OT Celtics / Heat

[bendm]

Much as i hate the Celts I’ve seen ‘em win too many series over the years to ever count them out. Smart vs Steph and Jayson vs Draymond make for some great matchups.
I’ve got Boston pulling it out in 7 tough games.

i dont foresee tatum v green being a common matchup in this series. draymond is the starting PF and plays C when they go small. tatum is the starting SF and usually remains the SF when the Cs go small, they just swap out r williams for g williams and shift horford to C.

even when the warriors use their super small lineup (curry, poole, klay, wiggings, green) then wiggins and not green, will be matched up with tatum as the Cs should still have either horford or grant at C. having green guard tatum outside means zero rim protection for the warriors which they already lack with that lineup.

 

[HuskyHawk]

i dont foresee tatum v green being a common matchup in this series. draymond is the starting PF and plays C when they go small. tatum is the starting SF and usually remains the SF when the Cs go small, they just swap out r williams for g williams and shift horford to C.

even when the warriors use their super small lineup (curry, poole, klay, wiggings, green) then wiggins and not green, will be matched up with tatum as the Cs should still have either horford or grant at C. having green guard tatum outside means zero rim protection for the warriors which they already lack with that lineup.

Assume Wiggins will draw the defensive assignment on Tatum, not that they won't switch. Some Celtics fans suggesting Rob Williams won't play as much, but that Theis might as he can reasonably defend Green. On the other hand, playing Horford and Rob puts a lot of stress on the GS interior D and defensive rebounding. They don't have much length with their regular lineups.

It's going to be fascinating. I expect the coaching decisions to be pretty important in this series.

 

[HooperScooper]

Just out of curiosity, why? An innate Boston fatalism? Golden State is certainly good but this is not the Warriors team of a few year ago and the Celtics match up well with them. There's only one team in the league with a winning record against the Steve Kerr era Warriors, and you can probably guess who that is.

People can minimize this Celtics run by saying they haven't "earned" it, whatever that means, but this is also going to be the best team Golden State has played thus far by a pretty wide margin. I'm not guaranteeing a Celtics win - I think it'll be a good series - but the people talking about "I hope they don't get swept" seem to be basing that on something other than reality.

I guess I should have put my money where my mouth is. Went to the game tonight and after that hot start the Celtics were not very good. Too many damn turnovers. Tatum just isn't ready for prime time. Maybe this series will be good for him in the long run. We'll see.