It’s an ever-changing landscape on the trade market right now, with multiple reports coming in that talks between the Celtics and Clippers involving Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers are heating up yet again as we suspected. With an endless flurry of reports and tweets hitting the web at every hour, it’s time to separate the [...]
With the Doc Rivers coaching watch heating up to a fever pitch in the past few days with a countless number of credible reports, we decided it’s time to get our crew back together and address the speculation. 1. On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you Doc Rivers will coach the Celtics next [...]
Despite all the rehab, Rajon Rondo is finding ways to keep busy this offseason. Just a couple weeks after appearing on E!’s Fashion Police show, the point guard was back on TV last night, in a fun segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live called Mean Tweets. In it, celebrities, or in this case NBA players, read [...]
The whispers around Paul Pierce’s future with the Celtics continue to surface in the fourth week of Boston’s offseason. Unconfirmed report after unconfirmed report has circled in, stating anything from Pierce’s house being on the market, to the team being “likely” to buy him out. Locally, plenty of Celtics fans seem resigned to the fact [...]
It was a tough start to the offseason last week for Terrence Williams. After standing out as one of the bright spots on the Celtics roster late last season, he was taken into custody last week with the disturbing allegation that he pulled a gun during a domestic dispute with his son’s mother and her [...]
What has Rajon Rondo been up to this offseason beyond rehabbing his ACL injury? Rubbing elbows with Joan Rivers, that’s what. Just one summer after spending some time showing off his fashion sense in an internship with GQ, Rondo went one-on-one with Rivers on E’s Fashion Police, since well he has some time on his [...]
I hope the Celtics win convincingly tonight. I hope LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have awful games. I hope the Celtics regain their suffocating brand of defense and force Wade and James to brick long jumper after long jumper. I hope the Celtics frustrate the Heat role players so much that they look lost and uncomfortable trying to pass the ball back out to one of their saviors. I hope Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett put up a triple-double and a double-double, respectively. I hope Paul Pierce completely outplays James like he did back in Game 7 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.
I want all this to happen not as a selfish-Celtics’-footy-pajama-wearing green-teamer. I want this all to happen because I can’t wait to see the narrative shift that happens in its aftermath; the complete 180 the media will do if the Celtics dominate tonight- ourselves included.
To this point, it’s not really our fault that we’ve gone completely off the deep end to favor the Heat. LeBron James and Co finished off the Pacers fairly easily in 6 games while the Celtics struggled to beat Philadelphia in 7. Kevin Garnett has slowly regressed from the dominant force he was to start the playoffs and Ray Allen has completely disappeared. Meanwhile, James and Wade have continued their streak of stellar play against a much better defensive team than Indiana and perhaps even played their most efficient offensive games of the playoffs in Game 1.
I don’t want this to continue. I want to see a good, competitive series. I want people to stop writing teams off after one game. I want people to stop making little things into these big statements about a whole series, a whole team, a whole season, or a whole era. Like this:
For the past two days, this moment was seen as LeBron James laughing at Kevin Garnett as if to say, “there is nothing you can do to stop me.” What I saw LIVE and what I still see now is James taking a hard foul and then extending the ball to the official and repeating the word “Ed” for the official Ed Malloy (even though Jason Phillips ends up taking it). Is there gamesmanship here? Sure. But when everyone decided to see James mocking the big bad bully Garnett, I saw James trying to tattle.
Look! Ed! Look what he’s doing! He’s taunting!
If you knew James, you’d know he doesn’t get in people’s faces like that and laugh at them. He let’s his game do the talking in the trenches and showboats when he’s completely alone on the break. Aside from throwing a cowardly elbow and then playing it off like nothing happened, James completely avoids confrontation.
The moment captured in the video wasn’t even what prompted Rondo to suggest that the Celtics need to play with more toughness. It was the ease to which James and Wade got to the rim and finished. Protecting the rim is a big reason why the Celtics have seen so much success in the big three era. I would hate to have tonight’s game tarnished by quick whistles resulting from what seems like an obvious gameplan from the Celtics.
Quick whistles will also beget moments like this:
To take the physicality out of this series would be to end it before it began. And that flop embarrassing.
Please note: this preview is not meant to be a complete takedown of LeBron James. He is the best player in the world. Head and shoulders above everyone else. Which means he doesn’t need to do the things that make people dislike him so very much.
From the Celtics perspective, a few things need to happen in order for the C’s to win tonight:
The defense has to return and protect dribble penetration. The Celtics had long stretches where they couldn’t stop any member of the Heat. The Celtics are much better on the pick and roll and are a much better defensive rebounding team. The must show it.
Kevin Garnett needs to establish himself on the block early and often regardless of who is guarding him.
The Celtics need something, anything, from Ray Allen and Mickael Pietrus other than just slowing down Wade.
Doc Rivers cannot over-extend Pierce and Garnett. Rivers diverted pretty sharply from Garnett’s 5-5-5 plan in Game 1 and it resulted in Garnett being completely useless on the perimeter in the fourth quarter.
I won’t even dare to predict the outcome of this game.
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