Come Home, Come Home.
On this episode of the Heat Check dysfunction function, what's your function?
I mean, I feel like we do this every six months.
Maybe Boston Celtics, it's time for another deep dive.
You're still We talked about.
It on Monday briefly, but oh boy, more stuff has come out and another embarrassing loss on their record to the Minnesota Go Gos.
So I mean, like that's where we're at. So, yes, Boston fans, if you thought that a new coach and a new front office was.
Going to fix things, I mean no, like you're sadly mistaken. We also check in with our favorite franchise are how would I put it, our friend in need, the Sacramento Kings, Like we just want to wellness check them every now and again, and like you always know, oh they're not doing great. So just another check in on the Sacramento Kings with Alvin Gentry, who is now at You're thirty five in the league giving zero fox. They are spiraling into a complete breakdown.
Fun stuff. Brockdu is a favor in drop that month.
Come on, it's happening, It's happening.
It's finally happening.
I've been waiting for this moment for a while, because I feel like it's just been me and maybe a couple of others silently, well not so silently, but in a room alone, screaming out into the void. Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong. This team's not right, this team's not right. That's not gonna fix it. Nope, that doesn't make sense. And everybody just hates me for it. They've
been shit talking me. But now Boston fans, NBA fans, and most importantly those with credibility blue check mark brigade, they have seen the lights.
So good. Congratulations, You're a year late, but you're here. So we're here. We're all here now, we're on the same page.
I hope this Celtics team, the Celtics team has issues.
It does. We talked on it Monday, briefly.
We've talked on it last year multiple times when I had lots of things to say that people didn't like, breaking down the Christmas game on Monday, you know, you know the game where they had a thirteen point lead five minutes left, they choked on their own meat, you know, like that one they lost by four, that one just like clockwork, and so It's not just the coach.
It's not just the GM that's not working.
It's not just the delusional fans that have these astronomically high expectations that a team could never fulfill year after year after year. Hell, when they had a dynasty, they could only win one ring?
How many?
I mean, I Kevin Garnett, Ray, Jean Rondo, Ray, Allen Paul Pierce and still could only squeak out one measly ring out of those four insanely talented stars. What do you think this little ramshackle team's gonna do? Absolutely nothing? It's everything though, it's everything mostly though, truthfully though, it's the roster. It's not just Dennis Schreuder it is it is. Yeah, and I know we'd blame Dennis Shruter, but he's actually the only bright.
Spot on this team. It's the Jays. Let's be real.
I hate to say it, and I don't think anybody likes this cold truth like it. I don't want to say it. I like them, I do. I like Jalen Brown, I like Jason Tatum. But sh don't tell anyone it's not working. It's not gonna it's never gonna work. No amount of players excoriating them publicly is going to make it work. No amount of coddling these two team two players, telling them how good they could be together if they just played like brothers is going to fix it.
Share your food, guys, like, let Jalen have the ball.
This happened last year, like Kemba Walker went on record and was like, hey, guys don't have chemistry.
We need to make sure that.
We don't put our egos in front of the team. Marcus Smart went on record earlier this year about chemistry and egos playing with pride. He also said earlier this year is Jalen Jason, can you guys share a fucking ball with anyone other than y'all?
Like this is stupid?
He said that, like basically that publicly, he went public with his frustration with Jalen Brown Tatum and their inability to share the ball, and then add a private meeting, players meeting, team meeting in which the only thing out, the only thing that came out of that meeting was that nobody agreed like that is what That's what the reporting says. Jalen Brown came out. Then the next day, the very next day after Mark Smart, Who's supposed to be the leader, the soul in the heart of this team.
He's like, Yo, these two dudes love them, but they need to actually get their shit together and like be a team like Jalen Brown's like, yeah, that was an unfortunate comment.
What an unfortunate comment.
Then all year, Emai Udoka has brought it up time after time after time. Compete, compete, act like you playing basketball, Act like you playing football.
Compete share.
Come on, boys, move the ball, putball in hoop, move without ball, share ball, pootball in hoop. Stop other team from putting ball into hoop. Pretty fucking simple. And so then what did they do in the game against the Wolves just the other night, a game where nobody was playing.
For the Wolves that I've ever heard of in my life.
They shot fifty three percent of their shots from behind the arc, just chucked the way, no sharing, just coming up, just in and out, crosscross, tween tween shoot Shoot Shoot.
And now one of the all time legends, Al Horford, all time Boston legends, beloved within Boston, comes back on the team, supposed to be the leader, supposed to be the emotional piece of support to bring these young guns to some semblance of team, and he had scathing, scathing comments as well, why do you ask well after missing, Like I said, their entire starting lineup, the Minnesota Timberwolves had no one. They rolled out gregman Rowe from the Washington Go Gos.
I'm not even joking, this is actually true, Nathan.
Knight from deep into the rotation, Jalen Noel, which literally Greg Munroe said, hey, played the great game. Never heard this guy in my life, and he's on this team a Jake Lahman Portland Trailblazer legend and a bunch of plumbers to try to come in some semblance of competition against a fully healthy other than Jason Tatum who's in COVID protocol for the a million time. Just him was out, So it's like, just try to compete. Like, I know
you guys are no one. I know you guys like are just coming from off the street.
But like this is.
Jalen Jalen meet Greg, Greg meet blah blah blah, Like this is our plays.
There's two out of balance.
Plays like just Ramshackle crew and they should have been like light work for the seas right, like this is an easy win. And the Minnesota Ignite just pounded the Celtics, wasn't close, just absolutely embarrassed them. Minnesota Ignite just absolutely destroyed the Celtics, like absolutely embarrassed him, to the point where I believe this is a turning point.
This is the moment where all.
The blue checks and everybody outside the organization, probably inside the organizations, like this is not working. Greg Monroe, my man, Greg Monroe from the Washington Go Go, who I just saw on fourteenth Street with his little girlfriend that had the baby fat sweatsuit, just rocking, like literally in a volure sweatsuit. Just the other day, Greg Monroe eleven points, nine rebound, six assists. Robert Williams had time Lord supposed to be top five, top five center.
In the league.
Couldn't compete with a man who hasn't been able to sniff an NBA roster, a guy who's largely fallen off of a cliff and gotten pushed out of the NBA because the league has passed him by. That man put buckets on Robert Williams. That man, he looked utterly lost. Udoka murdered time Lord after the game because he played so bad. He was like, this is just ridiculous, Like you can't just jump when he jumps like, we're supposed to make this guy shoot jump shots, like he doesn't
know how to do that. He knows how to dunk on your head, which is what he did.
Can't be going up with him.
Getting five foulsand because of Gregman Rowe, Jalen Noel.
Okay, honestly, I swear to god, his teammates didn't know who he was. I've never heard that name before today.
He had twenty nine points, had eleven points in the fourth quarter to.
Close out probably one of the more shocking upsets in all of the NBA this season, and we've seen some doozies.
So to recap what was going on that night, a team missing nine roster players and all five of its starters beat the Celtics with a center that just signed that morning and with two guys who Combin had played less than one hundred total minutes that year. The Wolves had thirty assists, forty made baskets, and outscored Boston fifty to twenty six in the paint and nineteen to three in transition. Romeo Langford was an atrocious minus thirty two and thirty six minutes of play. Here's when I remind
you that my man's from Eugene, Oregon. Trader Danny took Romeo Langford number fourteen in the twenty nineteen draft, ahead of Nikaile, Alexander Walker, Mattie Thaibold, Jordan Poole, Kelden Johnson, Kevin Porter, Junior Taylor, Horton Tucker, and Terrence Mann. Lou Dort wasn't even drafted that year, and he is a million times.
The player that Romeo Langford is.
Danny Inge gift that keeps on giving folks like just that's who he is. So anyway, back to al Horper, which is where we were that we gave you why he said what he said, which was scathing. Here's what he said. It all comes from all of us.
You know.
Coach does what he has to do, but at the end of the day, it has to come from each individual player. We need to be held accountable and held accountable more individually.
We need to look in the mirror.
I don't know why, but for whatever reason, things are not translating for our group.
We cannot keep playing like this. We just can't, all right.
So here's where I tell you, folks said, Hey, Jaylen Brown, did you hear what Al Horford I say, and they told him, and could you expand on Al Horford's comments, like what do you think?
He goes searching, looking in the mirror.
No comments, and then he goes on and say, we're missing a lot of guys, and you can tell first of all, pause, no you're not, but keep going, we're missing a lot of guys, and you can tell. Chemistry wise, it was just out of sync. A lot of those turnovers come from miscommunications, and a lot of those defensive lapses came from miscommunications. That's what It just comes down to.
Chemistry. Excuse me, did jalen? Excuse me?
Lack of chemistry? You have your entire squad and it's missing one.
Start. These guys, these guys just met, have more chemistry than y'all. They've never met before.
They don't even know each other's names, they don't follow each.
Other on social media. You think you're lacking chemistry?
You can't use that is excuse my dog, like my g No, you can't do that. These guys never practice together, they've never learned the place, they don't know anything. They just demolished you, like like clowned you out there, like clowned you to the point where it was like when you clown Portland and you drug a pretend dead Dennis Shooter. That was how they did you. Only it was a full NBA roster. It was Greg ban Roe from the
Washington Go Go. I think it's time. I think it's time for the Boston Celtics to say when Jalen Brown says chemistry, I think he needs to say.
The quiet part out loud. This team doesn't like each other.
Like sometimes the more time you spend with one another, the more you realize chemistry is not possible. Like chemistry is a thing of a dream and a hope and a wish.
It's not going to exist. It's not possible.
This is a team so many years to develop chemistry, like they've been with each other since they were drafted. They've had largely the same core with one another for many years, four years.
It's not coming. If you can't bond during an adversity time like this, I don't know, Ah, I don't know.
Dog. This Celtics roster, to me, I mean just simply needs to be blown up, like all the way up before we have an entire year of me saying this the.
World over and over and over and over and over, me banging.
My head against the wall, going viral, getting hate, getting slander, telling people, telling me to delete my account.
And then all of a sudden.
We see that they don't make the playoffs, or they get in the play in tournament, they get bounced, and then it's like, oh, that little Twitter bitch was right. Here's what the blue check marks are saying now, folks. Best quotes from the media. I felt good compiling them because it felt like the thoughts that I've been having for the last twelve months came out into the ether. Gary Washburn, my man of the Globe, Robert Williams must take it real personal that he got out played by
Nathan Knight and Greg mcmonroe. It wasn't even close. Another awful loss for the hashtag Celtics. Oh, Gary Washburn, learn how Twitter works.
Keith Smith.
I've been fairly hard on the Pacers and the Blazers in that I feel like that they've reached their expiration date with the cores and it's.
Time to break them up.
But I've probably been neglectful in overlooking that the Celtics might actually be at that same point. Peter Stringer mind you used to work for the Celtics, tweeted about the Celtics. I've loved the hashtag Celtics since I was like five years old.
This is not how Twitter works.
You don't need the hashtag shit anymore. It's just the keyword comes up.
Anyway.
This season has been the most unenjoyable season I remember since the awful end of the Patino era.
This team has been.
So far below where they should be, so many uninspired performances.
Esh.
But of course not everybody is available with reality.
We've got ball.
Washers just coming through cannot come to grips with the hard truth and the cold reality. And frankly, you guys, you guys should be ashamed because you're the reason. Then you enabling their bad behavior, are allowing them to continue with the status quo because you are making up excuses for them. It's just praising them, finding things that they're good, and they're actually not. This was the same thing they
said last year. If the Celtics all had all starting five playing together, as if other teams aren't dealing with COVID, as if other teams aren't dealing with injuries.
We've got guys like kawilonard out a cl boombom gone, what are you fucking saying?
Straw Man arguments abound? And then this year and then this gem. This is where you know it's like bad because Celtics always when they're wounded, come after and they and they shift the attention to another dog shit franchise and their dumpster fire didn't the basically full strength Sixers just lose at home to the depleted fifteen and eighteen Hawks.
Odd time for Sixers fans to be taking victory laps. In my opinion, if the.
Celtics lost to the depleted Hawks team with all their five guys active, my guess is your commentary would be different from what you're saying after the Sixers did it pause, Like, first of all, I would love nothing more than Sixers Twitter and Celtics Twitter to literally eat one another and destroy each other's faces, going to war for the end of time. But did you really just compare, my man, the Celtics losing to Minnesota make a wish foundation with the Hawks, who.
Just went to the Eastern Conference finals less than a year ago. Is that true? Is that what you just did?
The Celtics were at full strength and got gentlemen swept. Could barely even get into the playoffs last year. You had to do everything that you could. You were in the playing tournament last year. This is not a good team. You had to fight just to be in the dance. What are we even talking about?
This is what we.
Have just to encapsulate what's happening. We have a team with a lack of urgency, a lack of competitive spirit. They're publicly arguing in the marketplace about who's to blame, what's to blame, if there is anything to blame, there's a lack.
Of chemistry, lack of success.
You've got Celtics Twitter turning on one another, Celtics Twitter turning on another fan. Basis Celtic's Twitter mad at other NBA insiders for pointing out what's true at all.
At least we're on though sixers. It's like, fuck you. It's a mess. Everything about it is a mess. It was a mess last year.
Uh.
And then they overhauled the whole front office.
They overhauled and got a new coach, moved the coach up, moved the GM out, and instead of overhauling the whole team, it was like, you know, watch these cups I'm gonna move this cut that way, this cup that way.
Where's the ball underneath the cup?
It's like you didn't change the rock that first, that middle cup they needed to go, that's still there.
I see it. It's the same roster.
You just added Dennis fucking Shruder, Like that's it. You kept Marcus Smart he needed to go.
You extended him. You extended him gross, you extended Robert Williams. You're extending players. No business extending. So what's coming?
According to former Sons GM Ryan McDonough, Dennis.
Shooters most likely on the move.
I mean, listen, Underpaying a decent player has its advantages. It turns out that's one Peyton Pritcher's This is what he said. Peyton Pritchard's strong December makes it more likely Dennis Shuoter is traded prior to the deadline. Schudder's productivity contract make him easier to trade and attractive to contending teams. Prescher's development is important to the Celtics due to his
age and rookie scale deal. Then that guy Peter Stringer, I told you about the one who used to work for the Celtics.
Uh.
He said this later on after in that same Twitter thread. Jalen to me is overrated.
Gasp. But you don't say and Tatum is isn't a leader. One of them has to go.
I'm afraid.
Originally I felt like it had to be Jalen. Now I'm starting to think it could be either one yo. This roster has been fucked up, and it's finally obvious to everyone, thankfully who watches. Maybe, just maybe, Jason Tatum Jalen Brown aren't meshing. I don't give a fuck if they're brothers. I don't care how much they like each other. That shit does not matter to me. Like Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony Towns were like brothers.
That shit did not work. That's not an excuse. They're not in charge. They are the talent. They are not in charge.
I have to say this more and more as we become a more player empowered league.
These dudes don't know what they're doing at all. You can't have.
Duplicate players on the roster that get along and don't share the ball. And you've got Jalen Brown having seven turnovers a game and blaming everything on time Lord and the fans and Al Horford and whoever else.
Some had a.
Tweet the day they're like, oh, they should trade so and so for Robert Williams, just so Jalen Brown has a new person to blame. Like neither are leaders at the moment. Neither are dogs at the moment. Neither to me, are particularly critical to this team's future. I don't think you need either one. I'm starting to believe that maybe they're both valuable enough that you can just start again, start new, get some If Brad Stevens is worth his salt at evaluating players, maybe he can get a new
guy in the draft. Maybe you can find some young up and comer with a shitload of draft picks and probably some pieces the match salary. Like I don't know, get rid of one, get rid of both. I don't care where them needs to go. Of course people won't say it, but another thing that needs to happen, in my opinion is Marcus Martin cannot be ever your starting point guard. And he gets paid so much money and that's the role that he wants, and he's like that.
He's like another version of a Dennis Shruder. Like they think that they should start, they think that they deserve a lot of money, and they're just inefficient chuckers who are undersized and play good defense. Like, I don't care that you play good defense. You shoot a million shots and everybody gives Pat Beverly's shit for being a pest. But like Marcus Smart can be, is so chippy, is so annoying that Jannie at Tekompo may be one of the nicest human beings I've ever come into contact with.
On Christmas Day, Jannis got undercut by Smart, and literally I had to see it with my own two eyes on television. He said, I can't fucking stand that pussy, Marcus Smart.
That's what he said.
Then after the game, he tweeted at a photo of him posterizing Mark Smart and was like, yeah, Christmas was a good day. This is not only an unpopular team within their own ranks, it's an unpopular team outside of the ranks. How do we know that things are at a tipping point? You ask other than me doing twenty five minutes on it is they're talking about bringing back it right now, They're talking about Isaiah Thomas coming back onto the Boston Celtics.
What is this?
Will they make the difficult decisions that make sense for this franchise to be more than a one hit wonder in the Eastern Conference Finals.
I don't know, We're gonna have.
To see, but I think that everything should be on the table, not I think there is no untouchable pieces.
That's hard to say because I love Jason Tatum.
And Jaylen Brown, but there should be no untouchable pieces for the right price for this team to progress, because let's let's be serious, Like Jalen Brown kind of plays defense, but he turns the ball way too much over and Jason Tatum isn't a dog and all he wants to do is take thirty five footers like he wants to ISO to fucking the logo, and it's like that is not working.
So either that means either Jalen or Jason.
Need to be flipped and it needs to happen exapt rocky before you're waking their prime and you're wasting them as assets if they just.
Keep remember.
Remember worse behavior last time we checked on the Sacramento Kings interim coach Alvin Gentry started out a press conference in just his fourth game by apologizing to.
Everyone, all the fans.
He started as presser by saying, Hey, Sacramento Kings, you deserve better, sorry for this bullshit, which is funny because they don't really deserve much better because they've never.
Really had much better.
So, how though we're checking in, we're just dropping in like a little para shooter. How are things going a few weeks later?
Turns out not great?
Uh. Currently they have a defensive rating of one hundred and thirteen point one. That's atrocious, an offensive rating of one hundred eight point nine.
For those who need to go to math school.
They are giving up more points than they are putting up on the board, which is recipe for losing. Moreover, as you might imagine, they are two and seven in their last nine, given how that whole math whole thing works. The last time this team went two and seven, guess what, they fired their head coach, So rut Ro you probably you know who probably knows that little factoid, My man Alvin Gentry.
That's who he probably knows.
And if we go by his press conference after a particularly embarrassing one hundred and twenty seven to one hundred and two loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, he has now reached a new because he was already at I don't give a fuck. He's at a new I don't give a fuck level. It's like you thought that you were in the basement. But then, old man, we've got like a nuclear like camp point for you to just hide out in. It's lower than that. He cares less than you would think.
This is what he said.
It's the most disappointing I've been in thirty four years in the NBA. I can honestly say that that that performance was absolutely ridiculous. You know, we didn't play hard, we didn't compete. We gave up nineteen offensive rebounds for I don't know, thirty seven points or some astronomical figure. We didn't guard the ball, we didn't guard screening rolls, we didn't follow the game plan, you know, all of
those things. And to be honest, which is the most disappointing game that I've been involved with, you know, no competitiveness whatsoever. And then we got those guys out there talking about you know when you have.
Yeah, yeah, and he literally just.
Wait his hand out, Just go ahead ask questions. That's fine because I don't want to get into it anymore. I think anybody out there that watched the game understand that that that performance right there was was it was. It was absolutely. It was just ridiculous. I don't know any other words to use, because we didn't compete and we didn't do anything. We didn't move the basketball, we didn't attack them, we didn't stop their drives, we didn't
stop their screening rolls. We went over a couple of simple plays today and we didn't guard them at all. So yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm totally disappointed, and everybody in this building should be disappointed.
Alvin, were you able to share that same kind of message to the to the locker room after the.
Game, Yes, I did. I made sure that I did. You know, I'm telling you, guys, you can't get a reputation in this league of being a team where you can come into their home gym and do what they just did to us. I'm just telling you it will stay with you in the NBA if you let teams come in and do what they did to us. You know, they're basically tard with us, and we're not that team. We're not a team that people should come in here
and be able to toy with. So yes, if you ask me if I'm upsetting disappointed, you're damn right, I am.
He said, I'm not gonna say anything more.
You can ask questions because I don't want to, and then he just continues. We didn't do anything. We didn't guard the ball, like, we just let him do whatever they want. We were just dummies out there. We just crash test dummies, just standing around like cones, like little orange basketball training cones in the form of moving human beings. It's like when the random guy who played at Wichita
Steak couldn't get into the league. He's now an assistant coach and he has that little foam piece and he hits you with it when you're trying to draw contacts.
That's what they were.
It is just like kind of like tapping them and letting them get the rebound, doing whatever.
It's unreal. This is unreal.
I'm gonna make a bold prediction though, I don't think Alvin Gentry is gonna be the head coach for the Sacramento Kings long term.
Like I just don't see it happening. I don't see it's a fit, you.
Know what I mean.
Like, I don't think he wants to be there, and I don't think the team necessarily wants him there either. I don't even know if they know what they want. So I did a little mass school. Alvin Gentry has coached head coached eleven hundred and twenty two games. He has been a part of roughly two thousand, eight hundred and seventy NBA games. That's thirty five times eighty two, not even including any playoff games. I would imagine you shouldn't even count play because there's no chance that a
playoff game was this embarrassing. But he says, with no hyperbole, out of two thousand, eight hundred and seventy NBA games, this one is the most embarrassing game I have ever been a part. It's this one, this one where we did nothing. It's bad in Sacramento, man. I feel so bad for the King's people. They're like not even sure. People are not even sure whether the Kings.
Are a real team anymore.
If you google Sacramento Kings, the first thing outside of NBA dot Com and Wikipedia, the first thing outside of those two, literally the first non official Twitter NBA link is the Google question do the Sacramento Kings still exist?
Swear to God?
So what is the immediate future hole for the Kings?
Oh and by the way, oh yeah, so let's let's let Tyrese Taliburton.
He's gonna sum it up. He's gonna sum this up.
Yeah, I mean, disappointing, frustrating obviously to lose, and obviously lose in that fashion. You know, it's just in a rough spot right now. And you know, coaches, you know, let let us hear about that. And you know he's he's a part of this too, so you know, definitely
his frustrations, you know, come out as well. So I mean, what can you do except you know, getting here today, work hard and practice and be ready to go tomorrow because you know, like we always talk about, the league just moves so fast, like these these couple losses in a row can can turn on you real quick. Yeah, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that, honestly. You know, he has his feelings, as you know, the head coach of our team, rightfully, So that's how he feels very frustrated.
You know.
I I we lost by fifty last year, so that's definitely the worst experience of of of of of my basketball career. So I can't say last night was uh was number one for me?
Fam he said, Listen, I know he believes it was the most embarrassing loss in thirty five years. But we did lose by fifty last year. I mean it's not the worst.
Listen.
If you're embarrassed by that, let me introduce you to October tenth, twenty twenty, when we lost one hundred and forty to ninety against the Utah jazz I. Forget what the number was, but it was fifty. The number is fifty. You know, listen, you've only been here one year, Alvin. You don't know how low we can go? How low can you listen? The depth of our mediocrity does not stop here, like you are in. There's more games. There is fifty by more games left. Who knows, maybe we'll
break a new record. And it's like, we played for Luke Walton for three years. What do you think it was like? Like what do you think the deficits looked like? And the competition and inspiration and fire that came out of our soul was like playing for Luke fucking Walton.
His dad's high on TV all the time.
That's the only reason he's a round is because his dad played for the Portland Trail Basers legend and gets high now on National TV as a college basketball broadcaster like this is not even a top twenty bad performance for the Sacramento Kings. So Alvin Gentry, you are in for a very long rod.
That is all the time that we have for the Heat Check. We will be back Friday morning, early squarely with a new episode. Thank you for listening.
Uh do not forget to download, to subscribe, to tell all your friends, every damn one of them. I love giving NBA uh tea and news and breaking it down.
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Me on my worst behavior, no hear us sign out. Remember motherfucking remember, motherfucker. Remember, motherfucker never loved us. I'm all my worst behavior. Don't you ever get it fucked up. Motherfucker's never loved us, man, motherfucker never loved us. Worst behavior, motherfucker