Your Morning Dump... Where IT's spraining ankles. No, this really happened.

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Okay, let me preface this by saying that we’re all happy that Tim Frazier wasn’t seriously injured by IT’s awesomeness.

The Celtics point guard didn’t just hurt New Orleans with his stat line. With Boston leading by just four points in the game’s final minute, Thomas hit Pelicans guard Tim Frazier with a lethal in-and-out move before finding Avery Bradley for the game-clinching 3-pointer.

Frazier badly twisted his right ankle on the play, but fortunately for New Orleans, which has been absolutely decimated by injuries this season, he doesn’t plan on missing any time. Still, the former Celtics D-Leaguer looked like he was in pretty bad pain after the play and undoubtedly suffered a major injury to his pride.

NESN

https://www.instagram.com/p/BD4jOXaoC1J/

Alvin Gentry had the best possible quote after the game:

Alvin Gentry on Tim Frazier rolling his ankle at the end of tonight’s #Pelicans game: “My guess is he’ll be out for the next 2 1/2 years.”

— Mason Ginsberg (@MasonGinsberg) April 7, 2016

Page 2: Where the C’s are swiping signals

Thomas said teams tweak their plays and terminology during games, but there is not much variation.

“If you watch enough film, you know teams mostly just run the same plays, other than San Antonio,” Thomas said. “They’ve got counters for almost everything you try to stop.”

When the Celtics sniff out what is coming, it can be satisfying. Unfortunately, even perfect predictions do not always result in perfect results.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, thanks, we knew what was coming, but they have a really good player and they still scored on it,’ ” Shrewsberry said.

Boston Globe

Adam Himmelsbach with a great article that gives insight into what players and teams do to break down specific plays–and some of the challenges of communicating and reacting to those plays in a game where a half-court set might run through two or three options in 18 seconds. Make sure you read all the way to the bottom and catch the comments about how other players around the league call out Celtics plays.

Page 3: Where Forsberg’s tracking the picks so you don’t have to

The Celtics will have eight total picks in June’s draft — that’s 13.3 percent of the entire draft — including five second-round selections. If the season ended today and assuming no movement in the lottery, the Celtics would own picks:

• No. 4 (via Nets)

• No. 16 (via Mavericks)

• No. 23 (or 24, pending coin flip with Hawks)

• No. 31 (via 76ers)

• No. 35 (via Timberwolves)

• No. 46 (via Mavericks)

• No. 52 (via Heat)

• No. 58 (via Cavaliers)

ESPN Boston

NBA rosters are limited to 15 players. Boston has 8 picks in one draft.

Is that too many picks? Maybe. The flip side of this is that there are a lot of teams that are out of the first round of this draft. The Knicks, Rockets, Wizards, Heat, Cavs, Blazers and Thunder are all on the outside of this draft looking in. The Celtics have an opportunity to trade one or both of their lower picks as well as their second rounders to these teams in exchange for players and/or deferred picks.

Page 4: Where Danny’s worried that the Celtics can be taken off their game

Ainge was asked whether he considers his club a championship contender. When he brushed that off with his normal response to the question — basically, he does not think Boston will compete for a title, but does consider the extraordinary possible — the hosts pressed him on why.

“Now why do you think that?” Ainge was asked. “Because they’ve beaten almost all of the best teams in basketball once this year, outside of San Antonio. … Golden State, they beat them once and they took them to double overtime the other one. They beat the Cavs. What makes you think that they still, after seeing all of that, their whole body of work this year, that they still aren’t contenders?”

“Well, I think that there’s a big difference in regular season basketball and playoff basketball,” Ainge responded. “And I get worried that we can be taken out of our game too easily. Even last night (during a 104-97 win against the New Orleans Pelicans) against a depleted team I feel like we’re taken out of our game too often. We go through these offensive droughts. We haven’t made enough shots consistently. And like I said, we rely on grit and hustle and defense, and I just think that we need guys to make more shots.”

MassLive

Now I’m obviously a big fan of the team that Danny Ainge has assembled–and of the work that Stevens has done coaching the team.

But.

I’m going to just grab a little sentence here….

I just think that we need guys to make more shots

Well, maybe, maybe, you should draft guys that can shoot the ball, Danny. Cripes!

Long-term I am a bit worried about this. I don’t know if it’s something that Stevens & staff aren’t spending enough time on, or if they’re focusing on the wrong things, or if some of these guys are just never going to be able to shoot field goals, but any way you slice it, unless it’s free throws, this team can’t shoot worth a dang. They’re 24th in the league when it comes to eFG%. Only four of Boston’s rotation players are shooting above the league average eFG% (although, in fairness, Ainge did draft two of them–Bradley and Olynyk). I don’t know if having another superstar will take some of the pressure off of guys like Smart, Sully and Turner whose shooting difficulties seem to exist largely within their craniums, but it’s tough to imagine a team that shoots this poorly making serious noise in the playoffs.