Do Celtics' fans really root for clothes?

Quoting Jerry Seinfeld the other day, a popular Celtics' site said that when you boil things down to the nub, Celtics' fans "root for clothes." In addition to being funny, the idea contains an element of truth. But only an element. Of course, the sentiment is another way of saying "we root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back." And, again, when it comes to Celtics' fans, this is no doubt true.

But let me suggest there is more going on in Boston when it comes to the hardwood.

First, let's prove his point. For many years, one of our least favorite players was named Shaquille O'Neal. Well, at least until the dreaded Laker donned the Green. Then he became a fan favorite. Celtics' fans regaled in delight hearing stories about Shaq, KG, Baby, and others engaged in shenanigans of countless varieties, when only a few years earlier we might have responded by yelling "idiot!", "loser!," and similar invectives had Shaq been acting this way on a different team like the Lakers.

Now that we've proven his point, allow me to prove mine.

Celtics fans don't just root for clothes, we root for a brand.

I contend this is indisputable.

What is that brand? Any team comprised of players who put on a Celtics uniform?

Absolutely not.

Example?

Summer league.

Do Celtics' fan find themselves wrapped up emotionally in their team during summer league the same way we do during winter league (aka, the regular season)? Of course not. Even when the one or two players we care about has the ball, we simply aren't paying attention like we do during the NBA season. Sure, part of this has to do with the fact that summer league is meaningless. Then again, if it were totally meaningless, would we really be watching?

Instead, what's going on here is that the men dressed in Celtics' green aren't playing Celtics basketball. Ahhh. Yes. Now we are getting somewhere. Summer league, then, under this theory of Celtics' fanhood, is more like the 1978-79 Curtis Rowe Celtics, the ML Carr front office Celtics, the latter years of the Pitino Celtics, and the early years of the Doc Rivers-Danny Ainge Celtics. You can put a Celtics uniform on people like Marvin Barnes, Dominique Wilkins, AC Earl, Mark Blount,  and Dwayne Schintzius, but that doesn't make them Celtics.

What makes a Celtic, really, are the intangibles, and those intangibles can be summarized in three words: heart, desire, and passing. You gotta sweat green bullets. You gotta play every minute like it's game 7 of the NBA Finals. And you gotta share the ball with your teammates, and you must master this final skill to such a degree that experts (Celtics fans) understand you are doing your damnedest to play Celtics basketball. This is the Celtics' brand.

Celtics' fans, like most fans, have had their bouts with fairweatheredness. But it's not because the Celtics weren't winning. It's because whatever sport the team in the green uniforms was playing, it wasn't basketball, and it certainly wasn't Celitics' basketball. We don't have to win. We don't have to dominate. But their is a recipe, and dammit, we expect the men in green to follow it. Because when they do, and their is talent to support the brand, we all know what to expect.

104-59: Any Questions?

1/30/2007

Kevin Garnett was sent to the bench for good with 5:47 left in the third quarter last night, having scored only 8 points. No, he wasn't hurt, nor did he foul out. In fact, the unselfish Celtics couldn't have asked for anything better than this.

Kyrie is like Krack (part 3)

In one sense, the Celtics won this game because their NBA-leading defense put the Mavs in a vise grip for nearly 13 minutes, holding Dallas to 5-for-20 shooting with five turnovers from the 7:47 mark of the fourth quarter on. In another, though, they won it because their point guard was freaking unstoppable at exactly the time they needed him to be.


 Irving made all four of his field goals in the extra session, outscoring the Mavericks by himself in OT, 10-6. He made a pair of freebies with 18 seconds left to finish off his most explosive and efficient offensive game as a Celtic — a season-high 47 points on scorching 16-for-22 shooting, a 5-for-7 mark from downtown, and 10-for-11 at the free-throw line, along with six assists, three rebounds, a steal and just three turnovers in 39 minutes of downright remarkable work.

Irving made his first 10 shots on Monday; he has now scored 77 points on 44 shots over the past two games. I think he’s gotten used to the mask, you guys.

He’s the first Celtic to score 45 or more on 70-plus percent or better since Larry Bird did it 28 years ago. According to Basketball-Refeference.com’s database, he’s the seventh player in the last 54 years to produce multiple games of 45 or more points on 22 or fewer shot attempts, and man, is it a fun list: Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley, peak Gilbert Arenas, Manu Ginobili and Dwyane Wade, never-forget-how-good-a-scorer-he-was Kevin Martin, and present-day James Harden (who picked up his fourth such game just last week, hot on the heels of Joel Embiid having his first).

After struggling with the consistency on his shot earlier in the season, Irving has now put together back-to-back scorching performances that have lifted his season numbers (22.5 points on 47/38/89 shooting, 5.3 assists, 3.2 rebounds, 1.6 steals per game) back in line with his career averages, despite playing about 2.5 fewer minutes per game than his career mark (and 3.5 fewer than he saw last year in Cleveland). He kept his frankly unbelievable numbers in tight situations going, too:

Irving has scored 65 points in 38 minutes of “clutch” play — when the game’s within five points, one way or the other, in the final five minutes or OT — this season, far and away the best clutch scoring rate of any player in the league, according to NBA.com’s stats. He’s an obscene 24-for-39 from the field (61.5 percent) in those close-and-late situations, with the bulk of his damage coming inside the paint and directly at the front of the rim, thanks to his ability to sidestep and teleport through defenders tasked with hemming him up at the perimeter. He has drawn 11 fouls leading to 16 free throws (making 13), and has dished 10 assists without a turnover in “clutch” time.

It’s a little too early to start updating those “King in the Fourth” Photoshops, but it’s fair to say the Celtics haven’t yet experienced a late-game drop-off with Irving at the controls. On the contrary: no team’s got a better record in games featuring “clutch” minutes than Boston’s 11-2 mark, and while last year’s Celtics outscored opponents by a very strong 14.9 points per 100 “clutch” possessions, this year’s model has nearly doubled that net rating so far.

While Irving’s overall efficiency hadn’t quite been up to snuff before these past two games, his improved effort level on the defensive end and his killer performance in the clutch have played a big role in the Celtics getting off to such a dynamite start to the season. Then you see performances like the one he turned in on Monday, where it doesn’t seem like there’s a single thing a defender can do to stop him, and you’re reminded why Danny Ainge decided to take the gigantic risk of giving two starters and the Brooklyn Nets’ unprotected first-round draft pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers so he’d have the chance to get Irving in kelly green.

The early returns on Ainge being right about that deal have been so impressive that it’s got the Celtics president of basketball operations wondering if he might be wrong about something else:



-- Yahoo

A long time ago, in a place far, far away, the Boston Celtics went on a road trip to the West Coast. I believe it was the second half of the 1984-85 season. It was a longish trip, five or six games. And all anyone could talk about was how just about every game finished:

On a Larry Bird buzzer beater.

My brother the Lakers fan called to finally acknowledge what the rest of the world already knew. Larry Bird was the greatest player on the planet. The way Kyrie is playing this year, I feel another call coming from my brother.

:  )

M-V-P, M-V-P

Kyrie is Like Crack (part 2)

ATLANTA — When Brad Stevens is preparing to coach a game, he usually looks at the most recent box score of the team he is about to face. If that team's star was subdued, Stevens is usually wary of what might come next.

"If they really struggled and they're really good, that's a scary sight," Stevens said, "because you know guys like that don't have quiet nights twice in a row very often."

Kyrie Irving did not play poorly in the Celtics' 104-88 win over the Magic on Sunday, but he was held to 11 points. Last season, he scored fewer than that just twice. So Stevens had a sense Irving might be due for an eruption — except the good news was that he was on his side now.

On a night the Celtics were far from perfect, at the end of a challenging three-game road trip, Irving was there to rescue them when they needed him most. He would not let the winning streak end, not here.

The point guard had his most complete game as a Celtic, pouring in 35 points on 14 of 22 shooting and dishing out seven assists, as the Celtics held off the Hawks and grabbed a 110-107 win, their ninth in a row.

Irving's 14-footer with 20.3 seconds left all but finished off Atlanta.

"It's exciting to be out there and be on his side," Celtics rookie Jayson Tatum said, "watching him do all those incredible things

--DAS GLOBE

When I wrote Part I, the article represented my observations from several games, including the pre-season. Ahh, yes. The pre-season. Let's not forget that. It was so clear how good the Celtics were going to be. Just think how good we are now, and then throw GH into the mix. We are talking 40 blowout wins. No?

Anyway, I digress.

Last night we saw what we might not only expect from our superstar, but also what we might hope for, only this time it came all in one game, a game where he needed to lead and drag his teammates to victory. The Celtics were dragging ass and discombobulated for much of the game. Kyrie? OK, I guess tonight they need me. They need all of me. And that is what we saw. Of course, he still has more. He gave just enough.

I am so impressed at not only how well the supporting cast is playing, but at how quickly the others recognized Kyrie as their "leader" and their "star."

Damn straight.

It will be a fun year. Tatum is in the starting lineup for good. He will benefit so much from the experience. Brown will benefit from the extra minutes not having to share them with GH. So, for the most part, it's all good. Yes, we would be otherworldly with GH, and it is a crime he got injured.

But let's not focus on that now.

Let's appreciate how good this team is, how deep this team is, and how unbelievably great it's leader is.

Daniel Theis(!) has a Good Motor

---
Then was the rookie Daniel Theis registering his first career double-double, with 10 points and 10 rebounds. "He just has a good motor to him," coach Brad Stevens said. "He's always in good position, never quits on plays. He's got good bounce, as we can see."He has appeared in seven of Boston's eight games, and has a rebounding percentage of .205, which is tops among all his teammates. Theis also enjoys an offensive rebound percentage of .175 which leads all Celtics who average at least 10 minutes played per game and ranks fifth among all NBA players who play as much (he averages 14.6 minutes per game) as he does, or more. .

-- Das Globe

It was clear to me (and others such as FCF) that Danny found something when he found Mr. Theis. Like Kyrie and many of the others, I suspect young Daniel is also just getting warmed up...

Kyrie is Like Crack

They don't have Hayward, but they have plenty of weapons. And with the Cavaliers' tailspin continuing, early indications are that the path through the East could at least be navigable for Boston, a reality that seemed like a foolish thought two weeks ago.

"You guys have been asking, 'How do we put it back together?' " point guard Kyrie Irving said. "It's like the beginning of the season. It could have gone either way and for us, we understood that, just demanding our preparation to be perfect. We'll put ourselves in a good position when we go out there. We play extremely hard. We demand that excellence from one another."

Irving had an efficient game, registering 22 points and five assists in just 27 minutes. The lead swelled so much that Irving and most of the other starters were able to rest for the entire fourth quarter. Irving also had four steals and now leads with NBA with 21 this season. He is averaging 2.6 per game, more than twice as many as he did in Cleveland a year ago.

Still, Irving has yet to have one of the dominating offensive outings that surely will come.

 -- Das Globe

Irving is like, well, I said it already, Allen Iverson.

 He only scores when he needs to.

 Have you noticed?

2017-18 Celtics Reminding me of Iverson-Led Sixers

"[Stevens] is a special person, on and off the court," Popovich said before Monday's game. "He's very intelligent and intelligence is fine, but, if it doesn't come along with incisiveness, judgment and an emotional maturity, it doesn't do you much good. He has all of those things, and that's large. Not that many people have that.

-- gregg popovich

We shall see how the season unfolds. 

But, at the moment, my best comparison is to the Allen Iverson-led Philadelphia Sixers. They weren't a one-man show. Nor are this year's Boston Celtics. Both teams, however, center on single super stars, and teams that do this risk struggling in crunch time and in big games. Iverson led his team to the NBA Finals. Can Kyrie Irving do the same? We shall see. This year won't be like 1985-86, or 2007-08 for that matter. But if Kyrie can stay healthy, he will make it interesting. I like the supporting cast, too. But like most supporting casts, Kyrie won't know who he can rely on until after the game starts.

Lex's Annual Win Prediction

Let there be no mistake.

Barring injury, this team will be insanely good.

Offense, defense, passing. The list is endless.

Jeff Van Gundy couldn't stop talking about how long we were.

No, there is no 7-foot dude in the middle.

What he meant was we've gone from 5-9, 6-1, and 6-6 to 6-3, 6-7, and 6-8. It's an absolute world of difference. Night and day. This impacts defense, rebounding, everything. Sure, maybe Avery was an elite defender. But I wonder how much does "elite" buy you when it's getting replaced by really good? We'll find out. But I'm gonna say not much.

The second unit with Rozier and Smart? Wow. I say keep the Mook on the second unit, and start Tatum. Mook settles down second unit with veteran presence, and gives Tatum some non-pressure minutes with the starters. Stevens is brilliant.

Kyrie is going to be a top-3 MVP candidate. I like Gordon, and I think he's still finding himself. But he's no Kyrie. Kyrie could easily have a Steph kind of year. As good as IT was last year, Kyrie is on another planet. The offense even hints at stalling out with time running out on the shot clock, and Kyrie is gonna score the ball.

58 wins minimum.

This team isn't gonna be good in the East.

This team is gonna be good.

Period.

Overall Height -- The New Roster Measures Up on Wing Defense

“Jaylen has to become a lockdown defender for us," Brad Stevens said on the Vertical Podcast with Chris Mannix, earlier this summer. "That's where, as you go into an offseason and you are an individual player, there's a ton of things that you want to get better at, and there's a ton of things you want to add to your game. But ultimately, when you get back to your team, it's what do you do that's different to make your team unique to give yourself the best chance of adding value to winning. We need him to become that."

If one were to add up the total height measured in inches of last year's squad and divide by 15, how much taller on average do you think this year's squad will be? Surely, anyone searching to identify the biggest (pun intended) differences between the two teams would need to count overall height as one of them. IT, of course, was 5-9, and is now being replaced by someone six inches taller. But it is easy to forget that IT's backcourt mate last year was 6-2 because Avery Bradley was such an outstanding defender.

Nonetheless, as the old adage goes, you can't teach height, and as good as Bradley was, he was sometimes forced to guard much taller forwards. That won't happen to this year's squad. The closest thing you have to Avery Bradley in terms of stature on this year's team is Marcus Smart (I refuse to believe Terry Rozier will see any time guarding 3s, and Shane Larkin will be used exclusively as a 1). Smart is 6-4, and much more of a physical presence than Bradley, having spent a decent chunk of his career guarding 3s, 4s, and even the occasional 5.

Smart is now the Celtics' low-end defender in terms of height. As Abdel Nader recently observed, Boston has "like six or seven wings who are 6-6 or taller." The importance of this difference can't be overstated. Instead of Bradley and Smart being forced to guard the other team's much taller wings (and typically best player) for indefinite periods, the Celtics will now have an entire stable of guys who can be used interchangeably.

Gordon Hayward, Marcus Morris, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Daniel Theis, Semi Ojeleye, Guerschon Yabusele, and Abdel Nader.

That's eight players.

Last year?

Count them however you want, but let's be honest. Roster space was being consumed by the likes of Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, and Tyler Zeller who couldn't guard a wing if their lives depended on it. Even Jonas Jerebko was typically challenged when the wing he was guarding had even the slightest bit of quickness and mobility. Gerald Green? James Young? They score points for height, but not for stellar defense. Meanwhile, six-foot-eight Marcus Morris, by some statistical measures, is the best LeBron defender in the  league (though, admittedly, it's hard to play defense from a jail cell). If several of the other wings turn into more than capable defenders, the quality of defensive upgrade will be noticeable.

And then, of course, there is the point guard position.

Do we really think Kyrie Irving will pass up the chance to become a two-way player? If he moved to Boston to evolve as a player and reach his potential, few would say he accomplishes this goal unless he starts to play better D, especially when we all know the real goal Kyrie has set is to become historically great.

That's a lot of potential defensive upgrades Boston added to the roster.

Thus, as you are contemplating the ways Boston's roster may have improved over the summer, don't discount the very real possibility that Boston's defense will markedly improve as well.

What Kyrie Wants: A stable environment to thrive

I think Kyrie is a hyper-intelligent kid. Really, really smart. Doesn’t get enough credit for how smart he is. And I think seeing that the franchise is in flux, I think seeing Griff leave and the amount of coaches. I think Kyrie has had a much tougher time in this stretch of the organization than anyone really ever wanted to fully — He’s a No. 1 pick right after LeBron. Then he has three different coaches. Then LeBron comes back. Now, there’s trade rumors. Now, it’s LeBron leaving.

--Richard Jefferson

 Fear the Sword goes into more depth regarding the environment Kyrie escaped from:

• The team lost approximately 94 games in a row the year James left.
• After Kyrie Irving’s sensational rookie season, the team drafted Dion Waiters at the behest of coach Byron Scott, despite the fact that the team hadn’t so much as talked to Waiters prior to draft night. Waiters was a ball-dominant undersized score-first guard, and didn’t mesh with Irving.
• They then fired Byron Scott.
• They then re-hired Mike Brown, who they had fired in a last-ditch attempt to keep LeBron.
• The team doubled down on Waiters with Jarrett Jack, another ball dominant undersized score-first guard.
• They drafted Anthony Bennett first overall.
• They signed Andrew Bynum to a deal.
• They traded for Luol Deng, who had no interest in anything Cleveland had to offer.
• They fired Chris Grant, the general manager, and promoted his subordinate. A Cavs source once told me this time was “painful.” I hear you.
• They won the lottery for the third time, winning the right to select Andrew Wiggins, and trade him for Kevin Love if they so chose.
• LeBron decided to come back after the owner flew to Fort Lauderdale, meanwhile lying about his stealth trip.
• James immediately started undercutting David Blatt, who replaced Mike Brown, which didn’t even merit a bullet point above, but who was fired in large part due to the immaturity and discontent of Irving.
• Kevin Love is traded for and spends the first three years of his time in Cleveland averaging 3,217 trips through the ESPN trade machine per day.
• The Cavs start 18-20 before J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov arrive and right the ship.
• That last sentence is like 90 percent true.
• The Cavs lose Love in the first round of the playoffs right as they are turning into a juggernaut.
• The Cavs lose Irving at the end of the second round of the playoffs, before he returned in the clinching Eastern Conference Finals game. He plays a great Game 1 of the NBA Finals and then breaks his kneecap.
• The Cavs still somehow win their next two games before players literally almost started dying of exhaustion.
• The Cavs come back with the same team and are starting to regain their health when David Blatt is fired. General Manager David Griffin says the team was playing without joy and he was right.
• The team holds approximately 42 players-only meetings. Kevin Love is reminded in half of them that he is, in fact, good at basketball.
• The Warriors win 73 games, and the Cavs still find a way to go into the series overconfident. After falling behind 3-1, they win the title.

The Decision -- Kyrie Irving Style

As everyone knows by now, Kyrie Irving stopped by ESPN studios to spend 40 minutes (40!) with the gang from First Take and participate in some Q&A. The interview was long on the Qs and short on the As, at least if the goal was something approaching meaningful As.

Instead, the goal of the interview was to create a “gotcha” moment, where Kyrie would confess the “real reason” for his departure from Cleveland. Was it his personal dislike for LeBron James? Was it his desire to get out of LeBron’s shadow? Was it to be the undisputed cornerstone of a franchise somewhere else? Was it because Kobe told him he must leave? For the hosts of First Take, it sure seemed obvious that Kyrie’s decision had nothing to do with winning or with his personal evolution as a basketball player.

If the interview wasn’t bad enough, ESPN spent the better part of the rest of the day dissecting it, analyzing and speculating about every syllable Kyrie had uttered. At one point, former Celtic Paul Pierce agreed that something personal must have happened between Irving and James because when the NBA Finals concluded, everyone in the world could see LeBron and Kyrie walking off the court together arm-in-arm, consoling each other after a crushing loss to a superior foe. Then, at the press conference following the loss, Kyrie repeated his pledge to remain joined at the hip with LeBron and do battle against the dreaded Warriors into the foreseeable future.

But then he changed his mind.

And, quite frankly, I don’t think the reason is quite as mysterious as everyone else makes it out to be. I return to the quote from Richard Jefferson:

I think Kyrie is a hyper-intelligent kid. Really, really smart. Doesn’t get enough credit for how smart he is. And I think seeing that the franchise is in flux, I think seeing Griff leave and the amount of coaches. I think Kyrie has had a much tougher time in this stretch of the organization than anyone really ever wanted to fully — He’s a No. 1 pick right after LeBron. Then he has three different coaches. Then LeBron comes back. Now, there’s trade rumors. Now, it’s LeBron leaving.

Changing coaches, changing GMs, and, of course, changing personnel. The speculation about LeBron’s departure began before the Finals concluded. The Cavs were no match for the Warriors, and it was thought that LeBron’s only choice was to leave Cleveland, and go form a super team somewhere else, most likely in Los Angeles with Paul George after the King’s contract expires in 2018. Because LeBron is LeBron, he need not consult with anyone before making his next “Decision,” including his own teammates.

Ah, but therein lies the rub.

LeBron’s teammates would never expect LeBron to allow them input into his next “Decision.” So why would a teammate who is thinking about leaving seek consultation with the King before making his own decision on his long-term future in Cleveland. First Take asked Kyrie if he talked with LeBron before making his trade demand. “No,” Irving responded, “why would I?”

Well, if that didn’t bring a smile to your face, nothing will.

What’s good for the goose is certainly good for the gander.

Ok, back to the reason Kyrie made his decision. Once the Warriors ran roughshod over the Cavs, it was a foregone conclusion that the 2017-18 NBA campaign would be a sideshow to LeBron’s next Decision. Five thousand media sources from around the world spending every waking moment hyper-focused on LeBron’s looming departure. Game after game, week after week, city after city. No way Kyrie was going to suffer through that if he didn’t have to, even if it meant leaving the best team in the East.

Distraction.

Circus.

Environment not conducive to basketball and crafting your art as a player.

Seriously.

What is so tough to figure out about that?

One might argue that Boston hasn’t been the picture of stability during the Brad Stevens Era. True, player turnover surpassed breakneck pace. But the Celtics have had one GM, one coach, and now have one core trio of players who will be together for at least two years. In the NBA, two years together is an eternity.

Circus or stability?

I think the choice was obvious.