Official Celtics 2022 Off-Season Thread

[zoyathedestroya]

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[Parliament10]

Not to Jinx us, but we do play most of our close EC competitors leading right up to the End of the Regular Season.
Is it conceivable that we could be in 2nd Place, by the time we face #1 Seed Miami?

[bisme37]

Bucks board starting to notice we don't suck...

The sample size with Boston being elite, like real title contender elite, is becoming too large to ignore for me. In 36 games in 2022, they’re at a 62 win pace with the #1 net rating and #1 defense by a mile. In that span, the gap between them as the #1 defense and #2 is bigger than the gap between the #2 and #17 defense.

Still have questions about their half court offense in the playoffs when defenses load up on Tatum, but I’m at the point where I think they could beat us even if we have all our guys. They’re just filthy defensively and Tatum has leveled up as a lead guy.

(From "Prez")

[bisme37]

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[Fencer reregistered]

Impressively, Tatum who has participated in 357 games overtook Allen despite playing one less game than the former sharpshooter did (358 games) in a Celtics jersey.

It follows that Tatum has been hitting 3s at a per-game rate over his career that is substantially identical to Ray Allen's rate with the Celtics.

https://www.celticsblog.com/2022/3/21/22988888/two-boston-celtics-set-shooting-records-vs-denver-nuggets-jayson-tatum-payton-pritchard-ray-allen

[sam_I_am]

Celtics are 13-3 since trade deadline - it feels like it’s been longer but this group only has 16 games together. As much as we discuss seeding and avoiding Nets in first round and resting players, it is clear that this team needs more reps. Yes, they are playing at a high level but they have not even plateaued yet. Just look at PP the past 5 games. He is just starting to flesh out a significant role off the bench. Theis and White are slowly developing bigger roles too and White needs to play his way out of his shooting slump. Brown is not only getting healthy but finding his way to still play like an all star while developing a complimentary role. Most importantly, Tatum is emerging as a truly elite star and playmaker. The team needs to keep building this. There is no time to rest on it’s laurels. It would suck to get second seed and draw Nets in first round but it would suck more for this team not to reach its full potential and I don’t think they are quite there yet. They really need to go all out for final 10 games and if it’s the Nets in first round so be it. If we get to final 3 game road trip firing on all cylinders and there is a place for a little seed tanking at that time…..maybe that’s okay but this team is better off focusing entirely on playing winning basketball.

[steefP2]

The Celtics, if you eliminate any minutes played by anyone no longer on the roster, have a 17.7 net rating in almost 2400 possessions. That’s ABSURD

[KamikazeK]

Don't agree with this notion of trying to avoid Brooklyn or anyone else tbh. I'll put Tatum and Brown up against Kyrie and Durant any day. Then there's the rest of the team too. Just get the highest seed you can get and play the games.

[Tyakack]

Don't agree with this notion of trying to avoid Brooklyn or anyone else tbh. I'll put Tatum and Brown up against Kyrie and Durant any day. Then there's the rest of the team too. Just get the highest seed you can get and play the games.

I don't agree with purposely trying to lose....However, I would be lying if I said I'd rather win a game to clinch a spot against the nets vs lose that game and get the bulls or cavs or raptors Nobody wants the nets in the first round. You're lying to yourself or are just completely ignorant to how good KD and kyrie are if you say otherwise. If it happens it happens but I am praying to the heavens it doesn't.

[KamikazeK]

Don't agree with this notion of trying to avoid Brooklyn or anyone else tbh. I'll put Tatum and Brown up against Kyrie and Durant any day. Then there's the rest of the team too. Just get the highest seed you can get and play the games.

I don't agree with purposely trying to lose....However, I would be lying if I said I'd rather win a game to clinch a spot against the nets vs lose that game and get the bulls or cavs or raptors Nobody wants the nets in the first round. You're lying to yourself or are just completely ignorant to how good KD and kyrie are if you say otherwise. If it happens it happens but I am praying to the heavens it doesn't.

I just don't see how anyone can follow the C's every year and still get intimidated by the hyped up big name stars. Smashing their dreams is what good C's teams do. If they can't beat Brooklyn then they're not that team anyway and it's onto next year.

[robbie84]

What's exciting is thinking about Derrick White actually hitting 30%+ from three at some point.
Rest of his game is really, really good.

[Hal14]

This was pretty funny. I'd pay good money to hang out, drink beers and talk basketball in the same room with the whole 2008 team in there..

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[Hal14]

What's exciting is thinking about Derrick White actually hitting 30%+ from three at some point.
Rest of his game is really, really good.

Agreed. His shot will come around. He's 27, in the prime of his career, he's not going to just forget how to shoot.

If you take the 1/2 season he was in san antonio this season + the season before that + the season before that, he shot a combined 34.0% from 3. 21.6% so far in boston. He'll regress to the mean eventually.

Pritchard was only shooting like 30% early in the season, now he's at 40%. Tatum and Brown's 3 pt % was way down this season early on (at like 33% after it was 40% last season) but now they're both getting their % back up there..

[Hal14]

Bucks board starting to notice we don't suck...

The sample size with Boston being elite, like real title contender elite, is becoming too large to ignore for me. In 36 games in 2022, they’re at a 62 win pace with the #1 net rating and #1 defense by a mile. In that span, the gap between them as the #1 defense and #2 is bigger than the gap between the #2 and #17 defense.

Still have questions about their half court offense in the playoffs when defenses load up on Tatum, but I’m at the point where I think they could beat us even if we have all our guys. They’re just filthy defensively and Tatum has leveled up as a lead guy.

(From "Prez")

oh man, haha the Bucks fans are scared of us!

These playoffs are gonna be so fun.

[zoyathedestroya]

Random... My new favorite combo/grouping...

Lineups with Tatum + White + Grant are outscoring opponents by 16.5 pts per 100 poss and have an offensive rating of 125.4. 425 possessions is sizeable considering it only started 17 games ago.

The one with PP instead of White is pretty darn good too.

I think our four main groupings should be:
Starters: Smart | Brown | Tatum | Horford | Timelord
Bench 1: Smart | Brown | White | Grant | Theis
Bench 2: PP | White | Tatum | Grant | Horford
Closers: Smart | Brown | Tatum | Timelord + whoever fits best among PP/White/Grant/Horford

[Parliament10]

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[Larry_Russell]

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Lol at Theis being Captain Marvel

[Tyakack]

Don't agree with this notion of trying to avoid Brooklyn or anyone else tbh. I'll put Tatum and Brown up against Kyrie and Durant any day. Then there's the rest of the team too. Just get the highest seed you can get and play the games.

I don't agree with purposely trying to lose....However, I would be lying if I said I'd rather win a game to clinch a spot against the nets vs lose that game and get the bulls or cavs or raptors Nobody wants the nets in the first round. You're lying to yourself or are just completely ignorant to how good KD and kyrie are if you say otherwise. If it happens it happens but I am praying to the heavens it doesn't.

I just don't see how anyone can follow the C's every year and still get intimidated by the hyped up big name stars. Smashing their dreams is what good C's teams do. If they can't beat Brooklyn then they're not that team anyway and it's onto next year.

Reading this comment you'd think the celtics have made many final trips in the last several years and won a championship or two Every year we lost except maybe outside of the last heat loss it was to one of those hyped up big name stars. Those hyped up stars are hyped up for a very good reason.

I also don't buy into the whole, "If they can't beat brooklyn they're not that team anyway." The NBA is all about matchups. What if for whatever reason they couldn't beat brookyln but they could beat everyone else? Hypothetically speaking, I'm not saying that is the case. That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't "that team" that just means they ran into the one team that had their number and had someone else knocked them out first they would be champions.

I know this can't be proven but common sense tells me there are several champions of the past that wouldn't be champions if they had to match up with another team that they were lucky enough to avoid on their way to a championship. Just my 2 cents. I think the celtics ARE that team, right now anyway... But there title chances dramatically increase if they can somehow avoid some of the tougher teams. I mean, obviously.

[sam_I_am]

Question. When 76ers won 22 games in a row, mostly without Embiid, in 2017 they became favorites by many to get to ECF but we’re routed by Celtics in 5. Did they look as good with advanced statistics as this Celtics team does? It’s the closest comparison in my recent memory I can think of. I remember at the time thinking they weren’t nearly as good as streak suggested.

[Blaze4G]

Don't agree with this notion of trying to avoid Brooklyn or anyone else tbh. I'll put Tatum and Brown up against Kyrie and Durant any day. Then there's the rest of the team too. Just get the highest seed you can get and play the games.

Imo the issue is not playing a particular team. It's going 7 games in 1st round, 2nd round and ECF. No matter which team that will affect any team negatively. Tatum even said it was one of reason they lost to the Heat because the raptors series was so tough.