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.
Jabari remembers his mother, Tonya, had cooked something. Tonya can’t recall what she made. Jabari’s father, Carl, has food amnesia, too. No one knows exactly what words exchanged in the immediate moments following the most important news of Jabari’s professional life. Carl and Tonya just remember their son yelping something incoherent after receiving a text from his agent, Aaron Goodwin, midway through the meal.
…
He’d scuff up his bedsheets after — and he was persistent enough that Mom or Dad would have to wait until he passed out to sneak into his bedroom and slide off his shoes. They couldn’t wake him, either.
“I’d play with them, sleep with them,” Bird said. “I wouldn’t take them off…If I woke up with them off, I’d be upset. That is definitely fact.”
…
There’s that expression: someone can eat, drink and breathe basketball. Bird literally slept with one.
Maybe his success story is that simple. He wouldn’t let go.
“Nothing’s really changed,” he said. “Still love basketball. Still love my shoes.”
About a month ago, Tom Westerholm gave us a bit of a peek into the background of Celtics rookie Robert Williams; yesterday it was Fred Katz’s turn to dive into the upbringing of Jabari Bird, a guy who had a standout summer league and signed a two year deal after spending a season on a two-way contract. Bird, Katz notes, is moving into the same building Robert Williams has an apartment in, near the Celtics’ new practice facility.
Page 2: Where Blakely wonders who’s getting the ball in the fourth, but it’s probably Kyrie.
We know Irving will certainly be one of it not the number one option in close games for Boston.
But he won’t be the only option, for sure.
Here are five Celtics besides Irving to keep an eye on down the stretch.
Okay, so, yeah, Blakely’s doing pretty much what I’m doing right now–coming up with enough copy to satisfy my editors, even though there’s not a whole lot of stuff going on.
And, thus, you can take the ‘five other players’ with a grain of salt.
At the same time…
Five other players.
Five other players
You can only have five players total on the court at once.
And then–if you head over to the NBC Sports website and read the article–you’ll see that Blakely actually breaks down potential contributions from six players, as he treats Gordon Hayward and Jaylen Brown as one player for some reason.
Provided everyone stays healthy (side note: I’m really getting tired of typing that), the Celtics have an embarrassment of riches.
But, as to the primary ball-handler in crunch time? Yeah. No question it’s going to be Kyrie.
Those of you familiar with my backstory know that I’m a Celtic fan that grew up in the middle of South Dakota. I didn’t get to see the Celtics in person until this past March. And one of the things that blew me away in person, something that I’d never picked up from broadcasts, was just how difficult Kyrie’s clutch shots are.
I did not buy premium seats, so I was stuck up in the second level of the Target Center in a corner behind the baseline, and during the fourth quarter, the Celtics were at the other end of the court on offense. So, if I wasn’t watching the scoreboard video feed (which was confusingly backward because the court cameras were on the other side of the arena), there was just this jumbled mass of arms and legs something like 200 feet away from my seat.
It was a close-ish game, mostly because Nemanja Bjelica scored 30 points on 11/16 shooting, and at one point, Karl Anthony Towns got the Wolves’ deficit down to seven points.
And then Kyrie Irving scored six of the next nine points, and he wasn’t taking easy jumpers either. All three baskets were so well contested that, I, from my vantage point somewhere past the Mall of America and out toward Burnsville, thought the best he could hope for was a foul call and some freebies, because there was no way anybody could make a shot with that many people in that small of an area trying to stop him.
And he made every shot.
And not only did he make those shots, he did so in a manner that completely took the wind out of the Wolves’ sails. He went right at them and still made every shot.
So anyway that was my exposure to just how good Kyrie is at this game of basketball, and hopefully Chuck and John will consider this a sufficiently long dump for the offseason.
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