Celtics Lose in the First Ever NBA In-Season Tournament Knockout Game (but I still fw the IST)12/4/2023 
This L comes nowhere near the pain of playoff series loss, but yeah, it would've been nice to win this tourney that I initially thought was a stupid idea. Now that I understand how the IST works, I like it. They may need to tweak a few things but so far, so good.
I gotta give it to Adam Silver. There's a reason he's the best commish in the Big Four, and it's not just by default because the other three stink at being humans. This tournament is unlike anything else in American professional sports and has been a resounding success. It got people more invested in early-season basketball, which was the ultimate goal. Going into this game, I thought the Celtics would win, but I did have a weird feeling that since we beat Indy by fuckin' 51 last time something weird could happen. Ever since the 2010 Jets beat the Pats in the Divisional Round after losing on MNF 45-3 like a month and a half earlier, I've always had that in the back of my mind in situations like this when teams meet again after a blowout. Any self-respecting Celtics/Boston sports fan knows about the '85 C's and the Boston Massacre. The Celtics beat the Lakers by 34 in Game 1 of the Finals, lost Game 2 at home, and ultimately the series in 6. The Yankees won Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS 19-8 before losing three straight. I know it's easy to get caught up in blowouts, but how many examples do you need to realize that (in the vast majority of the time) you can't put too much in a prior blowout in a playoff setting? Of course, this spicy regular season game only counts as one loss in the standings, and on December 4th, it's only the C's 5th of the year. We'll be fine. The Haliburton 4-point play changed everything, and you gotta tip your cap to him; not a bad time for your first career triple-double (which was low-key shocking) either.
There might not be a person on this planet who cared more about this game than Aaron Nesmith. He's gonna talk about this block for the rest of his life.
It's understandable why he'd wanna show the C's they made a mistake trading him, but let's not act like it wasn't a smart move for the Celtics.
Not to be that stereotypical Boston douchebag, but it is a literal fact the 17x time NBA champion Boston Celtics only put up NBA championship banners. You can't tell that we lost in 6 to the Warriors or that Perk tore his ACL in 2010 by looking at the rafters. This is just some Euro soccer midseason; money is the motive tourney. Now we can play the "Who fucking cares?" card. Do you think Red Auerbach would give a FUCK about the IST? Winning the inaugural one would've been cool, but I'll take losing in this knockout round over the one in spring. If the Bucks win the IST and lose in the first round again, they're gonna get memed to death.
Indy got UP for this game. They're a good team with a great fanbase, this type of gimmick is perfect for them. I'm not making excuses, but we didn't have KP and shot 29.3% from deep (not ideal!). Even though we could've easily won this game (there were legit 14 lead changes), we didn't play well enough to seal the deal. The Pacers turned it on late and had the Fieldhouse rockin'. The Jays were efficient; Jayson scored 32, and Jaylen had 30, but the C's -14 3rd quarter was Olivia Rodrigo-level brutal. That is the one legit area of concern for this team, but Scal made a good point (I know..wild, right?.) in the post-game---most of the time, the Cs come out of the break with a big lead, and it's human nature to let up. I hate that that's the case, and I'm sure Joe doesn't like it either, but it's still fucking December, man. Plus, until the playoffs start, my #1 concern is stopping fascism. Bleed Green. P.S. I'm not letting the loss take away from Jayson's incredible November. We've got bigger fish to fry than the NBA Cup!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2024
|
RSS Feed