was looking to do.
00:40:37 I mean, OK, they shot, what, 52, 53% from the field.
00:40:41 I think they shot better than 45% for a three-point range.
00:40:44 And a lot of those looks that they were getting
00:40:47 were lightly contested to wide open type of shots.
00:40:51 And you just don't allow that to happen
00:40:52 against a good team like them.
00:40:54 Shea Gilgeous, Alexander,
00:40:56 just absolutely controlled the action.
00:40:58 I mean, he went off for 30 and some change,
00:41:01 but you felt that if he really, really,
00:41:03 really wanted to get buckets,
00:41:05 he could get them anytime he wanted to.
00:41:07 That is the sign of a great player.
00:41:10 That's the sign of a great team
00:41:11 recognizing how to be impactful.
00:41:14 And, you know, again,
00:41:15 I think if they described
00:41:18 what they saw in a Celtics defense,
00:41:20 they would probably describe it
00:41:21 as we just took what they gave us.
00:41:22 They gave us great looks.
00:41:24 They gave us opportunities to attack off the dribble.
00:41:26 They gave us-
00:41:27 - Those two chat threes late were killers
00:41:28 and they were both hedging away from him.
00:41:30 - I mean, look at the way the game started
00:41:32 when they set the tone
00:41:33 by knocking down those three-point shots.
00:41:35 I feel like in the past, when that happens,
00:41:37 the Celtics defense tends to try to,
00:41:39 okay, let's stop the bleeding from the perimeter.
00:41:40 Then all of a sudden you get an attack,
00:41:42 you know, right down the teeth of the defense.
00:41:43 That's exactly what OKC did.
00:41:45 And obviously with one of the better players,
00:41:47 MVP Canada style and Shea Gilles Alexander,
00:41:50 but he wasn't the only one, right?
00:41:51 There was other guys getting involved as well,
00:41:53 seeking high percentage shot,
00:41:54 but also blending it in with those outside shots
00:41:56 that I felt like just really crushed the Celtics
00:41:58 as they were kind of just, you know,
00:42:00 trying to gather themselves
00:42:01 and trying to put together the run
00:42:03 that they ultimately did in that second half
00:42:06 that was in the fourth quarter.
00:42:08 - You mentioned it a little bit, speaking of defense,
00:42:11 I want to keep that theme for a second.
00:42:13 We're not concerned about the defense,
00:42:16 but are you concerned about this guy?
00:42:17 Anybody?
00:42:18 Drew Holiday.
00:42:20 Certainly when you talk about players that--
00:42:24 - He's dealing with an injury too, someone mentioned that.
00:42:26 - Not yet, I'm not too concerned, but yeah.
00:42:28 - I've got him, he's on my watch list.
00:42:31 Let's put it that way.
00:42:32 He's on my watch list.
00:42:33 - Put it this way, I'm glad Pritchard,
00:42:35 I'm glad Mazubu did what he did
00:42:37 in that fourth quarter with Pritchard.
00:42:38 You know, it's kind of like,
00:42:39 hey man, this can happen, you know?
00:42:41 - Yeah, I'm not concerned,
00:42:43 but he is absolutely on my watch list of guys that,
00:42:46 you know, I'm not ready to hit the panic button,
00:42:48 but I'm watching your ass right now
00:42:51 to see if you're gonna flip this around
00:42:53 because Drew is a really good player.
00:42:56 But you know, these are the kind of games
00:42:58 where you wonder, is--
00:42:59 - Where are we on this meter, Sherrod?
00:43:02 Are we at Zanis level or are we closer to Bobby right now?
00:43:04 - I'm gonna call, yeah, I am probably
00:43:08 in that yellow orange range.
00:43:10 - Okay.
00:43:11 - That's kind of where I'm at.
00:43:13 But the thing about Drew is--
00:43:14 - He's one bad performance away from--
00:43:16 - Nah, I give him two.
00:43:18 - You can put that comm together.
00:43:19 You can put that comm together.
00:43:20 - I give him two, I give him two.
00:43:22 - He's got the Brogdon thing, Sherrod.
00:43:24 He's missing everything inside.
00:43:26 And that happened in Brogdon last year too.
00:43:28 It's kind of weird that those guys
00:43:29 are both going through that issue here
00:43:31 in the first year of the season.
00:43:32 - They're missing all the layups, yeah.
00:43:33 - Oh my God, when he posts a guy,
00:43:35 it always goes in and out.
00:43:36 The cutting layup earlier that he missed.
00:43:37 - Tonight he missed, yeah.
00:43:38 He went underneath tonight and missed that too.
00:43:41 - And I asked him about that earlier in the year
00:43:42 and he's like, "They're just not going in.
00:43:44 "There's nothing specific he's looking at."
00:43:46 - Wait, about the layups?
00:43:48 - The missed layups, yeah.
00:43:48 - The missed layups, yeah.
00:43:50 Sherrod, is that around the time,
00:43:52 is that when the ankles start going?
00:43:54 You know, at the age that, is Drew ahead of it here?
00:43:57 Is this a, he's getting older type of thing
00:44:00 or you think it's an injury thing?
00:44:02 - It's hard to say 'cause he's in that weird limbo age-wise
00:44:06 where injury, is it injuries or is it father time?
00:44:10 Who's hurting you?
00:44:11 Why are you hurting?
00:44:13 But I give Drew the benefit of the doubt
00:44:16 simply because first and foremost, he's a hell of a player.
00:44:20 We know it and he doesn't,
00:44:21 he hasn't been on the down slide consistently enough
00:44:24 to where you feel like, oh God.
00:44:25 - No, he's hitting his grades.
00:44:27 - Yeah, so he's doing just enough
00:44:29 to keep you a little bit off balance
00:44:30 as to whether this is father time
00:44:32 or whether he's just in a rut.
00:44:34 But like I said, he's on my watch list.
00:44:36 I'm watching him much more closely now
00:44:38 than I have done before
00:44:40 because I wanna have a sense of whether,
00:44:44 this is just again, father time,
00:44:46 doing what father time is gonna do to every player in the NBA
00:44:49 or is this just more of a health type thing?
00:44:53 Do we need to talk about load management
00:44:55 at some point with Drew?
00:44:57 - He took the Spurs game off.
00:44:58 Yeah, he's dealing with an elbow sprain,
00:45:00 I think they're saying.
00:45:01 So that could have played into it tonight.
00:45:03 Who knows what he's playing through night to night.
00:45:05 But I'm not gonna admit that but.
00:45:08 - I love that Pritchard is ready though.
00:45:10 I love that he's keeping himself engaged
00:45:15 to make the most of these opportunities.
00:45:17 I mean, he's gonna be one of those guys that,
00:45:19 again, I'm convinced that Pritchard
00:45:23 is gonna help him win a playoff game.
00:45:24 At some point, somewhere down the line,
00:45:26 when it gets to the postseason,
00:45:28 something's gonna go wrong for the Celtics in a bad way
00:45:31 and they're gonna look at Peyton and be like,
00:45:33 "Give us a little something."
00:45:34 And he's gonna say,
00:45:35 "I'm not gonna give you a little something.
00:45:36 I'm gonna give you the game winning package right here.
00:45:40 I'm going to not be a Shiraz watch list.
00:45:42 I'm going to be that dude."
00:45:43 - You're gonna go up like 15 or four
00:45:44 or something like that, right?
00:45:45 - Exactly, exactly.
00:45:46 I'm gonna hit like three threes in a row.
00:45:48 They're gonna call a timeout
00:45:49 and I'm gonna be doing my little thing
00:45:51 that I did at Oregon whenever I made big shots.
00:45:53 - Mike Green's gonna be like, "Another one, bang!"
00:45:56 - Exactly.
00:45:57 - Bang, bang, bang!
00:45:58 - Pritchard!
00:45:59 - So one thing for both of those guys
00:46:02 when they're in with this group
00:46:03 is they need to find ways to stay involved.
00:46:05 And that's tough 'cause I feel like
00:46:07 they're both the fifth option when they're out there.
00:46:09 So what are you doing?
00:46:10 You're just kind of staying off to the side.
00:46:11 Drew's been awesome as a rebounder this year.
00:46:14 He's never rebounded like this.
00:46:16 So you give him credit for that.
00:46:18 Pritchard, similar story.
00:46:20 You'd like to get him involved more in the screening game,
00:46:22 but I'm sure that's not super familiar for him.
00:46:25 And one thing too is they're attacking matchups
00:46:27 and I'm sure the best defender on the other team
00:46:31 isn't exactly on holiday all the time.
00:46:34 So he's sort of setting up other guys in that regard.
00:46:38 The tough thing with holiday this year,
00:46:40 and I do think the scoring needs to expand
00:46:42 a little bit for him.
00:46:43 They gotta figure out ways to get him involved in that sense.
00:46:45 But everything else he's giving you is just really subtle.
00:46:48 If it's a screening, if it's a rebounding,
00:46:51 certainly on the defensive end.
00:46:52 I mean, I feel like Joe just gave him the keys early on
00:46:55 and said, "Run that side of the ball."
00:46:58 'Cause I think he's doing everything there
00:46:59 in terms of just organizing them on that end.
00:47:01 So, you know me, Jimmy, I got labeled the Drew hater
00:47:05 early on, but I'm trying to appreciate
00:47:08 all the little things that he brings to the table.
00:47:11 - Yeah.
00:47:11 - Yeah.
00:47:12 - Well, Bobby, you used to be clamoring
00:47:15 for Drew to come up.
00:47:15 I'm surprised you didn't start the show.
00:47:16 - I'm not doing that anymore.
00:47:18 Me and John talked about that last show.
00:47:20 - I feel like he was almost hinting at it,
00:47:22 but he's not quite there.
00:47:23 - Hey, there was a team meeting between John and Bobby
00:47:25 to discuss that.
00:47:26 So they won't get into the specifics of the team meeting,
00:47:29 but everything is worked out.
00:47:32 - Love that.
00:47:32 Maybe someone else will say it.
00:47:34 - Exactly.
00:47:35 - I mean, but yeah, anyways.
00:47:37 - The thing I'd like to see Drew do a little bit more of
00:47:40 is finding ways to score off the ball.
00:47:44 Like cuts along the baseline.
00:47:46 Do some of the things that force defenses
00:47:49 to actually move a little bit more when he's out on the floor.
00:47:52 'Cause right now, when he's looking to score,
00:47:54 it's either with a three-point shot
00:47:55 or he's playing bully ball.
00:47:57 There's no third way of him generating offense.
00:48:00 And I think he has that ability in him,
00:48:02 even at this advanced age for an NBA player.
00:48:06 I still think he can find other ways to score.
00:48:08 And I'd like to see them experiment with that a little bit.
00:48:12 'Cause right now,
00:48:13 he just needs to find ways to get easy buckets,
00:48:14 just to see the ball go through the net.
00:48:17 And again, cuts to the basket,
00:48:19 particularly when you play with a guy like Jason Tatum,
00:48:21 who's gonna draw so much damn attention,
00:48:23 who's showing more and more a willingness to pass the ball.
00:48:26 I mean, that one pass where he drove late in the game
00:48:29 and he behind back pass to Brazinhos,
00:48:31 that was a little bit off the mark.
00:48:32 But the fact that he was thinking
00:48:34 about giving it up on a drive to the basket,
00:48:37 those are the little things that, again, Tatum,
00:48:40 it's subtle things that he's getting better at.
00:48:42 Because the big picture things,
00:48:43 he's already established himself as being elitist.
00:48:48 - Joe says this a lot,
00:48:49 and I know we gotta nitpick everything about this game,
00:48:52 but I don't think there's like fundamental things here.
00:48:56 I don't think there's fundamental things here
00:48:59 that we have to look at and say,
00:49:01 like, this guy's doing this wrong,
00:49:02 or this guy isn't doing enough in his role.
00:49:05 And I bet, I don't see any quotes from Joe out there tonight,
00:49:07 but I bet he said, there were just stretches in this game
00:49:10 where they just weren't doing the little things
00:49:12 that they have to do to win these games.
00:49:14 Like, the stretch between the third and the fourth
00:49:18 was so bad, just in terms of getting back,
00:49:21 taking the right shots, executing offensively,
00:49:25 the turnovers early.
00:49:26 Like, I think Joe Sway said it,
00:49:28 you wanna see more of a consistent effort front
00:49:31 to start in this game.
00:49:32 And I do think effort probably waned a little bit
00:49:35 in this game for whatever reason.
00:49:36 Guys missed shots, guys had frustrating plays,
00:49:43 and did that leak into their defense, Jimmy?
00:49:45 We've heard that from them in the past,
00:49:47 and I think we saw that
00:49:48 between the third and the fourth quarters.
00:49:49 I mean, that's where, what'd you say it was, Sherrod?
00:49:51 It was like eight-ish, 12-ish at that point,
00:49:55 and then it got up to 18.
00:49:57 This game never should have got up to 18.
00:49:59 - Right. - I agree with your feelings,
00:50:00 too, I thought it was. - I think I texted you guys,
00:50:01 I was like, this got out of hand.
00:50:03 - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, he hated it.
00:50:04 - That never should have happened.
00:50:05 This should have been a five to 10 point game the whole way.
00:50:08 - Well, especially when it gets out of hand
00:50:09 when you got Chet and SGA on the bench,
00:50:12 the way they started that fourth quarter.
00:50:14 One of the better timeouts that Joe Mizzou had called today
00:50:16 was when he called that one.
00:50:18 And right out of the timeout, they got a layup,
00:50:20 but yeah, I just feel like with the Celtics,
00:50:22 especially in the second half,
00:50:24 it's like they're able to fix their mistakes,
00:50:27 but there's still that lag, you know what I mean?
00:50:29 They're able to, like in this one,
00:50:31 they were able to put together the run
00:50:32 that they did in that fourth quarter,
00:50:33 but all of a sudden, there was four minutes left,
00:50:36 and they were still down by,
00:50:37 it was still a two possession game.
00:50:38 I just think the Celtics, with the energy
00:50:42 and the way OKC was able to just really,
00:50:46 I mean, whether the starters were out,
00:50:48 whether they were in, whether they're on the floor,
00:50:50 or whatever, it didn't matter.
00:50:51 Guys just kept that momentum.
00:50:53 I felt like the Celtics were constantly fighting that,
00:50:55 and that was the big run I felt like
00:50:57 where the Celtics finally snapped out of it,
00:51:00 but they just couldn't, it was too uphill of a battle.
00:51:05 - We don't get to play it much
00:51:08 because the Celtics don't lose a ton.
00:51:10 So I'm playing with graphics right now,
00:51:12 and I think it's time to play.
00:51:15 (laughing)
00:51:15 - You had a desktop experience.
00:51:16 - Wait a minute, wait the hell up.
00:51:18 You got my boy Sam on this, are you serious?
00:51:20 - I didn't drink this.
00:51:21 This is an old Blame pie.
00:51:22 I don't know how Sam got--
00:51:23 - What the hell you gonna say?
00:51:24 How's this Sam?
00:51:25 - That question mark used to be Marcus.
00:51:27 - He wasn't great.
00:51:28 (laughing)
00:51:29 - I know, Sam is taking a ricochet shot right now.
00:51:33 - No, it's more like half the pie,
00:51:35 the way people used to talk about it.
00:51:37 - I like how Porzingis and Derek White
00:51:40 are not on this graphic because they're just,
00:51:42 they're never gonna be the reason.
00:51:43 (laughing)
00:51:44 - Clearly.
00:51:45 - We don't have to ever worry about them.
00:51:47 - I was saying this the other day.
00:51:49 I can't remember a Celtic who has a higher approval rating
00:51:52 than Derek.
00:51:53 Like you can't find a guy who doesn't like Derek
00:51:56 at this point.
00:51:57 - Right.
00:51:57 - And why would you?
00:51:58 - I think Thomas.
00:51:59 - I think Thomas.
00:52:00 - He had a campaign t-shirt on.
00:52:02 - That'd be close.
00:52:03 - You had people who--
00:52:03 - That would be really close.
00:52:04 - You probably had people who said like,
00:52:06 Thomas can't be the first option on a great team
00:52:09 or stuff like that.
00:52:09 - Oh yeah, I mean he can't play defense and things like that.
00:52:11 - Yeah, so like different guys, stars especially,
00:52:15 you know, you'll nitpick them all day.
00:52:17 I don't think you can say a bad thing about Derek.
00:52:19 At least I haven't seen anyone say anything.
00:52:21 - I don't think there'll ever be a game
00:52:23 where we blame Sam too.
00:52:24 (laughing)
00:52:25 - Oh, there will be, trust me.
00:52:27 Yeah, we'll find one.
00:52:28 - I'm just like, come on, y'all guys,
00:52:29 I mean Sam does not belong in this damn conversation.
00:52:32 - All right, let's pretend he doesn't exist.
00:52:34 - Let's pretend Sam doesn't exist.
00:52:35 - Put him in the crust.
00:52:37 - Exactly.
00:52:37 - Obviously we're not gonna--
00:52:38 - There you go.
00:52:39 - Actually, you know what?
00:52:40 - Tonight's a big slice of Jalen and Drew.
00:52:43 - Yeah.
00:52:44 - We're not gonna give it to Missoula.
00:52:45 - I wasn't--
00:52:45 - That's like two lines.
00:52:46 - I wasn't--
00:52:47 (laughing)
00:52:48 - Oh, oh.
00:52:49 - I knew it, I knew it.
00:52:50 - The blame pie has changed.
00:52:52 - Damn it.
00:52:53 - The blame pie has changed.
00:52:53 (laughing)
00:52:54 - Damn it.
00:52:55 - You can't blame Marcus anymore.
00:52:56 - Leave my guy alone, man.
00:52:57 Leave my guy alone.
00:52:58 He doesn't belong here.
00:52:59 - Look at that face.
00:53:00 Look at what he's about to tell us.
00:53:01 - There's some magic right there
00:53:02 that we just got a whole new blame pie
00:53:03 just like that on demand.
00:53:06 - Yeah, Marcus looks like a guy
00:53:07 who told us to shut the F up.
00:53:08 Doesn't he look like that?
00:53:09 (laughing)
00:53:10 - I love it.
00:53:11 That's my guy.
00:53:12 That's my guy.
00:53:12 - I can't figure out why he would.
00:53:14 - That's the look he gave Max, I think.
00:53:16 - That's my guy.
00:53:18 - Damn.
00:53:19 All right, well, I'm not taking it down
00:53:20 until we get your answer.
00:53:21 Who gets the slice?
00:53:23 - I'm gonna give a big slice to our good friend, Drew.
00:53:26 More so than Jalen only because,
00:53:29 you know, the job, part of Drew's job in this game
00:53:32 was to slow down Shea Gilles' Alexander a little bit
00:53:35 and he didn't do that.
00:53:37 And, you know, offensively,
00:53:38 he missed a lot of,
00:53:41 I thought he missed opportunities.
00:53:43 Not so much missed shots,
00:53:44 but missed opportunities to put his imprint
00:53:47 in a positive way in this game.
00:53:48 And Jalen just had a bad game.
00:53:50 But Jalen, if you start really breaking down
00:53:53 like the season in terms of good Jalen and bad Jalen games,
00:53:58 the good obviously out significantly outweighs the bad.
00:54:01 Whereas Drew, it's a little bit closer
00:54:03 to the Mendoza line between the good--
00:54:05 - Yeah.
00:54:05 - Good--
00:54:06 - Here's John Dennis' blame pie.
00:54:08 - Who's doing the honor?
00:54:09 (laughing)
00:54:10 - Who's got honor in a little room?
00:54:11 (laughing)
00:54:13 - Oh, I hate John.
00:54:15 I hate all of you.
00:54:16 - I thought it was Jimmy, but I was like,
00:54:17 no, this is all of us.
00:54:17 - I wasn't gonna do it, but I'm glad--
00:54:19 - I hate all of you all.
00:54:21 - Oh, is this you?
00:54:22 Is this Jimmy?
00:54:23 - No, I'm into this one.
00:54:24 - It is of it, all right.
00:54:25 - But I was thinking it for sure.
00:54:28 - I'm gonna send this to John.
00:54:29 - Yeah, put that on a T-shirt.
00:54:32 - Exactly, John's blame pie.
00:54:33 - John's blame pie.
00:54:35 - This more than any other,
00:54:37 I'm really excited to go back and watch this game
00:54:39 'cause there was definitely a lot of pull and tug
00:54:41 between the coaches here.
00:54:42 Good adjustments on both sides.
00:54:45 I think the Thunder caught the--
00:54:46 (laughing)
00:54:47 I thought the Thunder caught the Celtics off guard
00:54:50 with some things they did.
00:54:51 I thought the Celtics did some really good things late
00:54:53 in this game to make it close.
00:54:55 And we've mentioned a few of them.
00:54:56 So this to me, there's been a few losses this year
00:55:00 I've hated.
00:55:01 The Magic one, certainly.
00:55:02 The Indy one really wasn't great in the tournament.
00:55:06 The Hornets one was just despicable.
00:55:09 But as we've mentioned here tonight,
00:55:12 this game shouldn't have gotten out of hand,
00:55:14 but this isn't a horrible loss to this team,
00:55:17 especially at the end of a road trip here.
00:55:19 And you know, the schedule is not gonna get any easier.
00:55:21 So we'll see where this takes them.
00:55:23 The Jazz have caught fire in a way I really didn't notice.
00:55:26 They're coming up on Friday.
00:55:27 You got the Wolves and Bucks back to back next week.
00:55:30 You have two games against the Pacers this weekend,
00:55:33 back to back, which is always challenging.
00:55:34 So this could be maybe the toughest two week stretch
00:55:37 of the Celtics this year,
00:55:38 after a couple easy ones against the Spurs
00:55:41 and some other teams.
00:55:42 - Yeah, on my watch list,
00:55:43 along with our good friend Drew Holiday, is Joe Mazzullo.
00:55:46 'Cause I think this upcoming stretch
00:55:48 is gonna say a lot about where he has grown as a coach,
00:55:51 because you're playing teams that are feisty,
00:55:54 teams that are talented,
00:55:56 teams that are gonna force you
00:55:57 to get out of whatever comfort zone you're in as a coach.
00:56:00 I thought he did a great job of tonight,
00:56:03 not leaning on his comfort zone,
00:56:04 which was, let's go with the fourth quarter
00:56:06 Drew Holiday binky,
00:56:07 even though it's not really working for us.
00:56:10 And he got out of that and he went with Peyton,
00:56:12 which I thought was a great adjustment on his part.
00:56:15 Is he gonna make similar moves
00:56:17 when if Jalen Brown is struggling with the shot,
00:56:20 would you go with a Sam Hauser for a little bit longer?
00:56:22 If Sam is maybe having positive impact
00:56:25 while he's in the game.
00:56:27 Is he willing to do that type of stuff?
00:56:29 Those are the, to me,
00:56:30 that's where you start making
00:56:31 that legitimate tangible evolution
00:56:35 from being a pretty good coach to a really good coach,
00:56:38 because really good coaches
00:56:39 are not going to get in the feelings of themselves
00:56:42 or their players if he has to sit a max player.
00:56:46 If you're a max player
00:56:47 and you're not playing a max player kind of game,
00:56:49 and a guy making a third or a 10th
00:56:52 of what you're making is playing better,
00:56:54 he's gonna play.
00:56:55 He's gonna play more minutes.
00:56:56 And it was great to see Joe step out
00:56:59 and do something along those lines tonight
00:57:02 with Pritchard over Drew.
00:57:04 And I'd be interested to see
00:57:06 how he's gonna handle that going forward
00:57:08 with a Jalen Brown or a Przingis or even a Tatum.
00:57:13 Those are the kind of things
00:57:16 that Joe, he's got to be better at.
00:57:18 And he's gonna get opportunities,
00:57:19 I think, in the next four or five games
00:57:21 to kind of really put that particular
00:57:23 potential growth spur of his to use.
00:57:27 - Right, that's a great point, Jaron.
00:57:28 Especially in this game, like you mentioned,
00:57:31 against SGA where you needed your QB one,
00:57:35 so to speak, to have one of those games.
00:57:37 Like Bobby said, it's a lot of the success
00:57:41 of this team on the offensive end of the floor.
00:57:44 Drew's been a part of that,
00:57:45 and whether it's being the facilitator
00:57:47 and getting guys doing those hockey assists and all that.
00:57:50 And that's been great,
00:57:51 but it's been the defensive side of things
00:57:52 where it's like, man,
00:57:54 that's what's really making this team.
00:57:55 You know what I mean?
00:57:56 That backcourt is tough as it is
00:57:57 with him and Derek White.
00:57:58 And that's what we were so excited to see
00:58:00 is obviously it's been a success,
00:58:01 especially on that end of the floor.
00:58:02 But this was one of those tests where you're like,
00:58:05 you were really hoping you'd get a classic duel.
00:58:08 And it wasn't quite that,
00:58:09 even though it did make it interesting
00:58:10 in that fourth quarter.
00:58:11 We didn't quite get that back and forth
00:58:13 that we thought we would get.
00:58:15 And I think Drew Holiday,
00:58:16 if he was able to find his offense
00:58:20 just off the strength of defensive stops and all that,
00:58:23 we would have, I think we'd get
00:58:24 a much better performance out of him.
00:58:26 But the way SGA got going,
00:58:29 I think probably discouraged him
00:58:31 and it just really, he couldn't find his rhythm.
00:58:33 But yeah, like you said, Shara,
00:58:34 credit to Joe Mizzou because
00:58:35 that's the kind of decision you have to make.
00:58:37 'Cause you know what you needed from him in this game.
00:58:40 And he knew it.
00:58:41 Okay, I'm not getting it.
00:58:42 And I'm getting some of that energy.
00:58:43 I'm getting a guy who's impacting the game in Pritchard.
00:58:46 I'm riding the hot head.
00:58:47 He did it the entire way.
00:58:49 He didn't falter, you know what I mean?
00:58:50 In that second, I mean, the two minute mark
00:58:53 or any point down the stretch, he stuck with it.
00:58:55 So yeah, I credit him for doing that for sure.
00:58:57 - And this was a little bit different
00:58:58 for Pritchard to get minutes
00:59:01 'cause he wasn't putting up big numbers
00:59:02 in terms of points and things like that,
00:59:04 but he was dropping dives,
00:59:06 had I think one turnover, four assists.
00:59:08 And to me, you know, plus minus is always misleading,
00:59:12 but when you're on the road and you're playing a team that
00:59:14 for the most part is playing better than you,
00:59:17 if you're able to have a good plus minus, which he did,
00:59:19 he was plus nine when he was on the floor,
00:59:21 better than any other Celtic.
00:59:23 And to me, that was one of the few times
00:59:26 where that stat actually meant something
00:59:28 because it meant that when he was out there,
00:59:30 he was doing positive things
00:59:32 or the team as a group was doing positive things.
00:59:35 And in a game like this, on a road against a team,
00:59:37 that good where one of your best players is not playing well,
00:59:40 actually a couple of your best players
00:59:42 aren't playing particularly well.
00:59:45 Having someone who can come in there
00:59:46 and give you a little bit of spark
00:59:48 with their play and their presence and their potential.
00:59:50 Yeah, it was good to see.
00:59:52 So go ahead, Bobby.
00:59:55 - I'm reading the globe and I don't think
00:59:57 they mentioned this on the broadcast tonight,
00:59:59 but there was someone missing on the Celtics tonight.
01:00:02 Assistant coach Sam Cassell.
01:00:06 - He's a little under the weather.
01:00:08 - Yeah, missed tonight's game with an illness.
01:00:10 I'm sure that didn't help.
01:00:11 - No, it did not.
01:00:13 Now we're talking about Pritchard.
01:00:15 Other than Pritchard.
01:00:16 - That was weird.
01:00:17 (laughing)
01:00:19 Like what the hell is Bobby, okay.
01:00:22 - Little tidbit from Bobby.
01:00:23 Pay attention.
01:00:24 - Oh no, I was laughing the way Jimmy said,
01:00:26 "No, it did not."
01:00:27 As if like you were genuinely mad at Sam.
01:00:30 Like, nope, it didn't Sam.
01:00:31 It didn't help us at all tonight.
01:00:33 - Be less sick.
01:00:35 - A lot of guys are getting sick around the league.
01:00:37 - I just wanted to follow up on the on
01:00:38 just the Pritchard talk with just,
01:00:40 it was a great call by Joe.
01:00:42 I don't think Joe had many other options tonight.
01:00:45 When you talk about the lack of production
01:00:48 he got from his bigs, Horford.
01:00:51 I don't want to say it Bobby,
01:00:52 but I'm going to say it.
01:00:52 Cornette didn't do himself any favors tonight.
01:00:55 - No, those double big combos really didn't work here.
01:00:59 - No.
01:01:00 - This is not a good team for that.
01:01:02 - No.
01:01:02 - I was going to say, it's not one of those,
01:01:04 could have used some Kata in there.
01:01:05 I don't think this was that late.
01:01:07 - No, Al and Porzingis is the best,
01:01:10 you know, double big combination you could use.
01:01:13 I don't think any other double big combination
01:01:15 that Celtics have put out there
01:01:16 would have been impactful in this game.
01:01:18 - But he didn't go to Horford late either
01:01:19 because obviously he was-
01:01:21 - Al wasn't very good.
01:01:22 - Right.
01:01:23 - Right.
01:01:24 - It's a tricky team to go small with too
01:01:26 because you have to replace somebody
01:01:27 if you're going to go small
01:01:28 and that's what they did with Holiday here.
01:01:30 You could go three yards
01:01:32 but then you'll even have Brown or Tatum.
01:01:34 So they're not that small ball team
01:01:37 that can go to this look
01:01:39 like some of those Brad Stevens teams were back then.
01:01:42 So they're going to be big
01:01:43 with the personnel they have more often than not.
01:01:46 And that's going to be a challenge
01:01:47 against the smaller quicker teams like the Thunder.
01:01:51 And you know, it's a good little preview
01:01:55 of this trade deadline
01:01:56 that's just over a month away here
01:01:58 where I think the Celtics are going to have to look
01:02:01 for a guy who can bridge their bigger
01:02:03 and smaller lineups a little bit more.
01:02:04 And I know you guys get sick of hearing it
01:02:06 but I still think they've missed Grant this year.
01:02:09 Like this would have been a good Grant game
01:02:12 to have him out there at the four
01:02:13 play a little bit more small,
01:02:14 a little bit more flexible.
01:02:15 - You got your drink.
01:02:17 So can you find your Grant type or even just a win?
01:02:22 - Wine from the bottle.
01:02:25 - We call those forties back in my day, Jimmy.
01:02:28 (laughing)
01:02:29 - I got the other one taped.
01:02:31 - I was going to ask you about that earlier.
01:02:34 I was like, what are you smoking on?
01:02:35 - This is water everybody.
01:02:36 This is the mountain.
01:02:38 - It's a bottle.
01:02:38 - New Year's is over.
01:02:40 - You literally, you pull it out of a brown paper bag.
01:02:43 - I'm not in detox.
01:02:45 - I was like, damn Jimmy, Jimmy Rock and a 40 up in his.
01:02:48 (laughing)
01:02:50 - You ever play Edward Fortyhands back in the day, Shiraz?
01:02:53 - His draw is like, is that a Colt 45?
01:02:56 - Yeah, exactly.
01:02:58 No, you won't see me drinking any alcoholic beverages
01:03:01 on this show.
01:03:02 This week.
01:03:04 I got people still DM me asking me for the clips
01:03:09 of those shows from the past.
01:03:11 - I gotta go find that one.
01:03:13 - We're not gonna do that.
01:03:15 - Bobby's like going into the archives.
01:03:16 - I think we've beat this.
01:03:20 - That'll reemerge at some point.
01:03:21 - I think we've beat this game up enough boys.
01:03:23 And we're gonna shut it down in a few.
01:03:25 But before we do, old friend, Gordon Hayward
01:03:29 made the news a little bit.
01:03:31 - Yeah.
01:03:32 - Rematch, April 3rd.
01:03:34 - On the podcast.
01:03:36 - Real quick, I'm loving these podcasts
01:03:39 by these players.
01:03:40 - Are you?
01:03:41 I have the opposite take.
01:03:42 (laughing)
01:03:43 - He didn't like it.
01:03:44 - It's not that I don't like it.
01:03:45 It's interesting and I totally get it
01:03:47 and I'm cool with it.
01:03:48 I just feel like if you're,
01:03:49 I don't wanna go on a tangent,
01:03:50 but if you're Paul George,
01:03:51 don't you have bigger and better things to do right now?
01:03:54 - Oh, you mean current players?
01:03:55 Oh, I got you, got you.
01:03:56 - Yeah, current players.
01:03:58 - Yeah, that's not how this game works.
01:03:59 - You gotta be in the gym every second of every day.
01:04:02 - Well, I'm just, I'm saying like,
01:04:03 like you just went four for 19.
01:04:06 - Players who go like four for 19 from the field
01:04:08 and then you have this podcast on.
01:04:09 You don't say a damn thing about the fact
01:04:11 that you just went four for 19 last night.
01:04:12 As if that didn't happen.
01:04:14 As if that's not due.
01:04:15 - They're talking to Evan Turner.
01:04:16 So how you been, man?
01:04:17 - As if Paul George hasn't won a damn thing in his career.
01:04:21 Like maybe like-
01:04:22 - Oh, he's won contracts, Jimmy.
01:04:23 He's a winner in my eyes.
01:04:25 - He's got, he's probably got better-
01:04:25 - He's a big-
01:04:27 - I can guarantee you he's got better podcast equipment
01:04:29 than I have.
01:04:30 That is for sure.
01:04:31 I can guarantee you that.
01:04:31 - You know who's trending right now?
01:04:34 If you ask me, man, Jeff Teague, man.
01:04:37 - Oh, listen, man.
01:04:37 - This dude, his story telling-
01:04:40 - One of the few disappointments I have
01:04:42 was that I did not talk more to Jeff Teague.
01:04:44 He is a pure circle.
01:04:46 - I forget this man was a Celtic player.
01:04:47 - I know, right?
01:04:48 - I didn't know.
01:04:49 - That was the COVID year, though, wasn't it?
01:04:50 It was tough to talk to guys that year.
01:04:52 - I feel like Jeff Teague, we just had like a,
01:04:55 like it was a relatively quiet NBA player.
01:04:58 Like he had a great career, you know.
01:05:01 - No, he didn't.
01:05:02 - He was average.
01:05:03 He was an average NBA player.
01:05:05 And I was-
01:05:06 - He was above average.
01:05:06 He was above average.
01:05:07 - Yo, that LeBron story had me in tears, man.
01:05:10 What do you think about fucking him?
01:05:10 - It's funny as hell, man.
01:05:13 Oh, the story he told about Jimmy Butler?
01:05:17 - Yeah.
01:05:17 - That was an all time story about him
01:05:20 and the Timberwolves.
01:05:22 - But anyway, Jimmy, what did Gordon say?
01:05:24 - Anyways, back to the, anyways, Paul George,
01:05:26 like less podcast, more like, how about Winston?
01:05:30 - Come on, we wouldn't get nuggets like this.
01:05:33 - Yeah, so anyways, Gordon Hayward, old friend here,
01:05:35 former Boston Celtic, jumped on the podcast.
01:05:37 And I didn't, admittedly,
01:05:39 I have not listened to the whole podcast,
01:05:40 but there's been a couple of clips going around
01:05:42 on Hayward specifically talking about the 2018, 2019 team.
01:05:47 And he goes into a little bit of detail
01:05:49 on the problems that they had and why they came up short.
01:05:52 Essentially, too many guys wanted to be the guy.
01:05:57 And even though they all had-
01:05:59 - Including himself.
01:06:01 - Including himself.
01:06:02 And everyone had their own reasons for doing so.
01:06:03 I think Hayward said he was coming off,
01:06:05 obviously he was coming off that big injury.
01:06:06 Wanted to show that he still had it.
01:06:08 Kyrie Irving was coming off of, I think,
01:06:10 some sort of injury and just coming off of being Kyrie Irving.
01:06:13 - Well, right after LeBron.
01:06:14 - Yeah, right, coming off of being Kyrie Irving,
01:06:16 you still want to be Kyrie Irving.
01:06:17 You had Tatum, Brown, and Rozier.
01:06:20 - Very emerging.
01:06:22 - Were the emerging stars wanting to prove themselves.
01:06:24 And we all know Rozier wanted to be in a much bigger role.
01:06:29 - He's trying to build off of what happened in the playoffs.
01:06:32 I don't blame him.
01:06:32 - Right, right.
01:06:33 - Yeah, when he made Bledsoe disappear like that,
01:06:36 when I step back through it.
01:06:38 - And yeah.
01:06:39 - You remember, sure, Drew Bledsoe pulled up
01:06:42 to Teeny Garden, man.
01:06:43 Like, that was a thing.
01:06:44 - That was too good.
01:06:46 - And it was great.
01:06:47 It was to make a wine together or something,
01:06:49 but sorry, go ahead.
01:06:50 - No, no, I mean, but it was cool to hear this,
01:06:54 but I don't think anyone's surprised to hear it.
01:06:56 I think we all knew it.
01:06:58 - We all knew that.
01:07:00 And, you know, Hayward, you know,
01:07:01 I don't know how much he got into it.
01:07:03 I don't know if he would want to get into it,
01:07:05 but his injury complicated a lot of things
01:07:08 because no longer could you put him in the category
01:07:11 of being better than Jalen, better than Tatum,
01:07:14 because an injured Hayward, even at that point,
01:07:16 was not as good as Tatum and Brown.
01:07:18 And they knew that.
01:07:19 And that was part of their frustration.
01:07:21 Like, why am I taking a backseat to this dude
01:07:24 who, much respect to what he's done in his career,
01:07:26 but right now I'm better than him.
01:07:28 And if I'm better than him, why am I splitting time?
01:07:31 Why am I not doing it?
01:07:32 So I understand exactly what he's talking about,
01:07:35 but let's just put it in full context.
01:07:38 The fact that that injury, and it was a horrible injury
01:07:40 for those of us who were there witnessing it.
01:07:42 I mean, it was one of the worst injuries I've ever heard.
01:07:47 And that was the thing.
01:07:48 - You heard it.
01:07:49 - You heard the thud.
01:07:51 - Oh yeah, you heard that.
01:07:53 - And in Cleveland, where our seats were,
01:07:54 they were pretty damn far away from the court
01:07:56 and you could hear that thud.
01:07:58 So, but that being said,
01:08:01 that injury complicated the timeline and the context
01:08:04 and just the relationships of all the players on that team.
01:08:07 Because now all of a sudden,
01:08:07 the guy that you had in your one or two slot,
01:08:11 really talent-wise was probably four or five.
01:08:14 And yet you were still treating him
01:08:15 as if he was a one or two.
01:08:17 And for young guys like Jalen and Jason,
01:08:19 I totally understand why they want more responsibility.
01:08:22 Because they, again,
01:08:23 they practice with this guy afterwards.
01:08:25 They know what he can do and what he can't do.
01:08:27 And if you watch him play,
01:08:29 it was pretty obvious that he was not the same player.
01:08:32 He wasn't that dude that you saw in Utah
01:08:35 that if you slept on him for a possession,
01:08:37 he would dunk on your dome.
01:08:39 He was not that dude anymore.
01:08:41 And again, his last year in Utah,
01:08:43 I literally watched every single game he played
01:08:47 on NBA League Pass,
01:08:48 because I knew that was a guy
01:08:49 that they were going to target.
01:08:51 So I made a point of watching every single game he played.
01:08:54 And him and I had conversations
01:08:55 about a lot of the different games,
01:08:57 'cause I watched them all.
01:08:58 That guy was not what Boston got after he was hurt.
01:09:02 And it's sad and it's disappointing
01:09:04 because he really, I thought,
01:09:06 was on path to be one of the,
01:09:07 be an all-time great.
01:09:09 When you think about his size, his ability to shoot,
01:09:11 put it on the floor,
01:09:12 dunk on you on your dome if you're not careful.
01:09:15 But the injury took a lot of that away.
01:09:16 And he's been a shell of himself since.
01:09:19 So his point about guys having lots of different agendas
01:09:22 totally makes sense.
01:09:24 Totally makes sense.
01:09:24 Because he wanted to get back to where he was.
01:09:26 And Tatum and Brown are like,
01:09:27 we're trying to get to where we're going to be.
01:09:30 And Kyrie was just Kyrie.
01:09:32 We don't know what the hell he wanted to do.
01:09:34 - Kyrie was-
01:09:35 - You mentioned here, but there's no doubt
01:09:37 there were some implications there.
01:09:38 But as we've talked about too, it wasn't all Kyrie.
01:09:41 I mean, I think that was a very difficult year
01:09:42 for Terry Roger and he probably didn't handle it
01:09:45 the way he wanted to,
01:09:46 especially coming off the starting role he had
01:09:48 on the run to the East Finals.
01:09:50 I know Hayward mentioned some of the young guys there.
01:09:51 And that was, I think Kyrie's big gripe there too
01:09:54 is the way they carried themselves
01:09:57 coming off the East Finals run.
01:09:59 They figured it all out.
01:10:01 And I saw some of the feedback here,
01:10:04 being that Brown and Tatum,
01:10:06 they should have just let those guys roll.
01:10:08 But those guys weren't who they are now.
01:10:11 They had to go through that.
01:10:13 They had to go through figuring out on their own.
01:10:15 And they had a lot of disappointments that followed this,
01:10:17 even though they might've proven to be the best players
01:10:19 on that group when they came out into their primes here.
01:10:23 So it was a tough mix.
01:10:25 Even just look at the kind of players
01:10:26 that were on that team,
01:10:28 a ton of wings, a bunch of packed backcourt.
01:10:32 Danny Ainge, and he ended up out of a job
01:10:35 two years after this,
01:10:36 probably should have done more to tinker
01:10:38 with that roster mid-season, seeing how it was going.
01:10:42 Especially Roger, who was going to inevitably leave.
01:10:45 He wouldn't trade Kyrie,
01:10:46 despite all the writing on the wall.
01:10:48 I think they waited until the last second,
01:10:51 praying he would stay.
01:10:52 And then, of course he made his departure to Brooklyn.
01:10:55 And even Al Horford, they let him go for nothing
01:10:57 after this season, which was just a disaster.
01:11:00 And I think Al getting out of there,
01:11:02 even though he got paid, certainly,
01:11:04 I think said a lot to what the situation was
01:11:07 in the room that year.
01:11:07 And I saw Himmelsbach talk to Tatum about this
01:11:12 at the pregame or shoot around, whatever, this morning.
01:11:15 And Tatum agreed that it was just a terrible year.
01:11:18 Like that was just an awful result.
01:11:22 But it wasn't interpersonal stuff.
01:11:24 It was all on court chemistry issues.
01:11:26 And Joe Sway always talks about the Orlando game
01:11:30 with Kyrie and Hayward getting into it
01:11:33 on the final play there.
01:11:34 That was his emblematic study.
01:11:35 - Kyrie jumping up and down like a little kid.
01:11:36 Yeah, man.
01:11:38 Lost his shit.
01:11:39 - That was so funny to me, seeing that.
01:11:41 - Yeah, that was crazy.
01:11:43 Shout out to ESPN, though.
01:11:43 They put my video on SportsCenter.
01:11:45 But anyways, Orlando's the only place
01:11:47 where you get those seats right underneath the basket
01:11:50 for the media.
01:11:51 - You're almost right next to the photographers.
01:11:53 But yeah, I mean, what Sherrod said, I think is spot on,
01:11:57 especially when you think about what the plan was, right?
01:12:01 And Hayward talked about that in this podcast.
01:12:03 It was the first couple of years,
01:12:04 Kyrie and Hayward were supposed to guide that group.
01:12:06 And obviously, Tatum and Brown were gonna find their way.
01:12:09 And the injury obviously changed all of that.
01:12:12 But once you got that taste of success
01:12:14 in the form of Eastern Conference finals,
01:12:16 making it as far as they did,
01:12:18 it obviously changed things.
01:12:20 It changed guys' mindset coming into this season.
01:12:22 And everyone just sort of assumed that,
01:12:24 oh, with all this talent, everyone's healthy,
01:12:26 it's all gonna come together.
01:12:27 Well, basketball doesn't work that way,
01:12:29 especially when you have guys who have their own agendas.
01:12:32 And I felt like that was the case.
01:12:34 And it's a tough spot.
01:12:35 You can turn and say, like a lot of people
01:12:38 were saying around that time,
01:12:39 looking at Brad Stevens and saying,
01:12:40 oh, well, it's tight relationship with Gordon Hayward
01:12:43 that dates back to when Hayward was in high school.
01:12:46 Why is he forcing the issue here?
01:12:48 Okay, well, at the same time though,
01:12:50 you wanna give the guy a chance
01:12:51 to get back somewhere close to who he was.
01:12:54 And you had to play him, right?
01:12:55 You have to try to see that process through
01:12:58 and see what's at the other side of it.
01:13:00 And clearly it didn't look good,
01:13:01 going into that playoff series with the bubble
01:13:05 and even the year before that or the year after rather.
01:13:08 So I just feel like it's unfortunate.
01:13:11 It didn't plan out the way,
01:13:13 obviously the way these guys wanted it to.
01:13:15 But you look back at it and I don't think you say,
01:13:18 man, you wish somethings gave Hayward more of a shot
01:13:20 or you wish things were different in the sense of,
01:13:24 it wasn't gonna be like this
01:13:25 because Hayward hasn't been the same player ever since.
01:13:27 So it's unfortunate, but the Suns were able to
01:13:30 sort of rebuild on the fly the way they did
01:13:32 and train Rozier turning into,
01:13:34 Kemba Walker and then having to move on from that.
01:13:37 So it's been a lot of, looking back on it,
01:13:40 it's impressive the way Danny Ainge
01:13:42 was able to keep this team relevant,
01:13:44 especially with these guys still in the mix,
01:13:46 still in the fold and Tatum and Brown.
01:13:49 - Yeah, again, and it's just another example
01:13:52 of how difficult it is to build a team
01:13:54 that will actually win the championship
01:13:57 because you can put a bunch of talent on there,
01:13:59 but they have to be able to play together.
01:14:01 They all have to have the right mindset.
01:14:02 And we all know about that,
01:14:04 the Celtics teams from '07, '08,
01:14:06 and they were at the point in their career
01:14:08 where their agenda was to win a championship.
01:14:11 And the players, the rookies and the younger guys,
01:14:16 they didn't have a big enough say
01:14:17 to screw that up for the KG, Pierce, Ray.
01:14:20 And then they brought in more veterans
01:14:22 who had the same mentality.
01:14:23 So you really have to do fine guys
01:14:25 and find a situation that makes sense.
01:14:26 So that's a difficulty.
01:14:28 I don't think this Celtics team
01:14:29 has anything close to those issues.
01:14:32 I think there does seem to be,
01:14:34 obviously there's a good mix of veterans now
01:14:37 because you've got some of these guys
01:14:39 who have been in the league.
01:14:40 Some of the same players that we're talking about
01:14:42 on this team are a lot older now
01:14:44 and they've been through the highs and the lows
01:14:48 of the career.
01:14:48 And I think they are more interested.
01:14:51 I would hope at least that they are more interested
01:14:53 in winning a championship, at least they say that.
01:14:55 And then you've got the veterans,
01:14:56 obviously Holliday's done it already.
01:14:58 Porzingis has been to the lowest of lows
01:15:01 and we can see just what winning does for him.
01:15:04 So you can see where his priorities lie.
01:15:06 So I don't think they're gonna have,
01:15:08 or they do have those issues, not even close.
01:15:11 And again, I think Hayward said they had
01:15:13 like a bunch of players only meetings that year too
01:15:17 to try to hash things out.
01:15:18 And everybody said the right things,
01:15:20 but actually doing them was a whole nother story.
01:15:23 So anyways, that was interesting.
01:15:27 And figured we'd chat about that before we head out.
01:15:30 Any last comments boys before we call it on the game
01:15:35 or anything else?
01:15:36 I know the Celtics play Utah on Friday
01:15:40 back home at the TD Garden.
01:15:42 So we have a couple of days off before that one.
01:15:45 - Looking forward to that game.
01:15:47 It's a different kind of test
01:15:49 than what they saw tonight.
01:15:50 Tonight, they played a team that's among the best
01:15:52 in the league and that's a challenge.
01:15:54 And then you're going to a youth playing a Utah team
01:15:57 that's not quite on the same level.
01:16:00 So are they gonna have that edge
01:16:01 that they need to beat them?
01:16:02 And a chance to see Will Hardy, the head coach of Utah,
01:16:06 really, again, that was the Derek White whisper
01:16:09 before all of us got on the...
01:16:12 I mean, I just remember when they made the trade
01:16:14 with San Antonio and I was talking with Will about that.
01:16:18 And so much of the things that you hear people talk about now
01:16:20 about Derek White as far as potential as a shot maker
01:16:23 or a guy that can play multiple positions,
01:16:25 really good defender.
01:16:26 You haven't really seen how good a defender
01:16:28 he's gonna be just yet.
01:16:29 Will was talking about this stuff,
01:16:31 like literally on the way to picking Derek up at the airport
01:16:35 because that's how tight they were.
01:16:37 He was literally the guy that picked Derek White up
01:16:40 at the airport.
01:16:41 And it'll be good to see him,
01:16:43 good to see our good friend, Kelly Olenek,
01:16:46 who I haven't looked at his numbers recently,
01:16:48 but Kelly was on like a 50/40,
01:16:50 he was on a 60/50/90 track in terms of shooting
01:16:55 from the field and free throw lines.
01:16:57 He's probably cooled off a little bit since then,
01:16:59 but it'll be good to see him as well.
01:17:02 - Yeah, they've been connected to him
01:17:05 each of the last two years here.
01:17:07 - Yeah, I was gonna say,
01:17:08 those numbers that I think sparked those reports.
01:17:11 - Yeah.
01:17:12 - Yeah.
01:17:14 - That's a good team, good coach too.
01:17:15 Yeah, that'll be fun.
01:17:17 - Yeah, I mean, that'll be interesting.
01:17:19 I wanna see how they defend the stuff,
01:17:21 things with Port Ziggins in the mix
01:17:22 and how they're able to bounce back from this
01:17:24 'cause typically, they usually give you a stellar performance
01:17:28 after a game like this.
01:17:29 So I don't think it'll be any different,
01:17:31 but with Will Hardy on the other end,
01:17:34 I'm curious to see how he defends
01:17:37 or how their offensive approach will be,
01:17:40 especially with Kelly in there
01:17:43 and marking his back and all that.
01:17:45 So, but yeah, maybe we'll get a close game,
01:17:49 but if not, I'd probably predict
01:17:51 that Celtics will win this one.
01:17:54 - That's a back-to-back too.
01:17:55 So it'll be interesting how they handle the rest there
01:17:58 with Port Ziggins who's missed three straight back-to-backs
01:18:01 and Horford, of course, who doesn't play in them.
01:18:03 Do they go with the rest night on the front end
01:18:05 against the West team, against Utah there maybe
01:18:08 'cause Indiana's on the second half there, travel game.
01:18:12 I don't know, it'll be interesting.
01:18:12 - Yeah, they got a packed schedule coming up here, guys.
01:18:15 I don't know, they'll have to be creative
01:18:16 with when they sit guys because after,
01:18:20 so you got Friday, then you've got the next one,
01:18:23 Saturday against the Pacers,
01:18:24 Monday against the Pacers, both on the road,
01:18:27 come back to Boston for a big one against the Timberwolves.
01:18:30 That's the first night of a back-to-back
01:18:32 'cause then you've got the Bucs on the back end of that.
01:18:34 - Bucs game's a monster on the back-to-back, yeah.
01:18:36 - So you've got a tough stretch of games coming up here.
01:18:40 - You might wanna flip the script
01:18:41 and just go all in on that Bucs game
01:18:43 and just play your guys
01:18:45 'cause that's on the back end of the back-to-back, right?
01:18:48 So that means you get the next day off.
01:18:50 - You do. - So.
01:18:51 - Then you get the Rockets, which is the other day off.
01:18:55 - Ooh.
01:18:56 - He may.
01:18:57 - He may return. - He may return.
01:18:59 - He may return.
01:19:00 - I will absolutely be in the building for that one.
01:19:03 Oh my.
01:19:04 - I might have to go to that one too.
01:19:07 - That one's gonna be kind of saucy.
01:19:09 That one's gonna be a good game.
01:19:11 - I wonder if it's gonna be cheers.
01:19:12 What are you, well, we're not even gonna talk about it
01:19:15 right now, it's too much.
01:19:15 - Let's, yeah, cheers.
01:19:16 - We'll table that, we'll table that.
01:19:18 But I wanna say once again, thank you.
01:19:19 - Tribute video?
01:19:20 No?
01:19:21 - Oh, that's a good call, Joe Sway.
01:19:22 - Did Joe say Sway?
01:19:24 Wow. - Yeah, I don't think so.
01:19:25 - I wonder if we will. - What a trolling comment
01:19:27 that was from Joe Sway.
01:19:28 - Hopefully it's a tribute video and not something else.
01:19:31 All right, anyways.
01:19:32 (laughing)
01:19:33 We'll be, fandual.com/boston.
01:19:37 Get $150 in bonus bets when you place
01:19:41 a winning $5 Money Lion bet.
01:19:43 - That's a flagrant foul, Jimmy.
01:19:45 That was a flagrant foul.
01:19:46 - And then HelloFresh.
01:19:48 - Great play.
01:19:49 - Our friends at HelloFresh, guys.
01:19:50 HelloFresh.com/CLNSfree.
01:19:53 Use code CLNSfree and get breakfast for life.
01:19:56 We're gonna say bye before we say the wrong things.
01:20:00 Anyways.
01:20:01 - HelloFresh does.
01:20:02 See you guys.
01:20:03 - Yeah, we'll see you guys Friday.
01:20:05 (laughing)

Recommended

57:07
I
Up next
Jerod Mayo chooses Brissett over Drake Maye | Greg Bedard Patriots Podcast
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:06:40
The Patriots fan's guide to surviving Year 1 of a rebuild | Pats Interference
CLNS Media Sports Network
29:36
What surprising Lonnie Walker signing means for Celtics | Still Poddable
CLNS Media Sports Network
56:54
LIVE: Celtics vs Raptors Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
9:47
Does Joe Mazzulla Ball Have You BELIEVING in Celtics? | Bobby & Josue Postgame Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
31:57
What Will Happen with Jeremy Swayman? | Bruins Beat
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:15:39
LIVE: Celtics vs Warriors Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:52:29
LIVE: Celtics vs Bucks Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:22:06
LIVE: Celtics vs Knicks Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
5:32
Was Celtics Win vs Magic BEST Jaylen Brown Game All Season? | Bobby & Josue Postgame Reaction
CLNS Media Sports Network
12:48
Reaction to Celtics Loss to Sixers & BIZZARE Joe Mazzulla Postgame Interview
CLNS Media Sports Network
6:59
After Their Big Moves, How Will Celtics Perform?
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:38:46
Celtics Postgame: Celtics vs Hawks Game 5
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:49:02
Garden Report: Celtics Crush Kings to Close Out Road Trip
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:35:57
Garden Report Postgame Reaction: Celtics Seal Away Hawks
CLNS Media Sports Network
32:40
LIVE: Celtics schedule release + Sam Hauser talks running it back | You Got Boston w/ Noa Dalzell
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:24:45
LIVE: Celtics vs Jazz Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
58:54
LIVE: Celtics Win Banner 18 | Garden Report LATE NIGHT
CLNS Media Sports Network
8:50
Is Celtics vs Nuggets Final the ONLY Hope for NBA In-Season Tournament?
CLNS Media Sports Network
34:42
Did Jrue Holiday Trade Get Bucks Coach FIRED? | Cedric Maxwell Celtics Podcast
CLNS Media Sports Network
55:16
The Future of Celtics Broadcasting w/ Sean Grande | Celtics Beat
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:24:34
Garden Report: Celtics Take Care of Business vs Hawks
CLNS Media Sports Network
47:00
Are Celtics Unbeatable at Home + Is Jayson Tatum the MVP | BIG 3 NBA Podcast
CLNS Media Sports Network
1:54:03
LIVE: Celtics vs Mavs NBA Finals Game 3 Postgame Show | Garden Report
CLNS Media Sports Network
3:36
INSTANT REACTION: Jaylen Brown Drops 41, Celtics Win Third Straight
CLNS Media Sports Network