Celtics 2023 - 2024 Discussion

[One-If-By-Sea]

I don't view him as a true "big man" but is certainly a quality frontcourt reserve.

I think the Celtics can play small with Tillman, Tatum, and Brown. Maybe not against Embiid, Giannis, or Davis, but against the vast majority of the teams. If Kornet can start shooting the 3, I am all for that, but Quetta is limited, always will be, and is only an injury backup. Quetta is too slow for a switching defense. Times have changed. Tillman, even though he is smaller, is more valuable. How would R Parish perform in today's switching defenses out at the 3 point line?

 

[bresna]

Oooo, Dwayne Wade just zinged Tatum. When asked to name his top 5 players to be on the floor at crunch time, he started with LeBron & Curry, followed by Anthony Davis and then he listed people he would have a tough time choosing between - Jrue, Bam or Anthony Edwards. JT wasn't even mentioned.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

x.com

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[jimnance]

x.com

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Ain't no surprise to me

 

[jimnance]

Ain't no surprise to me

Kerr sure as hell knew what he was doing.
I like JB but no way in hell would he have as much impact on winning as DWhite.
Very few NBA players would including most AllStars

 

[bresna]

Kerr sure as hell knew what he was doing.
I like JB but no way in hell would he have as much impact on winning as DWhite.
Very few NBA players would including most AllStars

Kerr wasn't that smart when he decided to bench Tatum and Haliburton. Benching Tatum must be payback for the 140-88 spanking the Celts gave to the Warriors back in March. Petty on his part. Looking at this move gives me even more of an eyebrow raise as to why Brown was left off the team. You have to wonder if this is all Kerr's doing.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

Kerr sure as hell knew what he was doing.
I like JB but no way in hell would he have as much impact on winning as DWhite.
Very few NBA players would including most AllStars

I agree. But Brown should somehow have been on the team too.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Kerr sure as hell knew what he was doing.
I like JB but no way in hell would he have as much impact on winning as DWhite.
Very few NBA players would including most AllStars

I pointed out before that Haliburton was the worst selection, and if the first game means anything, that seems confirmed. White is essentially replacing Haliburton, as he should be, since he’s a better player against this competition.

It’s true that Team USA has a lot of guards, which is why people were surprised about White, but other than Holiday, none of them are true point guards who can bring a high level of defense and be a spacer on offense.

Not exaggerating that White and Holiday might be the two most essential players on the team, given the level of overlap and redundancy on the roster. An injury to any other player wouldn’t really slow down the train with all the replacement options. An injury to either of our guards would be devastating.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Kerr wasn't that smart when he decided to bench Tatum and Haliburton. Benching Tatum must be payback for the 140-88 spanking the Celts gave to the Warriors back in March. Petty on his part. Looking at this move gives me even more of an eyebrow raise as to why Brown was left off the team. You have to wonder if this is all Kerr's doing.

That’s ridiculous. Kerr has coached for a long time, and at the international level in the past. He isn’t doing this as revenge for some meaningless regular season game.

He’s benching Tatum because Tatum has been out of sync with the team in the exhibitions. My guess is they’ll work through this, but Tatum has not been good and has been turning the ball over…same issues we’ve seen with the Celtics except there’s even less of an excuse with the talent on the court.

He’s benching Haliburton simply because the team needs either Holiday or White on the court at all times. Haliburton’s presence would be redundant. He’s very ball centric, likes to create plays on his own, and probably shouldn’t be on the team.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

 

[bresna]

He’s benching Haliburton simply because the team needs either Holiday or White on the court at all times. Haliburton’s presence would be redundant. He’s very ball centric, likes to create plays on his own, and probably shouldn’t be on the team.

Did you watch today's game? They could have used a "ball centric" player in the beginning, It was no surprise to me that the game turned around when "ball centric" Kevin Durant came in. They were trying to pound the ball down low and turning down easy 3's. Once Durant broke the ice, things turned. Haliburton (if healthy) could have done what Durant did there too.

But truthfully, I think the reason Haliburton sat is because he is still hurt. He was injured enough on May 23rd to miss playoff games. That is only 5 weeks ago.

 

[bresna]

That’s ridiculous. Kerr has coached for a long time, and at the international level in the past. He isn’t doing this as revenge for some meaningless regular season game.

Did you see his reason for benching Tatum? "I went with the combinations that made sense"?? That is not a reason and is absolute BS.

As I said earlier, Tatum did not look good in the prelim games & yes, I can see that being part of the reason. But to go from playing ~14/game to being benched? No way.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Did you see his reason for benching Tatum? "I went with the combinations that made sense"?? That is not a reason and is absolute BS.

As I said earlier, Tatum did not look good in the prelim games & yes, I can see that being part of the reason. But to go from playing ~14/game to being benched? No way.

Hopefully it isn’t more than that Tatum is struggling. Given LeBron’s presence and ego, it's concerning that Tatum is no longer playing at all. Especially given that LeBron is now fully running the LeBron freeze-out offense. Durant is a similar story with the second unit.

Honestly I have a bad feeling about this team. I hate they have so many great players standing around doing nothing and relying on their older “leaders” on offense.

The Celtics, with a healthy starting 5, would probably beat Team USA minus the Celtics own players.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Did you watch today's game? They could have used a "ball centric" player in the beginning, It was no surprise to me that the game turned around when "ball centric" Kevin Durant came in. They were trying to pound the ball down low and turning down easy 3's. Once Durant broke the ice, things turned. Haliburton (if healthy) could have done what Durant did there too.

But truthfully, I think the reason Haliburton sat is because he is still hurt. He was injured enough on May 23rd to miss playoff games. That is only 5 weeks ago.

The issue is Haliburton is a ball centric point guard. He likes to dribble around from top of key and create plays. Which is perfect for a team like the Pacers with all their movement and screens and role players, but that style can clash with Team USA’s lineups.

It could be injury related, though he played in the exhibitions.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

What would happen if Brown was on the USA team and Tatum was left off?

 

[jimnance]

What would happen if Brown was on the USA team and Tatum was left off?

Well, Tatum is a better player than JB and
creates more mismatches.
Throwing a bunch of Allstars together doesn't really work anymore. The Europeans have gotten too good.
Theres was only one Dream Team and no USA team will ever cone close to them.
MJ and Magic are probably the greatest hoops players who ever existed.
Bird, Malone,Pippin, Stockton etc.
Prime Bird was better than any American in the NBA right now. Malone and Pippin both might be too. Mj and Magic obviously. They were all multifaceted, ferocious, smart players. The current group is not remotely close on just talent alone.
So Kerr is trying to put together a squad that can jell together and play defense.
As Kerr said, JT will leave his mark.
Watch and see.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I was posting earlier about how the media constantly thinks of White as scrappy, all-heart type of player making up for lack of athleticism, despite that his athletic skills are a marvel, particularly his quickness, acceleration, and jumping.

Here Dwyane Wade underestimates White’s combine vertical jump by an absurd amount. White’s (35.5) was higher than Wade’s (35.0).

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Unreal…