PhoSita,
Your comment can be reproduced for a fan of all sports teams because most people suffer from recency bias because our memories are just not that good. It takes a lot of conscious effort to stop your brain from thinking like this. We also tend to fixate on the negative aspects of life WAY more than the positive ones. This can be carried over to personal relationships and other aspects of life (not to get off topic). We also tend to criticize teams to the level of expectation (the grass is always greener on the other side fallacy): case in point a fan of the Cavs would be looking at a negative comment about Kyrie Irving and thinking.. "man, I wish we had him," or you'll see fans of the Warriors criticizing their team.. seriously.
It's impossible for you to make a statement like that based on memory alone unless you're figuratively Sheldon or you are going back and reviewing each game and assigning equal weight to their outcomes good or bad. For example, do you even remember which teams we played against in January without looking at the schedule let alone the scores or which games we blew a big lead? I don't think that I can, with 100% certainty, recall a single game from January. If I look at the box score, I might remember a few tidbits if there was a big event like a fight or one of those games from last year where we scored 7 points in under a minute.
Every single team has blown big games. It's part of a sport in which the object is to throw a ball into a slightly larger ring from 30 feet away. Some days it just doesn't fall. Some games the team is just tired -- they're human.
There's just so much wrong with your post and this entire thread in general, and the worst part is that we have to repeat this same drill after every loss / string of losses.
To the actual topic: In a focused environment in which both teams are on even playing field and they have the ability to make adjustments between games and re-strategize, you have to give the edge to the team with more talent, better coaching. I just don't see Pacers winning more than 2 games vs us. If Vegas is dumb enough to give points to the Celtics, you're buying every single time.
Yeah.
Pardon me for not citing to stats.
You're correct that sweeping statements are subject to recency bias and selective memory.
Donoghus is correct that it is not literally true that the team has in every instance folded when faced with a bad run in a game.
Donoghus is correct, therefore, that using the word "will" instead of "probably will" is inaccurate and implies unreasonable confidence in a predicted outcome.
All of that said, I believe the basic premises of my comments, regarding the nature of this Celtics team and their flaws, ie a tendency to revert to bad habits and forget team concepts when leading or trailing by a lot, are fundamentally accurate.
I can't quote you the stats on that. I'm nonetheless confident that a deep dive into the game logs would support the statement.
Many times this season the Celts have gotten down big because they couldn't respond to a run. Many times they've let a close game slip away and very quickly face a large deficit, and they're never able to get back that lost ground.
A good number of times, as well, they've enjoyed big leads only to let those leads slip away because they stopped playing smart, team oriented ball. That's resulted in humiliating losses as well as wins that were closer than they should have been.
Do you deny that this Celtics team has exhibited those problematic traits?