NBA history has been filled with incredible teams.
When that happens, you are witnessing true greatness.
Think about this for a second.
I’m not even talking about the deep bench either, because that has basically never played this season.
The entire unit hasn’t exactly blown doors to start the year.
The Celts frontcourt depth was Al Horford and Luke Kornet.
Dalano Banton got early first quarter minutes.
Svi played 15 minutes after basically not playing all year.
And what did the Hospital Celtics do?
Just like they seem to always do, regardless of opponent.
This time it was the 8-2 Sixers on their own floor.
Well, that looked like the same old shit to me.
Not just for the immediate swap in seeding, but for the H2H tiebreaker.
Let’s talk about it.
The Good
- We’re starting with Al Horford.
I don’t care if others may have had better performances, we are starting with Al Horford.
For the Celts to win this game, they were going to need vintage Al.
That’s Part 1.
Seeing Horford get back to making the open threes we expect him to make was a beautiful sight.
Watching him do historic shit was intoxicating
But that’s only half the story.
It’s honestly insane
There is simply no debate at this point.
Joel Embiid has an Al Horford problem.
Fact, not opinion.
Horford is doing the same shit against Embiid in 2023 that we saw him do in 2018.
This is Al Horford we’re talking about.
Who can’t make Al Horford work?
Pretty tough indictment on Embiid if you ask me.
For such a reserved guy, it’s great to see.
Derrick White is a tremendous Celtic.
At this point there is not a extension number for him that I would consider too high.
It could be 100M, 200M, 300M, I do not give a single fuck.
That’s mental toughness right there folks.
Not letting your previous struggles keep you down on a night where your team needs you.
Every time the Celts needed a big momentum bucket before Tatum woke up, it came via Derrick White.
You could make the case that the Hospital Celtics currently own the best quarter of Celtics basketball this season.
All that crying about 3PA and blah blah blah, I dunno man.
I care about the results.
Taking the right shots and finding easy looks is how you set the tone.
- Then of course there is our lord and savior Jayson Tatum.
No no, we saw him off ball.
We saw him relocate and catch and shoot.
We saw him get to the line.
From that point on Tatum had all 10 of his points to pull the Celts away.
We’ve seen Tatum show up late plenty of times, so this shouldn’t really be surprising.
He’s a great clutch time player, regardless of what narrative is out there.
The proof is in the pudding.
- Shoutout to the bench unit, seriously.
Even Pritchard was fine in his minutes without really making a difference from deep.
I will say this though, I need Svi to stop jumping to pass.
That shit is a turnover every time he does it.
Just go up with the layup/floater!
I can’t be too mad given he’s barely played, but that needs to stop.
His rebounding is easily the most surprising part of his Celtics career.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
I dunno if this is tracked, bu I guarantee the Celts lead the league in it.
The Ugly
- Boy was that 2nd quarter gross.
As awesome as the first quarter was, that’s how poor the 2nd looked.
To blow a 17 point lead all because you throw up a 36-20 quarter is very embarrassing.
Losing non Embiid minutes with Tatum on the floor in that 2nd quarter was despicable.
They were a team worst -16 with him on the floor in that quarter!
How does that even happen?
Your road trip doesn’t end with a win in Philly.
