Kings (4-0) at Celtics (4-0) SL Championship Game 8/17/21

[SHAQATTACK]

Celts needed at least one guy to go off tonight

And all the key guys got shutout

Btw where was Romeo?

Wherefore art though, Romeo?

Story of his NBA career

He must have injured himself again.

Indeed he did.  He was out with a wrist strain.  Let's hope that's not the one he had surgery on.  We don't need him missing another 3/4 of a season.

Romeo and TL = the glass brothers 

shudobbie shattered ! shattered !

this town s in tatters

[PAOBoston]

Disappointing effort. Time to trade all these guys for some real players!!!!

[Somebody]

Nesmith absolutely stunk in this game and Begarin looked two years away from being two years away. I did like what I saw from Edwards though - his explosiveness and ability to score on all three levels can be pretty neat as a third stringer.

[Celtics4ever]

Begarin looked two years away from being two years away

I thought he had some solid defensive plays, I for one, would take him over Madar but see them both overseas next year.

[Silas]

Hard to believe, but the Red Sox were today's highlight

And they lost a double header to the Yankees.  Ouch!

[Sophomore]

Begarin looked two years away from being two years away

I thought he had some solid defensive plays, I for one, would take him over Madar but see them both overseas next year.

Agree. He is raw, without question. Who knows what coaching he’s had in the second French division, and he was 18 when SL began. What he does have, without question, is NBA-level physical ability. He also seems to have competitive fire (he “likes to defense”). I’ll be surprised if he’s not earning a rotation spot in two years.

[Sophomore]

Last night’s game happened. And so did the four previous games; they’re all real. These guys got sped up and played really badly.

Is that telling us there’s a lack of mental toughness or ability that’s going to make them useless at the next level? I don’t think so, especially for Nesmith. He needs to see tough competition to slow things down; he’s made a lot of progress so far and I don’t see why he won’t keep improving. I’m a little more on the fence about Pritchard. His body of regular season work last year tells me this was just an unusually bad game. But, unsurprisingly, if you put a really elite defender on him you can probably shut him down.

[Surferdad]

Couple of things that were discouraging: Nesmith’s sloppy ball handling and Nesmith’s turnstile defense in this game. Dude’s only 21 so I don’t want to ring the alarm bells, but these are clearly areas of focus for him.

For me, this was the biggest single takeaway from this game.  Aaron clearly has some holes in his game including ball-handling, and on defense he has a lack of lateral quickness and he's still going for upfakes.  Sometimes he just puts 'too much' effort and ends up out of position.  Ironically, his high athleticism suggests he could be an excellent defender, but he needs coaching and reps.

For the team as a whole, this game suggests that the young guys are not ready to be regular rotation players, at least not without at least 3 vets on the court with them.  Pritchard, Nesmith, Langford, Grant, Bruno...none of them give me the confidence that there's a new crop of C's coming along with high upside.  A few may make it in the NBA, but no stars in the making.  Really glad that Brad brought in some rotation vets -- Richardson, Dunn, Schroder, Horford.

[Somebody]

Begarin looked two years away from being two years away

I thought he had some solid defensive plays, I for one, would take him over Madar but see them both overseas next year.

I agree, but I also think that he made some head-scratching plays on that end of the floor.