Celtics (39-27) at Hornets (32-33) Game #67 3/9/22

[#1P4P]

This is a great team… the writing is on the wall.

One of the final signs for me was Tatum becoming entrenched as a Top 10 player. The potential has been there, consistency and being a steady presence in clutch situations were what I was waiting for, it’s here.

Going toe to toe against KD and KI, putting scrappy teams away late on the road, dunking it far more often than before, and exuding the confidence of an elite player is really shining through now.

A show of appreciation to how malleable this team is! Big or small, our personnel can matchup; however team’s want to matchup, we can matchup.

[PaxtonDarcy]

What I want to know is this - why hasn't Smart done this type of aggressive taking it to the rim his entire career? His offense would have been so much better all those years if he just did this more consistently. No idea what changed for him this year, other than the fact that he's the actual designated point guard now.

Because he is basically a dumb player. An attack dog full of competitiveness, an elite athlete, but lacking in basketball intelligence.
Brad Stevens refused to be tough with him. Maybe Stevens was afraid he would lose some of his natural aggressiveness if he restrained his bad habits - or maybe Stevens was just plain afraid of Marcus.

Pretty sure I’ve heard you say that Tatum and Brown are dumb too. Guess the team is just a bunch of dummies... 

I wonder how he imagines that “dumb” Marcus Smart is so good on defense. Not that he’s a dominant physical presence. He’s a brilliant student of body positioning, ball movement, switching, leverage. He’s constantly quarterbacking our defense.  I don’t know if I’ve heard anything less convincing than that Smart is a dumb player.

I'm hardly the only one on this board who has pointed out the fact that Smart, Tatum and Brown have continued to make the same mistakes - forcing offense - the past few seasons into this season, no less - to the point of calling for trades at different times of all three players.

No one wants to use the term "dumb player" but that's what they have been. Just because they have finally shown some improvement in this area - well Smart and Tatum have - doesn't mean they have displayed consistent high basketball IQ during most of their respective careers.

This team still kills itself with bad turnovers from forcing dribbles into traffic or getting off balance and throwing bad passes or jacking up awful shots after refusing to move the ball and going to isolation offense. We win a few games and all is forgotten. I'm extremely happy they are playing better, but it doesn't change their tendency to repeat dumb basketball mistakes. My original comment tonite about Smart was in response to Potter expressing frustration over his offensive decisions.

I think you may be applying unrealistic standards onto these guys. I appreciate the desire for everyone on our team to meet their full potential but casually throwing around the idea of people being dumb and wanting them to reach their full potentials are two different things.

Every player makes mistakes and has tendencies they need to work on. None of the players you have mentioned have bad bbiq, their progress and consistent contributions are evidence that you are overreacting.

They need to, and have continued to improve year after year, game after game. I want a championship as bad as anyone but I don’t understand the utility of the ‘these guys are dumb’ takes. It screams arrogance, like would you say that to jaylen browns face or Marcus smarts face? Think about how you would address those things directly to them. I promise if you looked those two in the face and suggested they are stupid basketball players, the only person feeling dumb after the exchange would be you.

Just stop.

[nickagneta]

What I want to know is this - why hasn't Smart done this type of aggressive taking it to the rim his entire career? His offense would have been so much better all those years if he just did this more consistently. No idea what changed for him this year, other than the fact that he's the actual designated point guard now.

Because he is basically a dumb player. An attack dog full of competitiveness, an elite athlete, but lacking in basketball intelligence.
Brad Stevens refused to be tough with him. Maybe Stevens was afraid he would lose some of his natural aggressiveness if he restrained his bad habits - or maybe Stevens was just plain afraid of Marcus.

Pretty sure I’ve heard you say that Tatum and Brown are dumb too. Guess the team is just a bunch of dummies... 

I wonder how he imagines that “dumb” Marcus Smart is so good on defense. Not that he’s a dominant physical presence. He’s a brilliant student of body positioning, ball movement, switching, leverage. He’s constantly quarterbacking our defense.  I don’t know if I’ve heard anything less convincing than that Smart is a dumb player.

I'm hardly the only one on this board who has pointed out the fact that Smart, Tatum and Brown have continued to make the same mistakes - forcing offense - the past few seasons into this season, no less - to the point of calling for trades at different times of all three players.

No one wants to use the term "dumb player" but that's what they have been. Just because they have finally shown some improvement in this area - well Smart and Tatum have - doesn't mean they have displayed consistent high basketball IQ during most of their respective careers.

This team still kills itself with bad turnovers from forcing dribbles into traffic or getting off balance and throwing bad passes or jacking up awful shots after refusing to move the ball and going to isolation offense. We win a few games and all is forgotten. I'm extremely happy they are playing better, but it doesn't change their tendency to repeat dumb basketball mistakes. My original comment tonite about Smart was in response to Potter expressing frustration over his offensive decisions.

I said it last season, I said it earlier this season, I say it again now. The team was taken off it's "star PG having the ball and creating" training wheels and now the ball was in the hands of the Jays and Smart. All young players

Those guys were going to need time to adjust to their new ball handling and creating roles. We as fans needed to have patience as they developed and matured into those roles.

And what do you know, it all seemed to suddenly click and all three of those guys matured, learned to move the ball, learned to create for others, learned to make that extra pass and learned when it was the right time to go iso.

The team is now around 14th in the league in offensive rating when they were in the 22nd to 23rd area just two months ago. They have the 4th best offense since the start of February. Since New Year's Eve they are 24-8. They are 17-3 in their last 20 games.

They're young. They are growing out of their constant mistakes. Their games have matured. And the team defense is historically good.

The coach that was supposedly only hired for racist reasons has taught them to grow up and play within his system. He's developed the Williams boys into players almost no one on this board thought possible. He has this team playing better than any other in the Association for the last third of the season. He has them looking like they can win it all and has the team believing it. And he did it by getting the young guys to mature, correcting their bad habits, suffering through some growing pains and making sure these guys knew just how good they could be if they played as a team.

Maybe you should consider these things instead of insulting their BBIQ, which, btw, might be one of the worst takes on this site right now.