Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
“I don’t really believe that you can flip a switch,” Ainge said. “But I do believe that things can come together, your health, your concentration, your focus can be better.”
…
“I mean, Philly is a very, very good basketball team and we went in there and had a lead late in the fourth quarter … we had an 18 point lead through 40 minutes of the game and we went into a drought where we couldn’t score,”
The Celtics play the Pacers tonight in a game with implications for first round seeding. A win puts Boston into a tie with Indiana, with Boston holding the tie-breaker.
Of course, the battle is not for the number one seed–it’s for the number four seed. The lowest possible seed in which a team has a shot of hosting a first round series. Hosting any series after that is more or less off the table because of the all-around crappy performance of the team since the All-Star break.
Shortly before the All-Star break, I pointed out that the C’s had been playing at a nearly 60 win clip for dang near three months (last week of November, December, January, and the first two weeks of February).
Since then the C’s have been playing at a 33 win clip (they’re 7-10 in that span). The Celtics are playing, probably, their worst basketball of the season right now, and the team doesn’t seem particularly upset by this. Of course, it’s not like much good has been accomplished in the past when players on the team have gotten upset about the team’s overall lack of discipline and focus.
There isn’t a switch to be flipped–and honestly, these guys need to learn that, and there’s no time like the present.
While I’m not particularly pleased with the various games the Celtics have lost this season because they’ve played crappy from the opening tip, that, at least, is something that has been more or less a constant for the team during the Brad Stevens tenure—periodically, this team plays like a bunch of 30-somethings that got thrown together for an impromptu game at a gym.
The more disturbing trend this season has been all of the blown leads. For a team that has been talking plenty of talk about playing well once the playoffs get here, they have done remarkably little to demonstrate that they have the composure required when they’ve faced pressure during games.
For reasons that are utterly befuddling to me, this team stops doing what gave them double-digit leads–and not necessarily on defense alone. John–in the same article the Ainge quotes came from–compared the team to a boxer:
If the Celtics mentality was magically transferred to that of a boxer, that fighter would have total control over an opponent for six rounds. In the middle of the seventh, instead of continuing to slowly beat his opponent and cruise to a unanimous decision, the fighter would suddenly start taking wild swings for the head trying for a knockout, leaving himself open to some big counter-punches. Instead of coming out in the eighth and returning to the methodical dissection, the swings would get bigger and wilder until he gets counter-punched to the canvas and knocked out.
He’s not wrong–especially since, unlike boxing, you can’t end a basketball game with a single shot in the third quarter.
The leitmotif for the Celtics’ season has been their inability to handle prosperity.
On a grand scale, they hit the ground with talk of 60 wins. Jaylen Brown predicted multiple championships before the first tip of the regular season, and when the All-Star break rolled around, Jayson Tatum was guaranteeing a 2019 Finals appearance. However, if they keep playing at this level, they’ll be lucky to finish ten games over .500.
On a small scale, the team has blown so many leads that it can be officially declared part of their character.
And, now that the regular season is pretty much shot, guys on the team are chatting away about how they’ll start taking things serious once the playoffs get here. If this team has a motto for the final seven games of the season, it’s “What, me worry?”
It’s ‘tortoise beats hare’ all over. The Celtics are, on paper, the most talented team in the Eastern Conference, and I’ll stand by that assessment regardless of what their record says. However, the players seem to have a mistaken idea of just how small the talent gap is between the best teams in the league and those at the bottom of the heap.
FIBA claims that about 450,000,000 people play basketball worldwide. 450 of them play for the NBA. This league has the top .0001% of the world’s players. Limit the total to rotation guys, and you’re talking like 240-300 players in all.
The Celtics are talented–but they are not so talented that they can win games by playing well for 36 minutes out of every 48. No team in the NBA is.
And with this team’s by now obvious overall attitude problem, they need an early exit from the playoffs. Because, frankly, nothing else has convinced them that the only way they’re going to win is by playing the game the right way.
Page 2: Where Brad’s not going anywhere
“I think this is the time of year where you watch every possession, every game, every playoff series very closely,” Grousbeck said, “and try to decide what to do in June.”
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Grousbeck declined to talk about why he thinks this season has not gone as planned, and he also declined to comment about the culpability, play, or future of any individual player.
Coach Brad Stevens has publicly shouldered the blame during several disconcerting stretches this season and has even faced some outside criticism for the first time in his Celtics tenure. But Grousbeck made it clear that he remains firmly in Stevens’s corner.
“Brad would be my top choice to coach the team — if we were doing a search right now, he would be the hands-down winner,” Grousbeck said. “I can’t be more impressed with Brad. He’s hung in there through ups and downs this year and he coaches basically 24/7 to an extremely high level. I’m very glad he’s a Celtic.
Wyc Grousbeck sat down for a chat with the Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach, and–predictably–kept things positive.
However, there’s a bit of a veiled message in his comments. The team, wisely, in my opinion, has shied away from making moves during the regular season. However, Grousbeck’s comments are meaningful. The Celtics have only one goal: Championships. And it’s possible that, based on what they’ve seen that we’ve all seen–as well as what they’ve seen and we haven’t seen, they’re going to make moves.
Finally: Yep. I’m still going on about the Jacks
Ten years ago, the South Dakota State women welcomed Gonzaga to Frost Arena for a season-opening showdown between two of the nation’s top mid-majors. After the game, an overtime loss for his side, then-Zags coach Kelly Graves told assistant coach Jodie Berry to never let him schedule a game in Brookings again.
So naturally, Graves returned to South Dakota last December, this time as Oregon’s head coach. The game was predictably difficult for the visiting Ducks, who used a 25-9 third-quarter run to rally past the Jacks, 87-79.
“After the game, again, a hard-fought, really well-played game, I told Jodie the same thing,” Graves laughed during Thursday’s pre-Sweet 16 press conference. “This time, I’ll fire her if I ever go back to South Dakota State.”
I was at that game against Gonzaga, and I watched the game against Oregon last December. I’d like to see the Jacks beat Oregon, but there seems to be too much of a talent gap between the two programs. SDSU might be able to get out to an early lead, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s what happens, but when push comes to shove, I think they’ll have a hard time holding onto it for a full 40 minutes. But you’ll at least see a consistent 40 minutes of effort from that team, and I’m not sure you’ll see 40 minutes of disciplined effort from the Celtics tonight.
The rest of the links:
MassLive: Boston Celtics fan banned two years for racial slur against DeMarcus Cousins (report)
NBC Sports: As Hayward goes, so go Celtics | Ainge weighs in on Kyrie’s jab at C’s coaches
Boston Herald: Celtics notebook: Teammates have better idea of how to play off Kyrie Irving
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