76ers (0-1) at Celtics (1-0) Round 1 Game 2 4/21/26

[ScoobyDoo]

I think the KG, Pierce, Ray Allen team would have had three titles if it were not for Perkins going down in Game 6 of the finals the one year and then Shaq going down that last year with the Achilles. They were absolutely dominating teams with Shaq playing 15-20 minutes off the bench.

In spite of Doc's coaching and the fact that KG, Pierce and Allen were older and banged up when they got together, that team had massive cahones, mental toughness, and physical ferocity. They were getting beaten only by LeBron, Wade and Kobe in their prime teams, not losing to a team like the Philly team we're currently playing.

It's a force of will, line in the sand mentality Tatum and brown have always lacked in my opinion. It's letting Draymond Green walk Tatum back to the bench in Game four of the finals a few years back. That should have been a title that year, we would have gone up 3-1 and out entire team let's Draymond Green walk Tatum back to OUR bench after a timeout is called.

Grow a spine, and kick the crap out of Philly in Game 2 on YOUR court. Not their court. Then, when they're walking off, tell them good luck trying to beat us in your crappy gym in Philly. Control the other team mentally.

Tatum and Brown far often start choking and going ISO hero ball instead of moving it around. Two things happen:

Tatum dribbles around and jacks up some terrible fadeaway two or three point shot.

Brown dribble around and drives into a triple team for a turnover. You can see it coming every time from both of them.

It's this lackadaisical let's go down and jack a up a three - take the easy play. It doesn't work. The hard part is you can see it coming every time. It's usually we're up by 9 or 12 points and we start taking crappy, lazy threes on offensive, or Brown and Tatum start going ISI and the result in both cases are terrible shots and then the next thing you know it's a 3 point or 5 point game and the other team has been let back in.

I've see the movie about 1000 times with these two players as leads.   

You win game two on your court. Then you go to Philly and play game three like it's a single elimination game and go up 3-0. 

I'm not saying they can't win a title this year but my god, be smarter, tougher, nastier, harder working when it matters most, don't constantly go the other way and do the opposite all the time.   

[Atzar]

This kind of chole job isn't an "under Mazzulla" issue, it's been happening the entire Tatum and Brown era. These guys just can't come out with a "step on their throats" mentality after a big win. This game tonight was "easy money", all you had to do was step on Philly early and the switch the pressure over to them.

Tatum and brown teams always make what should be 4 game series, six game series, what should be five or six games series six or seven game serries. They've always made it as hard as possible on themselves as they can. They do not have that fierce killer instinct most great players/teams have. If they did, this game would have turned into a massive brawl with incredibly intensity very early on. You just do not let a team do that - you can't give them life like that - you already have the next two in Philly.

It's truly miserable to watch and it's been happening ever since Brown and Tatum have been here together. If they had a killer instinct they would already have 2-3 titles, not one. It's so disappointing.

I expect them to win game three and the series but it's a miserable process to watch. 

Lose game three in Philly after you have a 2-0 lead. Yeah, maybe, then you stick it to them in game four and go home and close in game five.

Instead Boston likes to do stuff like lost that gimme game 2 in Boston, "because" you know you have to them go to Philly to play two hard games in a hostile area. So then "OK, let's win game three, but then lose game four and then maybe even lose game 5 at him so we can play an elimination game in game six in Philly, then come home and blow them out in game 7, finally.

It's such a miserable, miserable movie to watch and it's been on replay for 8-9 years now.

 

I also been saying this too. We got rid of Irving (and Hayward). We got rid of Smart/Williams. We got rid of Horford. So what now? The complacency still sticks. It has been a Jay mentality thing being complacent. Maybe it's time to trade one Jay away while their value is still high and get another superstar/young stud in return? It's also Joe's problem for not keeping them together. He expects them to figure it out in-game and not halt an opposing team's run. What's he saving those timeouts for?

The old Paul Pierce and KG teams will never let these kind of things slide. They go out to war every single night. They will step on the enemy's throat.

The first thing the Pierce/KG team did was let a crappy 37-win Hawks team take them to 7.  A young Al Horford punked Pierce at the end of G3, had Pierce throwing up gang signs like he was gonna do something about it only to lose the next game too, lol.  Then they went 7 with Lebron in a series where they were actually outscored overall.  Their first road win in the entire playoff run came in the conference finals. 

Won the title that year, btw.

So we need to move off of this idea that former teams had a level of nasty that this team doesn't.  The reality is that basketball teams lose basketball games.  It's not a mental deficiency when it happens.  It's just the game. 

[ScoobyDoo]

Nah, don't need to move off the narrative.

First, this team has a unique way of playing with a malaise once they're up on a team. The team is lead by Tatum and brown; Tatum and Brown need to lead in changing this, along with Mazzulla.

Second, the biggest part of why they constantly let teams back in is because they're in love with jacking up lazy threes even when they're missing them at embarrassing rates. Basketball 1010 from day one when you play and at any level, is if you're shots aren't falling, move the ball, get a good shot for someone else, take it to the hole, get a two point bucket of get fouled. This is a mental discipline thing, and it's a mental toughness issue. Basically they need to "stop" doing the things that are causing them to give games away and "start" doing, more often than not, the things that are required to win games when the momentum is swinging against you.

It's not that they're losing the games necessarily it's the way they're losing them and the reasons why they're losing. If your lead dogs are satisfied with jacking lazy threes when it isn't working, everyone else will be OK with doing the same. It starts and ends with Tatum and Brown on every aspect of everything going on on the court - that's the nature of their position as the leaders.

       

[slamtheking]

Nah, don't need to move off the narrative.

First, this team has a unique way of playing with a malaise once they're up on a team. The team is lead by Tatum and brown; Tatum and Brown need to lead in changing this, along with Mazzulla.

Second, the biggest part of why they constantly let teams back in is because they're in love with jacking up lazy threes even when they're missing them at embarrassing rates. Basketball 1010 from day one when you play and at any level, is if you're shots aren't falling, move the ball, get a good shot for someone else, take it to the hole, get a two point bucket of get fouled. This is a mental discipline thing, and it's a mental toughness issue. Basically they need to "stop" doing the things that are causing them to give games away and "start" doing, more often than not, the things that are required to win games when the momentum is swinging against you.

It's not that they're losing the games necessarily it's the way they're losing them and the reasons why they're losing. If your lead dogs are satisfied with jacking lazy threes when it isn't working, everyone else will be OK with doing the same. It starts and ends with Tatum and Brown on every aspect of everything going on on the court - that's the nature of their position as the leaders.

it's easy to blame them as the faces of the franchise for basically the past decade but the mentality of jacking 3's comes from Brad and Joe.  This is their philosophy because they're numbers guys and believe winning is tied to taking and making as many 3s as possible.  I don't agree with putting all your eggs in that one basket but it's what they coach and the J's have been basically raised in that philosophy since they've been here. 

I don't doubt that if a different coach with a different offensive philosophy was coaching here, the Js would be different offensive players.