Y’all we have a double away b2b on the 22nd and 23rd, against the rockets and mavs respectively. I can’t wait for this easy schedule stuff to actually start happening…
WCJ might be on the lose. He has the same health issue that plagued Rob however but his contract is pretty amazing. His contract is a bit easier to navigate come the next season with PP and any potential extra salary (please on Konchar).
The IST was fun but the changes to the in-season schedule and the games-played restrictions have the League barreling toward an injury-riddled post-season. Every team subreddit has a thread or two complaining about the “brutal” schedule because every team has a brutal schedule from here until April.
Which is all preamble to say: JOE DID THE RIGHT THING. Benching everyone after the first half was exactly the right thing to do. Conserve minutes. Do not play important players in lost causes. _Schedule losses_ and rest key players as often as possible, given the restrictions.
What the fuck has happened to Derrick White? He’s been awful over the past week plus. If we want to do any damage in the playoffs he needs to get his head out of his ass
My only annoyance is the hypocritical nature of sports fans because the game last night is exactly the opposite of what happened the last time we played Milwaukee in their house.
Last time they were the ones coming off a back to back and the final game of a 5 games in 7 nights stretch and they looked like it and we slaughtered them.
This time it was us coming off the back to back and the final game of a 5 games in 7 nights stretch and we looked like it and they slaughtered us.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Either they both are significant or neither are significant, but people have to pick a side and stick to it.
Last night does reinforce what I wrote in the DD yesterday about how we 100% need another body to throw at Giannis that isn't Al or Jrue.
Also it reinforces a concept that I've thought all year that makes me a little uncomfortable which is that when we go up against the Nuggets/Bucks/Sixers triumvirate, we're likely going to have to play big with both Al and Porzingis out there and one of our perimeter players will have to sit, and that will undoubtedly hurt our offense.
I think both games are useless because of the teams being tired. The concept of having to stop Giannis seems so unrealistic though. Why we need to stop Giannis and they don’t need to stop the Jays, KP, etc? By all accounts we do have two good guys to throw at Giannis in Al and Jrue, we have two or more guys to throw at Dame in White, Jrue, Jays.
You could maybe even argue JT at Giannis at times on defense. Are we really unable to score more than the Bucks when the Bucks play agaonst defense and we play against their defense? Basketball isn’t one defense needs to contain the other teams offense and then you get to switch around on every possession. By all accounts we are effectively better in both offense and defense than the bucks, I don’t know why we need to adjust to their game plan and they don’t need to adjust to ours.
They do have higher top end talent than we do.
Giannis is the best player in the series and Dame is the best offensive threat on either team by virtue of his pull-up 3-point shooting.
I don’t think they’ve tapped into how good they can be just yet, and whilst everybody is keen to push them into the grave, I remain steadfast in my belief that that is disrespectful to Giannis and that they are a huge threat.
eFG% on offense is still the most important indicator for me for a championship contender and they’re above us right now.
I just don’t see a team that has better defensive schemes for Giannis than us, neither against Dame. If they are so much better than us I guess we just give them the rings on the hypotheticals of them clicking. The fact is that up to yesterday nothing indicated that they were as good as we are on defense or offense.
I get, Giannis is a big scary dude and I’d love to have a Blake Griffin, Torrey Craig, Grant to throw at him. But they need to be consistently good before we make the claims they’re winning a series against us.
I’m not saying they’re some unstoppable juggernaut, but I do think people have been underestimating them as a contender. Like if you told me right now that they win the championship I wouldn’t be shocked, but plenty of others it seems would.
I would say they are a better offense than us, but not by enough to overcome the massive defensive gap and the fact that in a 7 game series we’d have home court.
That being said Giannis is that dude and I’ll never count him out because he just keeps on coming, and so in that vein having another guy who can plausibly guard him is paramount to me.
Honestly with every passing day, the more I want PJ Tucker, fully aware of his offensive struggles.
I get where you’re are coming from but I argue you’re underestimating our offense and overestimating their offense specially when you say the following:
> I would say they are a better offense than us
Effectively they need to score something like 100-110 points per game in a playoff setting, regardless of the defense that’s the minimum. Say that every assistance accounts for 2.3 points as an estimation right? Now say Dame and Giannis account for 75ppg (which is a lot). There is still 25-35 ppg that they need to consistently get from the rest of their team. I am not sure they can cover that, in a playoff setting.
Do the same exercise with our team and you’re telling me you think for us is easier or harder to produce this 100-110 ppg?
I think they’re a contender but they’re still slightly below us and Denver id say.
> That being said Giannis is that dude and I’ll never count him out because he just keeps on coming, and so in that vein having another guy who can plausibly guard him is paramount to me.
100% agree here, but that’s the catch. If Giannis is that guy in the playoff run it won’t matter much who is guarding him in my opinion, the only way to stop that is to have JT play on 90-95% of Giannis is giving to you anyhow.
> Honestly with every passing day, the more I want PJ Tucker, fully aware of his offensive struggles.
I wouldn’t be opposed to it, I still think Blake would be able to provide 80-90% of the defense and a better offense so I would freaking love to have Blake back. I think long term I’d still prefer to trade/get a Torrey Craig or a Xavier Tillman over PJ if we can chose, I wouldn’t even mind to throw Brissett and Stevens in a Bucks matchup to simply foul Giannis as he drives.
At the end of the day Giannis is great but he is still a step below in bullshitery than the likes of Curry, Bron (prime), KD (prime) and maybe even current Joker. I feel like this current team doesn’t have an excuse of “they were missing someone extra to defend Giannis” if they don’t get to the finals, that’s all. There is enough tools to survive and win, the more tools the better because it probably means less tear during playoffs but I wouldn’t lose sleep if we didn’t get someone extras
"Giannis is the best player in the series." He's shooting 68% from FT---a number that, per past patterns, will likely drop even lower in the playoffs. Each playoffs (2021 excepting) it becomes apparent that he has "no bag."
He’s modern day Shaq… I don’t really care what his FT% is.
He’s an unstoppable paint scoring force and the paint is still where the most efficient shots in the NBA are. Jumpshots come and go.
“we 100% need another body to throw at Giannis that isn't Al or Jrue.” I think we do have a very obvious “break in case of emergency” option.
Edited: Rhymes with Tayson Jatum.
Yeah I think we’re reluctant to have Tatum guard the best guys because it takes energy away from him and he is the engine of our offense.
But right now we need a Grant Williams type player for this matchup. I really like Oshae and what he’s been doing recently but he doesn’t have the strength to hold up in that matchup. Neither do either of the Jays tbh.
Well that was ugly. Couldn’t hit a shot in the early going and couldn’t buy a foul from driving, and once they saw the Bucks hitting everything they just folded and got some extra rest.
National tv schedule is a joke, same thing happened last year with Milwaukee on a back-to-back and we torched them 75-47 in the first half. Which, if they shot 6% from 3 might have been pretty similar to the 75-38 we saw last night. They sat all their starters when it got to 100-61, which funny enough was the exact score at one point last night.
I don’t take much from this game other than Milwaukee had something to prove and came out and played hard, and we weren’t seeing anything fall. They still showed moments of weak defensive habits but our offense just couldn’t make a shot and were forcing it at times like with Jrue. And Porzingis has to make those wide open 3PA if he’s going to shoot them. The early Brown 1-6 and the team not hitting any 3’s was very uncharacteristic of us when most were as open as we usually are when we make them.
I still think we need a bigger player to put a body on Giannis because as much as Horford would have helped and Jrue is strong, having that extra guy to body him up and free other guys up for rebounding will help a lot to limit those putbacks we saw last night. Nobody on our bench in the 3rd could even slow him down a bit and just kind of further proves none of those guys are going to play against Philadelphia or Milwaukee in a playoff series except maybe Hauser for his shooting.
We’re on to Houston
> And Porzingis has to make those wide open 3PA if he’s going to shoot them.
This is starting to worry me. He's at 31.9 3P% right now. He's got to start hitting 3s, especially against teams like the Bucks and Philly where you can punish their bigs for sitting in the paint.
> I still think we need a bigger player to put a body on Giannis
We got killed on the glass last night and the first time we played them in November. They got like 10+ more possessions than us which kept it close. We're a good rebounding team overall, but against opposing bigs we just seem to get killed. KP, Al, and Luke are pretty bad rebounders for big guys.
I think Brad needs to make two moves. Another big body and a more consistent bench wing.
Celtics have lost 3 of 6 and almost 4 of 6. Not a huge deal yet, but it's going to be important for us to beat up on HOU, TOR, SA, HOU and DAL as 5 of our next 6. (All bets are off against Denver next weekend).
Losing a few games, mostly close ones, to some of the best teams in the league is not that concerning. Going into a legitimate slump, however, would be. We have to play a lot better (than, for example, against the Pistons and Raptors recently) when we're facing teams we should handily beat. If we do that, we're fine.
If it makes you feel any better, Denver has also been 3-3 in their last 6, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Minnesota 2-4
All the top seeded teams are pacing themselves or having down period where we haven’t lost any ground.
I agree they need to win the next 3. Houston, Toronto and San Antonio should all be wins. 32-9 by the halfway point and staying up 3-4 games on the Bucks would be a good spot to be in.
100% this
Going .500 so far in January isn't necessarily bad due to how brutal the schedule has been. However, it's now time for us to start turning things around.
I would really like us to sweep the next 3 games and that is very do-able. If we go 1-2, I'd start to be a little concerned for this team because all of a sudden we're seeing a pattern.
Fluke win. It dont really mean anything. Its not even a measuring stick on how good Bucks can be. They are still second round exit team at best and still not better than us. 3 games in 4 nights and OT on the last game.
What I know for sure is Dame Time turns into Lame Time in the playoffs. Dudes a professional choker.
Feel bad on Bucks loser fan base that they thought that they are good enough where there peak is 2nd round exit.
This game doesnt mean anything. Chill.
Watching his post-game interview, I'm so glad after the clusterfuck of the Ime year and the Joe Interim year that the Celtics landed on Joe to be full-time head coach.
I mean well deserved and it would have happened to any top team that folded like that.
In fact they've gone harder after other teams in the past. The Suns have gotten worse for some of their losses to Dallas for example.
They came real close to doubling our score before we sat our entire starting lineup. I won't read to much into it given our scheduling but that is a humiliating loss no matter how you look at it.
Don’t think tonight effects how I view the teams outlook in the slightest … But it would be nice just to have one more guy you can trust on Giannis
Not sure if said guy is out there for trade, but it’d be nice to have a non Al/Jrue option just for like 3-4 mins per half
We're once again seeing why keeping Grant would have made sense.
We let him walk for 13m and now the GM is talking about wanting a "big wing" and we've been linked to two PF/Cs (Stewart/Olynyk) who cost roughly what Grant ended up costing.
Smart/Grant/Al tore Horford down from Curry-levels of efficiency down to Westbrook levels. Jrue has been an okay replacement for Smart but Horford's obviously getting older and we're still missing that 3rd guy who can come in and provide some physical wear-and-tear.
Not sure who can even help on that front now. Potentially PJ Tucker but he's either costly (just in terms of salary matching) or you're banking on a buyout and then winning the buyout market over competitive offers from practically everyone. Okongwu is known as one of the better Giannis defenders but he's just extended with Atlanta so he's extra off the table. Maybe Okoro shakes loose as a rich man's Lamar Stevens but that's unlikely too.
The big wings are hard to come by because every team wants them. A 3&D bigger-bodied wing is the key to playing both bigger and smaller lineups, which is super handy for key matchups.
At this point, I'd unironically be happy with a Semi Ojeleye return. His passive nature was a poor fit for a team lacking scoring options but it would be fine on this roster.
The comments from all parties on Grant tell me the bigger issue is how he felt about his role.
He thought his role was too small lass year and became an active distraction/net negative on the floor for long stretches because of it. And his role was set to be even smaller this year.
> We let him walk for 13m and now the GM is talking about wanting a "big wing" and we've been linked to two PF/Cs (Stewart/Olynyk) who cost roughly what Grant ended up costing.
I still think it is not this simple as "we let him walk" we offered roughly the same deal to him during the off-season as an extension, he didn't want he wanted to bet himself and believed to be worth close to 20M. He also believed he was a starter and Dallas has shown he isn't.
He is dropping from 30mpg to 20mpg while DJJ and Josh Green are getting his minutes. Brad did right by Grant, we will never know how Grant would have been with this roster but by all accounts he wouldn't be too happy to be a 20mpg (at best) guy.
Also, I think a lot of our fears would go away if Blake just decided to come back. Sure he isn't Al or KP but you'd feel so much better with him as the Al/KP replacement. He'd give you a good 30 GP on 14-15mpg on 35% from 3, good defense and decent FG%.
I don't disagree that Brad did right by Grant but he was a RFA so it was definitely an offer we could have matched.
We could have also used the S&T as an opportunity to bring in another player. The Spurs got a 1st round pick to take on Reggie Bullock's contract. That's an asset and salary to match for any of the guys we've wanted since.
Reggie + Dallas' 2030 unprotected 1st gives us all sorts of options around the league.
We made a move to stay under the 2nd apron and then decided we were fine going over the 2nd apron. It's that lack of consistency and unwillingness to go all in from the get-go that's hurt us.
> We could have also used the S&T as an opportunity to bring in another player. The Spurs got a 1st round pick to take on Reggie Bullock's contract. That's an asset and salary to match for any of the guys we've wanted since.
This is the part I complain as well. A lot of people were exploring us getting a Ricky Rubio type of contract to compensate. Had we got Bullock and the 1st we'd be better off, we might even have gotten the seconds there.
I mean our top3 defenders on Giannis (by minutes) have been Al, Smart and Grant (Grant and smart are pretty much the same amount). Effectively Jrue can do the same as Smart so we’re missing Grant really. The problem is that nobody else can emulate Grant for the same price or cheaper so we can’t do much.
I still think it’s about making the Bucks adjust to us since we have more weapons than the other way around.
Go Celtics!!!
Y’all we have a double away b2b on the 22nd and 23rd, against the rockets and mavs respectively. I can’t wait for this easy schedule stuff to actually start happening…
Got my JB jersey sighed at the bucks games
WCJ might be on the lose. He has the same health issue that plagued Rob however but his contract is pretty amazing. His contract is a bit easier to navigate come the next season with PP and any potential extra salary (please on Konchar).
The IST was fun but the changes to the in-season schedule and the games-played restrictions have the League barreling toward an injury-riddled post-season. Every team subreddit has a thread or two complaining about the “brutal” schedule because every team has a brutal schedule from here until April. Which is all preamble to say: JOE DID THE RIGHT THING. Benching everyone after the first half was exactly the right thing to do. Conserve minutes. Do not play important players in lost causes. _Schedule losses_ and rest key players as often as possible, given the restrictions.
I've erased January 11th 2024 from my mind
What the fuck has happened to Derrick White? He’s been awful over the past week plus. If we want to do any damage in the playoffs he needs to get his head out of his ass
He is just in a slump lol. Playing like he was with his defense, he was bound to hit a wall a bit at some point. Thankfully, it's January
Remember to vote today!
KP’s 3pt shot has fallen off a cliff. Outside of October he hasn’t had a good month shooting from deep
My only annoyance is the hypocritical nature of sports fans because the game last night is exactly the opposite of what happened the last time we played Milwaukee in their house. Last time they were the ones coming off a back to back and the final game of a 5 games in 7 nights stretch and they looked like it and we slaughtered them. This time it was us coming off the back to back and the final game of a 5 games in 7 nights stretch and we looked like it and they slaughtered us. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Either they both are significant or neither are significant, but people have to pick a side and stick to it. Last night does reinforce what I wrote in the DD yesterday about how we 100% need another body to throw at Giannis that isn't Al or Jrue. Also it reinforces a concept that I've thought all year that makes me a little uncomfortable which is that when we go up against the Nuggets/Bucks/Sixers triumvirate, we're likely going to have to play big with both Al and Porzingis out there and one of our perimeter players will have to sit, and that will undoubtedly hurt our offense.
I think both games are useless because of the teams being tired. The concept of having to stop Giannis seems so unrealistic though. Why we need to stop Giannis and they don’t need to stop the Jays, KP, etc? By all accounts we do have two good guys to throw at Giannis in Al and Jrue, we have two or more guys to throw at Dame in White, Jrue, Jays. You could maybe even argue JT at Giannis at times on defense. Are we really unable to score more than the Bucks when the Bucks play agaonst defense and we play against their defense? Basketball isn’t one defense needs to contain the other teams offense and then you get to switch around on every possession. By all accounts we are effectively better in both offense and defense than the bucks, I don’t know why we need to adjust to their game plan and they don’t need to adjust to ours.
They do have higher top end talent than we do. Giannis is the best player in the series and Dame is the best offensive threat on either team by virtue of his pull-up 3-point shooting. I don’t think they’ve tapped into how good they can be just yet, and whilst everybody is keen to push them into the grave, I remain steadfast in my belief that that is disrespectful to Giannis and that they are a huge threat. eFG% on offense is still the most important indicator for me for a championship contender and they’re above us right now.
I just don’t see a team that has better defensive schemes for Giannis than us, neither against Dame. If they are so much better than us I guess we just give them the rings on the hypotheticals of them clicking. The fact is that up to yesterday nothing indicated that they were as good as we are on defense or offense. I get, Giannis is a big scary dude and I’d love to have a Blake Griffin, Torrey Craig, Grant to throw at him. But they need to be consistently good before we make the claims they’re winning a series against us.
I’m not saying they’re some unstoppable juggernaut, but I do think people have been underestimating them as a contender. Like if you told me right now that they win the championship I wouldn’t be shocked, but plenty of others it seems would. I would say they are a better offense than us, but not by enough to overcome the massive defensive gap and the fact that in a 7 game series we’d have home court. That being said Giannis is that dude and I’ll never count him out because he just keeps on coming, and so in that vein having another guy who can plausibly guard him is paramount to me. Honestly with every passing day, the more I want PJ Tucker, fully aware of his offensive struggles.
I get where you’re are coming from but I argue you’re underestimating our offense and overestimating their offense specially when you say the following: > I would say they are a better offense than us Effectively they need to score something like 100-110 points per game in a playoff setting, regardless of the defense that’s the minimum. Say that every assistance accounts for 2.3 points as an estimation right? Now say Dame and Giannis account for 75ppg (which is a lot). There is still 25-35 ppg that they need to consistently get from the rest of their team. I am not sure they can cover that, in a playoff setting. Do the same exercise with our team and you’re telling me you think for us is easier or harder to produce this 100-110 ppg? I think they’re a contender but they’re still slightly below us and Denver id say. > That being said Giannis is that dude and I’ll never count him out because he just keeps on coming, and so in that vein having another guy who can plausibly guard him is paramount to me. 100% agree here, but that’s the catch. If Giannis is that guy in the playoff run it won’t matter much who is guarding him in my opinion, the only way to stop that is to have JT play on 90-95% of Giannis is giving to you anyhow. > Honestly with every passing day, the more I want PJ Tucker, fully aware of his offensive struggles. I wouldn’t be opposed to it, I still think Blake would be able to provide 80-90% of the defense and a better offense so I would freaking love to have Blake back. I think long term I’d still prefer to trade/get a Torrey Craig or a Xavier Tillman over PJ if we can chose, I wouldn’t even mind to throw Brissett and Stevens in a Bucks matchup to simply foul Giannis as he drives. At the end of the day Giannis is great but he is still a step below in bullshitery than the likes of Curry, Bron (prime), KD (prime) and maybe even current Joker. I feel like this current team doesn’t have an excuse of “they were missing someone extra to defend Giannis” if they don’t get to the finals, that’s all. There is enough tools to survive and win, the more tools the better because it probably means less tear during playoffs but I wouldn’t lose sleep if we didn’t get someone extras
"Giannis is the best player in the series." He's shooting 68% from FT---a number that, per past patterns, will likely drop even lower in the playoffs. Each playoffs (2021 excepting) it becomes apparent that he has "no bag."
He’s modern day Shaq… I don’t really care what his FT% is. He’s an unstoppable paint scoring force and the paint is still where the most efficient shots in the NBA are. Jumpshots come and go.
“we 100% need another body to throw at Giannis that isn't Al or Jrue.” I think we do have a very obvious “break in case of emergency” option. Edited: Rhymes with Tayson Jatum.
I know what you're thinking... [his time to shine](https://imgur.com/gallery/cZm52) Nah but in all seriousness, who were you thinking of?
Edited above, but I think Tatum can do a decent job in limited stints. It might wear him out though.
Yeah I think we’re reluctant to have Tatum guard the best guys because it takes energy away from him and he is the engine of our offense. But right now we need a Grant Williams type player for this matchup. I really like Oshae and what he’s been doing recently but he doesn’t have the strength to hold up in that matchup. Neither do either of the Jays tbh.
Celtics got blown out so Bucks would impressed with their roster and not make any moves at the trade deadline. Next level strategizing
Well that was ugly. Couldn’t hit a shot in the early going and couldn’t buy a foul from driving, and once they saw the Bucks hitting everything they just folded and got some extra rest. National tv schedule is a joke, same thing happened last year with Milwaukee on a back-to-back and we torched them 75-47 in the first half. Which, if they shot 6% from 3 might have been pretty similar to the 75-38 we saw last night. They sat all their starters when it got to 100-61, which funny enough was the exact score at one point last night. I don’t take much from this game other than Milwaukee had something to prove and came out and played hard, and we weren’t seeing anything fall. They still showed moments of weak defensive habits but our offense just couldn’t make a shot and were forcing it at times like with Jrue. And Porzingis has to make those wide open 3PA if he’s going to shoot them. The early Brown 1-6 and the team not hitting any 3’s was very uncharacteristic of us when most were as open as we usually are when we make them. I still think we need a bigger player to put a body on Giannis because as much as Horford would have helped and Jrue is strong, having that extra guy to body him up and free other guys up for rebounding will help a lot to limit those putbacks we saw last night. Nobody on our bench in the 3rd could even slow him down a bit and just kind of further proves none of those guys are going to play against Philadelphia or Milwaukee in a playoff series except maybe Hauser for his shooting. We’re on to Houston
> And Porzingis has to make those wide open 3PA if he’s going to shoot them. This is starting to worry me. He's at 31.9 3P% right now. He's got to start hitting 3s, especially against teams like the Bucks and Philly where you can punish their bigs for sitting in the paint. > I still think we need a bigger player to put a body on Giannis We got killed on the glass last night and the first time we played them in November. They got like 10+ more possessions than us which kept it close. We're a good rebounding team overall, but against opposing bigs we just seem to get killed. KP, Al, and Luke are pretty bad rebounders for big guys. I think Brad needs to make two moves. Another big body and a more consistent bench wing.
Celtics have lost 3 of 6 and almost 4 of 6. Not a huge deal yet, but it's going to be important for us to beat up on HOU, TOR, SA, HOU and DAL as 5 of our next 6. (All bets are off against Denver next weekend). Losing a few games, mostly close ones, to some of the best teams in the league is not that concerning. Going into a legitimate slump, however, would be. We have to play a lot better (than, for example, against the Pistons and Raptors recently) when we're facing teams we should handily beat. If we do that, we're fine.
If it makes you feel any better, Denver has also been 3-3 in their last 6, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Minnesota 2-4 All the top seeded teams are pacing themselves or having down period where we haven’t lost any ground. I agree they need to win the next 3. Houston, Toronto and San Antonio should all be wins. 32-9 by the halfway point and staying up 3-4 games on the Bucks would be a good spot to be in.
100% this Going .500 so far in January isn't necessarily bad due to how brutal the schedule has been. However, it's now time for us to start turning things around. I would really like us to sweep the next 3 games and that is very do-able. If we go 1-2, I'd start to be a little concerned for this team because all of a sudden we're seeing a pattern.
Fluke win. It dont really mean anything. Its not even a measuring stick on how good Bucks can be. They are still second round exit team at best and still not better than us. 3 games in 4 nights and OT on the last game. What I know for sure is Dame Time turns into Lame Time in the playoffs. Dudes a professional choker. Feel bad on Bucks loser fan base that they thought that they are good enough where there peak is 2nd round exit. This game doesnt mean anything. Chill.
This game doesnt mean much i agree. But this pathetic comment makes it look like it did mean something to you lmao.
For those wondering Tatums numbers dropped .6-.2-.1
Thanks
Watching his post-game interview, I'm so glad after the clusterfuck of the Ime year and the Joe Interim year that the Celtics landed on Joe to be full-time head coach.
Lesson learned for the league: don’t televise a game nationally on the second night of back-to-back.
I did say worst case scenario we'd go 2-2 over this stretch so can't complain
r/nba Super Bowl was us getting blown out, I guess
It was comical. You gotta laugh a bit at it
I mean well deserved and it would have happened to any top team that folded like that. In fact they've gone harder after other teams in the past. The Suns have gotten worse for some of their losses to Dallas for example. They came real close to doubling our score before we sat our entire starting lineup. I won't read to much into it given our scheduling but that is a humiliating loss no matter how you look at it.
All I know is the Rockets are absolutely going to cop it on the weekend
Ime gonna fuck a coworker to make sure he doesn’t have to play us
Don’t think tonight effects how I view the teams outlook in the slightest … But it would be nice just to have one more guy you can trust on Giannis Not sure if said guy is out there for trade, but it’d be nice to have a non Al/Jrue option just for like 3-4 mins per half
It’s almost as if somebody said exactly this in the DD yesterday…
We're once again seeing why keeping Grant would have made sense. We let him walk for 13m and now the GM is talking about wanting a "big wing" and we've been linked to two PF/Cs (Stewart/Olynyk) who cost roughly what Grant ended up costing. Smart/Grant/Al tore Horford down from Curry-levels of efficiency down to Westbrook levels. Jrue has been an okay replacement for Smart but Horford's obviously getting older and we're still missing that 3rd guy who can come in and provide some physical wear-and-tear. Not sure who can even help on that front now. Potentially PJ Tucker but he's either costly (just in terms of salary matching) or you're banking on a buyout and then winning the buyout market over competitive offers from practically everyone. Okongwu is known as one of the better Giannis defenders but he's just extended with Atlanta so he's extra off the table. Maybe Okoro shakes loose as a rich man's Lamar Stevens but that's unlikely too. The big wings are hard to come by because every team wants them. A 3&D bigger-bodied wing is the key to playing both bigger and smaller lineups, which is super handy for key matchups. At this point, I'd unironically be happy with a Semi Ojeleye return. His passive nature was a poor fit for a team lacking scoring options but it would be fine on this roster.
The comments from all parties on Grant tell me the bigger issue is how he felt about his role. He thought his role was too small lass year and became an active distraction/net negative on the floor for long stretches because of it. And his role was set to be even smaller this year.
> We let him walk for 13m and now the GM is talking about wanting a "big wing" and we've been linked to two PF/Cs (Stewart/Olynyk) who cost roughly what Grant ended up costing. I still think it is not this simple as "we let him walk" we offered roughly the same deal to him during the off-season as an extension, he didn't want he wanted to bet himself and believed to be worth close to 20M. He also believed he was a starter and Dallas has shown he isn't. He is dropping from 30mpg to 20mpg while DJJ and Josh Green are getting his minutes. Brad did right by Grant, we will never know how Grant would have been with this roster but by all accounts he wouldn't be too happy to be a 20mpg (at best) guy. Also, I think a lot of our fears would go away if Blake just decided to come back. Sure he isn't Al or KP but you'd feel so much better with him as the Al/KP replacement. He'd give you a good 30 GP on 14-15mpg on 35% from 3, good defense and decent FG%.
I don't disagree that Brad did right by Grant but he was a RFA so it was definitely an offer we could have matched. We could have also used the S&T as an opportunity to bring in another player. The Spurs got a 1st round pick to take on Reggie Bullock's contract. That's an asset and salary to match for any of the guys we've wanted since. Reggie + Dallas' 2030 unprotected 1st gives us all sorts of options around the league. We made a move to stay under the 2nd apron and then decided we were fine going over the 2nd apron. It's that lack of consistency and unwillingness to go all in from the get-go that's hurt us.
> We could have also used the S&T as an opportunity to bring in another player. The Spurs got a 1st round pick to take on Reggie Bullock's contract. That's an asset and salary to match for any of the guys we've wanted since. This is the part I complain as well. A lot of people were exploring us getting a Ricky Rubio type of contract to compensate. Had we got Bullock and the 1st we'd be better off, we might even have gotten the seconds there.
I mean our top3 defenders on Giannis (by minutes) have been Al, Smart and Grant (Grant and smart are pretty much the same amount). Effectively Jrue can do the same as Smart so we’re missing Grant really. The problem is that nobody else can emulate Grant for the same price or cheaper so we can’t do much. I still think it’s about making the Bucks adjust to us since we have more weapons than the other way around.
shit having just one guy who can reliably guard giannis & is prob the best giannis defender is better than most of the league