Am I the only one who thinks Toronto will go to the Finals?

[YogurtProducer]

Lol. You guys are so gullible. Nick Nurse loves JV, so that means JV is going to score more than 6 ppg against the Celtics. Right. I'm not sure how my team is going to handle the Lithuanian Hakeem Olajuwon. Very worried about him.

uh huh.

last year, head to head:

TOR: 100.0ppg (46.4%)
BOS: 93.4ppg (39.9%)

Regular season? Whoop-dee-doo!!!

Last year, head to head:
TOR: 122.7 ppg (49.3%)
CLE: 114.3 ppg (48.7%)

Playoffs:
[img]cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/53314747/sweep_3.0.gif[/img]

This is such a dumb thread but you really shouldn’t compare a team with LBJ to Boston. Just saying

[L3GEND4RY]

lol you sound salty you didn't get him- Celtics tried trading Irving for him sooooo yeah

Yeah, they actually didn’t. But keep reaching.

Pretty sure we hear it's the team that has Lebron on it.

Don't worry though, you'll get a chance this year as well.

Talk about “salty”.

LOL yet you continue posting on a raps related thread. Its okay though, you can continue posting on here.

I didn’t realize this was the Raptors Board and not the General Board.

Someone come get their mans some tissues.

[everdiso]

Lol. You guys are so gullible. Nick Nurse loves JV, so that means JV is going to score more than 6 ppg against the Celtics. Right. I'm not sure how my team is going to handle the Lithuanian Hakeem Olajuwon. Very worried about him.

uh huh.

last year, head to head:

TOR: 100.0ppg (46.4%)
BOS: 93.4ppg (39.9%)

Regular season? Whoop-dee-doo!!!

Last year, head to head:
TOR: 122.7 ppg (49.3%)
CLE: 114.3 ppg (48.7%)

Playoffs:
[img]cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/53314747/sweep_3.0.gif[/img]

Last Year in Playoffs (previous playoffs for injured players):

Lowry: 19.9per, 65.9ts%
Demar: 16.3per, 51.1ts% ----> Wright: 18.0per, 57.3ts%
OG: 12.7per, 69.5ts%
Ibaka: 10.9per, 53.3ts% ----> Kawhi: 31.5per, 67.2ts%
Jonas: 25.2per, 59.9ts%

Kicking the two playoff chokers out of the starting lineup will be a nice help.

Rozier: 17.3per, 53.8ts% ----> Kyrie: 21.3per, 57.3ts%
Brown: 16.0per, 56.3ts%
Tatum: 16.2per, 57.8ts%
Baynes: 15.6per, 58.8ts% ----> Hayward: 20.7per, 59.8ts%
Horford: 20.1per, 63.1ts%


side by side, most recent playoffs:

Lowry: 19.9per, 65.9ts% ----- Kyrie: 21.3per, 57.3ts%
Wright: 18.0per, 57.3ts% ---- Brown: 16.0per, 56.3ts%
Kawhi: 31.5per, 67.2ts% ----- Hayward: 20.7per, 59.8ts%
OG: 12.7per, 69.5ts% -------- Tatum: 16.2per, 57.8ts%
Jonas: 25.2per, 59.9ts% ----- Horford: 20.1per, 63.1ts%

[droopdog7]

Are you forgetting how TERRIBLE Boston's offense was, even WITH Kyrie????

Toronto has:

- A 2 time DPOY
- An excellent vet 3+D man
- A PG who is always at the top of the league in WinShare, DRPM and RPM
- A second year player who was statistically elite defensively
- A 3 year year player who was statistically elite defensively
- A long, athletic combo guard who can effectively guard 3 positions
- A bulldog backup PG who along with Lowry and Chris Paul are the only 3 PGs in the league that rank at elite levels in defense and 3 point shooting
- An end of the bench guard with a 6'11" wingspan who has successfully defended guys like Paul George and Middleton in the playoffs...


Like ... give me a break

You guys don’t understand what matchups are about. Matchups typically are about mismatches. Does one team have an advantages that has a ripple affect on the other team? Toronto has none over the Celtics. So it comes down to the better, more we’ll-rounded team. Celtics much more versatile offensively and THEY, not the raptors had the best defense last year.

Are the Celtics really that much more versatile on the offensive end? I'd argue that the Raptors are even more versatile now than they were last year when they were the 3rd ranked offence. They have quite a few high IQ players that provide a lot of shooting and playmaking.

Also, who is shutting down Kawhi in a series? That's a mismatch in the Raptors' favour.

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Offensively I’d say yes. The celts have four guys that can go off for 30 any given game. Four guys that can break the defense down. They also have two guys in brown and Tatum that should be demonstrably better than they were last year.

And the individual defensive matchups noted earlier don’t mean much to me. We know that good to great offense beats good defense all day long. And like I said, the celts had the #1 defense last year anyway.

[Son Goku 25]

His name is Van Vleet not Vanfleet. And the fact that you don't know anything about them, and don't think they are elite defenders says more about your lack of knowledge than anything else.

Toronto was top 3 in offense and top 5 in defense. This year, they'll still be elite offensively, and will be right there as the #1 defense. Mark my words.

Watch on YouTube

Ok Captain Bandwagon

Don't give this guy anymore attention.

Throwback destroyed him on the Celtics board. I'm surprised he wasn't banned for his own goodness by not embarrassing himself anymore.

Raps nor Celtic fans want him on their board lmao

[Moose23]

Watch on YouTube

Ok Captain Bandwagon

Don't give this guy anymore attention.

Throwback destroyed him on the Celtics board. I'm surprised he wasn't banned for his own goodness by not embarrassing himself anymore.

Raps nor Celtic fans want him on their board lmao

You guys just cannot keep my name out your mouths.

It ok though, everyone needs someone to look up to.

Let me be a shining example of how you can finally leave a poorly run franchise, finally go back home to a welcoming place with history, nostalgia and a future as bright as the sun.

Dont settle for what is being peddled to you.

[Baller1234a]

Do you have a go fund me page?

Cause we know you aint making ends meet

Sent from my LG-H831 using Tapatalk

If you are talking about matchups, Lowry is definitely a problematic matchup for Irving, Anunoby is literally tailor-made to defend someone like Tatum (long, not too bulky, quick on his feet), and Kawhi is obviously a huge matchup problem on both ends of the floor for any of your otherwise really good perimeter guys. I would even bring up Siakam against Horford, as the latter has a history of being outworked, rather than outclassed in the playoffs. I don't see any clear matchup advantages for the Celtics if both teams roll out their best small ball lineup.

Lowry-Irving
Green-Brown
Kawhi-Hayward
Anunoby-Tatum
Siakam-Horford

The Celtics have more talent, but they don't have anyone like Kawhi, and that can be absolutely huge. There was literally ONE team in the last 40 years that won a championship without a Top 30 all-time guy (or without someone who was on their way there), and that team was the Pistons, a huge anomaly on its own. I wouldn't write off your MVP, Brad Stevens, but it's not going to be easy if Kawhi is 100% healthy and motivated. That is a big if, I admit, but that is the presumption OP made, so we went from there.

Kawhi obviously is a good matchup for either Brown / Hayward / Tatum. Let’s assume he takes Hayward. In the 2016 - 2017 season (when they were both healthy) + Kawhi and Hayward’s breakout years Kawhi averaged 19.5 points (down from 25.5) and Hayward averaged 15 points (down from 21.1 points). It’s an advantage sure but not a massive one. Their carreer stats are very similar with Hayward even having an edge in scoring. Next is Tatum - OG. In theory OG would be a good counter but due to the fact Tatum was so polished as a rookie he averaged 12.25 down from 13.9 (marginal difference) while OG averged 5.25 on pretty bad shooting. That’s a massive advantage mostly due to efficiency and raw totals. Now the biggest matchup (imo) the bigs. Horford vs Siakam. Siakam big problem is post defense and Horford can kill him in the post where he was very efficient last year. Plus that Raptors team has NO rim protection.They traded away their best rim protector in Poetl. Now as for Danny Green vs Jaylen Brown Jaylen averaged 16.5 points be him last year and Danny averaged 6.5 in two games.

In conclusion,
Brown - Green (Brown by a lot - 10 points on better effeciency)
Hayward - Kawhi (Kawhi by a bit - 4.5 points on same efficiency)
Tatum - OG (Tatum by a lot - 7 on better efficiency)
Horford - Siakam (No head to head stats that are reliable as Siakam didn’t start but Siakam is too weak to handle Horford)
Example http://www.nba.com/video/2018/03/31/0021701140-tor-bos-play-5

Those are the matchups that seem to be the most misinformed. Kawhi doesn’t have a great advantage over Hayward Head to Head (not in a vacuum) plus overall in their careers and even in Kawhi MVP like season Hayward matched or came close to him. Then they value Danny Green a lot but he fell off last year on both sides of the ball. Then the biggest to me is thinking they can go small ball with no rim protector (ala Horford / Draymond) or match up Siakam on Horford. At the very least it has to be Ibaka.


Plus we have Brad.

[OGLife]

It’s quite obvious Celtic fans are blind to the impact Kahwi will make on our offence and defence v. DeMar.

I’ll start with the easy part. Kawhi is twice the defender that DeMar is. Kawhi can match up against anyone on defence and shut his man down. He shut down a prime LBJ who had Wade and Bosh as his teammates. Having a guy on the court who can shut down your best guy makes every other teammate’s responsibilities easier. So on any given night, If it’s Kyrie, Tatum or Hayward, one of them will be shut down. Which makes match ups like Lowry v. Kyrie and OG v. Hayward interesting. The only one that would scare me is Kyrie. I like OG taking care of Hayward or even Brown (who doesn’t excite me).

Now on offence. If you’re a Raptors fan, you understand how DeMar’s strengths make it easier to guard the Raptors AS A WHOLE. DeMar is a clock killer. He kills the flow of an offence. He lacks the iq to see the holes on defence when defenders start rotating to him. Kawhi is the complete opposite. Let’s just leave it at that.

The Celtics weak spot is how their big men rotate. They always rotate to the ball handler leaving the middle of their defence open for guys like JV and Siakam. Horford is an overrated defender. Yeah, bite me.

I was always yelling at my tv any time we would get away from JV in the pass and allow DeMar to tally up his shots. That won’t happen moving forward.

The Celtics do have some good defenders. Smart, Tatum, Brown...Kyrie? However, their post defence is weak all together.

We have the defence which will allow us to slow things down on offence and move the ball around to work a team’s defence. This is the very reason why we can finally beat these fast pace offences who go small ball (Warriors and Cavs last year).

All and all, it will be a very good victory for the Raptors.

[Moose23]

Do you have a go fund me page?

Cause we know you aint making ends meet

Sent from my LG-H831 using Tapatalk

If you are talking about matchups, Lowry is definitely a problematic matchup for Irving, Anunoby is literally tailor-made to defend someone like Tatum (long, not too bulky, quick on his feet), and Kawhi is obviously a huge matchup problem on both ends of the floor for any of your otherwise really good perimeter guys. I would even bring up Siakam against Horford, as the latter has a history of being outworked, rather than outclassed in the playoffs. I don't see any clear matchup advantages for the Celtics if both teams roll out their best small ball lineup.

Lowry-Irving
Green-Brown
Kawhi-Hayward
Anunoby-Tatum
Siakam-Horford

The Celtics have more talent, but they don't have anyone like Kawhi, and that can be absolutely huge. There was literally ONE team in the last 40 years that won a championship without a Top 30 all-time guy (or without someone who was on their way there), and that team was the Pistons, a huge anomaly on its own. I wouldn't write off your MVP, Brad Stevens, but it's not going to be easy if Kawhi is 100% healthy and motivated. That is a big if, I admit, but that is the presumption OP made, so we went from there.

Kawhi obviously is a good matchup for either Brown / Hayward / Tatum. Let’s assume he takes Hayward. In the 2016 - 2017 season (when they were both healthy) + Kawhi and Hayward’s breakout years Kawhi averaged 19.5 points (down from 25.5) and Hayward averaged 15 points (down from 21.1 points). It’s an advantage sure but not a massive one. Their carreer stats are very similar with Hayward even having an edge in scoring. Next is Tatum - OG. In theory OG would be a good counter but due to the fact Tatum was so polished as a rookie he averaged 12.25 down from 13.9 (marginal difference) while OG averged 5.25 on pretty bad shooting. That’s a massive advantage mostly due to efficiency and raw totals. Now the biggest matchup (imo) the bigs. Horford vs Siakam. Siakam big problem is post defense and Horford can kill him in the post where he was very efficient last year. Plus that Raptors team has NO rim protection.They traded away their best rim protector in Poetl. Now as for Danny Green vs Jaylen Brown Jaylen averaged 16.5 points be him last year and Danny averaged 6.5 in two games.

In conclusion,
Brown - Green (Brown by a lot - 10 points on better effeciency)
Hayward - Kawhi (Kawhi by a bit - 4.5 points on same efficiency)
Tatum - OG (Tatum by a lot - 7 on better efficiency)
Horford - Siakam (No head to head stats that are reliable as Siakam didn’t start but Siakam is too weak to handle Horford)
Example http://www.nba.com/video/2018/03/31/0021701140-tor-bos-play-5

Those are the matchups that seem to be the most misinformed. Kawhi doesn’t have a great advantage over Hayward Head to Head (not in a vacuum) plus overall in their careers and even in Kawhi MVP like season Hayward matched or came close to him. Then they value Danny Green a lot but he fell off last year on both sides of the ball. Then the biggest to me is thinking they can go small ball with no rim protector (ala Horford / Draymond) or match up Siakam on Horford. At the very least it has to be Ibaka.


Plus we have Brad.

Great post

Sent from my LG-H831 using Tapatalk

[Baller1234a]

It’s quite obvious Celtic fans are blind to the impact Kahwi will make on our offence and defence v. DeMar.

I’ll start with the easy part. Kawhi is twice the defender that DeMar is. Kawhi can match up against anyone on defence and shut his man down. He shut down a prime LBJ who had Wade and Bosh as his teammates. Having a guy on the court who can shut down your best guy makes every other teammate’s responsibilities easier. So on any given night, If it’s Kyrie, Tatum or Hayward, one of them will be shut down. Which makes match ups like Lowry v. Kyrie and OG v. Hayward interesting. The only one that would scare me is Kyrie. I like OG taking care of Hayward or even Brown (who doesn’t excite me).

Now on offence. If you’re a Raptors fan, you understand how DeMar’s strengths make it easier to guard the Raptors AS A WHOLE. DeMar is a clock killer. He kills the flow of an offence. He lacks the iq to see the holes on defence when defenders start rotating to him. Kawhi is the complete opposite. Let’s just leave it at that.

The Celtics weak spot is how their big men rotate. They always rotate to the ball handler leaving the middle of their defence open for guys like JV and Siakam. Horford is an overrated defender. Yeah, bite me.

I was always yelling at my tv any time we would get away from JV in the pass and allow DeMar to tally up his shots. That won’t happen moving forward.

The Celtics do have some good defenders. Smart, Tatum, Brown...Kyrie? However, their post defence is weak all together.

We have the defence which will allow us to slow things down on offence and move the ball around to work a team’s defence. This is the very reason why we can finally beat these fast pace offences who go small ball (Warriors and Cavs last year).

All and all, it will be a very good victory for the Raptors.

1. Celtics like to play slow (check out the pace from last year)
2.Good Defenders Smart Tatum Brown Horford Morris Baynes Thies Ojeyele OK defenders Kyrie Rozier Hayward (was good in UTA)
3.Celtics were 11 in points allowed in paint so you really can’t say that’s a weakness on the other hand Toronto was 18th and traded their best rim protector (Poetl) so expect that to be worse.

[Asif16]

Ok Captain Bandwagon

Don't give this guy anymore attention.

Throwback destroyed him on the Celtics board. I'm surprised he wasn't banned for his own goodness by not embarrassing himself anymore.

Raps nor Celtic fans want him on their board lmao

You guys just cannot keep my name out your mouths.

It ok though, everyone needs someone to look up to.

Let me be a shining example of how you can finally leave a poorly run franchise, finally go back home to a welcoming place with history, nostalgia and a future as bright as the sun.

Dont settle for what is being peddled to you.

lol do Celtics fans even accept your bandwagon ass? Your life is so fake is laughable. It make sense you chose to dickride the celtics

[pingpongrac]

You guys don’t understand what matchups are about. Matchups typically are about mismatches. Does one team have an advantages that has a ripple affect on the other team? Toronto has none over the Celtics. So it comes down to the better, more we’ll-rounded team. Celtics much more versatile offensively and THEY, not the raptors had the best defense last year.

Are the Celtics really that much more versatile on the offensive end? I'd argue that the Raptors are even more versatile now than they were last year when they were the 3rd ranked offence. They have quite a few high IQ players that provide a lot of shooting and playmaking.

Also, who is shutting down Kawhi in a series? That's a mismatch in the Raptors' favour.

Sent from my LG-H831 using RealGM mobile app

Offensively I’d say yes. The celts have four guys that can go off for 30 any given game. Four guys that can break the defense down. They also have two guys in brown and Tatum that should be demonstrably better than they were last year.

And the individual defensive matchups noted earlier don’t mean much to me. We know that good to great offense beats good defense all day long. And like I said, the celts had the #1 defense last year anyway.

Who are these four players that can go off for 30 any given game? Tatum and Brown will likely improve (maybe not box score stat-wise with Hayward coming "back" into the picture), but they only combined for three 30-point games all of last year - and all three were from Brown. Irving and Hayward are the main threats to go for 30+ points. Leonard and Lowry can go for 30 too (Lowry only did 3 times last season, but most nights he didn't have to score more than 10-15 points because the bench was so good) on the Raptors' side of things. Valanciunas isn't near as big of a threat to go for 30 as Brown/Tatum, but the Raptors have more offensive weapons on the bench to put up 10-15 with ease.

If a "good to great offence beats good defence," why will the Celtics be able to score on the Raptors, but the Raptors - who have consistently been one of the best offences in the entire league for the past five years - struggle to score on the Celtics? You're contradicting yourself with that bit.

BOS: 1st DEF (101.5) / 18th OFF (105.2)
TOR: 5th DEF (103.4) / 3rd OFF (111.0)

Hayward improves the Celtics offensively, but the defence will (at best) stay the same or be a bit worse. On Toronto's end, it's not unreasonable to think Leonard and Green (and Nurse having free reign to run the offence) will improve Toronto's already elite offence and they are both MUCH better defenders than DeRozan.

[Troubadour]

All the questions concerning Kawhi's health apply doubly to Kyrie and Gordon Hayward. Kawhi took the season off to get healthy. Kyrie had surgery fairly recently and Hayward had a significant injury.

[OGLife]

It’s quite obvious Celtic fans are blind to the impact Kahwi will make on our offence and defence v. DeMar.

I’ll start with the easy part. Kawhi is twice the defender that DeMar is. Kawhi can match up against anyone on defence and shut his man down. He shut down a prime LBJ who had Wade and Bosh as his teammates. Having a guy on the court who can shut down your best guy makes every other teammate’s responsibilities easier. So on any given night, If it’s Kyrie, Tatum or Hayward, one of them will be shut down. Which makes match ups like Lowry v. Kyrie and OG v. Hayward interesting. The only one that would scare me is Kyrie. I like OG taking care of Hayward or even Brown (who doesn’t excite me).

Now on offence. If you’re a Raptors fan, you understand how DeMar’s strengths make it easier to guard the Raptors AS A WHOLE. DeMar is a clock killer. He kills the flow of an offence. He lacks the iq to see the holes on defence when defenders start rotating to him. Kawhi is the complete opposite. Let’s just leave it at that.

The Celtics weak spot is how their big men rotate. They always rotate to the ball handler leaving the middle of their defence open for guys like JV and Siakam. Horford is an overrated defender. Yeah, bite me.

I was always yelling at my tv any time we would get away from JV in the pass and allow DeMar to tally up his shots. That won’t happen moving forward.

The Celtics do have some good defenders. Smart, Tatum, Brown...Kyrie? However, their post defence is weak all together.

We have the defence which will allow us to slow things down on offence and move the ball around to work a team’s defence. This is the very reason why we can finally beat these fast pace offences who go small ball (Warriors and Cavs last year).

All and all, it will be a very good victory for the Raptors.

1. Celtics like to play slow (check out the pace from last year)
2.Good Defenders Smart Tatum Brown Horford Morris Baynes Thies Ojeyele OK defenders Kyrie Rozier Hayward (was good in UTA)
3.Celtics were 11 in points allowed in paint so you really can’t say that’s a weakness on the other hand Toronto was 18th and traded their best rim protector (Poetl) so expect that to be worse.

1. I didn’t really mention the Celtics as a fast pace team. That may change with Kyrie being back. Y’all need to get over your obsessions for Rozier.

2. I love how no one on the roster is a bad defender.

3. Val is a solid rim protector. He won’t get you the blocks you want. However, he gets the job done. I’m sure Val was rated higher.

All in all, Horford, Morris and the rest of your big men are not ‘good’ defenders.

[ropjhk]

On paper Toronto looks like the 2nd best team in the NBA assuming everyone is healthy. Boston is a close 3rd. Looking forward to seeing those two teams battle it out in the ECF.

[Baller1234a]

It’s quite obvious Celtic fans are blind to the impact Kahwi will make on our offence and defence v. DeMar.

I’ll start with the easy part. Kawhi is twice the defender that DeMar is. Kawhi can match up against anyone on defence and shut his man down. He shut down a prime LBJ who had Wade and Bosh as his teammates. Having a guy on the court who can shut down your best guy makes every other teammate’s responsibilities easier. So on any given night, If it’s Kyrie, Tatum or Hayward, one of them will be shut down. Which makes match ups like Lowry v. Kyrie and OG v. Hayward interesting. The only one that would scare me is Kyrie. I like OG taking care of Hayward or even Brown (who doesn’t excite me).

Now on offence. If you’re a Raptors fan, you understand how DeMar’s strengths make it easier to guard the Raptors AS A WHOLE. DeMar is a clock killer. He kills the flow of an offence. He lacks the iq to see the holes on defence when defenders start rotating to him. Kawhi is the complete opposite. Let’s just leave it at that.

The Celtics weak spot is how their big men rotate. They always rotate to the ball handler leaving the middle of their defence open for guys like JV and Siakam. Horford is an overrated defender. Yeah, bite me.

I was always yelling at my tv any time we would get away from JV in the pass and allow DeMar to tally up his shots. That won’t happen moving forward.

The Celtics do have some good defenders. Smart, Tatum, Brown...Kyrie? However, their post defence is weak all together.

We have the defence which will allow us to slow things down on offence and move the ball around to work a team’s defence. This is the very reason why we can finally beat these fast pace offences who go small ball (Warriors and Cavs last year).

All and all, it will be a very good victory for the Raptors.

1. Celtics like to play slow (check out the pace from last year)
2.Good Defenders Smart Tatum Brown Horford Morris Baynes Thies Ojeyele OK defenders Kyrie Rozier Hayward (was good in UTA)
3.Celtics were 11 in points allowed in paint so you really can’t say that’s a weakness on the other hand Toronto was 18th and traded their best rim protector (Poetl) so expect that to be worse.

1. I didn’t really mention the Celtics as a fast pace team. That may change with Kyrie being back. Y’all need to get over your obsessions for Rozier.

2. I love how no one on the roster is a bad defender.

3. Val is a solid rim protector. He won’t get you the blocks you want. However, he gets the job done. I’m sure Val was rated higher.

All in all, Horford, Morris and the rest of your big men are not ‘good’ defenders.

So who is the bad defender on our team? The only argument even possible is Kyrie.

As for pace, we were a slow paced team in the Regular Season as well with Kyrie which is why we beat GS HOU in the RS. We slowed the pace down.

Horford was 4th in DPOY voting last year. Baynes and Thies are obviously good defenders. Morris is a good man to man defender but bad team defender. If you want to move to ok defender be my guest.

Val is not a good rim protecter. He gives up 61.9% under 6ft which would be 5th Worst among teams, meaning if he’s your best rim protector you’re in trouble. Plus if he’s on the court he would be killed by the Kyrie Horford pick and roll which was our most efficient offense last year and should be better this year with Hayward bringing a bailout option and more spacing.

[everdiso]

Are the Celtics really that much more versatile on the offensive end? I'd argue that the Raptors are even more versatile now than they were last year when they were the 3rd ranked offence. They have quite a few high IQ players that provide a lot of shooting and playmaking.

Also, who is shutting down Kawhi in a series? That's a mismatch in the Raptors' favour.

Sent from my LG-H831 using RealGM mobile app

Offensively I’d say yes. The celts have four guys that can go off for 30 any given game. Four guys that can break the defense down. They also have two guys in brown and Tatum that should be demonstrably better than they were last year.

And the individual defensive matchups noted earlier don’t mean much to me. We know that good to great offense beats good defense all day long. And like I said, the celts had the #1 defense last year anyway.

Who are these four players that can go off for 30 any given game? Tatum and Brown will likely improve (maybe not box score stat-wise with Hayward coming "back" into the picture), but they only combined for three 30-point games all of last year - and all three were from Brown. Irving and Hayward are the main threats to go for 30+ points. Leonard and Lowry can go for 30 too (Lowry only did 3 times last season, but most nights he didn't have to score more than 10-15 points because the bench was so good) on the Raptors' side of things. Valanciunas isn't near as big of a threat to go for 30 as Brown/Tatum, but the Raptors have more offensive weapons on the bench to put up 10-15 with ease.

If a "good to great offence beats good defence," why will the Celtics be able to score on the Raptors, but the Raptors - who have consistently been one of the best offences in the entire league for the past five years - struggle to score on the Celtics? You're contradicting yourself with that bit.

BOS: 1st DEF (101.5) / 18th OFF (105.2)
TOR: 5th DEF (103.4) / 3rd OFF (111.0)

Hayward improves the Celtics offensively, but the defence will (at best) stay the same or be a bit worse. On Toronto's end, it's not unreasonable to think Leonard and Green (and Nurse having free reign to run the offence) will improve Toronto's already elite offence and they are both MUCH better defenders than DeRozan.

per 100 possessions last year

* previous season for Kawhi/Hayward

Kawhi 38.9pts (61.0ts%)
Irving 37.9pts (61.0ts%)
Hayward 33.4pts (59.5ts%)
Jonas 28.0pts (62.8ts%)
Lowry 24.9pts (59.8ts%)
Brown 23.6pts (56.2ts%)
Tatum 22.8pts (58.6ts%)
Horford 20.3pts (57.5ts%
Wright 19.1pts (57.4ts%)
OG 14.6pts (58.7ts%)

Miles 25.8pts (54.5ts%)
Morris 25.4pts (54.1ts%)
Ibaka 22.6pts (57.4ts%)
Rozier 21.7pts (52.0ts%)
VanV 21.3pts (55.6ts%)
Theis 17.7pts (61.6ts%)
Siakam 17.3pts (54.9ts%)
Smart 17.0pts (47.9ts%)
Green 16.9pts (50.9ts%)
Baynes 16.2pts (50.2ts%)

[djsunyc]

alot of question marks for BOTH teams. need to see the season play out first.

[OGLife]

1. Celtics like to play slow (check out the pace from last year)
2.Good Defenders Smart Tatum Brown Horford Morris Baynes Thies Ojeyele OK defenders Kyrie Rozier Hayward (was good in UTA)
3.Celtics were 11 in points allowed in paint so you really can’t say that’s a weakness on the other hand Toronto was 18th and traded their best rim protector (Poetl) so expect that to be worse.

1. I didn’t really mention the Celtics as a fast pace team. That may change with Kyrie being back. Y’all need to get over your obsessions for Rozier.

2. I love how no one on the roster is a bad defender.

3. Val is a solid rim protector. He won’t get you the blocks you want. However, he gets the job done. I’m sure Val was rated higher.

All in all, Horford, Morris and the rest of your big men are not ‘good’ defenders.

So who is the bad defender on our team? The only argument even possible is Kyrie.

As for pace, we were a slow paced team in the Regular Season as well with Kyrie which is why we beat GS HOU in the RS. We slowed the pace down.

Horford was 4th in DPOY voting last year. Baynes and Thies are obviously good defenders. Morris is a good man to man defender but bad team defender. If you want to move to ok defender be my guest.

Val is not a good rim protecter. He gives up 61.9% under 6ft which would be 5th Worst among teams, meaning if he’s your best rim protector you’re in trouble. Plus if he’s on the court he would be killed by the Kyrie Horford pick and roll which was our most efficient offense last year and should be better this year with Hayward bringing a bailout option and more spacing.

You care to share what numbers has Al higher than Val as a rim defender?

Edit: Be my guest. Regular Season or even in the playoffs.

[everdiso]

1. Celtics like to play slow (check out the pace from last year)
2.Good Defenders Smart Tatum Brown Horford Morris Baynes Thies Ojeyele OK defenders Kyrie Rozier Hayward (was good in UTA)
3.Celtics were 11 in points allowed in paint so you really can’t say that’s a weakness on the other hand Toronto was 18th and traded their best rim protector (Poetl) so expect that to be worse.

1. I didn’t really mention the Celtics as a fast pace team. That may change with Kyrie being back. Y’all need to get over your obsessions for Rozier.

2. I love how no one on the roster is a bad defender.

3. Val is a solid rim protector. He won’t get you the blocks you want. However, he gets the job done. I’m sure Val was rated higher.

All in all, Horford, Morris and the rest of your big men are not ‘good’ defenders.

So who is the bad defender on our team? The only argument even possible is Kyrie.

As for pace, we were a slow paced team in the Regular Season as well with Kyrie which is why we beat GS HOU in the RS. We slowed the pace down.

Horford was 4th in DPOY voting last year. Baynes and Thies are obviously good defenders. Morris is a good man to man defender but bad team defender. If you want to move to ok defender be my guest.

Val is not a good rim protecter. He gives up 61.9% under 6ft which would be 5th Worst among teams, meaning if he’s your best rim protector you’re in trouble. Plus if he’s on the court he would be killed by the Kyrie Horford pick and roll which was our most efficient offense last year and should be better this year with Hayward bringing a bailout option and more spacing.

I'd say both Hayward and Kyrie are poor defenders, and also your two biggest minute players. They're also both coming back from serious injury, which won't help their defense any. I'm also not so sure Brown is great defensively.

Career:

Horford 104drtg, +2.4dbpm --------- Kawhi 99drtg, +2.7dbpm
Tatum 103drtg, +1.5dpbm ---------- Wright 106drtg, +1.3dbpm
Brown 107drtg, -0.1dbpm ----------- Jonas 104drtg, +0.2dbpm
Hayward 108drtg, -0.3dbpm -------- OG 108drtg, 0.4dbpm
Irving 109drtg, -1.4dbpm ----------- Lowry 107drtg, 0.0dbpm

Theis* 100drtg, +3.4dbpm ----------- Green 102drtg, +2.1dbpm
Baynes 104drtg, +1.4dbpm ---------- Siakam 105drtg, +2.1dbpm
Smart 105drtg, +1.1dbpm ----------- Ibaka 103drtg, +1.4dbpm
Rozier 106drtg, +0.5dbpm ---------- VanV 106drtg, +0.1dbpm
Morris 107drtg, -0.2dbpm ---------- Miles 108drtg, -1.6dbpm