Just to repeat myself, I think BOS is going to be better on defense in a 7 game series than during the regular season. Their physicality will wear teams down and they certainly have another gear defensively. There's just so much defensive talent on this team.
Especially in those games that aren’t circled down the stretch. I posted that list a few weeks ago and the Pels were on it (even moreso coming off 2 losses) the Hawks, not so much, and it showed in the effort level different against each team as to be expected. We have 3-4 games left where we will see efforts like last with the rest being played like glorified exhibition games like tonight in Charlotte. Like, aside from some bench guys, do any of our top 6 really want to be in Charlotte today?
JT's game (not sure why this tweet or whatever it's called these days isn't embedding but it's the video where JT talks about playing on a Monday night in Charlotte on League Pass).
Jesus, am I going to have to watch that video? I've managed to avoid him up to now.
You'll like the recent vid, he breaks down about 10 different times KP blew up the Pels attempts at the rim.
That video is the exception that tests the rule. It's the only one where he's actually positive and praising what a player is doing instead of calling everybody shit. And to the extent he's yelling it's because he's excited, not, well, exasperated. He is outright adoring of what KP is doing on defense.
The remarkable thing about this quote is that it came several weeks before the NBA announced the 2024 schedule, and Boston has not one but two Monday games @ Charlotte this year. That seems impossible to have happened organically.
Right now, the Celtics are 6.5 games ahead of the Thunder with 7 to play for the Celtics and 8 for the Thunder. Winning tomorrow clinches the #1 seed. If the Celtics lose tomorrow, the magic number remains at 2 (OKC would have the head-to-head tiebreaker so the Celtics would need more wins than OKC at the end of the season).
It's the opposite with just 6 games left. Time to start ramping up minutes and tightening the rotation
Why? Their bench is good and should get plenty of playoff minutes, it’s an unnecessary risk.
The numbers are from last year:
I wonder if that money is disbursed in some prescribed formula or if the players decide, like MLB playoff shares.
I wonder it the players making $20 million and up decide to let the lesser paid players divide up that money.
Up to the players. They also can vote to share with staff. The only rule is a player can only take from one team's playoff share (in the case of a trade).
I would hope this would be the case. And to expand the pie to include the staff, especially the locker room types, many of whom surely make peanuts where a $10k bonus would be significant.
It is frustrating to see games where they struggle on the glass, but stepping back they are 8th in the league in defensive rebounding. Bad shooting and a fluky rebounding night are things that can hurt every team. I think the risks that are particular to this team as far as playing worse in the playoffs than they did during the regular season are
I can't believe I got this far in my NBA fandom without knowing all of this. Fascinating.
Yup I’m in this camp. Rotate full days off. There will be plenty of rest in week prior to playoffs starting. I don’t want them losing their edge by resting too much as these guys are wired to be playing a game every other night.
Hysterical. Maybe he'll mention it on Sunday! "hey guys lemme take you out to dinner after the game. For old times' sake."
Nice find! I knew that all playoff teams received money for participating in each round but didn’t know so much was divvied up between the regular season winners.
The only team that I would consider putting money on to beat the Celtics is the Nuggets. Jokic is the best player in the world, the teams are fairly even and the Nuggets biggest weakness (depth) is less exposed in the playoffs. The flip side of this is that the Nuggets rely heavily on their top 5 and if any of them get nicked up, even KCP who isn't considered a world beater, it could cause some big issues
Jablo's article above made a solid answer about this. Specifically, that it's Porzingis's 1v1 defense vs other offensively skilled bigs, where he can't just sag off the weakest offensive player to be the help guy at the rim (which is our default stance until the guy in question makes them pay). And if we don't help when he's 1v1 with the likes of Jokic or Embiid or AD, they tend to run him over, because his center of gravity is too high and he doesn't have enough strength to hold those guys back. Jokic, of course, has an even-more-deadly toolkit to work with.
I've been banging the drum since before the trade deadline about number one above---that to me is far and away the biggest threat. Fortunately, there's only a couple guys in the league who fit that description and one of them (Embiid) both struggles against Cetlics/Horford and is highly likely to be well below 100% this playoffs. It's really Jokic and Giannis here.
