Ainge strips the Nets clean 7 years ago. Nets get the last laugh

[Ogaju]

Its gross that it turned out like this

And Nets likely will be good for the next 3 years. Too much talent to handle

Danny could have traded for Harden ... but didnt want to give up one of the Jays. Which is understandable

But right now.. the Celts look to be in that 4-5 seed range, fallen behind the top 3 in the standings

So close but always something cameup.... Lebron or Miami Heat bubble run ... Nets formation of big three

Where do the Celts go from here?

We totally screwed up not moving Jaylen for Harden. We make that move, the Nets go nowhere and our top two is as good as the Bucks and 76ers, if not much better. We make that move, maybe we’re champions in July.

All we can from here is hope the injury bug bites the Nets the next 2-3 seasons

Yup to the first paragraph.

[Muzzy66]

You know, funny enough, this series actually leaves me feeling strangely encouraged.

Lets look at the games in this series

Game 1:
Boston were without Brown - Celtics lost by 11 but it was much closer then that suggests.  Boston led for most of the game and were right in it up until maybe the last 4 or 5 minutes.  This was a winnable game.

Game 2:
Boston were without Brown and also lost Tatum for half the game.  In truth though they were garbage in this game - lost by 22 points and it was well deserved.

Game 3:
Boston were without Brown and R.Williams, Kemba played terrible, and they won by 6 - largely thanks to Tatum's 50, but Smart and Tristan Thompson also stepped up in a huge way.

Game 4:
Boston were without Brown, Kemba and R.Williams, Brooklyn's big 3 combined for 104 points, and Boston "only" lost by 15 points.  This really should have been a 30 point blowout considering the Celtics were basically missing 3 of their top 5 players.

Game 5:
Boston were without Brown, Kemba and R.Williams, Brooklyn's big 3 combined for 83 points, and Boston "only" lost by 14 points.   Again, this probably should have been a 25+ point blowout. 

It might seem like an evaluation, but really think that if Boston had Brown, Tatum, Kemba and Williams healthy for this entire series then games 1, 3, 4 and 5 all would have been very winnable.  Even game 4, when the Nets played probably about as well they possibly could. 

I know it's unrealistic to speculate about hypothetical, but I still find that kind of encouraging that if the Celtics top 4 guys were healthy through this series, it probably could just as easily be 4-1 to Boston right now.

did you watch the regular season?

Do better.

When someone dissects a bunch of games to that extend, you can't just answer with a straw man that leaves us to guess at what you're trying to say.

C'mon guys.

I disagree. It is a legitimate question.

The Celtics played 72 regular season games this year, with an overall record of 0.500 - which got them the 7th seed.

Out of those 72 games, there were 26 in which Tatum. Brown, Kemba and Rob Williams all played.

Boston were 15-11 (0.577) in those games. 

If they won at that rate for the entire season they would have gone 41-31 (rounding down) which would have put them in a battle with New York and Atlanta for the 4th seed.

41 wins at 0.577 is a pretty significant improvement over 36 wins at 0.500 - not saying it's the difference between a first round exit vs making the NBA finals, but it's pretty significant.

To try to argue that having all four of those guys healthy would have had little to no impact is...just unfounded.  I'm not aware of any evidence that's out there that could support that argument.  If you have any please feel free to present it.

I also didn't say I was encouraged about the probability of Celtics winning the series 4-1 if all the guys were healthy.  All I'm saying is there were three losses, each of which could have gone the other way if the Celtics were healthy.  So the POTENTIAL is there for the series to have gone 4-1 to Boston if healthy.  I doubt that would have happened, but i'm saying it's a possibility.

The key point I was trying to make is that IF the Celtics were healthy, it's likely the team would have been far more competitive, and unlikely this would have been a 4-1 win for Brooklyn.  Boston would have had a genuine chance at winning the series.

[Muzzy66]

You know, funny enough, this series actually leaves me feeling strangely encouraged.

Lets look at the games in this series

Game 1:
Boston were without Brown - Celtics lost by 11 but it was much closer then that suggests.  Boston led for most of the game and were right in it up until maybe the last 4 or 5 minutes.  This was a winnable game.

Game 2:
Boston were without Brown and also lost Tatum for half the game.  In truth though they were garbage in this game - lost by 22 points and it was well deserved.

Game 3:
Boston were without Brown and R.Williams, Kemba played terrible, and they won by 6 - largely thanks to Tatum's 50, but Smart and Tristan Thompson also stepped up in a huge way.

Game 4:
Boston were without Brown, Kemba and R.Williams, Brooklyn's big 3 combined for 104 points, and Boston "only" lost by 15 points.  This really should have been a 30 point blowout considering the Celtics were basically missing 3 of their top 5 players.

Game 5:
Boston were without Brown, Kemba and R.Williams, Brooklyn's big 3 combined for 83 points, and Boston "only" lost by 14 points.   Again, this probably should have been a 25+ point blowout. 

It might seem like an evaluation, but really think that if Boston had Brown, Tatum, Kemba and Williams healthy for this entire series then games 1, 3, 4 and 5 all would have been very winnable.  Even game 4, when the Nets played probably about as well they possibly could. 

I know it's unrealistic to speculate about hypothetical, but I still find that kind of encouraging that if the Celtics top 4 guys were healthy through this series, it probably could just as easily be 4-1 to Boston right now.

did you watch the regular season?

Do better.

When someone dissects a bunch of games to that extend, you can't just answer with a straw man that leaves us to guess at what you're trying to say.

C'mon guys.

respectfully disagree. first, there wasn’t much dissection of the games, just brief summaries, which led to an encouraged feeling that a healthy c’s team could have earned a 4-1 series victory.

secondly, my reply was in no way a straw man, but was a fair question, especially considering the conclusion that was drawn. as i said in other posts, the team we witnessed in this lone playoff series was exactly what we witnessed during the regular season. rhetorical or not, the question clearly implied my point in a pithy manner.

Yeah look, when someone brings 300 words of argument, and someone else responds with 6 words of rhetorical "no", on a discussion board... well, aight. Fair.

so quantity over quality? ok, i’ll type more words next time.

oh, and i didn’t type anything resembling a “no”. it was a question, which encourages a response, a retort, a discussion, which is the point of a discussion board, no?

So it wasn't rhetorical then? :]

dude, you just keep moving the goal posts.

first you accuse me of leveraging a cryptic straw man against what you described as an extensive dissection of a bunch of games (which was really just a very brief summary of five playoff games, most of which was a listing of injured players). not sure if you mistakenly chose the wrong word or if autocorrect got the better of you but it’s pretty clear that my response could in no way be construed as a straw man. not attempting to be smart ass, but legitimately giving you the benefit of the doubt.

after i respectfully disagreed, you weirdly jump to a quantity equals quality argument. just going to let this one die on its own merit.

now you’re purposefully twisting a single phrase in one of my replies to move the goalposts again? i thought you were opposed to using five words in response to a thoughtful post.

not trying to pick a fight; just unsure why you jumped in so quickly and continued to criticize a fair discourse. feel free to get the last word; i’ll drop it at this point.

I suspect his point was that your response didn't really offer anything constructive. 

You didn't make any statements, present any data, produce any facts.  You only asked one question, which came across as rhetorical (a suggestion that I hadn't watched the season).  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.  I still lean towards the suspicion that it was.   

It also seems like you were trying to insinuate that I suggested a 4-1 Celtics win would have been likely if healthy.  I didn't suggest that at all.  I simply suggested that 3 of those losses probably would have been winnable.  Saying all 3 games could have been winnable is not the same as saying that the Celtics actually WOULD have won all three. 

I was merely pointing out that in the absolute best-case scenario, if the Celtics won every one of those theoretically winnable games (which they probably don't do) then the Celtics would have won the series 4-1.  Which is a total 360 compared to what actually happened.   

I say this is encouraging to me because prior to Brown's unexpected injury it actually looked like all four of those guys were going to be healthy...and my initial thought was that Celtics / Nets series would not have been even remotely competitive EVEN IF those guys were all healthy. But in hindsight i can now see that if all of those guys were healthy it probably would have been a very competitive series - much moreso then I (and many others probably) would have expected.

Maybe injuries really did impact this team more then I thought they did.  If so then that's encouraging to me, as it makes me think that maybe this team isn't as far away as I thought. 

Also encouraging because it makes me think the Nets may not actually be as good as many thought they would be.  Even with all of their players healthy AND all of their stars having big games AND 3 of Boston's top 5 players out...even in the absolute best case scenario with EVERYTHING going in their favour...they still had to fight a little to beat us.   

Worth noting that all of this is purely speculation and just my own subjective evaluation/opinion.  I've never attempted to pass it off as anything more than that.  I understand you disagree, and I respect that.   

[Surferdad]

I'm tool lazy to read 4 pages of comments but it seems like it degraded to in-fighting among posters which is not uncommon.

I'll just comment on thread title:  The Nets haven't won anything yet so they can't be laughing.

[Kernewek]

We won the trade, Brooklyn won the "where do superstars want to team up" race.

100%.


We got Tatum and Brown out of those picks. The Nets don't have any players remaining from the roster, and the only real pick of note that I can think of was Kuzma (who got sent out for D'Angelo Russell).

[Celtics4ever]

LOL

The Nets are NBA nobodies compared to the Celtics.   I mean how many titles have they won?   They may win this year but their a flash in the pan.

[Roy H.]

If anything, the Nets show that it is possible to bounce back with smart management and good drafting.

Yes, the fact that they play in the New York market is huge, but they also had to maximum slots available at the right time. They also had good players to surround there stars.

It’s one of the reasons why I think the panic here is premature. We have two stars in place. If the team treats next year as a reset year, we will have expiring contracts the year after, followed by cap space.