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20 hours ago

Jason Terry’s 2012-13 Final Grade

  Acquiring any player, whether it’s via trade, free agency, or the draft, comes with an air of uncertainty. The NBA has no guaranteed covenant and all sales are final, no matter how talented, proven, or productive the player may have been in year’s past. But these memories—especially recent ones—often clouds the judgment of a [...]

4
10 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

19
10 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
11 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
12 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
15 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

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Championless: Celtics 111, Hawks 123

Boston Celtics 111 Final
Recap | Box Score
123 Atlanta Hawks

Five Things We Saw

  1. This Celtics team, as currently constituted, is not a championship team. That can mean a couple of different things. It could mean that the C’s need new players or it could mean that they just need a change of attitude. I doubt losing like this- in double overtime and relinquishing a 27 point lead- will do anything to help the atmosphere of the locker room. Speaking of, that is probably the last place I’d want to be right now, but I also get debilitating second hand embarrassment.
  2. Every single young and athletic team in the league should go through their schedule, circle the Celtics, and think to themselves, “we’ll win if we run.” The Celtics can’t outrebound younger, athletic teams and they don’t have a prayer of defending guys that leak out in transition. The Hawks just out ran the Celtics in the second half. I don’t even want to think about Sunday’s game against the Heat.
  3. If I were a video coordinator for the Celtics, I would burn any evidence I had of the first half, save for maybe Atlanta’s three point shots. Atlanta nearly shot themselves out of this game by missing wide-open three pointers and the Celtics capitalizing on a poor shooting night. I’d even go as far as to isolate the third quarter and highlight every instance of lackluster defense, poor closeouts, and moments of bad effort. It’s painfully obvious that the Celtics thought they would coast to win this game. To make matters worse, this wasn’t an example where the Celtics realized that the Hawks weren’t going to lay down too late to do anything about it. They realized it in the 3rd quarter, and could not stop them. Instead, they built another lead in the fourth quarter and began coasting again.
  4. The Celtics have zero in the way of late game execution. The Paul Pierce Isolation play has gone from a bad option to a suicide mission.
  5. It’s such a shame to waste good offensive performances from Jeff Green, Courtney Lee, Jason Terry, and Avery Bradley. We’ll get into that more in the grades, which will be up tomorrow.

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