zeebneeb wrote:Scarletfire81 wrote:zeebneeb wrote:Celtics are not legit contenders. Unless the teams they play have a slew of injuries, they cannot beat the top teams in the league in a 7 game series.
To many holes.
I mean they don’t have holes on defense, so I take it you mean offense?
Essentially yes. The Celtics really lack a floor general that can dictate pace, and set players up when things get super tight in the playoffs.
Think Paul, Holiday, Irving, Lowery, Harden, Garland, Young, Ball, Curry, e.t.c.
That is a huge problem, and will only get magnified in the playoffs.
I also don't like the reliance on 35 year old Horford to play that many games, and minutes to even get to the finals.
The Celtics bench is also pretty brutal and if memory serves, it is bottom 5 in terms of scoring. The Celtics basically have two damn good players, +2 good players, surrounded by marginal players. The burden Tatum/Brown carry on offense is massive.
I appreciate your response, you're like the only person who pooed on the C's but actually gave reasons for it.
To take your thoughts in reverse order... Yeah the C's lack a ton of depth. They go 9 deep. The starters plus White, Pritchard, Grant W, and Theis. None of those guys are big scorers but they are all smart quality players. Then we have Nesmith and some other random dudes but they rarely play. Honestly I'm not concerned about depth in the postseason as long as they stay relatively healthy. Rotations are shortened in the postseason so if it was going to hurt us it would be hurting us more in the RS.
Horford looks super spry and energized. That's not a concern for me.
The thing about needing a "floor general"... I've seen people say this about the C's all season and wondered about it myself and a few C's fans still think it's an issue. But I don't think it's an issue. For the last 10 weeks the C's have been near the top of the league in passes per game and assist per game. It's not been about one guy dominating the ball, it's a whole team effort with ball movement, player movement, zipping the ball around and making the extra pass. And it's working.
Honestly I think unless you have an elite tier pass first PG like Chris Paul, depending on one guy to make plays is actually more predictable and easier to guard than a whole team picking you apart. And you named guys like Holiday, Irving, etc, but with their teams the ballhandling and playmaking duties often fall to Giannis and Durant when it matters. So who's the real "floor general" on those teams?
And all that said, Smart is a much better PG than people give him credit for. Advanced stats are very kind to him as a playmaker and he's playing some terrific basketball. Going from Schroder to White improved the team's playmaking ability a ton. Guys like Brown and Horford are able to rip off the rebound and take the ball down the court and initiate offense.
And we've officially gotten to the point in Tatum's career where he's out there Lebronning teams with the ball in his hands and making the right play every time down the court. He's been our primary ball handler in crunch time and he's absolutely killing it.
So, I'm not so concerned about your Celtics concerns, is what I'm trying to say.
Here's some of the "bad" teams the Celtics have beaten in 2022:
