BGleas

The Celtics just have so much length all over the court, it's pretty amazing what they can do defensively. I would agree on a few teams having a better individual player (Giannis, Embiid, Leonard), but mainly just because Kyrie looks to me like he's regressing. He's still an All-Star, but he looked out of shape and soft to me last night. His body looked like he hasn't been in a weight room in a while. The flip side is that I would not be surprised if in 2-3 years Tatum is a top 5 player in the NBA. He's a flat-out stud, and it's crazy that both Philly and LA passed on him.

I loved Rondo on the Celtics and agree on that comparison a bit, the issue for the Sixers though is that Simmons is either their best or at worst 2nd best player. It will be tough in this day and age to win a championship or even really compete for one seriously if your best (or second best) player can't shoot outside the paint. Rondo was the 4th or even 5th scoring option on those Celtics teams and was surrounded by HOF'er scorers. If Fultz can develop into a guard that you can rely on 20ppg+ from, to go along with Embiid, then it will work with Simmons as the distributor/swiss army knife guy, but right now Emiid is the only legit, consistent All-Star level scorer they have. Simmons is an All-Star for sure, but not a consistent scorer.

Completely agree on Simmons. I didn’t mean he isn’t a legit super star, he’s a phenomenal player. But his biggest weakness, lack of shooting, is a huge, huge weakness. Even with the great passing, court vision, length, etc., he’s manageable for good defenses with length because he’s not a shooter.

So, my one game into the season overreaction, the Sixers are worse than last season. When losing Illyasova and Belinelli, they lost the shooting that made them so effective the second half of last season. Unless Fultz somehow turns into a legit star, which I don’t think is going to happen, they have some real problems. Not enough reliable scoring and playmakers, and they don’t have a single guard, in a guards league, that scares you. To me Ben Simmons is weird. He’s a freak athlete, he’s incredibly skilled with the ball and he puts up monster stat lines, but as an opponent he doesn’t scare me at all. It’s sort of like Matt Ryan, he’s going to retire with huge numbers, maybe some better than Manning, Brady and Brees, but when playing the Falcons I’m not like, “oh crap, we have to go against Matt Ryan, we don’t have a chance!”

I think this is a possibility as well. Not saying Vic won’t be great this year and that he won’t figure it out, but I could see early on where he tries to do too much and has a bit of trying to prove he’s a legit star and last year wasn’t fluke, and that it’s his’ team. I remember Pierce going through this a bit as the Celtics transitioned from Antoine Walker/Pierce to just it being Pierce’s team.

Vic is a tough call. He was phenomenal last season, but in this day and age it is such an anonomaly for a player at his age and with the amount of time he’s already had to just all the sudden breakout like that. Maybe Isiah Thomas is the only other recent comparison? It just doesn’t happen like that anymore, so it’s difficult to project what will happen next. I tend to think because of his mentality that he’ll sustain, or at least close to it, what he did last year, at least from a numbers perspective, but that top 10 is a really competitive space right now. I’m not sure he can really get better, but maybe it will come incrementally from consistency. I just really don’t know what to make of it all just yet.

Isn't that what he is though? What other position does he play? He can't handle or shoot, so he's not a perimeter player/3. He's a PF/C stuck in the wrong body.

I left that Seattle team off on purpose, I know their record maybe says otherwise, but I didn't think they were that great.

Chiming in late here on the topic, but on the point about Jordan playing crap teams in the Finals, I'll give you guys the Spurs and the Warriors, but Phoenix, Utah and probably Portland are all better than the Dallas team that beat Miami and the OKC team that Miami beat. On the Jordan vs. LeBron debate in general, this is the first time I've been willing to entertain it. But what LeBron is doing in the playoffs this year is insane. I'd still lean to Jordan, but the debate is razor thin. This team LeBron is about to drag to the Finals is hot garbage. He's lucked out a bit because the Raptors are a joke and Boston is injured, but still what he's done this playoffs is absolutely incredible.

Absolutely, the situation you get drafted into plays a huge part in a players development. There's nothing like the TD Garden in the NBA. Actually a lot of similarities between IU fans and Celtics fans in terms of knowledge, support, etc. JJ Redick recently said Game 5 in Boston is the loudest arena he's ever played in, and this is a guy that played in 8 Duke-UNC games.

Definitely exciting times to be a C's fan! On Tatum, I think he'd be great NBA player no matter where he went, but do agree that being in such a stable org with such a great coach and some vets around him has definitely helped his growth and probably raises his ceiling.

I definitely have egg on my face. I didn't expect Vic to be this good, and though Indy could have done better. I was wrong. On the best trade of the summer, I would throw in Ainge's trading the #1 pick for #3 (Tatum) and a future lottery pick into the running. Ainge absolutely fleeced Philly. Not saying it w as s necessarily better, but it's a worthy discussion.

Haha, HH, you're actually pretty accurate, I have been nursing a hangover all morning :). On the Celtics roster situation one thing people quite often forget is that their starting lineup on opening night was Irving, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, Horford. So while nobody knew Tatum would be THIS good so soon, the plan has definitely been to play all three wings together.

Absolutely. If you had to pick between the two, I'd feel more confident with them winning the title with Curry and without Durant as opposed to vice versa. That made sense, right? It made sense in my head.

If you can shoot like Steph, you can play anytime, anywhere. I still think even with KD that Steph is the most important player on that team.

Will be interesting to see what Philly does with their max slot. Of course everyone is also hyping them going after LeBron. The decision they need to make is, do they want to go "championship or bust" or do they want to build and add pieces around Simmons and Embiid. To me, if they go after LeBron they're saying they want titles now and are willing to potentially compromise Simmons' development to do it. Both LeBron and Simmons are essentially point forwards and both need the ball. George, especially after his time in OKC is probably better suited to play off of Simmons.

The Pacers are not as good as any team in the East, and I don’t think anyone without a dog in the fight would agree with that. We also have an 82 game sample size where Boston won 7 more games and that was with their best player missing 22 games, their second best player missing essentially 82, and Smart/Morris both missing 28 games. Can the Pacers compete with Boston as presently constituted? Yes, they are a good team, absolutely. Like I said, I would pick Boston in 6 and I think the games would be good, competitive games. It would be a tough series for sure. I probably got a little carried away after Boston went up 2-0 on Cleveland, it would definitely be a tough series with Indy As far as projected potential for the next 5 or so years, nobody is putting the Pacers at the same level as Boston or Philly. Though, I’m not sold on Philly unless Fulton develops, Simmons gets a mid range jumper, and they figure out the pieces around them.

Yeah, they did the zone for about two possessions previously and LeBron carved it up with ease. No zone tonight. But the constant switching every screens thing killed the Celtics the last two games. Once they finally cut it out, they played better. Believe it or not the Celtics actually won the 2nd-4th quarters, just lost the first by 16 tonight. The only thing that gives me confidence is how good the Celtics have been at home. Nothing ground breaking but I think Game 5 is a must win for Boston.

Every series is different. The Pacers taking Cleveland 7 in the first round doesn’t mean the Pacers are better than the teams that have advanced further than them. On the officiating, I would say the games in Boston and the games in Cleveland were officiated very differently.

Welp, as expected the Cavs even up the series to send it back to Boston for Game 5. Gotta say, as much as I love Brad Stevens and still think he’s the next best coach after Pop, he got abused in these two games. For some inexplicable reason, until about late in the 3rd tonight the Celtics kept switching every screen and Cleveland basically just posted up Terry Rozier for two straight games. On many of the screens there was no reason at all to be switching, and it just killed Boston. They basically allowed Cleveland to create any mismatch they wanted any time they wanted too. I do not like the prospects of LeBron in Game 5. Theres typically a game in every series what he just wins one on his own and it’s usually a critical game like a Game 5

Agree. I think the Celtics can win tomorrow, and I expect it to be a close, winnable game, but I’d guess the role players for Cleveland continue to make shots at home and send it back to Boston 2-2.

Yeah, C’s played terrible. They were due for a bad game. I didn’t see an official stat, but I’d guess in over 50% of their 1st quarter possessions they shot off of 0-1 passes. Ball movement was horrendous. They were taking contested jumpers way early in the shot clock all night for some reason. Cavs definitely stepped up their D, but dumb O was a big part too. Not overl concerned, just need to get one on Cleveland and losing so bad is probably better for Stevens in terms of coaching for the next game.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, as I won't feel comfortable unless the Celtics win a road game, but I hope you get your jersey!

So what? Atlanta took the Celtics 7 games in the first round in 2008 and then the Celtics won the Finals in 6. Doesn’t mean Atlanta was a better team than the Lakers or would have beaten the Lakers in a series. Milwaukee is a tough, weird matchup because Giannis is so difficult to guard.

Think the difference would be that the Celtics have multiple players that can take a game over offensively, not just make open shots but create the offense, and while I think Vic is great the Celtics are much better equipped to defend him than Cleveland was. Cleveland is a bad defensive team, the Celtics are one of the best and would have multiple guys to throw at go, and are capable of switching almost everything. Vic would certainly score, not suggesting he wouldn’t, but these things are quite often about matchups This is why I think the Pacers are a really good, young team, but need another piece or two.