Warriors have championship experience and that's the main difference in this series. Celtics could have won both games 4 and 5, but they just kept failing to execute. Celtics are more athletic and should be hungrier but unfortunately they play stupid basketball, especially offensively.
I get that Marcus Smart has a size/power advantage over Curry and Poole, but I don't understand why he initiates the offense and shoots the ball basically as much as Tatum and Jaylen Brown. I get that part of the Celtics turnaround in January was evolving into more team centric play. But if he is not that good of offensive player to warrant that lode.
The Celtics' two best players, Tatum and Brown, aren't particularly great ball-handlers, so they struggle to consistently initiate the offense, especially against disruptive defenses who can rip their handle consistently. That's a big reason why they had to evolve into more team-centric play--you can't run a heliocentric offense around someone who doesn't have a great handle, unless (historically--less so these days) it's a dominant post big man. Smart has to carry a lot of the ball-handling duties for the Celtics and he's trying to shoulder some of the load of breaking down the Warriors' defense. He's not a particularly talented initiator, but they need some off-the-dribble juice from someone.
Agree with what you said. Biggest issue is bad timing for Smart to be careless with the ball. During the regular season he had a near 3:1 assist to TO ratio which is very good. This series he’s got 21 assists and 16 turnovers. That’s not good enough and it ain’t gonna cut it for your pg/primary ball handler.
Tatum and Brown are only 24 & 25. They are still improving and IMO haven't reached their peak yet. Many NBA stars don't reach their peak until their age 25+ season (Curry, Giannis, Kawhi, Harden, Dame). And while Tatum's play-making has improved significantly this year it'll get even better by the time he is 25 to 28. Even if they lose this series, Boston's is going to be problem that'll only get better for a long while.
Agree with you, but they really shot themselves in the foot by trying to compete too early. They should have tanked for a couple years and surrounded Tatum and Brown with young guys. They got lucky with Robert Williams but other than Smart, RW, Tatum and Brown the rest of their roster are old ass vets. They're gonns need to find replacements for those guys if they want to keep competing.
Regardless, you start to realize how underwhelming the Rockets approach was during the recent contending years. While the Warriors and Heat can make stars off high picks like Wiggins and Herro that were vulnerable of being 'washed' before their time, the Rockets couldn't do that and would have them castaway prematurely. I wonder if they are already screwing up the Jalen Green project with the inadequate staff for training and culture? Not just the development but how can you win with just hustle and not athleticism and length? Just all around terrible with what Harden had to work with.
Morey went all in trading all the picks away to surround Harden with vets. We had no back up plans essentially. Morey was also pretty mediocre with our first round picks, none really contributed except for Capela.
yup and they have young rotational players for depth in white, williams, pritchard. Boston is a perennial contender for years to come. They don't need to grab old vet min scrubs for depth like another owner forced his team to do cause
Coaching matters. I've been saying that all along time and time again. Kerr and the Warriors are a great example of coaching and how much it can matter. Not only getting good play out of Wiggins but developing players like Green who (in his own words) wouldn't even be in the NBA if it weren't for Kerr.
So, it's Kerr that intervenes when the league should ban Draymond for sending a player to the emergency room for testicle repair, attempted eye gouging to the point of bleeding amongst numerous unethical non-basketball rough play?
I think that's the thing. Tanking. I don't actually agree with you. They are in contention right now just because they chose to instill a winning culture with their team. Once you got at least 2 good pieces, that's where you improvise each year. You're correct though that they need replacements of some of their parts but winning as soon as possible is also imperative. You don't want to end like 76ers. Too much losing also affects the mindset of players. Winning also helps keep retain those good players eventually.
outside of horford there roster is littered with guys in their 20s. and hes clearly shown hes a rotational player in the role hes in. no idea where this silly idea boston is old is coming from. it's horford and theis who doesn't even play that are 36 and 30. that's literally it
If that's really the case, why won't the owners and the players complain? Players got their union. I'm not sure if you're not barking at the wrong tree here.
We don’t know how the 76ers would have ended up had silver not decimated the franchise. It’s completely unfair to say the process failed because it got obliterated half way through. The astros went full process and set records for losing, yet when the talent was there to win it didn’t seem to bother them that they lost all those games
Yes it did! With that many losing years, then settling for Harden, that's surely is a failure. Again, there's a limit on how much you can lose. 3 straight years? There will be some exceptions but I'm not sure you want to gamble.
How do you know it would have been a failure if silver hadn’t intervened and destroyed them? Do you have a magic 8 ball or something?
If the league won't allow one of its member franchises to quit competing for many years, then it's not a strategy you can employ in the real world.
