Tag: 2022 nba playoffs

The Celtics are relying on effort and hustle to beat the Mavericks

The Boston Celtics have been outworking the Dallas Mavericks in the opening two games of the NBA Finals.

The Boston Celtics are 2-0 ahead of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. They have held Jason Kidd’s team to under 100 points in both outings, despite Dallas boasting an elite guard pairing of Luka Doncic and Jrue Holiday. As such, the Celtics are receiving significant praise for their work on the defensive end.

When speaking to the media during his postgame news conference, Jaylen Brown credited his team’s hustle and hard work with their first two wins over the Mavericks. He did, however, call on his team to continue improving their defensive performance as they head on the road for the next two games.

“Just effort plays,” Brown said. “I think tonight we weren’t as crisp defensively. It was a lot of missed communications out there, a lot of stuff that we gave up that we didn’t give up in the first game. So I think we got to be better in that regard. But I just think our effort has been the key, just the mentality, picking a guy up full court, stuff like that. It just wears on them over time. But I think we need to be more crisp going into the next two games.”

Brown has been an integral piece of Boston’s defensive system. His willingness to step up and operate as the primary point-of-attack defender has been a welcomed boost to the Celtics’ perimeter defense, especially when dealing with Doncic.

Boston will undoubtedly be hoping their defensive dominance can continue throughout the remainder of the NBA finals.

If they can keep holding the Mavericks to under 100 points, it’s hard to envision the series going beyond five games.

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On this day: Boston wins 12th championship in 1974; Keith Bogans born

On this date in 1974, the Celtics won their 12th championship against the Bucks; it is also the birthday of former Celtic Keith Bogans.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the Celtics defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 102-87 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals at Milwaukee to win their 12th NBA Championship. It was Boston’s first championship with legendary big man Bill Russell, and head coach and former player Tommy Heinsohn’s first as coach.

Celtics center luminary Dave Cowens led the team with 28 points and 14 rebounds, forward John Havlicek added 16 points and 9 boards, and 6 assists while point guard Jo Jo White chipped in 16 points and 5 assists. Reserve forward contributed Paul Silas 14 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 steals for good measure. Dropping their usual man-to-man defense to double and triple Bucks star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar proved critical to the win.

It was Boston’s first championship since 1969.

Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce om the legend of Playoff Jimmy Butler

To talk about the greatness that is Jimmy Buckets, two Boston Celtics Hall of Famers recently dove into the magic that is his recent career.

With his nearly single-handed force of will pushing the Miami Heat past the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and superstar big man Giannis Antetokoumpo in the first round of the 2023 NBA Eastern Conference postseason, the legend of Playoff Jimmy Butler continues to grow.

The Heat star put his club on his back once again, this time achieving what virtually everyone had assumed was out of reach for the Heat until the Butler did it. To talk about the greatness that is Jimmy Buckets, two Boston Celtics Hall of Famers recently dived into the magic that is his recent career.

The duo is none other than Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, and the talk is from the Showtime Basketball “KG Certified” podcast.

Take a look at the clip embedded below to see their chat for yourself about the focal point of today’s version of Heat culture.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

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Where each of the Boston Celtics’ NBA-record nine consecutive playoff runs ended

The Celtics currently possess the NBA’s longest consecutive string of postseason appearances.

The Boston Celtics currently possess the NBA’s longest consecutive string of postseason appearances at a total of nine since the last time the Celtics were a lottery team. That happened at the end of the last era of Celtics contention when what was left of the “New Big Three” of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen were traded to the Brooklyn Nets with Jason Terry after Allen had decamped to the Miami Heat.

Somehow, after losing their title core for the haul then-team president Danny Ainge extracted from the Nets as well as their head coach Doc Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers, a smart hire in Brad Stevens and good lottery luck had Boston out of the hunt for just one season.

Let’s take a look at where each season’s Celtics postseason ended.

On this day: KC Jones resigns, Jimmy Rodgers hired; 1967 draft

On this day former Celtics player and coach KC Jones resigned as head coach, and assistant Jimmy Rodgers stepped into the role.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, head coach and former player KC Jones resigned as coach unexpectedly on completion of the 1987-88 NBA season. Jones, an eight-time NBA champion with the team as a point guard, would win two more rings as head coach (one in 1984, the other in 1986), and would be designated coach of the NBA All-Star game for Boston four times between 1984 and 1987.

The University of San Francisco product coached the Celtics for five seasons beginning in 1983-84 and would amass a 308-102 regular-season record and a 65-37 playoff record, good for .751 and .637 winning percentages, respectively.

Jones would stay on with the team in an advisory role for one more season before joining the Seattle Supersonics as an assistant coach in the 1989-90 NBA season.

Ex-Celtics forward Malik Fitts on his time with Boston, Joe Mazzulla’s elevation to coach

The master of bench celebration had plenty to say about his former ball club in a win over the Mexico City Capitanes on Sunday.

Though his time with the Boston Celtics was not long, Celtics fan favorite forward Malik Fitts cherishes his time playing with the team in the 2021-22 season. The Celtics Wire caught up with Fitts after his current squad, the Ontario Clippers (the G League affiliate of the Los Angeles team of the same name), beat the Mexico City Capitanes 103-96 on the road.

Still visibly exhausted from the win, Fitts made a point of noting how the elevation of Arena de Mexico at 7,350 feet impact his and the Clippers’ game against the Capitanes, requiring considerable effort to pull out the victory.

“It’s a tough slog here because of the elevation,” admitted Fitts. “It’s actually my first time in Mexico.”

Kyrie Irving on getting swept by Celtics “We gonna see them again”

Kyrie Irving shared his thoughts on losing to the Boston Celtics during the ’22 postseason.

The Boston Celtics have faced off against the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA postseason twice in as many years, and it sounds as if All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving is looking forward to another match-up. In a conversation with Kai Cenat and others, Irving shared some of his thoughts on the first-round exit his Brooklyn Nets faced in the 2022 postseason at the hands of the Boston Celtics. It was a clean sweep for the Celts, and Irving expects to see his former team down the line.

“It was meant to happen like that, motivation bro,” Irving said via a clip posted by Nets Kingdom. “We needed that humbling experience, especially going against the Celtics. It was already built to be that matchup. We gonna see them again. We gonna have to.”

Irving seems to be referencing the playoffs. All the same, the first tilt between the budding rivals is on Dec. 4th in Brooklyn.

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Marcus Smart still reportedly recovering from ankle injury in Boston Celtics’ 2022 postseason run

The Celtics veteran is close to 100%, but with a shorter offseason comes less time to heal.

There’s a downside to playing late into the playoffs, even if said downside is mitigated a bit by being deep in an NBA postseason. The lack of time to get one’s body right means the aches and pains accumulated while making such a deep run linger closer to the start of the next season, and in the case of some of the more painful injuries, may even carry over into the next season.

Veteran Boston Celtics point guard Marcus Smart knows this all too well as he continues to recuperate from a Celtics postseason run that had the team within two wins of an NBA title, Boston falling in six games to the Golden State Warriors after the Flower Mound native had put his body on the line for the Celtics several times at a considerable personal cost.

But now, in a recent interview with CLNS Media’s Bobby Manning, Smart shared that while he still feels some of those injuries, he’s closing in on a return to feeling himself again.

How should we look at Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum’s 2022 NBA playoffs performance in light of his injury revelation?

The Celtics star was clearly not right as the 2022 NBA playoffs progressed; should we worry he didn’t want it checked? Admire his resolve?

Should the fact All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum revealed he had been playing in the 2022 NBA playoffs with a nondisplaced fracture in his wrist change how we look at his performance in the Boston Celtics’ run to the NBA Finals?

In a recent interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report, Tatum spoke at length about a number of Boston-adjacent topics, but his revelation of the injury (sustained late in the 2021-22 NBA season) and its impact on him was far and away the most important aspect of the exchange. The St. Louis native also revealed how reluctant he was to even have it checked out in the first place, given it could have ended with him having to sit out time in the playoffs.

The eponymous hosts of the Jalen and Jacoby show on ESPN recently discussed the Tatum injury revelation and how it shapes their understanding of what the Celtics accomplished in the 2022 postseason in the video embedded below.

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Check out the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

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FULL interview of Boston Celtics star forward Jayson Tatum with Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks

The St. Louis native had plenty more to say about the impressive run his Celtics made in the season just past, as well as what might be coming down the pike for Boston fans in the season to come.

By now we’ve all heard how Boston Celtics star swingman Jayson Tatum was playing with a nondisplaced fracture of his wrist to finish out the 2021-22 NBA season into the 2022 postseason, as well as how the loss in the 2022 NBA Playoffs stung in ways non-players rarely fully understand after his recent interview with Bleacher Report’s Taylor Rooks.

But that was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the talk the two recently had, spanning more than an hour in total. The St. Louis native had plenty more to say about the impressive run his Celtics made in the season just past, as well as what might be coming down the pike for Boston fans in the season to come.

Check out the full interview in the clip embedded below to see what Rooks and Tatum chopped it up about in the Celtics superstar’s full Bleacher Report sitdown.

Listen to the Celtics Lab podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

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