National Celtics discourse
- Thread starter RorschachsMask
- Start date
Going forward I think it fair we refer to Luka as "Oncic" as the D is silent.
I would love to see a no doubt 48 minute Celtic clinic and coronation Friday night.
They shoot horses don't they?
Its time to put the Mavs out of their misery.
I would love to see a no doubt 48 minute Celtic clinic and coronation Friday night.
They shoot horses don't they?
Its time to put the Mavs out of their misery.
Since we’re talking about narratives, I actually think it was the tweets after game 2 of Luka getting blown by 13 times going viral that started the turnaround. You had Doris referring to his defense on the telecast last night. And the Windhorst rant last night following Luka’s implosion on the court and in his presser kind of blew it into the mainstream.
Very few media members will actually own their mistakes and pre-series hot takes. But assuming the Celtics take care of business on Friday, I think the narrative has finally begun to shift.
It really shouldn't be. Our team is up 3-0 in the Finals. Just keep in mind that everyone that makes a living based on eyes on their work will basically write/say whatever they need to in order to get eyes on their work. It makes it easier to consume media like this when you realize that the content is fundamentally unserious and designed to optimize engagement. Even Windhorst--who's firing shots at Luka now--is only doing it because he thinks that it benefits Windhorst.
The weirdest part is how he feels obligated to intone that Luka is "the best player in the series". It's a religious mantra, not analysis.
The evidence is piling up that Luka has severe defensive flaws that other elite players in the league simply don't have. It's an insult to the conditioning and defensive work Jokic put in to even put them in the same sentence, for example.
The wind is indeed beginning to turn. The Celts arent out of it yet. They need to take one game at a time and stack some wins. Dallas showed a slight chink in the armor last night and its now we will see if the Celts can turn this around and take advantage. Its not over. I still have hope that JT, JB and the support staff will show up for these finals.
I think some of it was because pundits have been focusing all season on BOS's 0-2 record versus DEN (and to a lesser extent, the two OT games versus MIN, the loss at OKC, and the blow-out by LAC when they were in their hot streak) and concluded that BOS couldn't be the historically great team that the statistics said they were - they just happened to shoot the 3P well and play in a year where the Eastern Conference suffered a bunch of injuries.
So as you point out, DEN was better than BOS and DEN got beat by MIN, who then got beat by DAL, so . . . .
I mean I get it - these folks have a lot of content to produce; a lot of branding to do; there's a ton of basketball out there and who really has the time to watch all of these teams - plus, picking DAL probably gets more views than picking BOS.
But I wonder if any of them get embarrassed at all?
100% - once they take this from a 10 game playoff win streak to a 20 game playoff win streak, we'll start to get an indication that they're truly ready for the sport's biggest stage and compete for a championship.
Not only that, Luka was terrible offensively as well yesterday for big portions of the game and has completely disappeared in the 4th every game. Not like he's putting together these incredible performances on the other end of the floor either.
The best part is that many of the same people who were part of that consensus will shamelessly pivot to "but they didn't beat anyone" if/when the Cs put the Mavs out of their misery.
Until that time, they will be the worst team ever to sweep both the Conference Finals and the Finals.
A similar pivot will be from "The Mavs ran a gauntlet, they are battle-tested and ready for the Cs!" to "The Mavs are exhausted from playing a bunch of superior teams and had no gas left in the tank".
I wish they did, but the living breathing counterpoints are people like Nick Wright, who constantly says stupid stuff, takes a deep breath, and then says more dumb stuff. Never a mea culpa.
Mavs currently a favorite in game 4. In the last 30 years no teams up 3-0 in the finals have ever been an underdog (it's happened 7 times).
Keep on keepin on.
Keep on keepin on.
I put guys like Nick Wright in a different category, having a "take" and living or dying by said take is literally part of his job description. He's there as a character more than analyst. That the people who are paid to actually give out informed opinions on the NBA are behaving similarly is to their discredit.
Agreed, the fact it’s hard to tell hot take Charlie from an NBA beat writer/Analyst is the crux of the problem.
First Take and Get Up both absolutely lit into Luka. You rarely see ESPN rip into superstars like this.
Clearly the league has given the green light behind the scenes. They are probably pissed at Luka.
We jumped on -1 minutes after G3 ended then it quickly moved to +1.5 and now back. I fully expect the Celtics to close above -2 so laying the 1 is probably going to be your best you see from now to game time.
Windhorst reset the takez from "Celtics would have blown it if not for bad call on Luka!!". I think Windy was sincerely annoyed by Luka's antics but now the hot take producers on ESPN are chasing the social engagement he got from it.
View: https://www.twitter.com/RKalland/status/1801111463639011610
The scoreboard is not based on accuracy. It's based on ratings, clicks, followers count, etc. So, no, I don't think that they're ever embarrassed for being so wrong.
It's a tough field, especially as a writer. Used to be that we engaged by buying the newspapers whose writers made the most sense, wrote well, had good sources, etc. Now, the field is so challenged by economic circumstances and measured by pure metrics that media folk are slaves to those metrics. It has changed how we as a society produce and consume news. The same level of base engagement with sports media is not altogether different than Facebook's "how to we keep people coming back by pissing them off" algorithms.
Does anyone have the single season highest winning percentage list including playoffs? Thought I saw it a week or two back. 80% come Friday.
I'm a big Lowe fan, and I had to shut it off. It was embarrassing. He then went on to talk about some ridiculous hypothetical around if you ran a simulation on the 6 foul calls, you'd probably average around 5 fouls, completely ignoring any possible other fouls Luka committed that weren't called. They eventually got around to "the Celtics are really good" but the majority was about Dallas's 4th quarter run. In a game they lost. In a series they're down 3-0. Insanity.
It was recorded right after the game ended, so he hadn't gotten the memo yet that he's allowed to stop ball-washing Luka now.
I'm only half-joking: the Windy rant was a huge "emperor has no clothes" moment. Knives are out for the Pillsbury Man now.
According to Lowe, the top 3 headlines of this game were
1. Doncic fouling out
2. The Celtics allowing the lead to fall to 2 in the 4th
3. Possessions in the 4th where Brown and Tatum ISO’d on PJ Washington.
yes, the top 3 headlines of the game had nothing to do with the Celtics winning or anything even positive about the Celtics
1. Doncic fouling out
2. The Celtics allowing the lead to fall to 2 in the 4th
3. Possessions in the 4th where Brown and Tatum ISO’d on PJ Washington.
yes, the top 3 headlines of the game had nothing to do with the Celtics winning or anything even positive about the Celtics
For years, Zach was still trying to retroactively award the Heat the 2022 ECF because Jimmy Butler badly bricked a 3PA with like fifteen seconds left in the game. As if Jimmy is a good three point shooter or teams aren’t allowed to score at the end of a game. It’s not often, but sometimes he gets an idea in his head and just refuses to let it go.
See I disagree, he fouled out because the referees were giving him an insane amount of deference and he got up and showed them up. It took a ton of energy to get the refs and NBA to decide to not to protect him from himself anymore.
And he never does it with other title winners. The Raptors needed 4 Bounces and the game 3 OT win against Milwaukee. 2018 GSW had the 0-27 game. The 2021 Bucks got to play a team that had one working human left and still had the toe-on-the-line game.
It's frankly embarrassing for Lowe at this point. He dislikes how Boston plays at some deep level, and everything else is backwards rationalization.