Celtics are Defending Champs 2024-25 Season Thread

Ball is a tough shot maker and very good scorer when he gets it going, that's the only thing Hornets have going for them. Pritchard will be top 3 in 6th man award, if not win it.

Jason Tatum was 6 of 6 from two and 14 of 17 from the stripe, and was 1-9 from 3.

Tatum continues to be one of the most efficient players in the league when getting downhill and one of the least efficient players when pulling up from 3. For years now he has been an assassin as a catch and shoot player and a total dud as a pull-up shooter.

I just don’t understand what Grant is going for. He’s just not that guy. He always seemed like a real nice dude, he looks too goofy to be threatening or whatever he’s going for. His persona will get him playing in China in no time.

I don’t agree completely with this. Let’s take the Pacers game. Mathurin two hand shoved Tatum while he was in the air. That’s dirty, not tough guy behavior. The next time Mathurin went to the hole, a Celtic should have been a “tough guy” and cleaned him out hard. Not down low, that’d be dirty, but hard up high where he hit the deck. It still annoys me that didn’t happen.

Yeah I do think you can be hard and not be dirty and sometimes you have to make a stand. However, I can see jmei's point that the two concepts often get confused and we seem to excuse the inexcusable because that's how the guy plays, like it happens with Draymond Green who frankly wasn't suspended enough. To illustrate what I mean, I think throwing a pitch at a guy's head is never acceptable, but beaning definitely is. Just throw it a guy's ass. Some place where it will hurt but won't cause injuries. We shouldn't excuse the headhunting action and excuse it for being, you know, "how it is".

I disagree. The way to respond to a dirty play is not an eye for an eye. It’s to beat them on the court - humiliate them, even.

They shred teams with these lightning quick 10+ point runs. So tough to counter.

This team is horseline unstoppable when they move the ball.

This isn’t directed at you but it’s a good spring board.

It’s funny people talk about staying healthy when we’ve been without our third best player and arguably a top 20/25 guy in the league (when healthy), but a team like the Bucks, without Middleton, aren’t healthy. We’ve also been without Brown for the last 2 games who’s been nursing a hip injury since camp.

Team is so good, it’s like missing Porzingis doesn’t count.

It's mental for him, he's already shown he can be a good role player on good Celtics teams, his ego got in the way. (And to be fair he did get a bigger bag than he would have in Boston, I can't really blame a guy for playing in the way that gets rewarded for that 2nd contract.) Question is if he'll keep trying to do that or he'll be humbled and willing to accept a smaller role later on. I actually like the Hornets future some even though I'm lukewarm on Ball. Miller needs to stay healthy but he's great, I thought they should have gone Clingan over Salaun and he's not ready yet but Tidjane has looked better physically than I thought he would be, Tre Mann slid right into that Scary Terry role, team is solid when Mark Williams is healthy and gives them some more rim protection.

super sloppy first half - lots of careless turnovers. Cs really miss Brown. Bench not effective in first half.