SEASON OPENER – Celtics @ Knicks – Wed. 7:00PM, Oct. 25, 2023

[lon3lytoaster]

Tommy Beer @TommyBeer
about 13 minutes ago

Tonight, Jalen Brunson will become the first #Knicks point guard to start on opening night in two consecutive seasons since Chris Duhon in 2008-09

https://x.com/KnicksMuse/status/1717178788906213470

Ouch!

They also hadn’t had a rookie sign an extension in 25 years I saw last week on Twitter somewhere. What a weird, wildly disorganized franchise

[KamikazeK]

You guys!!

It's almost time for the big game.

Wait. What game?

The big one.

[ConstableGeneva]

Wild stat.

Read on Twitter

[Homerclease]

Feels like yesterday we’d be 40 pages deep in a game thread by now.

[ConstableGeneva]

I wanna see Lamar Stevens have that GP2 role for the Warriors and Okogie role for the Suns. He can find a place in the rotation imo. Not everyone Joe plays needs to be an outside threat on offense.

[Shak_Celts]

I wanna see Lamar Stevens have that GP2 role for the Warriors and Okogie role for the Suns. He can find a place in the rotation imo. Not everyone Joe plays needs to be an outside threat on offense.

I jinxed all my binkies... let's hope he gets a chance.

[lon3lytoaster]

I wanna see Lamar Stevens have that GP2 role for the Warriors and Okogie role for the Suns. He can find a place in the rotation imo. Not everyone Joe plays needs to be an outside threat on offense.

For sure. You’ll be hard pressed to find a lineup that doesn’t include shooting this year so having a balance of grit and defense would be great especially for the bench guys like Hauser and Pritchard who aren’t exactly known for their defense

[ConstableGeneva]

Kelly Olynyk crawled so Kristaps Porzingis could run. Let us all not forget that.

[ConstableGeneva]

I wanna see Lamar Stevens have that GP2 role for the Warriors and Okogie role for the Suns. He can find a place in the rotation imo. Not everyone Joe plays needs to be an outside threat on offense.

For sure. You’ll be hard pressed to find a lineup that doesn’t include shooting this year so having a balance of grit and defense would be great especially for the bench guys like Hauser and Pritchard who aren’t exactly known for their defense

I wanna see Lamar play with starter-heavy lineups. Tatum can carry the PP-Hauser bench lineups with DWhite. Let Lamar roll with something like Jrue-JB-Horford-KP. Whew.

[ConstableGeneva]

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This will only be Horford's 11th game (out of 1,014 RS games) coming off the bench.

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Everything Luke Kornet represents, basically.

[lon3lytoaster]

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This will only be Horford's 11th game (out of 1,014 RS games) coming off the bench.

Read on Twitter

Everything Luke Kornet represents, basically.

Hopefully at least something he can take in stride. He’s pretty clearly not happy about it but hasn’t complained either. It just makes sense, unfortunate for him

[bisme37]

ESPN opening their Celtics pregame with the Lakers as usual.

[ConstableGeneva]

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Horford only came off the bench during his rookie year (4 games) and that weird year with the Sixers (6 games). Vet setting an example of sacrifice for everyone else.

[Parliament10]

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[Celts17Pride]

ESPN opening their Celtics pregame with the Lakers as usual.

Lakers suck!

[Parliament10]

[Hal14]

I wanna see Lamar Stevens have that GP2 role for the Warriors and Okogie role for the Suns. He can find a place in the rotation imo. Not everyone Joe plays needs to be an outside threat on offense.

For sure. You’ll be hard pressed to find a lineup that doesn’t include shooting this year so having a balance of grit and defense would be great especially for the bench guys like Hauser and Pritchard who aren’t exactly known for their defense

I wanna see Lamar play with starter-heavy lineups. Tatum can carry the PP-Hauser bench lineups with DWhite. Let Lamar roll with something like Jrue-JB-Horford-KP. Whew.

Agreed for the most part. But that would maybe put too much handling / play initiating responsibility on JB.

That becomes less of an issue if we keep at least 2 (1 primary and 1 secondary ball handler) of these guys on the floor at a time: Tatum, White, Jrue, Pritchard, banton.

That's (ability to be a primary or secondary ball handler) is one reason why Banton might get mins over Stevens. He certainly got more mins in the preseason.

With that being said, I'm high on Lamar (as I'm sure everyone here knows by now) so I think it depends on who's playing well, what the matchups are and who the other 4 guys are on the floor. For that 9th man spot (or possibly 8th man if Hauser or Pritchard is slumping) if we need a ball handler out there, put in Banton. Otherwise, put in Stevens.

To your point, I agree that I'd like to see Lamar out there with some of the starters. Since we'd have so much scoring punch on the floor, there wouldn't be any pressure on Lamar to score.

But I also think the same thing is true for Banton - put him out there with some of the starters and he could really shine as well. With all of that offensive firepower and shooters on the floor with him, all that spacing - he would have a field day with being able to get downhill and pressure the rim. And defensively he'd be out there with multiple elite defenders, which means he'd be able to fly around, take chances, jump some passing lanes, go for some deflections and really wreak havoc so we can force some turnovers and get easy baskets on the other end.

[KamikazeK]

Wonder how many casual fans are gonna tune in tonight and be like "where the **** did Smart go??"

[Tatumfor2]

[bfchs123]

Is there an NBC Sports Boston broadcast for the game tonight or just ESPN?