The Ringer NBA Show - What Adjustments Do the Celtics Need to Make? | Weekends with Wos

Episode Date: June 12, 2022

Wos is joined by The Athletic’s Jay King to discuss what the Celtics did wrong down the stretch of Game 4 and what adjustments can they make moving forward. Host: Wosny Lambre Guest: Jay King Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, Rachel Lindsay here, and I am teaming up with your favorite Ringer podcasters to deliver the Bravo drama and news that you've been craving on morally corrupt. It's the show about all things Bravo. From the Housewives to Summer House and everything in between, we'll be mentioning it all every week. Check it out on Spotify and The Ringer.com. Ladies and gentlemen, to another edition of weekends on the Ringer MBA podcast, I'm your host Big Wazi

A.k.a Wazi Lambray and I'm joined by a very, very special guest you know we get nothing but the best here, aka people that I've worked with and I'm personal friends with or in J. King's case, he's both.

My boy. You lost their number, man. I knew you were going to do this. I knew you were going to go there. Let's just clear this up for the masses. So I recently got a new phone number, not because... Man left the athletic, all of a sudden, stop responding to text.

Got a new phone number, didn't let anybody know. Not because of anything like that. I literally just... It was just a fuck up on my end, and so I had to get a new number. And Jay King sees me in San Francisco. We're there for games one and two, and we're... You know, we're at a bar having some libations. and he goes to me, he has this wary look on his face, and he says,

bro, you change your number? And I'm like, yes, Jay King, I didn't block you. I wasn't ignoring your text. I got a new phone number. I swear, I sent you the nicest text, too. I was like, man, it's so great to listen to you, talk hoops. Like, I miss chatting with you on the show. Like, this whole thing about how great was is.

And I got nothing back, man. Oh, my God. I was like, damn, Wads left, and he is brand new. Just the picture that is hilarious. And trust me, J. King, there's plenty of people who I'd rather never speak to again. You are way far from that list. You're one of my favorite people in the biz. So thank you for coming on today.

I appreciate that, Wals. I'm sorry. You love me so much. You didn't even tell me. got a new number. Oh, here we go. Here we go. I did the Instagram thing, the lazy Instagram thing. It was just like, I have a new number, just hit me. And, you know, obviously we're going to exchange numbers again. And somebody called me. I was like, well, why don't you just text all of the people who are most important to you in your life? I was like, because this is way easier. That's hard. That's hard work. Changing your number is tough. It's awful. I'm never doing it again.

Unless, of course, I become very rich and famous. That point, I'll have an actual reason to do it and not just because I was stupid. So let's just get into the series because I think it's absolutely lived up to the billing. I thought the matchup was just beautiful. Just, you know, the youth versus the grizzle vets, the best offense of the era versus probably the best defense of the era.

Although last year's bucks were something pretty fierce. Yeah, they were fierce. I just loved the matchup. I love the idea of the Celtics being this young team, and they would have to, like, actually figure it out. This wasn't going to be some thing that was handed to them. And I think the series has lived up to it so far. Our producer, Isaiah, big, big, big Celtics fan.

And he is just so stressed out by this team, the highs and the lows. They are the most stressful team. Oh my goodness. What do you think about their performance from Game 4's most characteristic of this current Celtics team? I mean, the whole thing. When they go ahead in a series, the whole playoff run has just kind of been, all right, time to throw turnover, it's time to have lazy offense, time to take bad shots. and it's just kind of been that way since early in the Milwaukee series

when things go right for the Celtics they kind of revert offensively to some bad habits and obviously that's been kind of the story of their season is trying to eliminate some of that bad offense of your turn, my turn stuff and they've come a long, long way

from where they were in January when they were in 11th place but I think sometimes when they get a little comfortable, they go back to some of that stuff. And you can see they're a little more stagnant. They're not getting the right types of opportunities. And so, yeah, that's the part that's been just kind of their Achilles heel throughout the whole playoff run.

Whenever they've gotten comfortable, they just fall right back into that stuff. and it let Milwaukee put them to the edge. It let Miami put them to the edge. And now, you know, they had a chance to go up 3-1. They had a five-point lead in the fourth quarter and score six points over the final 732. And you wonder, like, are these dudes ever going to learn? They only have three games left, maximum three games left.

They may never learn. They may never have to learn. They may be okay with not learning that lesson. Man, I want to ask you because obviously you're one of the people who covers the team most closely, right? So, like, you've had a front row seat to just the roller coaster ride of a season. This has been where, you know, I was one of those people back in January, December. Like, I never thought I'd get here. Oh, you were always a Celtics hater.

Let's be honest. No, that's not true. I was mildly annoyed by the freaking blowjobs that Danny Ains would get in the media. That mildly annoyed me. The Jason Tatum as, you know, the next Will Chamberlain mildly annoyed me. But that was it. Like, that the narrative around the Celtics in our profession would get on my nerves sometimes, right? It was like, oh, Danny Ains is such a genius for trading washed up

players to the Brooklyn Nets. Hello. We all knew these guys were cooked. The Nets were freaking idiots, but that turned into, wow, Danny. He's so brilliant. And then, you know, Jason Tatum has a great rookie year. He has a great playoffs. And we know rookies don't usually perform in the playoffs. And I was like, look, he performed, but like, he was doing it against Rodney Hood. Like, do we have to, like... Jordan Clarkson is tough. Yeah, exactly. He was doing it while being guarded by Jordan Clarkson. Marco Bellanelli is no joke.

I'm like, I get it. It's like he had a beautiful promising season, but like, I don't know that I'm going as crazy as everybody else. It was the narrative. However, I will say this. I feel like people who were praising Danny for a lot of the stuff that he were doing, even if they were way more effusive than they needed to, they were more right than I am because he did. Basically, he brought all of these guys in. Except for Big Al, who shouts to Brad Stevens for being like, no, I'm bringing this guy back. But, like, the core, the young guys, these are all age decisions, ultimately. He deserves props for that.

I used to be annoyed by Tatum and his, my go-to move is a step back, 22-foot two-pointer contested as hell because I think I'm Kobe. That used to annoy me, but he's gotten way better at that, right?

Like, he's gotten better at diversifying his shot chart. He's gotten so much better as a playmaker. That's the thing about him and Brown. Like, as much as I love Jalen Brown and I used to troll people and say, you know, Brown's better than Tatum, he doesn't have as much responsibility on the offense as Tatum does.

Tatum is tasked with like literally getting these guys involved. So to watch the evolution of this squad has been dope. But who do you think it is that it's on with seven minutes to go to organize this group into better stuff than attacking in the one-on-one super stagnation? Yeah, I don't think it's just one person. I put it on Jason Tatum. I put it on Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart. And I think Marcus Smart is often the one who organizes those guys who gets them into the right sets,

who notices where the mismatches are. And if you watch their late game offense, a lot of the times, Marcus Smart is running pick and roll with Jason Tatum, whether it's smart handling the ball. Tatum handling the ball, that has been a very good look for the Celtics. So I think it's on those three guys.

and I mean, it's crazy how quickly a game can turn into a disaster at this high level of basketball. Like game four, I didn't think they were like pathetic down the stretch, but there were a few opportunities when it was like Jalen Brown is running a pick and roll to try to get Jordan Poole on him. I think Jordan Poole was guarded Marcus Smart. And Jalen rejects the screen and goes. at Clay. And it's like, that's the moment when you have to recognize we need to go at Jordan Pool. Clay Thompson has done a great job defensively during this fourth quarter. Let's go at someone

else. And it's a little stuff like that that can get them in trouble sometimes. And they just have to be more aware of who they want to go at, where they want to go, and getting better opportunities. And then I think, you know, say all that. And then just Tatum has to be better. Tatum shooting 34% during this series, shooting 14 for 51 from 2. From 2. Like that's almost impossible. There have been a couple of bunnies.

It makes no sense. I said this on Bill's show after game 4. It was in game 3, he made some impossible runners, like down the stretch of that game when Golden State had got it back close, and Boston ultimately, like, willed themselves to that victory with energy and hustle and effort stuff. But there was also stuff on offense

where he made some incredible finish runners from the right side, kissed it off the glass. I'm like, man, these are some expert-level finishes. But in that same game, he missed some bunnies at the cup. where I'm just like, bro, like you need to finish. If you're going to get all the way to four feet from the basket and you have a relatively clean look, like those have to go in. Like, Golden State is a good-ass defense, man.

These are primo opportunities that he hasn't converted. And I thought game four was more of that. Like, he just can't make anything in the paint, which makes me wonder maybe he is better off just shooting over guys at 15 feet. Yeah, but even that hasn't been good. The long two rate during this series is really bad too. And I do wonder, so he's gotten, and it seems counterintuitive, but he's gotten so much better at not settling for that long two.

And normally when he gets to that now, it's deep in the shot clock, right? It's something that he's cycled through other options. He's looked for other things he can get. He's tried to get other guys involved, draw the help defense, figure out opportunities so that he doesn't have to take as many of those, I do wonder if against this warrior's defense,

this is going to sound counterintuitive, but like try to get some of the early looks and get like if you can get a clean look from pull-up too, like not one of the really bad ones that's super contested. And some of the stuff where he's turning around, he's falling. Like, you know, some people on their fall away, they fall, backwards, Tatum's falling to the side. And it's just like, man, like, that's a tough angle.

Like, you're not square. At least, you know, if you're falling backwards, your shoulders are still square to the hoop. Tatum's at like a freaking obtuse angle. His shoulders are. And he, unsurprisingly, hasn't made him. So, yeah, if he's getting a square look and he can shoot over most of these defenders, maybe that is the ones that he should be taken. Yeah, and who knows?

Maybe I'm just an idiot. Maybe he needs it. But the play that I'm thinking of, one of the plays I'm thinking of, is late in the fourth. And he gets a Looney switch, right? And instead of just getting Looney on his heels, pulling up, taking, what would have been probably a pretty easy to, like, Kvon Looney is not going to stress Jason Tatum on a shot. He tries to drive by him baseline. gets doubled, ends up having to spin out,

run a pick and roll, and then at the end of the shot clock gets Steph on him and it's like too late to try to create any space and he airballs it. And that's the situation. Like, I know

they've made so many strides because Jason Tatum has started to turn down good for great. Like that is the evolution that he's made this season that has transformed them. But I do wonder if in some ways he has to go backwards on that.

and just get the good shots because this Warriors defense is so good, so smart. They've got, like, their help defense is just, you got Dremont, you got Loonie, you got Steph, who's always in the right position. It's just so many smart defenders that, even when they're not, like, fully there, I feel like they make you feel them like they're there.

Like, they're stunting. They're making an impact, even when they're not, like, directly there. And so it's a totally different challenge than even the heat who had tons of great individual defenders but didn't send as much help. Or the Bucks who just had two huge dudes in the paint, but also gave him a lot of space outside of that. So it's just a totally different challenge that he has to solve now. So let's talk about the other side of the ball because obviously Steph Curry to me had the best game I've ever seen him play. When you consider the stakes, like the season was on the line.

you considered the opponent, the talent level, on the defensive side of the ball, and what Steph went out and did, that was incredible. Incredible. Like, it was just ridiculous. It was ridiculous. I can't say enough about how great Steph was. That was all-time greatness. A level of play that, like, you know, you can count on your one hand the amount of people

who have ever played at that level with those level of stakes. That being said, you know, people are wondering, like, is there a different way to play Steph Curry? I'm kind of of the mind to just be better at what they've already been doing. I don't like the strategy of telegraphing your hard double or blitz of Steph and giving the Warriors the most cerebral offensive team in the league. Like, all right, we know we not only do we do we have an event. We know exactly when and where it's coming and we can attack that. I don't think that's the play. What have you been hearing about maybe what they should do to switch it up?

Because, again, that play where Steph made the floater after Rob got switched on him, then Rob basically just let him dribble by and there was a miscommunication. To me, that's just Rob fatigue. That's the play. Rob's switching out on the guy, making him shoot over, but that's not what he did because he was tired and he just let him go through for a nice floater from 15. I'm satisfied with the way the Celtics had played defense. What do you think?

Because it's hard to watch a guy drop a 40 piece on you, that nasty, and think, no, let's just keep doing that. Yeah, I'm kind of with you. Steph is going to do ridiculous stuff. Yeah. Like, no matter what defensive coverage you throw on him, he's going to do ridiculous stuff. and I think you look at the numbers, okay, I'm looking at cleaning the glass right now.

So the Warriors in the half court, 83.9 points per 100 plays. That's the game. Which that's not even great. Like that's bad. It's an 18th percentile of all playoff of all playoff games. So you're doing a fine job in the half court. to me, where they've gotten in trouble is when the bad offense bleeds into the defense. Bad transition, yep.

And so you've got to have better shot selection. You've got to stay away from the bad turnover, the live ball turnovers. And that's where Steph, I mean, he's going to hurt you no matter what. But that's where it goes from, okay, up five, up six to all of a sudden it's like, oh, shit, down four. And so yeah, I'm kind of with you Because I think if you send two, if you blitz him all the time, then all of a sudden, Dremont's a factor. Then all of a sudden, the other guys that have been pretty quiet throughout this series,

Jordan Poole, Clay Thompson, like those guys come to life. And Steph is so good because he's not just an offense for himself. He's an offense for everybody around him, too. And they've kind of shut that down to some extent by, by playing him the way they have. I do think they have to be higher in their drop. Like, you can't give him the opportunities where he walks into a three.

You cannot do that. You cannot slip like that. But sometimes, like, the one play, when he came off the screen and roll and just pulled up from, like, 30, with Al Horfer, like, pretty close to him. Yeah. It's just kind of like,

just kind of tip your cap on stuff like that. But yeah, maybe Blitz every once in a while, like keep him on his toes. But I don't think switching is the way either. I would have said before this series, like, go ahead, switch more. But he has toasted Horford whenever Horford has given the switch. Al on the switch is untenable. I think Grant Williams has gotten better. In the first couple of games, Steph was just demolishing him.

Like creating seven feet of. space off the dribble when Grant Williams was guarding him. I think he's gotten better at the switch. I think Rob, when his knee feels good, is perfect for the switch because he can give enough space that his length and his, like, the quickness with which he gets up off the ground, you know, makes the contest incredible. And so I think Rob is mostly fine on the switch. But yeah, Al has kind of been just like, what they've done to Al and pick and roll.

And I think, you know what, he was better. He was as best as good as he's been all series in game four. Like, he had that nice switch on Steph where he guided him towards that baseline. And Steph took a long fade away to and bricked it badly. I was like, oh, wow, big hell. Like, that's an improvement upon the stuff where, like, it was everything. It was like, when you don't switch, you're freaking five feet behind the dude that's setting the screen and letting this guy shoot wide open.

When you do, Steph's either killing you to the spot at the basket for a layup or he's doing it like he's getting the stepback game going and creating, you know, oceans of space. I think the switch can work at times, but I do think you're right. Meeting Steph at the level and relying upon the guy who's at the point of attack with Steph to get over that screen in a reasonable amount of time has been their best effort. But yeah, there's no easy answers with this. But the rest of the guys on Golden State,

I think they're doing a fine job on. Yeah, and that's what you have to be happy about if you are the Celtics. Like, they've totally taken Dremont's offense out of the equation. Yeah. Like, totally removed his offense. And he's normally... Dremont out there looking like bow out of their offense.

Yeah. Oh, man. But for real. Seriously, you know. Oh, man. But yeah. And then, I mean, Clay's had some moments, but hasn't really gotten untracked yet.

I thought his defense down the stretch of game four was awesome. Like, he just... The shit he did on jailing was incredible. That was just competitive greatness right there. That was just him being a champion and saying, I don't care that my body still isn't totally right. Like, I'm going to stay in front of this dude. I'm going to make things tough on him.

he was awesome down the stretch. But yeah, Jordan Poole, like, he was a factor in basically a quarter of one game, a half of one game. Like, he hasn't really done too much. Looney's been awesome. And I think the offensive rebounding is a key for both teams, too. Game three, Celtics dominated the glass, just totally crushed the Warriors on the glass. Game four, it kind of flipped a little bit.

And Looney's just a monster on the glass. man. Looney's a force. I said it after the game. I was like, this dude's hands are like super glue. As long as he gets his paw on that damn ball, like it's his and it's crazy. It's not like he's the most, you know, explosive dude.

It's just he understands angles and he has the best hands probably of any big in the league right now. Like he catches everything. And it's freedoms out the league. Oh, yeah, right, right. The Luminati got him. I forgot about that. So what's your sense of how the Celtics are feeling going into this? Are they like a supremely confident bunch?

What do you feel about how they're feeling going in to these last three? They've kind of been unflappable. Like, it's weird because this core had never been past the conference finals. They'd never really accomplished anything. real significance together. But even dating back to the game five loss against Milwaukee, like that was as bad as a loss gets. They were up.

I think it was double digits in the fourth quarter, ended up like Marcus Smart had three turnovers in the final minute. Bobby Portis rebounds, the free throw, puts it back in. Like that was a crushing, deflating loss. As bad as loss is get almost, non-elimination game losses get. And even then, they just kind of expressed a confidence that is just like, it's weird.

And I think that's allowed them to be great on the road throughout the playoffs. It's allowed them to bounce back from losses at an elite level in the playoffs. They still haven't lost two games in a row, I believe, in the playoffs. So that's kind of the vibe they gave off after game four is like, yeah, we wish we didn't, we wish our offense didn't crumble in the fourth, but we'll go out to Chase Center and we'll play some more good basketball and hopefully get one there. So, yeah, they've had a real toughness about them this year.

And I don't know whether it's because of IMA Odoca, whether it's just because they have a lot of tough guys, whether it's just because they found something as a team they all deeply believe in. But, yeah, they've been pretty unflaugly. And I mean, you saw it, they won game six on the road in Milwaukee. They won game seven on the road in Miami. Now to do it against Steph, though, that they're playing with fire. All right, well, I want to get you out of here on this because I think you are the perfect person to ask this question, Jay.

You being a white hooper yourself, you've seen. I don't know where this is going. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. I'm excited for what you. You've seen the B-Elitsa numbers against Jason Tatum. You've seen that. And I tweeted on Twitter.

I tweeted on Twitter. What a stupid sentence. The fuck else you're going to tweet. I put out a tweet saying like, they're clearly only attacking this dude because he's white because Jordan Poole is on the floor and they're just letting him chill. Do you agree with my hypothesis, my theory, that Bealeet's only being attacked because he's white and particularly because he's a white Europe?

White dudes always get attacked, man. It's been the story of my life. I remember being at L.A. fitness in Baltimore when I was in college. And, you know, I was playing with bums, and I was a college basketball player. These dudes were still trying to go at me. And Bialita feels that right now. He feels that right now.

But my thing is the way that the Celtics are attacking Bialita is worse than just attacking him in general. He's okay if he's just in isolation when he's there. You know, he's big enough. He's smart enough. He's smart enough. He can take angles. You're not going to big boy him right.

But get him out in space. Like get him covering around a screen. Get him in a closeout situation. If he's in a close-out situation, like, he's done. He's toast. And so, so it's, to me, it's like, the way that they're going at him is worse than the fact that they're going at him in general. Like, if you can get him in space, if you can get him moving, like, he's not going to be able to keep up. But if you put him in a stagnant ISO, then yeah, he's going to force Jason Tatum to make a tough shot over the top of him. That's just kind of how it's been. I did not, but he's stoned. He stonedate him. Then he ripped jailing. It was ridiculous. It was ridiculous.

I was like, am I watching the monstars right now? Like, are these dudes being stripped of their powers right now? This is crazy. Well, man, you know, I got to say I was disgusted at home watching the soft bigotry of low expectation of the white hooper. And I hope B, Elit to prove the point to these cats, man. And stop this reverse. racism, ASAP. They got to watch hustle, man.

Wancho Bo Cruz will show you that a white man can play D. Oh, man. Jay, thank you for coming on today, man. I really appreciate this. Tell the people where they can find your incredible work, bro. Yeah, right at the athletic podcast, anything is potable, and the athletic NBA show, the basketball buzz, which comes out every Monday.

Morning. Shout to my man, Jan Packer. Tell him I said, what up. Yeah, I will. All right, man, that was our show for today. Make sure you're checking out all of our finals coverage. We're all over this thing. Mismatch, Real Ones, obviously Bill's show, Riscilla.

We are on the finals. Make sure you're checking out all our coverages. We'll see you guys next time. Peace.