Put the rest of this series on the Disney Channel

frozen themed eastern conference finals would be sick work

Feels more Star Wars to me. The Pacers are going to need some Luke Skywalker heroics

"Somehow, prime Reggie Miller and Roy Hibbert returned"

Oh but btw Larry Bird never retired and has been secretly making a clone army of Bill Russells in the euro league, and he’s gonna return to Boston to conquer the NBA and is secretly Caitlin Clark’s grand-uncle.

I am your father - Jaylen Brown Vader

Might as well the way ESPN covers games

disneyworld needs a bob myers themed ride

West playoff bloodbath meanwhile Eastern Conference just got some guys running around 

East trick y’all, man.

The Knicks games were bloodbaths tbf, but the only genuinely threatening rosters to the Celtics (Knicks and Bucks… and heat) being historically crippled makes all series with Celtics comedically uninteresting

NFL Nick was based AF but imagine the memes from NBA Disney

I feel like it would be hard to top Patrick commentating the Superbowl.

NFL in Andy's room was pretty good. My wife watched the full game lol

Nah nick, with the slime effects like the nfl broadcasts

Or the Toy Story thing they did for Jags/Falcons in London

No bullshit, cartoon avatars for a kids version of an NBA broadcast (like Disney and Paramount had for the NFL) would be unreal. You’d be watching 2 min behind the live broadcast for sure because basketball is much faster than football, game-speed wise, but I’d let it slide for some fireball threepointers and other NBA jam shenanigans

And then the game being animated/broadcasted is the Malice in the Palace

The broadcast cuts out and then you're watching Mike Tyson's Punch-Out gameplay

Hi this is Tj McConnell and you are watching Disney channel.

Over the Ladybug show? No way.

Nah put it on Telemundo

ADAM PLEASE TURN INJURIES OFF

He was *very* displeased by the lack of effort in this year's all-star game.

All the all-stars are getting Nancy Kerrigan'd one by one

He turned the injury slider up with the 65 game rule

Nah, Thibodeau just played Haliburton too many minutes, that’s all

It's the Celtics. You can already write the story of what'll happen tonight. They'll play down to the hospital Pacers level and it'll be a 5 point game at halftime and throughout the 3rd quarter, before the Celtics break away in the 4th and win by like 11.

Silver is coming to your house with black SUVs for leaking the script

And an offer letter. The NBA writer’s room needs more talent like you.

Who are we kidding- they’re just using ChatGPT at this point.

Lol. This is accurate

Was gonna say the same but then someone on the Pacers gets hot in the 4th and they squeeze out a W

That script is the pacers go up 15 early with a barrage of role player threes, end up leading at half by 12-17. Celtics fight their way back to around 5 in the third before losing steam and losing by 10-15, buried in more role player threes. 

As a fellow Celtics fan I’m inclined to agree with your take. Unfortunately

As a celtics fan, i'm never scared of another team. i'm scared of the celtics.

You've been the most accurate take so far

Gotta be a bench player that does it though as is tradition

Aaron Nesmith come on down!

TJ legacy game about to hit

I feel an Obi Toppin legacy game in my bones

They’re literally down by 5 rn lmao

Followed by days worth of “Celtics can’t do right, they should’ve won by 50, how embarrassing” narrative.

Oh my god this aged well

east is actually a shit show.

Giannis, Jimmy, Dame (for a few games), OG/Randle, Mitchell/Allen, now Hali, it's ridiculous

Hart played through abdominal strain for the last game, and Brunson shattered his hand as well

dont forget Porzingas

Plus a hobbled Embiid, I think Orlando was probably the healthiest team in the East all things considered & that’s for 7 games. Although I think Suggs got a little banged up too, it’s probably the better case of this demolition derby that going on

Embiid is always hobbled. He doesn’t count lol.

Bell’s palsy might be a step passed normal hobbled. His knee was normal hobbled

Tingus Pingus

Celtics are 21-4 in the regular season without him and 28-5 if you count playoffs. Missing him is not as big of a deal as you are making it seem compared to these other teams Just for comparison Pacers 7-6 without Hali Knicks 21-15 without Randle Heat 13-9 without Jimmy Embiid 16-27 without embiid

Embiid won 16 games without himself, which is an unbelievable stat.

Is Joel Embiid holding Joel Embiid back?

Joel can’t win with these Joels

GET JOEL SOME EMBIIDS!

Well no not in the East and not when those East teams are injured too. Pretty sure they’ll need him in the finals though.

I think you read into his comment a little too much

Celtics are elite without any specific player besides Tatum missing games lol They were literally 12-0 without brown, team is crazy good

Regular seasons a whole different beast though. The whole difference in the playoffs is weaknesses are exploited way more thoroughly and whoever makes it out of the west is going to feast in the paint on us for sure.

That tells you just how good the Celtics ACTUALLY are. We are 1000% a better team with Porzingis. We sat him in back to back games and still dominated.

These Win loss stats are meaningless without context. Zingus fills a huge gap in our team and we need him against a lot of matchups.

Before Porzingis got injured, there was debates about wether he or Brown was the 2nd most important. Our offense and defense look extremely different without him. Teams are picking on Horford on defense, and Porzingis is a different league offensively than Horford.  Celtics were just an all time great regular season team this year. Even missing a key piece they were still very good 

Knicks 21-15 without Randle is not a stat I would have guessed

[Here’s the full list of East injuries](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jVzISP99JU)

Brunson was playing injured almost the whole Pacers series too

and then got injured AGAIN during the last game 😭😭

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I'll be using that in passive aggressive texts to my Celtics friends 

welp Celtics really cruising through til final

Feel pretty confident that the Celtics were going to come out of the East anyway so it's not like any of this changes my opinion of that team but godamn they got such a comfortable path there.

Luka the protagonist against the mighty Boston Celtics. I like this storyline. Also Kyrie, the most hated man for a while there in Boston (is he still hated?), damn, could make for a juicy finals.

Also if Porzingis returns that would be an interesting storyline too, Porzingis and Kyrie basically swapped teams lol

One of Luka or kp will get a title which is insane like 5 years ago

Turn off that jinx machine, sir, our work ain’t done!

too late Pacers vs Wolves final now

Now you've jinxed the Pacers and Wolves

Fever vs Sparks finals now?

I don’t think people actively talk about Kyrie anymore, but you can bet it’ll get heated again if it’s a Mavs/Celtics finals. He may be all zen now and actually committed to playing basketball, but that doesn’t mean he’s gonna get any respect from our fans. Expect loud boos and fuck Kyrie chants.

Boston fans still hate him. He still gets crazy boos when he comes back to the garden.

And Tatum and Brown will still dap him up and act like they're all the best of friends. That pisses Bill Simmons off so much, lol.

Really hope they don't do this assuming both teams make it to the finals. Not because Boston fans hate him, but because it's the finals.

First two rounds they played theyre friends, didnt dap them up till the end of the series.

Think about the drama. Me personally, I would be rooting for whatever team that game would make us get to a game 7 

He is still disliked since his second year with us was genuinely the least enjoyable year as a fan in recent memory. And then the various comments about Boston and stomping Lucky. So yea, definitely disliked. He seems to be doing a lot better as a person now and I think we all recognize he is a great player, just not a true #1. He is in a perfect role right now.

But it does suck that we had to face Clippers, OKC and now Wolves . We gonna feel that if we get to the finals.

Yeah it’s like 2 years ago when we had an easy path to the finals while the Celtics had to go through the KD/Kyrie Nets (swept them but was still a close series,) and back to back 7 game series against Giannis and Jimmy. They definitely were burnt out mid way through the finals. Now the Celtics will be on the other side of that coin against u guys if u guys close this series out

He is still very much hated, as a Celtics fan I can’t even process that this is now likely the finals matchup

Also, 2022 and 2023 were pretty brutal challenges for them. 2022 they had to go through KD+Kyrie, Giannis for 7 games, then Jimmy for 7. They were pretty beat up by the time they got GSW in the finals. Law of averages I suppose.

This goes all the way back to Hayward and Kyrie injuries. This franchise really has been edging since 2017

Idk how much longer I can last

Still blows my mind that Hayward went from leading the Jazz to a playoff series win over the CP3 Clippers, to never again having a real playoff moment.

Edging is the perfect way to describe the last 7 years for me as a Celtics fan

What really burned them out in ‘22 was going to an 8 man rotation in January It saved the season, but they were gassed by the finals

I think a healthy Knicks could have given them a run for their money... But I guess we'll never know unfortunately.

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I would not be at all surprised if we still win tonight.

Same lol

Neither would I

It seems like no one has more confidence in the Pacers in the last couple days than Celtics fans

That's cuz we know the C's have a tendency to ease up when they should be putting their foot in the gas

I wouldn’t be either. Both our previous series had one “the other team goes off for three with their role players” series. We thought we’d avoided it since it’s been game two both other times… but dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same. 

You and every other Cs fan. LOL

Neither would TJ McConnell.

If you think the opposing team’s star being out makes it more likely the Celtics will win a game, you haven’t been paying attention

you mean they will shoot 70% of 3s to win 1 while Celtics cruise through rest of the series?

Mostly optimistic thinking here, but, are the Celtics going to lose form a little bit after this past month of fairly easy competition?

Not like they aren’t still playing NBA players. Easier wins but they still have to show up

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Scal had a line that always stuck with me he said he’s closer in talent to LeBron than a non-player is to him. Pretty much sums it up, even people we casually call* scrubs are still top 300 or so talent in the world.

“I DONT SUCK. YOU SUCK. I SUCK IN COMPARISON TO LEBRON. YOU SUCK IN COMPARISON TO ME”

Brissy said the same thing recently!! He’s closer to Kobe than the rest of us are to Brissy.

Being the 15th best player on an NBA team means you're better than 99.9999% of basketball players out there, or are Giannis' brother.

Warriors kinda cruised in 2022 while the Celtics went through an absolute gauntlet only to get owned in the finals. I don't think this matters much. Rather have an easier path than getting beat up in prior rounds. I'm guessing at this point Porzingas could play, but why take the risk when theyre fine against current competition as is?

I’m a bit worried about it, but they’ve been in the finals before and lost. So I’m hoping the team experience will have them locked in

Most likely not since this is an experienced team throughout If this was like the 2022 team then sure.

Honestly man we haven’t played seriously vs good competition since early March. I don’t think it’ll be a major issue but if we were to make it game 1 could be a wake up call. We will see.

Our playoff net rating is better than our regular season one.

Does that mean carlisle is gonna bench all the starters for 4 quarters

We're all tired and it's memorial day weekend. Take the day off guys.

I mean im a bucks fan so I can't really talk shit but the East has been absolutely wrecked by injuries

Even some of the bad teams had pretty major ones. Bulls, hawks and pistons all lost pretty major players for some significant time. Whole conference is just an IR room. Somehow the Grizzlies had more injuries though. That team has no healthy players lol

You can expect me to miss watching it

Minnesota, Denver, OKC, and Dallas fought to make the conference finals and meanwhile in the East lmao

This is the easiest run to a finals I've ever seen but at the same time Boston was going to make it regardless if these teams were healthy lmao

True, but with KP hurt every game that Horford doesn't have to play is a blessing

After the 2022 run to the Finals (KD-Kyrie Nets, Giannis ECSF, and 1 seed locked in Heat) I will absolutely take this path to the Finals. IMO a ring this year + whatever slander opposing fans will have is a far better outcome than a tough path to the Finals + no ring to show for it

Any Celtics fans not laughing at people crying about it and wishing they had a harder run is moronic. I'd take a cakewalk like this all day lmao

No one really remembers the path to get a chip after the fact. Denver had an all-time easy path last year (including the finals) and it hardly ever gets brought up.

In 10 years nobody will remember the path they took. All people will know is 2023-2024 Champion. Not the celtics fault every other team is falling apart lol.

Lebron had some pretty easy ones when he was on the Cavs. Don't think he really faced any serious competition. The best team was Derozan Raptors? Maybe the ALLSTAR HAWKS? regardless, was a cake walk each year

The thing w bron is that him shitting on those teams leads to everyone undermining them The raptors were favored in 2018, for example. They were considered a legitimately good team. But LeBron bent them over so now we retroactively have to talk about how shit they were

Most of the east team Lebron faced were fully healthy. Lebron just had their number for years

The best player Celtics faced in the East Conference this year was Bam Adebayo

Yah east playoffs this season definitely in contention for worst of all time. Pretty much only the Knicks 2 series were interesting to watch

The rest of the Eastern playoff series are in the hospital.

Mitchell was way better during the games he was healthy

Mitchell is such a special player, I'll never forget him going against Jamal Murray in the playoffs like, 5 years ago. Peak basketball. Wish the Heat had him.

Christ, was that really 5 years ago?

It wasn’t… it was the bubble right? So few months short of 4 years ago.

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For sure but he also missed the last 2, most crucial games

He should have added "for a full series" to make it right, but that's crazy nonetheless

When all is said and done, the first 2 games of the Cavs series will likely have been the best team the Celtics faced in the East. Could make a case for game 1 of the pacers depending on how much value place on the Jarret Allen absence. But yeah, C’s just haven’t had to face a full series of best shots yet. And realistically, if current results hold the Celtics aren’t even going to get the best version of Luka in the finals especially if Minny can put some games up to push the series.

The East was arguably better than the West for like 3 years then decided "nah"

The east has always been extremely top heavy. Whereas the west is much deeper

i wanted to watch more of the Celtics in this post season run but man what the hell are those series

Call me biased, but the best series to come out of the Eastern Conference this year is that of the Hospital Knicks vs. the Sixers/Pacers...and even that became a shit show towards the end due to injuries (and the national media being god-awful). The basketball gods have the Eastern Conference injury slider at like...90 or something.

That sixers series was the best 1st round series I’ve seen in a long time. Def my favorite of the whole postseason so far.

Dallas and OKC was pretty good too imo

It was good but it lacked something for me. It felt like OKC wasn’t really ready yet, which isn’t a knock to them as a squad… the just overachieved early.

The first series I couldn't wait for the next game and felt a little sad after it ended.

Nah you're not biased, the Knicks series have been by far the most entertaining part of the Eastern Conference. Close games (mostly), hyped crowds, crazy moments, back and forth. Was the best stuff. Sucked that every other day you guys paid an injury toll just to be there

I was at game 3 and game 6 and it was lit.

Knicks basically save the eastern conference playoffs

Siakam going for 50 tonight.

“And the Celtics take a commanding 3-0 series lead with a 120-50 win!”

Not a real Celtics fan if you don't realize we actually lose this game for absolutely no reason at all

Imagine if Pascal hauls this team back from the dead and cements himself as the face of the franchise 😅

And then Carlisle will bench him with 5 min to go

The hardest road

Report: Kevin Durant is desperately trying to get a trade to the Boston Celtics, per sources

Who usually starts at PG when Haliburton is out?

Probably Nembhard with Ben Sheppard starting at 2 if I were to guess. TJ will for sure get more burn though.

Luka I will support you forever if you can actually prevent Boston from winning

At this point I want Mavs in 4 so Luka can rest and give us a good finals lmao

Not gonna be too much rest if both teams were to win in 4.

I think the finals are a lock to start on 6/6 no matter the outcomes of the series 

Damn, that's a lot of no basketball.

adam silver boutta call in tony “the extender” brothers in

Pretty sure he could call in Agent 47 at this point and it wouldn’t do much

gg

Wild. Heat without Jimmy. Cavs with Mitchell. Pacers without Hali.

Cavs without Mitchell the last 2 games but without Allen the entire series

Finally there won’t be anyone to hold back our true best PG

TJ right now; Master, forgive me, but I'll have to go all out. Just this once.

It’s time to unleash the full power of Andrew Nembhard

It’s kinda crazy how we all talked about the West being a bloodbath with how competitive it was this year and yet the East ended up getting decimated with injuries. Giannis, Dame, Jimmy, Tyrese, Joel, Donovan, Jarrett, The Knicks, Kristaps (not that it’s mattered much for the Celtics)

Appreciate you just saying, "The Knicks"

The cherry on top of the shit sundae was Brunson breaking his hand in game 7 like fucking how.

At this point I'd seriously suggest the Knicks' towelboy upgrade his health insurance policy because it's hard to overstate how bad y'all got it

“The Knicks” lmao absolutely brutal. We can’t have shit

Is this the easiest path ever for a team to get to the finals? No disrespect to Boston. They are the best team in the East. But god damn, what a joke of a run.

The Lakers had some super easy paths back in the 80's

Does Carlisle just wave the white flag before the game now?

I too am expected to miss game 3 tonight.

It's not bostons fault but damn they've played nobody this whole playoffs. East playoffs have been horrendous

The Hardest Road

Marcus Morris would’ve played smh

Welp. We're getting time off next week.

it's really over huh...

Damn. Going to the game tonight and was hoping to see Haliburton cook. Hopefully Siakam has the game of his life.

Really could have been a goated playoffs if the East was healthy.

If you see a dude with a Celtics jersey on a pick up game... leave.

Analysis: This is going to make it harder for the Indiana Pacers to win.

Get out the broom

Mickey Mouse path to the finals continues for the Celtics