Tag: mike gorman

Celtics local announcing team of Heinsohn, Gorman, Scal polarizes fans

The Boston Celtics local announcing crew were as usual a polarizing bunch in yet another survey of the NBA’s 30 such broadcast crews conducted by The Athletic.

The Boston Celtics’ representatives in The Athletic’s 2020 NBA local broadcast survey have a prominent place in the write-up by Zach Harper, but not necessarily for the reasons you’d think.

Unless, of course, you also think color commentator Tommy Heinsohn can be a bit over the top with the green goggles.

As has been the case in similar surveys the Celtics Wire has covered in the past, the legendary Celtics forward turned media personality is an intensely divisive character when it comes to his role calling games with longtime play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman.

The Celtics rank among the most-watched local announcers with 4.9 % polled relating Boston’s local announcers were their most-watched local NBA broadcast team, good for a tie for fifth-best overall in the league.

But, regarding that polarization we mentioned earlier, the Celtics also came in second-worst in terms of broadcast team quality, “bested” only by that of the Houston Rockets.

Noting the Celtics had “the most negative nominations with 78”, Harper also points out they had “a fervent 22 positive nominations” as well.

“Mike Gorman handles almost all of the play-by-play duties, and I enjoy him on the call. It’s the color commentary that tends to pry the negative nominations toward the Celtics here. Tommy Heinsohn is an experience when it comes to games. He breathes heavily into the microphone and he’s all Celtics, all the time. Infamously, he jokingly compared Greg Stiemsma to Bill Russell once.”

“Brian Scalabrine on the road game calls isn’t nearly as homeriffic as Heinsohn, but it creeps through,” he added.

A sampling of critiques of the broadcast include annoyance when, “the opponent is getting away with egregious violations but every call against the home team is an outrageous miscarriage of justice.”

However, another respondent thinks such moments are “the best part,” especially “when Mike Gorman makes fun of him for it,” reflecting the polarizing nature of such broadcasts.

Given the tendency for Boston fans in general to be disliked for their historic success (and lack of modesty about it), it makes sense such broadcasts would be like candy to fans, and poison to haters.

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Boston legend Tommy Heinsohn on the art of effective color commentary

Boston Celtics big man and coaching legend Tommy Heinsohn shared some tips on effective color commentary on a recent podcast,

“Can you imagine working with a guy like that that wants to cut off what you’re saying it just distracts you from your thought?”

So began Boston Celtics living institution Tommy Heinsohn, discussing his thought on what makes for a good color commentator on a recent episode of the “Celtics Talk” podcast that also featured longtime co-worker and fellow courtside personality Mike Gorman.

“And then I worked with some other guys that there really were radio broadcasts, so that they would talk about the game,” continued the eight-time champion, who spent nine years with the team as a player and as many as head coach before becoming as a fixture of Boston color commentary.

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“Like they were on the radio, so they were not doing a regular TV broadcast,” he continued, “so they were doing a radio broadcast. And they were describing a picture of what was happening on the floor when it was a picture already on the screen. And they didn’t enhance the picture, and most of them talked forever.”

“So, there was really no rhythm to your broadcast. So working with Mike at that particular point. I mean, we just get in and get out and make a statement. Try and make money,” added Heinsohn.

“That let the game breathe so that people reorient to the picture. And what I try to do is give people clues as to how one team is going to beat the other ,and then augment it through a great producer and director. We had Paul Lucy who has been around this thing a long time who enhances what we’re saying with some replays that go along with what [we were] saying.”

“The way I feel, the broadcast ends up [better] when we do that, and we’re successful. The guy watching the game thinks he thought of this for the first time — ‘All right, look at I discovered this idea'”, he continued.

He had some special advice for those who were making the transition from another area of expertise altogether — in this case, sports — instead of the issues which can arise from the wrong technique for the medium of choice.

“Anybody that goes into broadcasting like with a background like mine, the first thing I say to them when they asked me for advice [was], ‘Look, you know a great deal about basketball. I mean, the average person is not going to come anywhere close to what you know'”.

Heinsohn went on to describe meeting a group of strangers at a party whom you had no idea the level of their understanding of the game.

“I mean, would you be talking about double picks and rolls and this and that?”

The Celtics legend closed by saying, “keep it simple, [and] stupid so people can get into the sport. Most a lot of guys with my type of background try to argue with their Einstein knowledge of the game of basketball.”

Sage advice indeed, though you might want to give the visiting team a fairer shake than Heinsohn, too — not that most of us Boston fans mind if you don’t.

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Celtics broadcast team make Awful Announcing’s 5 least-liked crews

Tommy Heinsohn, Mike Gorman and Brian Scalabrine may be treasures to Boston Celtics fans, but it seems they might annoy opposing audiences.

The Boston Celtics have found themselves in a top-five list it might not be so great to brag about.

That list would be Awful Announcing’s 2019-20 local NBA announcer rankings, which uses a reader-driven poll to determine the least-liked and worst-graded local broadcast team for each franchise of the NBA’s 30 teams.

The best local broadcast team went to the team that covers the Brooklyn Nets, featuring Ian Eagle and Ryan Ruocco on play-by-play, and analysts Sarah Kustok, Richard Jefferson and Jim Spanarkel.

The broadcast teams of the New York Knicks (I guess it’s good they have something going well for them), Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks round out the top five in that order.

The Celtics find themselves 26th overall with Celtics legend Tommy Heinsohn and fan favorite Brian Scalabrine doing analysis with Mike Gorman on the play-by-play for NBC Sports Boston.

They lead only the broadcast teams of the Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets as the league’s worst in descending order.

Interestingly, in addition to a number grade of 1 through 30 in order of least to most favorite local broadcasting team, teams were given a letter grade as well — presumably for how good the teams were at their jobs.

Of the five least-liked broadcast teams, Boston’s was the only one to get a “B”, the rest mostly “C” down to an “F”. Seven other teams scored in that range, and six higher with an “A” — the Knicks, Griz, Blazers, Mavs, Nets and Toronto Raptors.

Presumably, at least some of the negativity arises from banner envy.

And perhaps a bit of Tommy’s tendency to see things with a bit of a green sheen could play a role as well, but it’s nice to see even opposing markets rating Boston’s broadcast team among the league’s upper third or so with the letter grades.

Whatever they mean, exactly.

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