Boston have now gone 10-5 since a 0-3 start after snapping Detroit’s 13 game winning streak
https://www.espn.com/nba/standings
It seems like any idea of them tanking is officially off lol
I just felt it in my bones that this was the game that’s gonna cut our streak. WP to Celtics, they cooked us from 3s
Derrick White finally having a standard night. Feels like forever.
Long may the Buffalo roam
Why is that his nickname? I missed when it started
If I remember right, it’s simply because he played for Colorado for college and they’re the Buffaloes
I thought it was because he looked like a Buffalo
I thought it was because he buffaloed Buffalo buffalo .
His old hair cut looked like the puff of hair buffalo have
Buffee the Vampiston slayer
he dropped like a near triple double on like 60% TS against the clippers like a week ago, he’s been playing fine
a player will have a couple off games and this sub acts like they fell off the face of the earth lmao
White has struggled a majority of this year though. Sure it might just be a cold spell, but his True shooting went from 60.4% last year to 49.4% this year. An 11% true shooting drop is pretty massive.
Sure to some extent it’s him missing Tatum, and the guys they lost this offseason. But he was just missing a lot of wideopen looks he usually cashed in too.
Hopefully though it’s just a quarter season cold streak or so. But it’s pretty hard to pin his cold shooting on just a night or two.
It’s definitely more than a night or two, but it was really just the first 10-12 games. He’s been trending back upwards. I think the new style of play the team has adopted, the extra attention from the better defenders on opposing teams, and less reliability through the roster had a big effect but he seems to be working his way through it now and figuring out how to play with the new configuration.
i mean they have only played 18 games lol, just did the math, if you take away his worst 4 games this season his ts% jumps to 55%, so it quite literally is defined by a few games at the moment. give it twenty more games and then you can say that if he hasn’t improved by then
He played incredibly well every night next to JT and with him down, people are being weird about d white have some off nights.
I think this is mostly two different groups of people feeling safe to express opinions they already heald previously.
You can see this every time a superstar has a bad or even just mediocre game. The people who come out tp criticise them aren’t necessarily the same people that glazed them the day prior.
wild how we 10-5 in last 15 with White and prichard really under performing most nights..
Unless player is old or with career ending injury, they normally regress to the mean. It’s just a matter of when.
Yeah, but 13-game win streaks have resulted in championships for the Pistons 100% of the time, and the Pistons have never won a championship in a season where they won 14 or more straight games.
boston/detroit always delivers
Vegas seemed to know something. I expected us to get beat, but the line was closer than it seemed like it should be. That’s why I don’t gamble.
Got a bad feeling once Baylor Scheierman tripled his average in 5 minutes of playing time.
Boston cooks everyone’s streak. They did the same thing with Cleveland last year lmao.
I don’t think there really was any tank. Much of the fanbase wants to tank, but I don’t think Joe or Brad has that word in their dictionary.
If we win we win, if we lose we lose. Definitely not as much life and death as last few years. A welcome change of pace, honestly.
We are also too good to tank.. Jaylen brown can be the best player on the court against any East team not named the bucks (on any given night). The actual tanking teams are SOOO bad that you are never cracking the actual bottom 5 record, and we have alot of guys on the roster right now with something to prove who will work harder than others possession to possession.
Theyre a better version of the Raptors last year.
The dregs of the east are so bad its hard to be tanking worse
It’s not just the east. The worst teams in the west are also terrible.
Memphis is 7-12 and still in the play-in hunt, Jazz are just a game behind at 5-12. Shits crazy we’re the new East.
The Pelicans and Kings are truly a sight to behold
May the Jazz stay out of the Bottom 5 lol
I agree
yea, both conferences have like 4 teams that are just bottoming out
Exactly, you’re not out tanking the Wizards, might as well try.
I honestly love seeing the Celtics succeed a little bit this year. JB was seen as being under Tatum’s shadow his entire career and this is a chance to show that he can indeed run a team as the top player
I am thoroughly enjoying this season so far, fun watching a team without feeling like there’s something on the line every night and just getting to enjoy seeing how guys develop
It’s borderline impossible to tank in the East when Wizards Hornets and others exist
To be fair, this argument isn’t really holding water considering play in teams have won the last couple of draft lotteries.
You don’t need to tank to get a top pick. It’s also really difficult to tank in the East.
Oh I agree, just saying it’s rlly difficult to tank in general cause even if you get the worst record, you’re probably not getting that pick
Not really a meaningful pattern though. We know what the odds are, so unlikely odds happening recently is just luck and has no bearing on how the future picks will fall.
Fully untethered Mazzula was always going to lead to an entertaining season, but the guys that we thought had something to prove have already been showing more than expected. I’m having a blast tbh.
It was never going to happen unless they shut Jaylen down. He’s a #1 option on 2⁄3 of the league. Not as good all around as Tatum, but can still get you 30 every night.
People forget that Brad refused to tank as a coach. He tried his best with this roster, but Joe is a good coach and he’s showing it again this year.
I’m thankful for that, because fans who want to tank are generally insufferable in team subreddits lol
Exactly, do those people enjoy watching a team that stopped trying and just goes out to lose every night? What even is the point of watching the sport if you’re actively hoping to lose?
No they don’t, they just want everyone else to be as miserable not watching their team as they are not watching their team.
I’ve stopped engaging with r/bostonceltics exactly for this reason
People celebrating when we lose. It’s fucking disgusting
You don’t keep a winning culture by telling your all stars to mail it in while waiting for Tatum to come back. I thought “best case scenario” for them tanking would just be them being ethically mid.
If Brown had any nagging injuries, now would’ve been a good time to go to elective surgery for it
He got the knee surgery done in off-season already
I didnt see how it was possible to tank without sitting half the guys.
Not with the way the other tanking teams are tanking this year. Are we really catching the wizards pacers nets hornets and pelicans? Then we might as well try and win games
You can’t catch the current tanking teams anyway. Might as well try and win games
Ever since the chip, losses haven’t phased me. Especially this season. It’s been a great change of pace indeed
Why tank when you can build the value of your tradeable assets for a more successful future season? Tanking is honestly kind of dumb for any team imo
Team tanking doesn’t really happen until later in the year. Roster tanking, that’s a different story.
I was a big supporter of tanking but realized they couldn’t do it without making more trades. And now that there are 9 teams currently on pace to win less than 24 games, it feels too late. That plus tanking only made sense if Tatum wasn’t returning and it’s seeming more and more likely he will be back this year.
At this point I’m in favor of treading water until Tatum returns and seeing if they can take advantage of a buyers market by moving Simons + Hauser (38 mil outgoing) + picks for an upgrade
we can flat out absorb zubac into the porzingus tpe so it could just cost draft capital
I like the idea but we can’t get over the 2nd apron so our actual headroom is only like 7 mil. If we salary dumped Hauser maybe it would open things up
Boston out here hooping with a center rotation of guys they found chilling outside of Fenway
how dare you disrespect neemias “hakeemias” queta
Bro he didn’t even play tonight lol
First of all how dare you
good thing we had wolves legend luka garza and kentucky legend amari williams filling in
Neemy is hurt. The C rotation is real bad right now.
You eat enough sausage, pepper, and onion subs out there, you can be tall too!
They’re gonna be a dark horse team once JT returns
Tatum coming back doesn’t solve our black hole at the 5
Sure it does, tatums the best rebounder on the team, can guard centers. we fine!
I want voodoo Timelord where we sacrifice a chicken a day for his lower body health.
I’d sacrifice your left nut as well if it mean we can have Timelord back with healthy body.
There has to be some kind of three-team trade possible where you trade Simons and whatever else for a plus-value contract from team X and you get Timelord thrown in as an extra contract to make the figures work
Tatum isn’t guarding centers just for giggles. He guards them to allow an actual center ( Rob Will, Porzingis, Horford) to roam sort of like a safety. It’s yet to be seen if Queta can do that to the level of the guys mentioned.
Yes and no, in the finals tatum was guarding centers to Kill the mavs entire offensive scheme of luka/Center pick and roll offense.
Correct, Tatum is capable of guarding centers but the team still needs to a good center to take advantage of the match up problems that creates. He really shouldn’t be doing it just because he can hold his own, it has to be done with a purpose in mind.
For example, in the finals Tatum guarding the Mavs centers made it near impossible for them to get their lob game going but it also allowed Porz/Horford to to drop in coverage and hang around the rim which mucked up the paint for Mavs. It’s yet to be seen if queta can do that to same level as the team’s previous centers.
Unironically
That “black hole” you’re speaking about is the greatest Portuguese athlete in history and NBA CHAMPION NEEMIAS QUETA
The dude has been playing above expectations and is definitely riding the high from that FIBA performance. Love to see it, he looks so much more comfortable in the flow of the game this season.
Respect Queta
No, but trading Hauser and Simons for a big man during the season does though
I love Sam Hauser but effectively swapping out Hauser and Simons for Tatum and a $30m quality big makes this team really interesting.
Dark horse to come out of the East, maybe. No chance against the Thunder or Nuggets with this center rotation
Honestly? In the modern NBA anything can happen. Certainly not likely but the Celtics have enough fourty percent three point shooters to realistically (not likely, but feasibly) shoot 60 percent for a series which is all it would take to win the series. It’d be a win equivalent to lucking into beating your older brother in a game and not rematching because you know you’d lose, but it’s not impossible lmao. But yeah even if JT does return this year, he’s gonna need time to warm up - assuming he returns to the exact same level of player post injury.
lot of interesting conovs will start if they make the finals
Ahh yes “dark horse” the best curse you can give to a team
They’ll be the favorite in the east when Tatum returns in August
I visited Boston a couple weeks ago and had one of the greatest weekends in my life, surprisingly. I’ll take full credit.
What, did you get laid or something?
i just wanted to do something for our team.
It’s a very pretty city.
I hate the boston team but love the city, they align with my way of life much more than LA does.
Great city for visiting. It sucks you in with the heritage
Thanks for Queta!
Because it’s the best city in the world
If you love that any given night your team could lose to the Nets or could beat the Pistons, then you’ll love 2025 Celtics basketball.
Live by the 3, die by the 3.
Really felt like you couldn’t miss from deep tonight, and our effort just wasn’t there-supremely lazy and, just a thought, maybe after a team has hit their 3000th 3 of the game it might be time to stop going under/dropping.
I am very pleased that I will not to have to deal with that horrific court/camera work again though.
not really the three but we just dont have enough consistent two way guys to consistently win games. Walsh has been awesome and hes probably the best of the bunch right now, with Minott, Schierman, Hugo and Hauser all behind him, but these guys can go off too like you saw Schierman tonight. Then there is the center issue where Queta is good enough to get consistent minutes but isnt good enough (at least not his net rating would suggest) to do well 30 mins a night against anybody. Garza is hot and cold depending on the matchup and thats it for our Cs lol. Also Simons is very streaky too.
The 3s will come more consistently if these guys can just get a little bit better or a little bit more consistent, otherwise this is what the 2025-26 Celtics gonna look like without any roster changes.
then you’ll love 2025 Celtics basketball
Fixed. The boomers among us remember the late KG era when the team could and would lose to the baby Warriors or the literal 12 win Nets, then turn right around and beat LeBron or the Spurs. It’s always been this way.
The boomers remember the KG era? I’m Gen X with fond memories of the Bird era.
I meant more boomers more tongue-in-cheek, like how teenagers call anyone older than them a boomer.
And that vid of JT dunking is like a month old now.
JT is coming.
Has there been any word on his return timeline?
It’s a new surgery so it’s all unprecedented but it seems like an insane improvement based off the progression videos from JT, Hali, Kyrie, etc.
Can google “speedbridge achilles” and get the jist if you want.
Awesome, I’ll check it out. Hope he makes a full recovery, he’s a great player and it would be sad to his career derailed like that
Why include Kyrie there? He hurt his ACL not achilles.
That’s what They want you to think bro.
Cuz I’m a dumbass
Nobody knows anything but I’ll believe he’s coming back this season when I actually see him out there. His idol Kobe came back too soon and got a compensation injury shortly after, granted Kobe was older and had a lot more mileage.
In any case, even if Tatum is fully “ready” by late March or whatever, taking a guy who’s been out for almost a year and then throwing him into the fire of vital games where the team will be scrapping for a playoff spot and depending on him to be their everything seems like a not-so-great idea. I’d feel better about it if we were firmly out of the playoff hunt by that point and he could shake off the cobwebs in relative peace, but four absolutely abysmal teams in the East means the Celtics are probably looking at 11th at worst.
We did this same dance with Gordon Hayward that one year. Every time footage got out of Hayward scratching his own ass without assistance the Celtics sub was flooded with eye emojis and finals talk.
Yeah Celtics being out of the playoffs allowing him to warm up in meaningless basketball, plus relearn team chemistry since the new team is very different than last year would be the ideal situation for him.
Hope he doesn’t rush back and hurt himself, he’s too good of a player to lose that way, especially since he should just be entering his prime.
unless the medical staff listen to the experts here that he can’t be ready until next year
Somebody give Joe mf Mazzulla credit for getting wins running guys like Jordan Walsh, Josh Minott, Baylor Scheierman, Amari Williams, and Luka Garza out there every day
Exactly - they’re winning with nearly a full string of g league guys.
Celtics are still the celtics
I got flamed for saying they wouldn’t be a top 15 team this season, I guess I deserved it lmao
I genuinely hate the tanking discourse in the NBA. Even without Tatum, this team is far too good to get a top pick, and if there’s any chance of him coming back for a playoff run we better be in there.
I will never condone tanking
Outsourcing is the only acceptable tanking.
Shoutout to the Nets for being a bro that one year
More like 2 years
unless you completely bench JB and White, your team is too good to tank this season. There’s at least 6 teams which are going to be completely garbage this year.
you guys haven’t legitimately tanked since 2013-14 lol
There’s not really any incentive right now to be a middle of the pack team. You either tank or you gun for the championships. Anything in between is how you fuck up your franchise for years
midwit alert
Fuck
Shame on all of you if they make even the ECF.
I will be one of the angriest men in America if those fuckers go far or, Lord forbid, win it all in an “off year.”
If we win it all in an off year, unironically they’ll need to shut down this sub
They lost to the Nets tho
Congrats to y’all with the best achievement of your whole year is “Beating the Celts”
Uh I’m not bragging I’m reminding everyone that the Celtics are trash lol
If the Celts are trash, the Nets are already recycled.
No shit
Nets to the finals
if tatum comes back even at 70 percent
boston are making a deep playoff run
When you say deep do you mean getting spanked by the Knicks in the second round? This team is still going to be without 4 of their top 8.
I hate the Celtics so I guess I should be happy about this because it means they won’t get a top pick but it feels gross
Who needs a top pick when we’re gonna go to the finals once JT comes back?
Look at the standings. There’s no way the Celtics could tank as hard as the wizards nets pacers hornets and pelicans
I don’t know if this is a hot take but they legit might have a bottom 5 roster on paper. Like idek who tf that was starting at center tonight
They just all buy in and have a ton of hustle. Power of friendship ass team
I dont think they are anywhere near bottom 5… Brown is still what a top 5 player in the east? White and prichard are real, Queta is an advanced stats darling, Hauser simmons can both get scorcing hot, and we got Work horses in Walsh, minott, garza,
Come on now. Yeah, center is a big hole but bottom 5? Brown alone takes the team out of the bottom 5.
Whats a center
That was the slogan of many GSW title teams
We started Luka Garza (former Timberwolves bench warmer), and his backup was two-way rookie Amari Williams playing his first NBA minutes!
They are very Pacers like in execution
That was Amari Williams from Gleague our second rounder this year lmao
This is a hot take. Wizards nets pels pacers hornets kings jazz.
Brown, White, Pritchard….they have a solid roster
It’s called the refs are letting them getting away with hacking in the paint so the ball never gets there. they’re undersized and that’s the only reason they get away with it it’s ridiculous if we played like they did we would be crucified there was like 5 players with 5 fouls and one fouled out
Mazzulla is a madman losing Porzingis and Tatum and Jrue and still competing
And Al and Luke Kornet, Celtics literally lost 5 of their top 8 and are still solid
Oh yeah, totally forgot you guys lost your entire center rotation in one summer. Mazzulla is working miracles honestly.
When Tatum is back, it’s over for the East once again
Now imagine how badly they would cook the Pistons in a first round series, especially with Tatum back
How were they going to “tank” with Brown, White, Pritchard, and a bunch of good young wings that can either stick the 3 or play tough D? That was just people talking shit They’re a 45 win team give or take.
You’re European, aren’t you
I knew Detroit would lose eventually but losing to Boston makes it worse
🤷🏿♂️
Honestly no idea what’s going on in the east genuinely any team could end up in the finals next year and I wouldn’t be surprised if
wow they’re almost as good as the Magic
We are a Tatum level player away from being a good team.
Without him we are just chuck and pray…. seems like theres too many guys to hunt on D.
it feels like everybody forgot that the celtics exist
This is exactly going as hoped for as a certified Celtics hater.
Too good to get a good draft pick
Too bad to do anything in the playoffs
You sure about the 2nd part? They’ve could beat anyone in the east.
Without Tatum and a legit center, no they can’t.
[deleted]
you’re exaggerating how bad the east is
i’m not sure what you’re looking at but the net rating’s i’m seeing have the pistons net rating at a +7, followed by the raptors, heat, knicks, and magic
the top three best teams being in west doesn’t mean the east is really bad, the east has been just as competitive so far
the west having the three best teams in the league still doesn’t make the east really bad or less competitive. and id say the east doesn’t have elite teams (on par with the rockets, nuggets, and thunder), but there are definitely great teams like the pistons, raptors, knicks, and cavs
you’re looking at the net ratings of the top three teams and using that to conclude that the east isn’t good meanwhile the east occupies most of the top 10. regardless though, net ratings this early aren’t that meaningful. it’s november
I’ll eat my own shoe if Celtics make it out of the east this year.
I don’t think they make it out the east, but I think they could win some playoff series, I don’t think team wanna face them, especially in the 1st round w their shooting and experience
really speaks to how weak the East is
god you guys need to pay attention in your english classes. this is barely legible
“God”, “This”, “English” should be capital. There should be a period after legible, Mr English proficiency !
stylistic choice on the caps my man. final period isn’t necessary here because it’s the obvious end of the comment, and this ain’t a paper.
notably, none of your complaints relate to legibility. snoochie boochies!
I just compliment on your English and your audacity to whine about other people use of English. That’s all!
oh lord
I was just kidding w u. Nothing was serious. Peace!
Boooooooooooo! I want a squad who will tank!!!!!
I’ll go ahead and be the grumpy Celtics fan. They are severely overachieving right now. Tatum doesn’t suddenly make them a contender.
It’s fun to watch, but Mazzulla-ball will shoot them out of games eventually and they don’t have the roster to bail them out like in the past couple seasons.
Okay, Leprechaun!
go away
I saw all their fans going wild like brah, your season is still over lol. You can’t make it far without Tatum despite their good 15 game stretch. The pistons are still 1st in the East right now
Yall know pretty well about seasons being over this early in the year huh
Hey now, they made the playoffs 3 times in the last… 20 years…
knicks and pistons fans talking a lot of shit for teams that haven’t seen their team win over 20+ yrs
Enjoy the L man
Nobody cares about that. You’re keeping the top spot warm for when the Celtics are back next year. Everyone understands this is essentially a gap year to help the young guys. Most people aren’t going to be crying if they miss the playoffs, if they get bounced in the first round, etc.
We gonna knock you out of the first round in May when JT is back.
I love it. First round exit and no top 3 pick in this draft