Are you more excited about the playoffs or the off-season?

[Green-18]

I'm very excited for the playoffs.  It's hard not to be unless your resigned to the notion that this team cannot peak in the playoffs.  We've seen most of these guys excel under playoff pressure.  I can't help but get excited about the potential for the group to flip a switch. 

[slamtheking]

playoffs.   

I'll worry about the offseason when they're no longer playing - hopefully not until after they've done their tour of Boston on the duck boats

[celticsclay]

I'm pretty tired of this year's team.  I'm ready to be done watching them, frankly.  I feel they've disappointed me just too many times.  They don't seem to really have their hearts in the season, so it's hard for me to put my heart into following them.


With that said, I felt the same way about the 2010 team by about February, as well.  I came to love them by April, when they dispatched the hated LeBroniers in 6.

The difference is, that team was less than two years removed from winning a championship, a title won by defeating LeBron, the former champion Pistons, and the Kobe Lakers. 

This Celtics team beat a couple of flawed teams in the first two rounds of the playoffs last year and then dropped a home Game 7 against a team that was basically LeBron, injured Kevin Love, and a bunch of scrubs.


So I'm reserving some tepid enthusiasm for the playoffs, just because I've seen in the past that a team can sleepwalk through the regular season and then give us a post-season worth being excited about.


But we've also seen that this team is much, much better at home than on the road, and they are almost certainly going to be opening the playoffs on the road. They will probably open against a Philly team that is much more talented than the one they faced last year, and that will be extremely motivated to destroy the Celtics in Philadelphia.


I'm well known as a pessimist, but the way I see this playing out is the Celts lose a hard fought 6 or 7 game series in round one.  I think we'll look back at this team as one that could have made the Finals if they'd played up to their potential and earned the home court advantage they needed to go deep in the playoffs.  They will live in Celtics history as a team that played like a group of individuals whose ideas of themselves were bigger than the notion that they had of what they might accomplish as a group, and who could never muster a consistent focus on the things that lead to winning.


Am I excited for the off-season though?  I guess.  I think "anxious" is probably closer to how I feel about that.  Ainge is going to try to trade for Anthony Davis, and then use that acquisition to convince Kyrie to stay.

That may very well come to pass, which would be exciting.  But will it change anything about the general mood and culture that currently permeates the atmosphere around this team and makes it so hard to enjoy?

If an Anthony Davis trade doesn't come to pass, does that mean we simply keep Kyrie and hope that bringing back this same basic group will yield different results next year?

Or does Kyrie leave us in the lurch?  What will Ainge do when all of his planning has left him without a single established superstar?


At this point I just want to have a team with a stable, likable core that plays an appealing style and brings consistent effort and focus almost every night, if not every night.  I'd obviously prefer that team to be one of the favorites to win the title in any given year, but my feeling is I'd rather watch a 50 win team I love than a 55-60 win team that seems miserable and internally conflicted every step of the way.


I guess my answer is playoffs?  But I'm not feeling great about any of it, at the moment.

How are we almost certainly starting the playoffs on the road?  We are one game out of 4th place....

[PhoSita]

Re: the playoff seeding, Greg Cassoli covered that pretty well in his piece on the Celticsblog frontpage.

It's theoretically possible they could end up ahead of the Sixers but I have zero faith in them managing it.

[SCeltic34]

Playoffs.  This team is still stacked and we present multiple match up problems, and have enough versatility to respond accordingly to any matchup problems or adjustments presented by our opponents.  That and I expect Brad to do a better job in the playoffs than he has done so far in the regular season.  If he doesn't we're getting bounced in the 1st or 2nd round.

[celticsclay]

Re: the playoff seeding, Greg Cassoli covered that pretty well in his piece on the Celticsblog frontpage.

It's theoretically possible they could end up ahead of the Sixers but I have zero faith in them managing it.

So we are 3 games behind the Pacers and they have the following games left
@philly
@bucks
golden state
@denver
@portland
boston
@boston
@okc
vs okc

Heck they are even underdogs tonight @detroit.

But we are throwing in the towel on seeding already? Seems like a surprisingly defeatist attitude that I doubt the team shares.

[PhoSita]

  Indiana, which recently lost its biggest star in Victor Oladipo, is the likeliest candidate to fade down the stretch, but the Pacers have won at a schockingly strong rate in the absence of their dynamic shooting guard. Boston would need to close out the year on an 18-4 run to match Indiana’s projected win total for the year should they maintain their current pace. That’s not technically an impossibility for a team as talented at the Celtics, but it represents a major improvement from their performance to date.

The 17-5 record they would need to pull even with the Sixers, should their competitive status quo persist, is as well. In that sense there may be real reason for concern in Boston. There is very little evidence to suggest that the current iteration of the Celtics is capable of making a significant late season climb in the conference hierarchy.   

I think he's making use of BRef projected standings.


You talk about not throwing in the towel when the team hasn't done so.

I disagree.  This team seems to have decided to quit caring about the regular season a while ago.  Not everybody on the team obviously, but a lot of the guys.


Without looking closely at the schedule, I trust the Celts to win 12-14 of their remaining games.  I expect them to finish in the vicinity of 47-50 wins.

[GreenEnvy]

Home court is nice, but even with the top overall seed, you’re going to need to win a few games on the road. Great teams win on the road and don’t rely on HCA.

The 08 squad was pretty heavily reliant on HCA.

For the first two rounds, yeah.

But then they lost HCA to the Pistons and immediately went into Detroit and took it right back. Then of course, they had that huge comeback in LA to prevent evening the Finals. Sure, the first round was as puzzling a series as I’ve seen. No game in Boston was remotely competitive and they somehow beat us every time in Atlanta. Losing in Cleveland to a young LeBron isn’t THAT shocking. We cleaned up our act and went 3-3 on the road against the second and third best teams in the league.

Still, they were an extreme case. Like I said, even if we had the top overall seed, it would be hard to expect 16-0 at home because we can’t win on the road. Every champion wins some road games.

This team is fully capable of winning in any arena.

[nickagneta]

Playoffs for sure. Never give up. Never surrender. This team has at least a chance at a title this year and I fully expect a heart attack inducing, up and down, deep playoff run at the very least.

Oh, I also think the following is a given:

1. Draft night it is reported that the Celtics will be drafting for another team for a couple of their picks.

2. Before July 1st it will be reported that the Celtics and Pelicans are finalizing details in a Davis for Tatum and pucks package.

3. July 1st, its announced that Kyrie Irving will be returning to Boston after signing a 5 year max.

[PhoSita]

Home court is nice, but even with the top overall seed, you’re going to need to win a few games on the road. Great teams win on the road and don’t rely on HCA.

The 08 squad was pretty heavily reliant on HCA.

For the first two rounds, yeah.

But then they lost HCA to the Pistons and immediately went into Detroit and took it right back. Then of course, they had that huge comeback in LA to prevent evening the Finals. Sure, the first round was as puzzling a series as I’ve seen. No game in Boston was remotely competitive and they somehow beat us every time in Atlanta. Losing in Cleveland to a young LeBron isn’t THAT shocking. We cleaned up our act and went 3-3 on the road against the second and third best teams in the league.

Still, they were an extreme case. Like I said, even if we had the top overall seed, it would be hard to expect 16-0 at home because we can’t win on the road. Every champion wins some road games.

This team is fully capable of winning in any arena.

The 08 team also finished their title run at home.

Two years later they lost a title on the road in game seven.

HCA is hugely important.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Playoffs for sure. Never give up. Never surrender. This team has at least a chance at a title this year and I fully expect a heart attack inducing, up and down, deep playoff run at the very least.

Oh, I also think the following is a given:

1. Draft night it is reported that the Celtics will be drafting for another team for a couple of their picks.

2. Before July 1st it will be reported that the Celtics and Pelicans are finalizing details in a Davis for Tatum and pucks package.

3. July 1st, its announced that Kyrie Irving will be returning to Boston after signing a 5 year max.

At this moment, I'm not excited for either, but I do feel that the playoffs are going to have a HUGE impact on this franchise.

If these guys wake up and manage to make it at least to the conference finals and make that series go 6 or 7, I think there's a chance Danny keeps the youngsters (though really, if they do that well (or better), I can totally see Danny using that as leverage to give up less for Davis).

But if they fall short of the ECF, I think there's no doubt that Tatum and others will be shipped out.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Home court is nice, but even with the top overall seed, you’re going to need to win a few games on the road. Great teams win on the road and don’t rely on HCA.

The 08 squad was pretty heavily reliant on HCA.

For the first two rounds, yeah.

But then they lost HCA to the Pistons and immediately went into Detroit and took it right back. Then of course, they had that huge comeback in LA to prevent evening the Finals. Sure, the first round was as puzzling a series as I’ve seen. No game in Boston was remotely competitive and they somehow beat us every time in Atlanta. Losing in Cleveland to a young LeBron isn’t THAT shocking. We cleaned up our act and went 3-3 on the road against the second and third best teams in the league.

Still, they were an extreme case. Like I said, even if we had the top overall seed, it would be hard to expect 16-0 at home because we can’t win on the road. Every champion wins some road games.

This team is fully capable of winning in any arena.

The 08 team also finished their title run at home.

Two years later they lost a title on the road in game seven.

HCA is hugely important.

And those teams were led by stars who'd been around a long time; this team, not so much (other than Kyrie).

[celticsclay]

  Indiana, which recently lost its biggest star in Victor Oladipo, is the likeliest candidate to fade down the stretch, but the Pacers have won at a schockingly strong rate in the absence of their dynamic shooting guard. Boston would need to close out the year on an 18-4 run to match Indiana’s projected win total for the year should they maintain their current pace. That’s not technically an impossibility for a team as talented at the Celtics, but it represents a major improvement from their performance to date.

The 17-5 record they would need to pull even with the Sixers, should their competitive status quo persist, is as well. In that sense there may be real reason for concern in Boston. There is very little evidence to suggest that the current iteration of the Celtics is capable of making a significant late season climb in the conference hierarchy.   

I think he's making use of BRef projected standings.


You talk about not throwing in the towel when the team hasn't done so.

I disagree.  This team seems to have decided to quit caring about the regular season a while ago.  Not everybody on the team obviously, but a lot of the guys.


Without looking closely at the schedule, I trust the Celts to win 12-14 of their remaining games.  I expect them to finish in the vicinity of 47-50 wins.

It really seems extreme to say the Celtics have thrown in the towel because they had an awful game against chicago. They competed very well against the Bucks and probably win that with Hayward. We are at the part of the season where weird games like Chicago beating us is happening all around the league. The Knicks dominated the Spurs last night. The Raptors just lost to the Magic at home and the Magic also beat the Bucks about a week ago. The Warriors somehow lost to the Rockets without James Harden. It seems like we are holding the Celtics to a pretty high standard on here... 

[CF033]

Re: the playoff seeding, Greg Cassoli covered that pretty well in his piece on the Celticsblog frontpage.

It's theoretically possible they could end up ahead of the Sixers but I have zero faith in them managing it.

So we are 3 games behind the Pacers and they have the following games left
@philly
@bucks
golden state
@denver
@portland
boston
@boston
@okc
vs okc

Heck they are even underdogs tonight @detroit.

But we are throwing in the towel on seeding already? Seems like a surprisingly defeatist attitude that I doubt the team shares.

The Celts did just roll over to one of the worst teams in the NBA in a game that could very well have playoff positioning consequences. We're at a must win part of the season and we still can't take care of the worst teams consistently.

Hopefully we can raise our level to match the higher competition coming up.

[PhoSita]

It really seems extreme to say the Celtics have thrown in the towel because they had an awful game against chicago. They competed very well against the Bucks and probably win that with Hayward.

I say it not because of one game, but because it seems we've had half a dozen moments in the last few months where it seemed like the team had hit bottom and must, for the love of all that is good, realize they can't keep coasting and re-dedicate themselves to bringing it every night.

Yet here we are, talking about this again.

So when these awful games keep happening and nothing changes, I reach the conclusion that the team isn't motivated to change, at least not until the playoffs roll around.

Kyrie's comments about not being worried because he believes they can beat anybody in the playoffs only reinforce that feeling.

They don't feel any sense of pressure or urgency to change their approach.

Therefore I expect that the end result in the standings will look pretty much like things are now.