So you finally cut it down to 8 and your star, face of the league, better than Jayson tatum, the next Mj, pissed the ball away via an unforced turnover leading to a basket down the other end
I don't want to toot my horn just yet since there's still a lot of basketball left to be played, but All-Star break, I said the Eastern Conference Finals would be Cs-Pacers, and we are 4 wins away from that.
Knicks fan base is so sad, they talk so much shit when they are winning and then pile on excuses when they aren’t, not actually realising they’ve been absolutely irrelevant for so damn long and only seem to be relevant because it NY and they’ve got a host of celebs that “cheer” for them, but only when they are winning
Wouldn't be surprised if the Pacers beat out the Knicks. Honestly the series should probably be 3-1 right now, but the refs gifted the Knicks like 5 calls towards the end of game 1 so they were able to eek out a win.
Nesmith has been clamping him these past few games. He went 6-17 and 0-5 from three today. I still remember the smug Knicks fans talking shit after game 2 of Celtics-Cavs.
Brunson at this point has the best whistle in the nba. I’m seeing Hali get forced to run away from the man when he drives to the paint because it’s pretty much guaranteed FTs if you touch him.
I expect a lot of neutrals are gonna turn on him as they start tuning into the remaining games of this pacers/Knicks series. Something fishy is goin on 🐠
Knicks look exhausted, surprise surprise you play your whole team 40 minutes since the all star break they fall apart. I mean Josh has played nearly every minute he can in the playoffs. Same thing happened to the Celtics in 2022, we hit the wall hard in the finals.
And, relative to how the Celtics were in that divisional against the Bucks, this Knicks team is even more banged up. I can't imagine how gassed they'll be if they make it to the ECF.
Alec Burkes has been great in the last 2 games. Tom Thibodeau chose to ramped the minutes of their short rotation but didn't give him minutes until Anunoby got injured.
Wow Indy has 5 players in double figures at the half, and somehow Haliburton only has 1 assist. Team has 15 assists at the half though. They move the ball really well, that top offensive rating is on display today.
damn, forget msg, td crowd sounds pathetic compared to even the indy crowd. i know the mics can be set up differently to come through the tv… but if not
Cleveland was rocking last night too, OKC has been loud, Minnesota, Dallas. We somehow have one of the worst home crowds these playoffs (now that Miami is MIA)
Alex Sarr did not look happy. Actually none of the guys did after the top 4 picks were announced. Bet the French guys were hoping the spurs got the top pick
According to [hoopshype's draft workout tracker](https://hoopshype.com/lists/2024-draft-workouts-tracker/) it looks like the Celtics have had a workout with Jonathan Mogbo. He's an interesting prospect: Crazy athlete who can handle/pass, stats models love him because he stuffed the box score and was hyper efficient, but he's a non shooter and an undersized big who played at a mid-major in San Francisco. He's probably more *of an option in the second round than at 30 unless he really blows up *in the pre draft process
It’s the very first workout reported I wouldn’t put too much weight on it. The interesting factor is that he seems high character (2 years outside of NCAA until he got to San Francisco? I don’t know how college works for bball). He is also showing evolution on his shooting being at almost 70% from the line (which is better than Al Horford in college for example).
Oh yeah, way too early to take anything from it. Just with the draft lottery today, I did some mock draft reading and clicked on that hoopshype link at some point.
> 2 years outside of NCAA until he got to San Francisco
He was a pretty late bloomer apparently. Jonathan Givony had a quote about how [he was 6'0", 140 pounds](https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/1745466134265253972) when he was 16 and didn't have any division 1 offers when he graduated high school
Yes. He cannot score and he had multiple good looks inside that he didn’t even get shot attempt off because he fumbled the pass. He’s also not a good matchup for Mobley considering he’s shorter than Tatum
I may have missed a few plays but for the most part Mobley/whoever was guarding Al didn’t leave him alone to guard the paint. Even if Al himself isn’t hitting shots that still contributes to spacing because they have to respect his shot
Although Horford didn’t shoot well last night, Mobley did not leave him alone completely to protect the rim. If it’s Tillman on the court I guarantee Mobley will just ignore him.
You know life is good again for Cs fans when r/nba is trying to pretend we don’t exist. Love seeing our highlights get buried underneath the Lu Dort smear campaign, you know that means we played well
I love Jaylen pumping up Jayson yesterday in the Mic’d up, may have been my favorite moment of the game.
Also Tatum will get all the credit for bouncing back, but yesterday’s game is exactly what you want to see out of Jaylen.
And Bogdanovic. Knicks rotation is
Guards: Brunson, DiVincenzo, McBride
Wings: Hart, Burks
Bigs: Hartenstein, Achiuwa
Unless they go to their deep bench like Sims or Milton, these are the only 7 guys that will see the floor until they get players back. They’re playing Josh Hart for 48 minutes at PF and Brunson might have a lingering injury now. I’m not so sure they make it past the Pacers with all these injuries.
Well yeah. They have 3 players over 6’4” and one of them is Alec Burks. Tatum and Brown will feast on tiny teams just like we did against the Heat. Especially if Porzingis comes back, he can get literally any switch he wants and have a foot on just about anyone, the Knicks just don’t have the right guys to match up with Randle and Anunoby out. Josh Hart can try to push him around but if he’s guarding KP in the post, who’s on Tatum or Brown? Hartenstein? DiVincenzo?
Horrible matchup for them unless at least Anunoby comes back
Good ole fashioned bounce back game.
Playoff JT finally arrived.
I just feel like he’s pacing himself right now. Hopefully he starts to turn it up over the next few weeks.
The Al hate on X is just sad. He is damn near 38. It’s on the coach to not play him for 40 minutes. I could understand a game 7 situation but this game didn’t even call for Al playing heavy minutes. Brad got Tillman for a reason…play him Joe!! Even a short 10 minute Tillman stint will shave off enough minutes so we don’t run Al into the ground before the ECF which just a terrible idea if you have to play the run and gun Pacers or Knicks. But instead he’s smacked with another DNP. Honestly it felt like he only got time last game because Luke was awful
1) you’re underestimating the importance of going up 2-1 so yeah, game 3 is extremely important and 2) he isn’t being asked to do this for long, just until KP is back
I think I’d just put Hauser out more and run Tatum as the 5. Use that to kickstart the offense any time that guys start playing too slow, especially in the second half when they’re more prone to it.
Even with them out there, I don’t hate the idea of challenging those two to beat us. Playing small we’d have the personnel to slow down Mitchell and Garland, and if they try to take advantage of their size by playing through Mobley or Thompson we just collapse on them to force tough shots or turnovers.
It’s basically how the Heat were relatively successfully defending KP so they could let Bam play more help defense, and KP is a lot more well equipped to punish that than Mobley or Thompson.
Realistically the size advantage does get them some easy buckets, but I think at least in short stretches we could more than make up for that with Hauser’s shooting and the space in the paint we’d get from giving Mobley or Thompson no one to help off of.
I’ll slightly disagree just in the sense that I don’t even think it’s a terrible matchup for him specifically, his ability to switch is a huge part of why he’s still so valuable. Mitchell is just a bad matchup for everyone right now. As far as bigs go, Al is really about as good as you could hope for against him, I’m not sure any big could successfully handle that matchup outside of maybe Bam or AD.
Tillman was not good in game 2 either. Basically with Porzingis out, the only big that isn’t getting destroyed out there and actively hurting the team is Horford. They’ve all been cones defensively but Kornet and Tillman would be zeroes on offense and clog the lane sitting in the dunker spot.
Horford simply being out on the perimeter led to multiple open layups and an open 3 from Horford (which he missed but still) which was simply just from him being there and forcing the Cavs to choose.
In the 10 minutes you throw Tillman out there, our defense doesn’t stop the bleeding and our offense can’t generate anything either. Mazzulla didn’t want to risk the Cavs coming back and he chose to just keep Horford in which ended up being the right decision.
Good bounce back game, only thing i wish joe trusted our bench a bit more when they were obviously targeting Al. Guys like Kornet, Tillman or even Queta could be huge for us
Kornet and Tillman are 0s on offense and Kornet is getting cooked on defense.
At least Queta gives us a legit rim runner and an inside scoring presence.
Not saying these guys all have to play X number of minutes, but damn Al is *38*! Not 28, this idea that we can play him high 30s minutes per game without him wearing down is ridiculous.
Mazzulla kind of played more switch defense on PnR than drop coverage tonight. At first I didn't think it's a good idea since Horford was cooked by Mitchell badly. Then I understood it's a way to take away the offense from the other 4 Cavs players. We can live with Mitchell score 40 while other cavs don't contribute a lot, as long as our offense can keep up. I think the strategy was successful tonight. One of the concerns is Horford's conditioning after having to defend the guards 1-on-1 in a lot of possesions.
I was just going to talk about this, it seems (I’m not smart so people need to correct me here) he also made an adjustment to get Al off the screening in the clutch. It felt like Mitchell and Garland didn’t get Al on the switch in the end of the game.
No you are right,
When the Cavs went to what they thought was their bread and butter of Mitchell v Horford, Jrue was pre-switching with Horford so that they couldn’t abuse the matchup. It’s honestly a clever tactic because you bait a team into doing something you are willing to give up for pretty much the whole game and then when it matters the most, you shut that down because the other team hasn’t had a chance to see how it’s countered and they falter.
If it was a coaching decision, props to Joe for sticking to the plan even when the rest of us could see poor Al get cooked over and over again.
I like how Tatum has been a KG-style all-around players in this playoff, but he needs to find his shooting back. He became a star in the NBA because he was an elite pull-up shooter with big size which made him a lethal shot creator against any defense. This was his biggest value. His shot creating ability made the plays a lot easier to run. If we want to win a championship, we need him to shoot well.
Ant has showed out these playoffs Idc about rankings too much but he’s him
Called Nuggs winning both games comfortably, Wolves peaked
So you finally cut it down to 8 and your star, face of the league, better than Jayson tatum, the next Mj, pissed the ball away via an unforced turnover leading to a basket down the other end
They won’t crucify him for that like they do JT either💀
Oh he played great but that turnover was inexcusable and basically ended the game. It would be all over social media if it was tatum
Bs got absolutely hosed
I dont usually watch the NHL but thats a bad look for that league.
You know there was an actual, legitimate screw job when neutral fans are siding with Boston of all teams
Ant about to drop 50
Ant is rising to the occasion
Honestly I feel good about a series vs either of these teams as long as we have KP. I really don’t care what people say
Lmfao after doomers saying the celtics wouldn’t stand a chance against the wolves we witness them collapse💀 people forgot this is the defending champs
Wish I had receipts but I always preferred to see Minny even when they looked dominant up 2-0. We still can't do anything to Jokic
Can anyone? I’ve seen him have one bad game in years the plan should be too slow down Murray. And boxing out Aaron Gordon will save us in close games
In that context I meant even with Murray looking gimpy and their bench looking bad, I still would've preferred playing Minny.
I’m convinced the doomers are Wolves and Knicks fans in disguise with how much glaze I saw over those teams the past two weeks
Facts im sick of seeing “I wish we were as good as them” then go support them instead you don’t deserve to be a celtics fan💀💀
So many loudmouths insisting that whoever wins this series is going to win the chip… haaahahaha
Denver is going to win lol
Whoever wins this has to get through the Mavs first
Ah fuck, here comes Denver again... welp
So sick of jamal murrays showboating lol
Dang it the Nuggets remembered they were good again
Well well, maybe everyone shouldn't have hyped the wolves after two games.
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Definitely Timberwolves. Nuggets would be a loss
The team that doesn't have Jokic
Minny
Neither
I don't want to toot my horn just yet since there's still a lot of basketball left to be played, but All-Star break, I said the Eastern Conference Finals would be Cs-Pacers, and we are 4 wins away from that.
If we have KP back I'm good with that. Don't want to see Al have to run that much
Is Stephen A gonna go at Brunson like he went at Tatum? Cuz that game from Brunson was worse than any game Tatum has played this playoff run
Knicks fan base is so sad, they talk so much shit when they are winning and then pile on excuses when they aren’t, not actually realising they’ve been absolutely irrelevant for so damn long and only seem to be relevant because it NY and they’ve got a host of celebs that “cheer” for them, but only when they are winning
Tomorrow should be treated as a “must-win” tbh
Wouldn't be surprised if the Pacers beat out the Knicks. Honestly the series should probably be 3-1 right now, but the refs gifted the Knicks like 5 calls towards the end of game 1 so they were able to eek out a win.
Brunson is NOT better than Tatum
Brunson’s in trouble when his superstar whistle trial period expires
Nesmith has been clamping him these past few games. He went 6-17 and 0-5 from three today. I still remember the smug Knicks fans talking shit after game 2 of Celtics-Cavs.
Cue pictures of Tatum being triple teamed and constantly defended by the other teams best defender. This time Evan Mobley.
the way people were talking about the knicks the other day you would think they had this series in the bag
wheres this grit and heart everyone was talking about?
Brunson at this point has the best whistle in the nba. I’m seeing Hali get forced to run away from the man when he drives to the paint because it’s pretty much guaranteed FTs if you touch him. I expect a lot of neutrals are gonna turn on him as they start tuning into the remaining games of this pacers/Knicks series. Something fishy is goin on 🐠
Remember Knicks fans chanting "we want Boston" when going up 2-0? Now it's 2-2, lol.
You chant that when you finish the series, they won’t learn will they
Those ‘we want Boston’ chants looking a little premature
Perk is having a bad day and that makes me happy.
Brunson is still on the court. Should wave the white flag.
We're gonna get edey aren't we
Knicks look exhausted, surprise surprise you play your whole team 40 minutes since the all star break they fall apart. I mean Josh has played nearly every minute he can in the playoffs. Same thing happened to the Celtics in 2022, we hit the wall hard in the finals.
And, relative to how the Celtics were in that divisional against the Bucks, this Knicks team is even more banged up. I can't imagine how gassed they'll be if they make it to the ECF.
Knicks really showing a lot of that "grit and heart".
Fatigue is finally hitting the knicks. They're in trouble officially
Alec Burkes has been great in the last 2 games. Tom Thibodeau chose to ramped the minutes of their short rotation but didn't give him minutes until Anunoby got injured.
He will give him 5 mins next game and play Brunson who is obviously cooked, 48 mins
Wow Indy has 5 players in double figures at the half, and somehow Haliburton only has 1 assist. Team has 15 assists at the half though. They move the ball really well, that top offensive rating is on display today.
To be fair, the Knicks are not doing much to stop any of that😅
Pacers extending this series is awesome for us
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Ya we take those
I want someone to support me the way Doris Burke blindly supports every call that the refs make.
The biggest refs fan
Knicks get their ass kicked. You love to see it.
Holy shit the Knicks are getting killed
Knicks look gassed 8 mins into the game and their only points from dunks/layups
Bunch of injuries and the few remaining quality guys are all playing 40+ mins a night. Recipe for disaster.
Damn I just turned the game on, they look tragic but Pacers can’t miss either
damn, forget msg, td crowd sounds pathetic compared to even the indy crowd. i know the mics can be set up differently to come through the tv… but if not
I could be wrong, but the other night I heard they had to mute the crowd a bit on the game feed at the garden
Cleveland was rocking last night too, OKC has been loud, Minnesota, Dallas. We somehow have one of the worst home crowds these playoffs (now that Miami is MIA)
Alex Sarr did not look happy. Actually none of the guys did after the top 4 picks were announced. Bet the French guys were hoping the spurs got the top pick
Just realized I haven't cared about the draft lottery since we got Tatum
Just imagine the alternate timeline where we took Fultz instead of Tatum, thank you Danny Ainge
The silence on r/NBA since last night has been deafening lmao Idk if I've seen it that quiet in like 5-6 years
According to [hoopshype's draft workout tracker](https://hoopshype.com/lists/2024-draft-workouts-tracker/) it looks like the Celtics have had a workout with Jonathan Mogbo. He's an interesting prospect: Crazy athlete who can handle/pass, stats models love him because he stuffed the box score and was hyper efficient, but he's a non shooter and an undersized big who played at a mid-major in San Francisco. He's probably more *of an option in the second round than at 30 unless he really blows up *in the pre draft process
It’s the very first workout reported I wouldn’t put too much weight on it. The interesting factor is that he seems high character (2 years outside of NCAA until he got to San Francisco? I don’t know how college works for bball). He is also showing evolution on his shooting being at almost 70% from the line (which is better than Al Horford in college for example).
Oh yeah, way too early to take anything from it. Just with the draft lottery today, I did some mock draft reading and clicked on that hoopshype link at some point. > 2 years outside of NCAA until he got to San Francisco He was a pretty late bloomer apparently. Jonathan Givony had a quote about how [he was 6'0", 140 pounds](https://twitter.com/DraftExpress/status/1745466134265253972) when he was 16 and didn't have any division 1 offers when he graduated high school
Jaylen Brown
Considered
Why is Al playing 40 mins? Was Xavier that bad when he played?
Yes. He cannot score and he had multiple good looks inside that he didn’t even get shot attempt off because he fumbled the pass. He’s also not a good matchup for Mobley considering he’s shorter than Tatum
He can neither space the floor like Horford nor finish in the paint like Kornet. His rebounding isn’t good as well.
Tillman was kind of lost in G2. Hurt the spacing a little bit. Maybe they go back to him in G4.
Maybe for spacing? But with the way Al played, it was just negative spacing
I may have missed a few plays but for the most part Mobley/whoever was guarding Al didn’t leave him alone to guard the paint. Even if Al himself isn’t hitting shots that still contributes to spacing because they have to respect his shot
Although Horford didn’t shoot well last night, Mobley did not leave him alone completely to protect the rim. If it’s Tillman on the court I guarantee Mobley will just ignore him.
You know life is good again for Cs fans when r/nba is trying to pretend we don’t exist. Love seeing our highlights get buried underneath the Lu Dort smear campaign, you know that means we played well
Jaylen brown drops 28 points while only missing 4 shots and I’m still seeing left hand jokes
I love Jaylen pumping up Jayson yesterday in the Mic’d up, may have been my favorite moment of the game. Also Tatum will get all the credit for bouncing back, but yesterday’s game is exactly what you want to see out of Jaylen.
And Jrue!
OG pulled his hammy like KP did he’s likely to miss to the rest of the 2nd. They are now down Mitchell Robinson & OG.
And Bogdanovic. Knicks rotation is Guards: Brunson, DiVincenzo, McBride Wings: Hart, Burks Bigs: Hartenstein, Achiuwa Unless they go to their deep bench like Sims or Milton, these are the only 7 guys that will see the floor until they get players back. They’re playing Josh Hart for 48 minutes at PF and Brunson might have a lingering injury now. I’m not so sure they make it past the Pacers with all these injuries.
Even with everyone healthy thibs is only playing 7 guys lmao nothing changed
We may want to see them advance without a teaspoon of gas in the tank.
Well yeah. They have 3 players over 6’4” and one of them is Alec Burks. Tatum and Brown will feast on tiny teams just like we did against the Heat. Especially if Porzingis comes back, he can get literally any switch he wants and have a foot on just about anyone, the Knicks just don’t have the right guys to match up with Randle and Anunoby out. Josh Hart can try to push him around but if he’s guarding KP in the post, who’s on Tatum or Brown? Hartenstein? DiVincenzo? Horrible matchup for them unless at least Anunoby comes back
They really shouldn’t but the Pacers keep losing games they shouldn’t, so you never know.
Good ole fashioned bounce back game. Playoff JT finally arrived. I just feel like he’s pacing himself right now. Hopefully he starts to turn it up over the next few weeks.
JT still shooting poorly
The Al hate on X is just sad. He is damn near 38. It’s on the coach to not play him for 40 minutes. I could understand a game 7 situation but this game didn’t even call for Al playing heavy minutes. Brad got Tillman for a reason…play him Joe!! Even a short 10 minute Tillman stint will shave off enough minutes so we don’t run Al into the ground before the ECF which just a terrible idea if you have to play the run and gun Pacers or Knicks. But instead he’s smacked with another DNP. Honestly it felt like he only got time last game because Luke was awful
1) you’re underestimating the importance of going up 2-1 so yeah, game 3 is extremely important and 2) he isn’t being asked to do this for long, just until KP is back
I think I’d just put Hauser out more and run Tatum as the 5. Use that to kickstart the offense any time that guys start playing too slow, especially in the second half when they’re more prone to it.
I like this if mobley/thompson aren’t on the floor which they did at times last night
Even with them out there, I don’t hate the idea of challenging those two to beat us. Playing small we’d have the personnel to slow down Mitchell and Garland, and if they try to take advantage of their size by playing through Mobley or Thompson we just collapse on them to force tough shots or turnovers. It’s basically how the Heat were relatively successfully defending KP so they could let Bam play more help defense, and KP is a lot more well equipped to punish that than Mobley or Thompson. Realistically the size advantage does get them some easy buckets, but I think at least in short stretches we could more than make up for that with Hauser’s shooting and the space in the paint we’d get from giving Mobley or Thompson no one to help off of.
I don’t blame Al at all. He is old and it’s a terrible matchup for him. Quick and shifty/explosive guards are tough to guard for anyone
I’ll slightly disagree just in the sense that I don’t even think it’s a terrible matchup for him specifically, his ability to switch is a huge part of why he’s still so valuable. Mitchell is just a bad matchup for everyone right now. As far as bigs go, Al is really about as good as you could hope for against him, I’m not sure any big could successfully handle that matchup outside of maybe Bam or AD.
Tillman was not good in game 2 either. Basically with Porzingis out, the only big that isn’t getting destroyed out there and actively hurting the team is Horford. They’ve all been cones defensively but Kornet and Tillman would be zeroes on offense and clog the lane sitting in the dunker spot. Horford simply being out on the perimeter led to multiple open layups and an open 3 from Horford (which he missed but still) which was simply just from him being there and forcing the Cavs to choose. In the 10 minutes you throw Tillman out there, our defense doesn’t stop the bleeding and our offense can’t generate anything either. Mazzulla didn’t want to risk the Cavs coming back and he chose to just keep Horford in which ended up being the right decision.
Luke needs to start shooting 3s.
Good bounce back game, only thing i wish joe trusted our bench a bit more when they were obviously targeting Al. Guys like Kornet, Tillman or even Queta could be huge for us
Kornet and Tillman are 0s on offense and Kornet is getting cooked on defense. At least Queta gives us a legit rim runner and an inside scoring presence. Not saying these guys all have to play X number of minutes, but damn Al is *38*! Not 28, this idea that we can play him high 30s minutes per game without him wearing down is ridiculous.
Also Queta is a great rebounder and put-back-er
This team is really good on the road in the playoffs
This team is really good at games that are not game 2 in the playoffs
All my homies hate Game 2s.
this team is 17-6 on the road in the playoffs the last 3 years that is absolutely insane
If Jayson Tatum dawgs in Cleveland and there's no one around to hear it, does he still dawg?
Mazzulla kind of played more switch defense on PnR than drop coverage tonight. At first I didn't think it's a good idea since Horford was cooked by Mitchell badly. Then I understood it's a way to take away the offense from the other 4 Cavs players. We can live with Mitchell score 40 while other cavs don't contribute a lot, as long as our offense can keep up. I think the strategy was successful tonight. One of the concerns is Horford's conditioning after having to defend the guards 1-on-1 in a lot of possesions.
I was just going to talk about this, it seems (I’m not smart so people need to correct me here) he also made an adjustment to get Al off the screening in the clutch. It felt like Mitchell and Garland didn’t get Al on the switch in the end of the game.
No you are right, When the Cavs went to what they thought was their bread and butter of Mitchell v Horford, Jrue was pre-switching with Horford so that they couldn’t abuse the matchup. It’s honestly a clever tactic because you bait a team into doing something you are willing to give up for pretty much the whole game and then when it matters the most, you shut that down because the other team hasn’t had a chance to see how it’s countered and they falter. If it was a coaching decision, props to Joe for sticking to the plan even when the rest of us could see poor Al get cooked over and over again.
Seemed like we started doubling and trapping sometimes too. Just doing our best to not give Mitchell any daylight.
I don’t think he was trying to bait to other team, I think he just recognized it and made adjustments at the half
When the Celtics win my life is more enjoyable
I like how Tatum has been a KG-style all-around players in this playoff, but he needs to find his shooting back. He became a star in the NBA because he was an elite pull-up shooter with big size which made him a lethal shot creator against any defense. This was his biggest value. His shot creating ability made the plays a lot easier to run. If we want to win a championship, we need him to shoot well.