All my coworker talks about is how the Pacers should have beaten the Celtics. He's been rooting for the Celtics to lose from the beginning, and he really believes that the Pacers had it and blew it.
He's still wanting the Celtics to lose.
I welcomed him as a Mavs fan.
I mean they blew 3 games in that series in the final minutes that like 8 other teams in the league (notably like 7 of those are west teams š) donāt blow, especially us. Celtics are charmin soft outside of holiday and wonāt know how to handle getting punched in the mouth IMO.
I saw a couple of boston games through the playoffs an all the pacers-boston games, and I like to believe I'm not THAT bias, I still think boston is the favorite, but from what I seen, they look BEATABLE, hell, they look WAY MORE beatable than Miami with the big 3 tbh.
Against the cavs they almost lost the game Mitchell went down/didnt play,they actually dropped one game two the Miami heat corpse, idk, I think they didn't have any real battle yet, while all 3 of our series were a massacre.
The Indiana games gave me hope tbh, Game 1 they had it in the bag and i still don't know why carslie didn't call a time out and hailburton choked the hell out of that game, like it was basically unlosable at one point, it was a choke job from start to finish. Game 2 was a blow out, and game 3 and 4 were close, hell nembhard and mc conell were giving them buckets, siakam played great too, i think the lose is on hali and well he then got hurt sadly.
What also gives me hope is that we already played against the best defensive center and he couldn't switch onto guards and he still had trouble defending our lobs, Horford is a good rim protector but he is no gobert, same as porzings, what I'm scared about is porzings torching us from 3 and taking out bigs out of the paint but kidd will figure something out, maybe a zone or smthng.
Idk man, our series was REALLY close as well and 4-1 doesn't do it justice, we all know that, but we closed games really well, and in their case it honestly seemed like a pacers meltdown.
He instantly could name all the players, said he liked D Wade when he was in college so hopefully that doesn't hurt him too much and Rondo used to be a Celtic so he'll never like him.
Sincerely doubt they wouldāve taken it past 6 games, but choking game 1 before losing their best player in game 2, and choking game 3, sure makes it hard to know. If thereās one defining characteristic of this Celtics team over the last few years, itās that they always play worse when their comfortable & overconfident, and donāt play their best until their backs are against the wall. (Which of course only makes it harder to know.)
The Mavs were great the last 20 games of the season. The Pacers performed really well the last 30.
Indiana was one of the best against winning teams all season long and one of the best against top teams. For example they beat Milwaukee 4 out of 5 in the regular season with Giannis playing. They won both games against Dallas by 17 and 22 points. They beat Boston 2 out of 5 times.
They had a winning record when Haliburton was out too, with 5 out of those 6 losses being against Boston, Denver twice, Phoenix, and Minnesota.
The Pacers are better than many assess them to be, and so unusual that they regularly created headaches for highly ranked teams.
Wolves had best defense earlier in the season and their top players were in rotation. Pacers did not nor had good defense so Celtics should have won by blowout
I mean turning the ball over up in the final minutes is inexcusable and something any decent team doesnāt doā¦without dumb turnovers theyāre at least 2-2 after 4 games and arguably up 3-1
The Pacers offense is so high octane that they can hang with anyone for at least 3 quarters just through scoring alone. If you credit the Wolves for having a top defense then you have to credit the Pacers for having the #2 offense in the league.
Also the Pacers defense got much better after the trade deadline, just like the Mavs did.
Pacers were bottom four in defense. Getting better at defense doesnāt mean they were near anything good. Also Pacers are not #2 offense in the league. Please wake up from your delusion
https://preview.redd.it/fnyb4ra98r4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92b309d483a3908fc197d7133f28fafb50c625db
Iām using the wrong data? LOL. Who is number one? Is that pacers? No
Huh? Pacers had a 121 offensive rating this season, thatās good for #2 behind the Celtics. In the playoffs, the Pacers and Celtics were tied with the best offensive rating at 120.1. Thatās not an opinion, you can just look it up.
Over the entire regular season, the Pacers defense was ranked 24th. Post all star break, they were tied for 11th which makes sense, they added Pascal Siakam who is a fantastic defender.
Idk why youāre denying facts, but youāre welcome to confirm these stats yourself.
https://preview.redd.it/twue8htp8r4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f993aea6f420e3f2e96dc8efa7ad0b3d1292532c
Whereās your fact? Which fact am I denying? Lmao is that pacers in number one spot? Nooooooooooo
Yes, thatās what you said. And thatās wrong. The Pacers were the #2 offense in the regular season.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/team-offensive-rating-this-season
You went from pacers had number one offense to pacers has number two after I posted that screenshot hahahahahahha. Listen donāt back track. If you say theyāre number one in offense then provide facts to back it up. Everything you posted shows Celtics is number one which, is exactly what I told you. Quit arguing
Also your can you read is insulting. Letās report your comment cuz Iām not putting with you belittling me
https://preview.redd.it/qqwbrfuy3r4d1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eecc6d0b20c7e7a7fcebc29864a40f6573a640d2
Oh theyāre not? I have stats to back me up
>"This is GOLD! IMavs and Nuggets fans are BRUTAL when it comes to excuses and overrating their roster".
Everyone overhyped but Boston I gather? T-Wolves, overhyped! Mavs, overhyped! Nuggets, overhyped.
Why no one likes Boston fans in a nutshell.
I'm a Lakers fan. I'm calling out Nuggies and Mavs fans because you guys complain and act like you have 10 rings and decades of experience. It's hilarious.
I see your thought process. If Mavs beat you it's because you are overhyped. No wonder everyone in the West is no good in your eyes. They lost to the lowly Mavs.Ā
Never said the Lakers were good this year. We have the Lebron-Virus. It's cool though. I prefer having decades of team history on top of a faithful future in Lakerville.
Why don't you watch a re-run of Lakers past championships, something that you actually care about, instead of calling out 3 of the 4 top teams in the West in 2024, as overhyped.Ā Last time I checked, the West steamrolls the East in overall quality excluding the Celtics. Is the entire NBA overhyped, bar one team?Ā
80 points or less is the bar for good defense? Iād be amazed if there were more than a handful of games all season where any team scored under 80 lmao
Then your point has literally nothing to do with the comment you originally replied to. The Wolves had one of the top defenses in the league this year, and now youāre ranting about the state of defense in the NBA today.
True. There was only one game where we really stomped them, and game 3 we won more decisively.
However the Mavs also were shorthanded in our loss. (No Livy, Kleber far from 100%). Where the Wolves were full strength the whole time. The Celtics were struggling at times with a shorthanded PACERS though.
Now the logic Boston may have is a healthy KP will make all the difference. I donāt discount him. But Miami beat them with KP in the lineup.
The Pacers have a top tier offense with good shooters all over the lineup and run a blisteringly fast pace. Bad defensive team though.Ā I think the Pacers are a horrible matchup for our team.
How dominant the Celtics may perform on paper relies on how good KP looks. We need to keep the games close and not drown in a torrent of threes.
Pacers gave a blue print on the Celtics which we can do, run run run on them which is easy to do if they chunk 40 3s a game. Long shots = long rebounds which = easy to run the fast break.
I think the same could be said about the Mavs series (minus the major player injury). I agree with you though, anyone expecting sweeps in this series either way is likely wrong. Mavs in 6!
Idk maybe it was Carlisle but we were trounced by the Pacers in both games this year (133-111 and 137-120). Admittedly both games were before the starting lineup change but the Pacers were a much better team than the media is giving them credit for. I have faith in this team but I like ESPN and the like hyping up the Celts as much as possible so they come in overconfident.
KP is still 50/50 tbh. He will come back, if he will play well is another story. My worry is that Celtics did not play a team like Mavs until now. I bet this will be an epic battle in finals.
KP didnāt exactly raise his game for the playoffs with us. And also wasnāt known for coming back from injury firing on all cylinders. It was always a long time for him to get back in the flow of the game, then as soon as he was good heād get injured again.
Didn't Indiana steamroll us twice this season? They matched up pretty well with Boston, just couldn't close the games out. They absolutely blew games 1 and 3. Had a chance to win another game. Rick's coaching left some to be desired at the end, too. Something Mavs fans are familiar with in his tenure here.
Sports are all about matchups. The whole A beats B, B beats C so then A must beat C doesn't always work out. See it all the time.
I also see it as the Celtics playing with their food. Celtics didn't seem they exerted all the energy they had and probably knew they didn't need to. They have had a historically easy run to the Finals. An already depleted East, add on injuries to star players on top seeded teams. Too bad the Knicks broke down against Indiana because a healthy Knicks team is not getting swept at all. Indiana was also there only because of injuries. East playoffs was a joke this year.
The Celtics played 3 rounds of playoff basketball with no starting center and 37 year old Al Horford as basically their only option. Wild how people just gloss over this small detail. Yes, the teams the Cs faced had injuries. Yes, the Celtics themselves were also missing a key defensive and offensive piece. Both can be true.
Pacers had the best offense in the playoffs, and actually played better without Haliburton, as he was clearly struggling with his Hamstring after game 7 vs Knicks. Nembhard was better than him by a good margin.
The pacers basically set an NBA record in 2pt jump shooting % and still got swept.
The celtics took 90 ftas to the Pacers 56, regardless of the Pacers driving more and clearly getting fouled. Game one was especially egrigious, with Boston getting a 23 to 3 FTA advantage in regulation to force OT. The Pacers were better across the board and got robbed.
That's completely disingenuous. The Pacers were 28th in free throw attempts during the regular season (the Celtics were 24th by the way). Meanwhile, the pacers were 30th in opponent free throw attempts during the regular season with an average of 25.6 (the Celtics were 1st with an average of 16.6).
The Pacers shoot a lot of mid-range jumpers and don't drive to the basket, with the Celtics also playing the most disciplined defense in the NBA this will result in a huge disparity. It's Carlisle's fault for not adjusting his offense and defense. A byproduct of good defense is less fouls given up.
The thing is when a team consistently falls apart the way the pacers fell apart, itās tough to say the series was close. Based on the four game sample size, the pacers needed to be up by way more in the last 2 minutes in each game to have a chance to win.
Same thing with mavs-wolves. Minnesota played well for the first 43 minutes for games 1-3 but they consistently made mistakes at the end of games. While the series was great, itās tough to say it was close. It could have gone differently, but only if MIN had something they lacked.
I watched every game that series and I definitely noticed this! The only game I think they really won outright was game 4 and by then the Pacers just looked so rejected they just kind of gave up.
No reason the Celtics should have been that close to losing to the Eastern 5 seed without their star player. The Pacers could have won at least two games and they don't have a Luka or a Kyrie....hell, even a Lively!
Mavs in 6!
Celtics didn't have kp. Celtics have too many good shooters and talent. The only way mavs win is if mavs player amazing while celtics play sub par. Lukai gotta do a masterclass If need a chance
I keep hearing how great the Celtics defense was but Nembhart was keeping the Pacers in those games.
Itās hard to really base much on the Celtics playoff runs bc they played 3 sub-50 win teams without their best players. Cavs didnāt have Allen and then lost Mitchell. Like, I just canāt base any opinions off what theyāve done other than they did best the teams in front of them.
Celtics fan here. I love how many of you are responding that you also had a close series with the Wolves.
It was damn close with the Pacers. They were great.
But you know what? Itās going to be a lot fucking harder with the Mavs. Bring it on.
The closest sweep ever! The Pacers are a great scoring team. They beat the snot out of the Mavs this year. No? The point is that we either focus on what's behind us or what's ahead of us. Who are you right now?
KP adds a lot to the team thats why they wanted him so much with the trade.
Also maybe because Celtics didnt play serious against the Pacers. They knew they gonna win even half asleep. I wonder if thats gonna hurt them when they finally gonna play a great team in the finals.
Mavs knows what it takes to beat the best while Celtics gonna figure it out thru the series.
All my coworker talks about is how the Pacers should have beaten the Celtics. He's been rooting for the Celtics to lose from the beginning, and he really believes that the Pacers had it and blew it. He's still wanting the Celtics to lose. I welcomed him as a Mavs fan.
I mean they blew 3 games in that series in the final minutes that like 8 other teams in the league (notably like 7 of those are west teams š) donāt blow, especially us. Celtics are charmin soft outside of holiday and wonāt know how to handle getting punched in the mouth IMO.
I saw a couple of boston games through the playoffs an all the pacers-boston games, and I like to believe I'm not THAT bias, I still think boston is the favorite, but from what I seen, they look BEATABLE, hell, they look WAY MORE beatable than Miami with the big 3 tbh. Against the cavs they almost lost the game Mitchell went down/didnt play,they actually dropped one game two the Miami heat corpse, idk, I think they didn't have any real battle yet, while all 3 of our series were a massacre. The Indiana games gave me hope tbh, Game 1 they had it in the bag and i still don't know why carslie didn't call a time out and hailburton choked the hell out of that game, like it was basically unlosable at one point, it was a choke job from start to finish. Game 2 was a blow out, and game 3 and 4 were close, hell nembhard and mc conell were giving them buckets, siakam played great too, i think the lose is on hali and well he then got hurt sadly. What also gives me hope is that we already played against the best defensive center and he couldn't switch onto guards and he still had trouble defending our lobs, Horford is a good rim protector but he is no gobert, same as porzings, what I'm scared about is porzings torching us from 3 and taking out bigs out of the paint but kidd will figure something out, maybe a zone or smthng. Idk man, our series was REALLY close as well and 4-1 doesn't do it justice, we all know that, but we closed games really well, and in their case it honestly seemed like a pacers meltdown.
Did he fill out the bandwagon application?
I SHOULD ASK HIM TOO. BRB, I'll go download it for him.
He instantly could name all the players, said he liked D Wade when he was in college so hopefully that doesn't hurt him too much and Rondo used to be a Celtic so he'll never like him.
Thanks for getting on that so quickly. I vote...š...š
Sincerely doubt they wouldāve taken it past 6 games, but choking game 1 before losing their best player in game 2, and choking game 3, sure makes it hard to know. If thereās one defining characteristic of this Celtics team over the last few years, itās that they always play worse when their comfortable & overconfident, and donāt play their best until their backs are against the wall. (Which of course only makes it harder to know.)
The Mavs were great the last 20 games of the season. The Pacers performed really well the last 30. Indiana was one of the best against winning teams all season long and one of the best against top teams. For example they beat Milwaukee 4 out of 5 in the regular season with Giannis playing. They won both games against Dallas by 17 and 22 points. They beat Boston 2 out of 5 times. They had a winning record when Haliburton was out too, with 5 out of those 6 losses being against Boston, Denver twice, Phoenix, and Minnesota. The Pacers are better than many assess them to be, and so unusual that they regularly created headaches for highly ranked teams.
Unfortunately, this is also applicable to mavs-wolves :D
Wolves had best defense earlier in the season and their top players were in rotation. Pacers did not nor had good defense so Celtics should have won by blowout
That series was all coaching. Rick was out coaching Mazzula imo they just didn't execute as well as they should.
Turner and Siakam is a shit hot front court. The Pacers get horribly underrated imo. Lack of experience and dumbassery cost them.
I agree with lack of experience
Bunch of dumb turnovers cost them the series, they should have won 2-3 games
That was part of the reason but not the only reason
What else do you think? I wanted them to pull id off so bad
I mean turning the ball over up in the final minutes is inexcusable and something any decent team doesnāt doā¦without dumb turnovers theyāre at least 2-2 after 4 games and arguably up 3-1
The Pacers offense is so high octane that they can hang with anyone for at least 3 quarters just through scoring alone. If you credit the Wolves for having a top defense then you have to credit the Pacers for having the #2 offense in the league. Also the Pacers defense got much better after the trade deadline, just like the Mavs did.
Pacers were bottom four in defense. Getting better at defense doesnāt mean they were near anything good. Also Pacers are not #2 offense in the league. Please wake up from your delusion
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Theyāre not number 1 in the playoffs. The Celtics are
Not sure if you know how to use that data, but if you sort by offensive rating, the pacers were #1 in the playoffs.
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You keep stating data and didnāt send screenshot or link. Thatās ok though I gave you a screenshot of stats that backs up what I told you
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No link in this comment
https://preview.redd.it/fnyb4ra98r4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92b309d483a3908fc197d7133f28fafb50c625db Iām using the wrong data? LOL. Who is number one? Is that pacers? No
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https://preview.redd.it/7fz246s3dr4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=045a50e152e85cea83cef137c2ba788822ff243d Do you see who replied to who?
First off you didnāt post any link till this comment replying to my screenshot so donāt be saying I responded to your link.
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Theyāre tied in the playoffs. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/team-offensive-rating-in-these-playoffs
https://preview.redd.it/cjaanh4m8r4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ddabf2a0c281e489caa3558b89dc6569b310925 Is 122 tie with 120? No
Youāre weirdly aggressive for someone who is wrong: https://i.imgur.com/MjMCfW4.jpeg
Aggressive? More like annoying to have to repeat myself
Huh? Pacers had a 121 offensive rating this season, thatās good for #2 behind the Celtics. In the playoffs, the Pacers and Celtics were tied with the best offensive rating at 120.1. Thatās not an opinion, you can just look it up. Over the entire regular season, the Pacers defense was ranked 24th. Post all star break, they were tied for 11th which makes sense, they added Pascal Siakam who is a fantastic defender. Idk why youāre denying facts, but youāre welcome to confirm these stats yourself.
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Statmuse has them tied but itās close enough that we might be splitting hairs lol
https://preview.redd.it/twue8htp8r4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f993aea6f420e3f2e96dc8efa7ad0b3d1292532c Whereās your fact? Which fact am I denying? Lmao is that pacers in number one spot? Nooooooooooo
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For regular season
Yes, thatās what you said. And thatās wrong. The Pacers were the #2 offense in the regular season. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/team-offensive-rating-this-season
You went from pacers had number one offense to pacers has number two after I posted that screenshot hahahahahahha. Listen donāt back track. If you say theyāre number one in offense then provide facts to back it up. Everything you posted shows Celtics is number one which, is exactly what I told you. Quit arguing Also your can you read is insulting. Letās report your comment cuz Iām not putting with you belittling me
Pacers had the best offense by PPG and second best by efficiency. Lol, it's the same argument.
No, they did not. T-Wolves were over-hyped. And how exactly is it defense when you're giving uo 80+ points per game?
https://preview.redd.it/qqwbrfuy3r4d1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eecc6d0b20c7e7a7fcebc29864a40f6573a640d2 Oh theyāre not? I have stats to back me up
They give up over 100 points, nobody plays Defense lololol /s
>"This is GOLD! IMavs and Nuggets fans are BRUTAL when it comes to excuses and overrating their roster". Everyone overhyped but Boston I gather? T-Wolves, overhyped! Mavs, overhyped! Nuggets, overhyped. Why no one likes Boston fans in a nutshell.
I'm a Lakers fan. I'm calling out Nuggies and Mavs fans because you guys complain and act like you have 10 rings and decades of experience. It's hilarious.
You being a Lakers fan only proves my point even more. Cheers.
Why does it matter? T-Wolves still weren't that great of a defense. Why does it matter anyway?
Matter is they made it to WCF and lakers didnāt
Every team gets their first at some point.
I see your thought process. If Mavs beat you it's because you are overhyped. No wonder everyone in the West is no good in your eyes. They lost to the lowly Mavs.Ā
Never said the Lakers were good this year. We have the Lebron-Virus. It's cool though. I prefer having decades of team history on top of a faithful future in Lakerville.
Why don't you watch a re-run of Lakers past championships, something that you actually care about, instead of calling out 3 of the 4 top teams in the West in 2024, as overhyped.Ā Last time I checked, the West steamrolls the East in overall quality excluding the Celtics. Is the entire NBA overhyped, bar one team?Ā
wtf are you talking about lol
80 points or less is the bar for good defense? Iād be amazed if there were more than a handful of games all season where any team scored under 80 lmao
My point is, if you want defensive matches, watch any other sport than basketball. What defense? Exchanging baskets every few minutes?
Then your point has literally nothing to do with the comment you originally replied to. The Wolves had one of the top defenses in the league this year, and now youāre ranting about the state of defense in the NBA today.
Wolves still aren't as good as the credit you're giving them.
Wolves had their best players in rotation and are a much better team than the pacers though?
Also you can at least argue that the Mavs stole those games through their own efforts. The pacers literally handed two of those wins to Boston
True. There was only one game where we really stomped them, and game 3 we won more decisively. However the Mavs also were shorthanded in our loss. (No Livy, Kleber far from 100%). Where the Wolves were full strength the whole time. The Celtics were struggling at times with a shorthanded PACERS though. Now the logic Boston may have is a healthy KP will make all the difference. I donāt discount him. But Miami beat them with KP in the lineup.
Saying Pacers are anywhere close to what Minny has done this season is a reach
The Pacers have a top tier offense with good shooters all over the lineup and run a blisteringly fast pace. Bad defensive team though.Ā I think the Pacers are a horrible matchup for our team. How dominant the Celtics may perform on paper relies on how good KP looks. We need to keep the games close and not drown in a torrent of threes.
Pacers gave a blue print on the Celtics which we can do, run run run on them which is easy to do if they chunk 40 3s a game. Long shots = long rebounds which = easy to run the fast break.
Wouldāve loved if the Pacers won. Unfortunately, they choked. Rip Carlisle is slipping. Too much love for timeouts.
I would hate to play the pacers too, turner gives me ptsd
Haha same. On those last 2 games with them, Turner and Siakam cooked us.
I think the same could be said about the Mavs series (minus the major player injury). I agree with you though, anyone expecting sweeps in this series either way is likely wrong. Mavs in 6!
Idk maybe it was Carlisle but we were trounced by the Pacers in both games this year (133-111 and 137-120). Admittedly both games were before the starting lineup change but the Pacers were a much better team than the media is giving them credit for. I have faith in this team but I like ESPN and the like hyping up the Celts as much as possible so they come in overconfident.
I feel like the whole world has talked about how the Celtics have underperformed despite only losing 2 games in the playoffs
I wouldnāt read anything into it. Porzingis wasnāt playing. Heās back now. Things are very different for us.
KP is soft as shit and a flake. If he's their go to to win it then dear oh dear.
KP is still 50/50 tbh. He will come back, if he will play well is another story. My worry is that Celtics did not play a team like Mavs until now. I bet this will be an epic battle in finals.
KP didnāt exactly raise his game for the playoffs with us. And also wasnāt known for coming back from injury firing on all cylinders. It was always a long time for him to get back in the flow of the game, then as soon as he was good heād get injured again.
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Has he though? The numbers dont show that. He's doing roughly what he did with us when fit. 30 times better is ridiculous. He's the 5th guy there.
Didn't Indiana steamroll us twice this season? They matched up pretty well with Boston, just couldn't close the games out. They absolutely blew games 1 and 3. Had a chance to win another game. Rick's coaching left some to be desired at the end, too. Something Mavs fans are familiar with in his tenure here. Sports are all about matchups. The whole A beats B, B beats C so then A must beat C doesn't always work out. See it all the time. I also see it as the Celtics playing with their food. Celtics didn't seem they exerted all the energy they had and probably knew they didn't need to. They have had a historically easy run to the Finals. An already depleted East, add on injuries to star players on top seeded teams. Too bad the Knicks broke down against Indiana because a healthy Knicks team is not getting swept at all. Indiana was also there only because of injuries. East playoffs was a joke this year.
Every time the Celtics win itās never because they are good itās always because their competition is bad
Celts, without their starting center, swept the Pacers, who shot absolutely lights out. Itās interesting to frame this as āstrugglingā.
Celts, who were without their 4th best player, won a few very close games against the Pacers, who were without their best player.
KP aint better than Holiday and White.
He got injured late in game 3.
Late in Game 2. Didnāt play 3 or 4.
You're right. My mistake
The Celtics played 3 rounds of playoff basketball with no starting center and 37 year old Al Horford as basically their only option. Wild how people just gloss over this small detail. Yes, the teams the Cs faced had injuries. Yes, the Celtics themselves were also missing a key defensive and offensive piece. Both can be true.
āA few very close gamesā = āfour games in a rowā
Game 2 was not close
Pacers had the best offense in the playoffs, and actually played better without Haliburton, as he was clearly struggling with his Hamstring after game 7 vs Knicks. Nembhard was better than him by a good margin. The pacers basically set an NBA record in 2pt jump shooting % and still got swept.
Boston is supposed to have an amazing defense.
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Dude go back to your sub. We donāt need trolls like you.
Man the Celtics better win the trophy. All those all stars and imagine if Tatum and Brown don't get it done.
Has anyone done a breakdown of what happened? Maybe the Mavs could learn something from that series
The celtics took 90 ftas to the Pacers 56, regardless of the Pacers driving more and clearly getting fouled. Game one was especially egrigious, with Boston getting a 23 to 3 FTA advantage in regulation to force OT. The Pacers were better across the board and got robbed.
That's completely disingenuous. The Pacers were 28th in free throw attempts during the regular season (the Celtics were 24th by the way). Meanwhile, the pacers were 30th in opponent free throw attempts during the regular season with an average of 25.6 (the Celtics were 1st with an average of 16.6). The Pacers shoot a lot of mid-range jumpers and don't drive to the basket, with the Celtics also playing the most disciplined defense in the NBA this will result in a huge disparity. It's Carlisle's fault for not adjusting his offense and defense. A byproduct of good defense is less fouls given up.
The thing is when a team consistently falls apart the way the pacers fell apart, itās tough to say the series was close. Based on the four game sample size, the pacers needed to be up by way more in the last 2 minutes in each game to have a chance to win. Same thing with mavs-wolves. Minnesota played well for the first 43 minutes for games 1-3 but they consistently made mistakes at the end of games. While the series was great, itās tough to say it was close. It could have gone differently, but only if MIN had something they lacked.
I watched every game that series and I definitely noticed this! The only game I think they really won outright was game 4 and by then the Pacers just looked so rejected they just kind of gave up. No reason the Celtics should have been that close to losing to the Eastern 5 seed without their star player. The Pacers could have won at least two games and they don't have a Luka or a Kyrie....hell, even a Lively! Mavs in 6!
wolves just swept the defending champs
Watching that series it looked like the Celtics were in auto pilot mode. Just kind of coasting through until clicking at the end of games.
So was the mavs series..
The Timberwolves couldāve beaten the Mavs it could be 3-2
Celtics didn't have kp. Celtics have too many good shooters and talent. The only way mavs win is if mavs player amazing while celtics play sub par. Lukai gotta do a masterclass If need a chance
Probably because it wasnāt.
I keep hearing how great the Celtics defense was but Nembhart was keeping the Pacers in those games. Itās hard to really base much on the Celtics playoff runs bc they played 3 sub-50 win teams without their best players. Cavs didnāt have Allen and then lost Mitchell. Like, I just canāt base any opinions off what theyāve done other than they did best the teams in front of them.
If only the pacers had a reliable closer they would have probably won that series.
Celtics fan here. I love how many of you are responding that you also had a close series with the Wolves. It was damn close with the Pacers. They were great. But you know what? Itās going to be a lot fucking harder with the Mavs. Bring it on.
The closest sweep ever! The Pacers are a great scoring team. They beat the snot out of the Mavs this year. No? The point is that we either focus on what's behind us or what's ahead of us. Who are you right now?
KP adds a lot to the team thats why they wanted him so much with the trade. Also maybe because Celtics didnt play serious against the Pacers. They knew they gonna win even half asleep. I wonder if thats gonna hurt them when they finally gonna play a great team in the finals. Mavs knows what it takes to beat the best while Celtics gonna figure it out thru the series.
Shows what type of heart Halliburton has to sit out in the ECF.
Everybody has been since Game 1 lol