Once upon a time, the Celtics and Heat had themselves a pretty good rivalry.
Last night it was a battle of depth with both sides missing a majority of their rotation players.
These rosters are not close, even when you remove half of the Celtics top 8 players.
They just don’t lose at that kind of rate.
It’s very fun.
I highly recommend it.
Those guys really have to figure out the whole protect the point differential thing.
With that said, let’s begin.
The Good
- There’s only one choice to start with today.
There is no gimmick, no random hot streak, no unsustainable play.
This is just who Payton Pritchard has developed into
First off, shoutout Isaiah.
In fact, it would have been a shock had Payton not had his way with the Heat.
He really did turn into Larry Bird
After every bucket, he went right at Spo with death stares.
He talked his shit.
Don’t take my word for it.
Take it from Spo himself
That’s the face of a defeated man.
Barring injury, that thing is a wrap.
What continues to impress me about Pritchard’s season isn’t just the outside shooting.
We know he can do that.
I continue to be impressed with how productive he is inside the arc.
No more panicking and picking up his dribble allowing the defense to swarm him.
The difference this time of course was the execution.
Drew Peterson was doing some shit on both ends.
Even the reserves are a tough matchup if you don’t have the wing defenders you need.
I trust his ability to finish in the restricted area.
Giannis, Jokic, Luka, and Tatum.
So when we say the Jays are the best duo in the NBA, we are not lying.
- If we’ve seen it once, we’ve seen it a thousand times.
MIA: 8-35
BOS: 19-55
You aren’t going to out-math Mazzulla Ball.
If you A).
Blown the fuck out.
That is the backbone of Mazzulla Ball and it will always be the foundation of their success.
Top to bottom jail.
- Boy was it nice to have Derrick White back in our lives again.
I’m not sure what the hell that was, but he looked fine to me.
That’s the beauty of Derrick White.
Pull ups from 30ft?
A quick trigger 3PA off a soft switch?
Eat your heart out.
His green light is as green as it can possibly be.
- So, how about getting some not completely terrible minutes from Baylor Scheierman and Jordan Walsh?
Very much a “just don’t screw up” approach, but that’s fine by me.
They were minutes eaters in this game and at least both guys looked confident on the floor.
Coming off the CLE game where his whistle was once again dogshit, it’s getting out of hand.
No player of his stature has this same whistle.
Make that make sense.
- I think we now see why Xavier Tillman isn’t playing.
It brings up an interesting question.
- I don’t think we’ve ever seen the Celts start a half with 4 straight TOs.
I mean holy hell was that brutal to watch.
He probably should take a game off given his workload, but we all know he won’t.
That’s what makes Jayson Tatum who he is.
He plays, no matter what.
Given the schedule this week, Tatum getting all the rest he can should be the goal.
He just had an off night on both ends of the floor, shit happens.
RIP to what was once a great rivalry.
