How the Celtics Got to the Finals

I mean, considering.

How much these two fan bases love me, you might think this would be a finals that was an encapsulation of a walking ol. No, nothing could be further from the truth. I do not dread this. I love this. I may have said I did say some mean things, some nasty things, some slanderous things about Marcus Smart. I said he's not a real point I mean, I said, both these guys are a real point guards.

Let's be honest.

I said Marcus Smart was not a capable point guard for this team. I said that. I said, I don't care if he's a heart and the soul. This man chucks a million shots.

And he still does.

He's still I mean, truthfully, he still does. He's lost them some games by doing that. But let's face that. Let's face the truth.

Like he might be the perfect point guard for this team. It might not have been.

Marcus Smart that made Marcus Smart ineffective. It might have just been Brad Stevens, you know, and like when he was in charge. Trust me, I wasn't the only one saying this about Marcus Smart. Like they were saying this about Marcus Smart. They rolled out like fifteen different point guards over.

While Marcus Smart was on the team. Over Marcus Smart. This team went one.

Hundred and eleven games over the past two seasons as a five hundred team before they finally got good. How they got to this point from being a team with a wonky roster that made no damn sense, with no point guard and a GM that no one trusted, and two wings that kind of seemed the same that didn't want to pass to anyone else, including each other. Like to this is pretty astounding given that the roster constructions largely the same.

So let's break it down.

Celtics initially turned the corner on defense on November third of this year after Marcus Smart went on a rampage in the media and said, like these men, these men don't pass the ball like this man, Jalen Brown, don't pass nobody the ball. And everyone's like, oh, Marcus Smart shouldn't have said that. Oh no, there's like first.

Take Chris, you know Haynes is doing reporting on it.

You have undisputed I mean it was on every show, like Mark, should Marcus Smart have laid out air out his team's dirty laundry in the met or should he have handled that internally? I mean it worked, didn't it. I mean it caused some friction, but they really refocused again after the first Knicks loss on January sixth.

Since that date.

January sixth, the Celtics are number one in net rating, number one in defensive rating, and number eight in offensive rating. In twenty twenty to twenty twenty one, the season was a mess. As we know they finished the year. If you're not remembering, because it's hard right when teams are doing well to remember that, Like because I went on Reddit today, Yeah, from a year ago, it's just.

Like if I could turn back down, so I did.

I was like, what were they saying? What were the hardcore fans saying a year ago? What were they saying five months ago? It's not good in the streets. There's blood in the streets there. During that time period, they went thirty six and thirty six, thirty six and thirty six. They barely made the playoffs. They had to squeak their way in to play the nets and have a gentleman's sweep. They were supposed to be a player.

I think they got no.

They were a play and team that made it to the eight seed, could not figure out how to close out games. Tatum and Brown hurt a lot. They gave up. I had a running to I swear to God, I swear on my mom's life. I had a whiteboard that I wrote on solely tallying how many times the Celtics blew ten point or more leads. I believe it was up to forty forty games. It was over thirty eight. I remember seeing in my mind's eye of the whiteboard of thirty eight with big eye emojis.

Next it was not good. And then I said, like, what do you do.

Gotta move them, Gotta move Brown, Gotta move Jayson Tatum one of them. Jalen is probably a lesser version. Get rid of him, get rid of Danny, which they did, get rid of Brad Stevens, which they did, get rid of Fourgner which they did, get rid of Kemba. Wish they did a lot of the things that I had in store. They did, Thank God. I said they needed a PJ. Tucker, and I couldn't have been more right.

He's like, all right, and they don't want to see us.

No, He's like, all right, guys, we're gonna we're gonna do this. We're gonna execute effectively. We're gonna pass the ball. Uh the season three, one two, No, like they needed a guy from the culture for the culture about putting accountability into this team and reckon shop if they don't do it.

And he did.

He came in and he bullied and buried his own boss on national television at his first day of work at the press conference, Sorry Brad, as Brad sitting right next to him, Sorry Brad. This team was soft in under their last regime. What do you mean, Like he's sitting right next to you, They're not gonna be soft with me.

I'm gonna toughen them up.

My co host I offered to, uh watch his son, and I said, uh, I'll teach Nathan how to be tough. And he was like, I don't know what that means, but that sounds scary. And that's what I may. Yudoka did like, I'm gonna bury you in the media if you don't do what you're supposed to do, and that's what he did, Ding ding ding three for three. Last season ended, they blew up Danny and she's gone. He retired, quote unquote, then he went to Utah, So was it a retirement. No.

Then they ended up firing Brad Stevens, who ended.

Up getting a promotion. Was it really a promotion or was it firing? Probably just the latter. They made changes to the roster. As I said, nobody thought that the Jays could make it work, but the head coaching situation was the connective tissue. Even at the halfway point this year, Boston was twenty and twenty one, seemingly in the exact same spot, even slightly worse. Than they were the year before, where they barely made the play tournament. They were in

They were very mad.

They had just come off of blowing a twenty five point lead to the Knicks.

The Knicks Evan Fournier.

Went absolutely bananas four No had forty one points in that game.

And then when e May came in and he did what we said.

He he said he was gonna do hold him accountable, have him not be soft pass the ball, and he said this repetitive result.

This is happening.

Either we're gonna make some adjustments and get tired of it, or it's gonna keep happening. We need leadership, somebody that can calm us down, not get rattled when everything starts to go a little south and I think it's snowballs between our guys, or do I have to stop all of our momentum and pace and call a play.

Do I need to do that?

It's obviously some kind of lack of mental toughness there, and something goes a little bad, we all start dropping our head and everybody adds to it instead of stepping up and calming us down. Whoa that, my friends, is an all encompassing from top to bottom, stars to role players. This team is soft. This team isn't getting it done. Either they're gonna wake up and say we're not gonna take it, or.

They're gonna keep getting their ass beat. I don't know. It's not up to me. It's not up to me. I can only tell him so much. And he kept.

Burying them and burying him, and I'm like, this coach is gonna get fired, Like this coach isn't long.

For the situation.

Reddit's talking about firing him too, and everyone no exceptions, E may selfish. Their mental toughness isn't working. Like I said, people were calling emy Udoka. Is this guy just a younger doc rivers who can't call plays, like doesn't understand x's and o's. Like he's a nice guy to look at, seems like he's got the right things.

To say, and this sucks.

Fast forward into the playoffs and boy, I went to Reddit from today, I went to read it from a month ago, and it's like emy Udoka coaching circles around everybody else. Emy Udoka clearly out coached every single opponent in his way. Steve Nash that's a rap. Budenholzer obviously a rap. And yes, even Eric Spolstra. They've beaten Durant, Jannie, Jimmy Butler.

So what changed?

How the hell is this Boston Celtics team with very little changes to the roster do this. I think the interesting thing about the Celtics and the Warriors is they just didn't really change the core.

They found role players that slotted.

Into the identity that they needed and got rid of the dead weight guys that didn't fit into the identity with playing defense, guys that couldn't play in the identity of shooting threes open ones at that. Evan Fourgne gone, Kevin Walker gone, Tristan Thompson gone. Do you think those guys can play defense one through five? Switch on defense? Hell? No, you think they can hit an open Tristan Thompson can hit an open three?

Stop that they brought in?

Now Horford Josh Richardson, who they promptly got rid of because he couldn't play three, and d Canter, who they promptly got rid of, shrewder them.

They promptly got rid of him as.

Well, bringing in Derek White, especially the fact that Derek White fitt in as that san Antonio san Antonio system, guys that would be the weak link when switching on defense are guys that were a week link on offense had to go and they had to strengthen the role players the core of this roster, Smart Tatum, Brown to Williams unchanged. Here's how they resurrected the season in the

It's your team. Marcus like, we're not gonna have you come off the bench. Anymore. We paid you.

We've rolled out Terry Rozier, We've rolled out Kemba, We've rolled out Kyrie. None of these guys, they all want to get theirs. You don't care about that as much. Just play point guard. You're our point guard. We're leaning all into you. And that's what it's gonna be. He's been asking for that responsibility, he's been shouting for that, he's been talking about it in the media. Marcus Smart, And now you've got it, Marcus. Then he gets Defensive Player of the Year and this team goes on a

Allowed them to be able to.

They had their defensive rotations work efficiently and optimally without Emay having to run and call a time out when a run starts. And then this team became resilient overnight. It was like all of a sudden, they woke up and they were like, you know what, We're tired of getting beaten when we're up, Like, we're just gonna We're just gonna close out games now.

And that's what they've done.

From being just five hundred clutch games, which are games decided by five points there less. Earlier in the year, they won two game sevens on the road on the road, and Emey said, to get to this point, we had to flip the switch and turn it around.

In a lot of ways.

Guys were always receptive to coaching, to being coached hard, to being pushed and being asked to do more. That shows the care of our group young guys that really want to be pushed to grow and take the next step. They've all been here and to get to the championship is obviously the next step. But our focus is now getting four more finished fifty one and thirty one, the best best record ever ever for a team under five hundred at the halfway point.

Left for dead.

Only time ever a team has made it to the finals after being less than five hundred at the halfway point.

Left for dead.

And the only like everyone was like, oh yeah, this team fucking sucks, like they're just exact same and the only one that seemed to believe in the Celtics eme Udoka. And now he's gonna probably win Coach of the Year next year. He's been rewarded for his patients. I would not be surprised if he didn't get a good extension