This most certainly will spark some debate. Wyc Grousbeck revealed yesterday that the Celtics were being coy… or as he put it… "Belichickian" about KG's injury.
“There was no mystery about the problem,” he said. “The only mystery
was how (Garnett) was going to be able to do something on it. We just
didn’t feel like sharing that with the media at the time.
“It was just a matter of declining to comment on it. I mean, he did
come back to play four (regular-season) games, and I believe that he
might have tried to play against Cleveland if we had made it that far.
“But this all threw our opponents into some confusion about what was happening.”
Obviously, it wasn't a series-changing tactic. But do you care that the Celtics lied about what was really going on? CelticsBlog does.
In the meantime, Doc and Danny repeatedly lied to the fans. Wyc may
distinguish this by saying that the team misled the "media", but that's
semantics; he was deliberately misleading the fan base, many of whom
live and die with the team.
I get this reaction. A lot of you will have it too. But fans sometimes have an irrational expectation of their teams. The team isn't obligated to tell us the truth about a player's injury. If the Celtics could get ANY advantage by forcing the other team to spend practice time on something that's not going to happen… then why SHOULDN'T they do it? It doesn't change anything in the locker room. It didn't change how the Celtics practiced. Yes, we weren't sure what was going to happen… but would you rather know everything about the situation and give the other team an advantage?
I will say this about their approach: they didn't pull it off very well. I think Wyc was being generous when he said they were being "Belichickian". Bill keeps everything shrouded in mystery. They lie on the injury report and then say nothing about it to the media. The C's were like a poker player laughing and joking when he's got a crappy hand in an effort to throw his opponents off. The Pats have the best poker face in the world. Just a note to the C's brass. Next time, let US handle the wild speculation.
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