Around The League

[rilamann]

Sucks Butler & Caruso got hurt.

But lets be real here, if every playoff team in the east was at 100% health. Boston would still have a cakewalk to the Finals assuming Boston remains healthy themsevles.

KP having to play playoff intensity games every other day for 2 months in order to win a championship would make me nervous as hell if I was a Celtics fan. But if the Celtics stay healthy, no one in the east is going to even come close to beating them in a best of 7 series.

[soxperry]

Lol so Jimmy isnt MJ this time around. Cool

[JayMKE]

Play in is dumb as hell, at least it showcases Lebron and Zion every year

[Profound23]

If Boston can't win it this year, they're not going to win it.

Everyone on Boston is healthy, facing a bunch of beat up teams. Play in is nice but we had three major injuries in it.

[Siefer]

Drummond just straight trucking his own guy running back might (somehow) be the most clueless thing I've seen him do.

[Plossum]

If Boston can't win it this year, they're not going to win it.

Everyone on Boston is healthy, facing a bunch of beat up teams. Play in is nice but we had three major injuries in it.

I don’t think they’re better than Denver but Denver may get pretty worn down from a tough run in the West. Lakers into PHX/Minn into likely Clips/Dallas will be brutal compared to the cakewalk the Celts will have.

I think you’re right though. It has to happen this year or next for the Cs.

[Profound23]

If Boston can't win it this year, they're not going to win it.

Everyone on Boston is healthy, facing a bunch of beat up teams. Play in is nice but we had three major injuries in it.

I don’t think they’re better than Denver but Denver may get pretty worn down from a tough run in the West. Lakers into PHX/Minn into likely Clips/Dallas will be brutal compared to the cakewalk the Celts will have.

I think you’re right though. It has to happen this year or next for the Cs.

That is what I am saying. Boston is going to have a cake walk through the East, while whoever makes it out of the west is going to be worn out. There is no way Boston shouldn't win the East, and by the time they get there the Celtics will be well rested and ready to bounce on the leftovers of the West.

If they can't win it this year, they are never going to win it with this current roster.

[Turk Nowitzki]

Amazing that when we're the 1 seed we get a broken back Giannis and prime MJ Jimmy Butler. When it's the Celtics they are either going to get to play them without Jimmy or a Bulls team probably without Caruso that is mediocrity personified. We've done a lot wrong but you can't we've also caught way more than our share of bad breaks too. This really might finally be the Celtics year.

[GoldenAntlers]

A part of me thinks Jimmy is full of **** and this is all part of his bs. We shall see.

It crossed my mind less than 2 seconds of him hitting the floor.

[GoldenAntlers]

Lol, of course the Celtics are gonna get either one of these trash Hawks/Bulls teams or an absolutely injury gutted Heat squad. Some real luck of the Irish bull ****.

That's why teams like the 1 seed?

[Ron Swanson]

Lol, of course the Celtics are gonna get either one of these trash Hawks/Bulls teams or an absolutely injury gutted Heat squad. Some real luck of the Irish bull ****.

That's why teams like the 1 seed?

We had the best record in basketball last season and our reward was having to face literally the best team in the conference in the 1st round cuz of flukey play-in shenanigans.

[Ron Swanson]

Also, we had our 2023-24 Boston season in 2020, and a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic robbed us of seeing that squad complete their revenge tour. I just never wanna hear the word "luck" thrown around in regards to the 2021 title ever again. Not when a team like Boston is getting these kind of breaks while having this run of near perfect injury luck the past 2-3 years. Hell, at this point I expect Horford to morph back into an All-Star for the playoffs, and Porzingis to all of a sudden be the league's most durable iron-man for the next half-decade. Why not?

[BUCKnation]

Also, we had our 2023-24 Boston season in 2020, and a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic robbed us of seeing that squad complete their revenge tour. I just never wanna hear the word "luck" thrown around in regards to the 2021 title ever again. Not when a team like Boston is getting these kind of breaks while having this run of near perfect injury luck the past 2-3 years. Hell, at this point I expect Horford to morph back into an All-Star for the playoffs, and Porzingis to all of a sudden be the league's most durable iron-man for the next half-decade. Why not?

Can we have some discussions on KP being basically fully healthy this year, Al finding the fountain of youth over the last 3 years when he looked washed before that, all while their main 3 trade chips this past offseason have played a combined 65 games this year.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Also, we had our 2023-24 Boston season in 2020, and a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic robbed us of seeing that squad complete their revenge tour. I just never wanna hear the word "luck" thrown around in regards to the 2021 title ever again. Not when a team like Boston is getting these kind of breaks while having this run of near perfect injury luck the past 2-3 years. Hell, at this point I expect Horford to morph back into an All-Star for the playoffs, and Porzingis to all of a sudden be the league's most durable iron-man for the next half-decade. Why not?

Yeah, 2021 was "luck" in that we were a Top 3 team for 5 years and got one title. Sometimes you have to make your own luck, which we did in 2021, but we didn't in 2019. We had a disabled blake in R1, a young Celtics team under the leadership of Kyrie, and only need to win 2 of the five remaining ECF games to beat a hobbled Warriors team.

[theFireBlanket]

Drummond just straight trucking his own guy running back might (somehow) be the most clueless thing I've seen him do.

Looked like he was even intentionally doing it.

[Ron Swanson]

Also, we had our 2023-24 Boston season in 2020, and a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic robbed us of seeing that squad complete their revenge tour. I just never wanna hear the word "luck" thrown around in regards to the 2021 title ever again. Not when a team like Boston is getting these kind of breaks while having this run of near perfect injury luck the past 2-3 years. Hell, at this point I expect Horford to morph back into an All-Star for the playoffs, and Porzingis to all of a sudden be the league's most durable iron-man for the next half-decade. Why not?

Yeah, 2021 was "luck" in that we were a Top 3 team for 5 years and got one title. Sometimes you have to make your own luck, which we did in 2021, but we didn't in 2019. We had a disabled blake in R1, a young Celtics team under the leadership of Kyrie, and only need to win 2 of the five remaining ECF games to beat a hobbled Warriors team.

Yep, 2019 is still the only year you can really point to and say that we should have had another title, but "butterfly effect" also applies and if we win that year we probably don't make the Jrue trade, therefore 2021 doesn't happen. The final 2-minutes of Game 3 in the 2019 ECF, and the final 3-minutes of the 2023 Bulls/Heat play-in game will be studied for years as the two most franchise-altering inflection points of the Giannis era. A fun but depressing "what-if" exercise if literally any one of a million different things bounces our way.

[chonestown]

Old dudes get hurt and people with extensive injury histories more likely to get injured. Any team projections that forsake accounting for health are as valuable as BOGO coupons to Hot n' Now OR the 2023-24 Phoenix Suns are a Scoring Juggernaut We Have Never Witnessed OR the famous prequel the Durant-Harden-Kryie Trio is the Most Explosive Conglomeration Ever to Lace'em Up.

And to extend this to the home team, the Bucks have championship-level high-end talent but crosslisting age to health to injury history, I'll be damned if the word "rickety" is not app of pro.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Also, we had our 2023-24 Boston season in 2020, and a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic robbed us of seeing that squad complete their revenge tour. I just never wanna hear the word "luck" thrown around in regards to the 2021 title ever again. Not when a team like Boston is getting these kind of breaks while having this run of near perfect injury luck the past 2-3 years. Hell, at this point I expect Horford to morph back into an All-Star for the playoffs, and Porzingis to all of a sudden be the league's most durable iron-man for the next half-decade. Why not?

Yeah, 2021 was "luck" in that we were a Top 3 team for 5 years and got one title. Sometimes you have to make your own luck, which we did in 2021, but we didn't in 2019. We had a disabled blake in R1, a young Celtics team under the leadership of Kyrie, and only need to win 2 of the five remaining ECF games to beat a hobbled Warriors team.

Yep, 2019 is still the only year you can really point to and say that we should have had another title, but "butterfly effect" also applies and if we win that year we probably don't make the Jrue trade, therefore 2021 doesn't happen. The final 2-minutes of Game 3 in the 2019 ECF, and the final 3-minutes of the 2023 Bulls/Heat play-in game will be studied for years as the two most franchise-altering inflection points of the Giannis era. A fun but depressing "what-if" exercise if literally any one of a million different things bounces our way.

Yeah but if we win and we don't make that Jrue trade, and Jrue gets traded to the Jazz, Rudy doesn't have that press conference and COVID never happens. We would be on our sixth title using the picks from the Jrue trade on a prime Dame.

[Matches Malone]

Read on Twitter

[fan230]

Brad Stevens is projected to be the Executive of the year. He was a great coach for the Celtics and now a great GM. He is just very smart. The Celtics made great decisions; we did the opposite, especially this year.

The result is wide open for everyone to see.