Previewing the Boston Celtics vs. Portland Trail Blazers

Previewing the Boston Celtics vs. Portland Trail Blazers

The Celtics are back on the William side of things and now they’re about to face the Portland Trailblazers we’re going to discuss more on this episode of Green With [Applause] Envy yo what’s good everybody I’m joined by Jeremy brener is that right is that I pronounced that right that’s right

That’s right from sp sp nation and from Sports Illustrated covers the Blazers covers the magic I thought you know who who better to bring who better to discuss some Trailblazers basketball than somebody did that’s editing one of the bigger Trailblazers sites out there so thank you for joining me man I

Appreciate you taking the time oh thanks man I’m glad to be here glad to be here so you got two ex Celtics on this team I think we need to start there right at least one of them you haven’t really got to see much of Rob Williams went over

Same issues he had in Boston right knee is back get a few good games out of him things start to look good starts flashing a bit of mid-range and then he’s out for the season but then you also have reigning sixthman of the year Malcolm brogon how’s that been for you

Just in terms of how’s brogon been is he coming off the bench to most of the time like what’s how’s that whole ecosystem working with him yeah so Malcolm’s provided like this calming veteran presence for the Blazers you know the the team is pretty brand new I mean each

Other some to the league some to the team um so like last uh I think it was last night against Toronto they started two rookies tumani cimo a second round pick was acquired in the Damen Lillard trade they got Chris Murray as well they’ve often started uh duop wath uh

Who’s also a rookie 27y old rookie from uh from Australia so there’s been a lot of rookies and a lot of new players to each other on this roster and Malcolm Brogden when he’s been healthy has been kind of a uh someone that can set the table for the offense and while the

Blazers haven’t necessarily had the strongest offense this season um you know the Blazers had several opportunities to trade him at the deadline and they chose not to and I think a big reason for that is because they they view his value uh with being a veteran and leading the way with scoot

Henderson with Anthony Simons you those young guards that they really want to uh build around moving forward so they see the value with Brogden and that and you know even though he hasn’t been playing as much as of late he’s been dealing with uh an injury but he’s been he’s

Been very valuable to the Blazers overall as just a as just a good human Bron was like he was dope when he was with the Celtics I can’t lie he used to frustrate me how literally he would pass to The Rolling big like that’s always like a a bug Bearer for me same

With um Dennis rroa was the same as well but he was reliable hit his shots super professional we used to call him Brama because of his voice sounds like Barack Obama uh as to him though like one of the questions I’ve got I’ve kind of been leaning towards is you have this Dame

And CJ kind of like era right two two high level guards really struggle to build around and struggle to find consistent success at the highest level in terms of just consistent deep deep player now you’re kind of rebuilding around two new high level guards where have they do

You think the front offic has learned from their mistakes are they going to try and bring in like some wings that they can help build into there how are you feeling about the overall like Youth Development on this team or is everything just geared towards two high

Level guards again and we’ll just kind of put the pieces in as we go yeah so the Dame CJ era was really the responsibility of Neil oi uh when he was the general manager in Portland and uh you know Neil oie had those uh troubling allegations against him and It

Ultimately LED you know to his dismissal and then Joe Cronin comes in so it’s not necessarily I mean while Joe Cronin was part of the team when Oli was around um it’s it’s not quite um the same front office now um so they they kept Dame as

Long as they possibly could they really didn’t want to uh trade Dame um it kind of get but it kind of got to a point where they really had nowhere else to go you know they tried to build uh around him with Jeremy Grant uh they tried to

You know find ways to really get some Talent around him but it just never really materialized and you know there’s several reasons behind that but that’s kind of behind the Blazers now once they traded Dane it was kind of a okay let’s let’s see what we’ve got you know they

Had the number three pick they chose to they they chose scoot Henderson as the obvious third pick you know like in this draft uh this past year there really wasn’t like it was a very clear uh wemy Brandon Miller uh and Scoot they weren’t too sure whether Charlotte was gonna

Take scoot or Brandon Miller and when they took Brandon Miller it made scoot Henderson a lot easier uh to make that choice so they had him Anthony Simons has been the best player the team you know for the past couple of years Beyond Damen Lillard and uh Jeremy Grant so

He’s been kind of a natural fit there and he’s taken a major step this season um with d not on the team and you know he’s been their lead guard he’s their best shooter possibly um and he’s been basically he’s their best player right now I I would I would you know

Confidently say Anthony Simons is their best player today and so you’re going to play your best player and um you know with that elevated opportunity you you wonder if Anthony Simons is going to really be able to take that lead guard role and you know

23 points a game five and a half assists he certainly has the tools to become that um it’s just of course you know they they kind of had to take scoot Henderson when they did so now they kind of have the same issue where it’s scoot Henderson Anthony Simons and that’s not

Even mentioning the fact that they have Shaden sharp who they drafted last year so yeah that’s three guards that they have and they could run into some similar issues that they did in the Dame CJ era where they just had too many guards and not enough players around

Those guards uh you know Jeremy Grant it he he just signed that five-year contract the big reason why they didn’t trade him at the deadline either um so they could um you know he could be around for a few more years but it it remains to be seen whether he’s going to

Be part of the next great Blazers team um and then DeAndre Aon whom they acquire ired in the in the Damen Lillard trade with Phoenix you know he’s he’s got potential as well he’s kind of struggled a little bit in his start but last night against uh against the

Raptors had one of his best games as a Blazer arguably his best game as a Blazer 30 and 19 and they won the game in overtime so having Aon back um was big for them and if he plays like you did last night you know then you’re

Starting to see some uh potential signs that the Blazers uh can can rebuild this and move this around but uh there’s a good chance that the the pieces that will make the Blazers great again um are not even on the roster right right now and that’s the point of being a

Rebuilding team at the same time is you know developing young guys flipping those young guys for maybe guys a few years older that fit better with what you’re trying to do but that’s where that’s what led me to ask the question was like Cronin was under R in the front

Office if I remember correctly kind of got elevated up so there’s there’s differences in the way you approach things but there’s also like lived experiences that you can kind of draw on there from the the CJ and damier right and then you look at the way this team

Is now and I remember reading some reports earlier this season that aon’s kind of attitude wasn’t where you wanted it to be like his coachability wasn’t really where people were hoping it would be you start to draw a few similarities with um nurkic not in terms of offc cour

Unau just you know really talented guy but sometimes he just isn’t giving you that 100% on both sides of the floor and then you’re like [ __ ] I can see a lot of similarities between both sides obviously then you’ve got Rob Williams out injured as you said you’ve got

Shaden sharp coming off the bench you’ve got Reef you’ve got um Kamar is it how do I say that guy’s name I always forget Shani CRA yeah yeah so there’s a bunch of young guys there that you can develop and you can flip but it’s not going to

Be this season it’s probably two or three years down the line and then you come up against teams like you have a good game against Toronto so you know Toronto are kind of in a similar spot to you they’ve just got rid of their best players they’ve the only difference is

They kind of bought in Young Veterans as I like to call them guys two three four years into the league that have already started developing so they’re a beat ahead of you in terms of just developmental experience but now you’re coming into a game against arguably the

Best team in the league top two team in the league if you want to put Denver in that same category which is more than fair how are you feeling coming into that game like obviously you’re not coming thinking it’s going to be a blowout for um Portland but there’s

Always a learning curve that you can kind of pick up on uh yeah the Blazers will not win this game I I will I will put that right here but I do think they can make I do think they can make it competitive um yeah for

Sure you know with um they’re coming off of a big win they can take that energy and kind of move forward but like like you mentioned Adam you know the the Toronto Raptors are are not the Boston Celtics um so honestly in this game it’s it’s all about just competing and and

Keeping it close keeping it competitive throughout and then in the fourth quarter hopefully have either a lead that you can hold or a deficit that you can um maintain and try to make a move in the last couple of minutes um but yeah you know DeAndre aton’s going to be

Big in this game um you know in that matchup with porzingis like if he’s able to um if he’s able to kind of match porzingis like and and keep him contained I feel like the Celtics from the limited amount of Celtics I’ve watched this year you know porzingis is

Like a big X Factor um and if porzingis is hot it’s it’s hard for the Celtics to lose um and usually when he’s not on his aame uh you know that’s when the Celtics are the most vulnerable so I feel like that matchup is the most important and

Then kind of what you mentioned about Aon earlier you know he was traded right before training camp and I feel like that can do a lot to you because he basically had to go right into the season um with a brand new team a brand new system he’d never played anywhere

Else other than Phoenix in his career um and so yeah maybe uh a bit of a slow start for him and you know the attitude problems I I I mean I don’t necessarily want to dismiss them completely but I also want to take the context of it as

Well which is he he was traded very abruptly um not that he wasn’t like expecting it um you know because he had been on the trade block for a very long time ever since he you know signed the uh match the offer sheet uh with the

Suns in in free agency so I I don’t want to like dismiss them completely but I wonder what will happen with Aon when he has a full year uh full offseason in Portland um and also uh the chances of chony Bops being the coach Beyond this

Season it’s not you know 100% like there there’s a chance that play the Blazers may move on from chony at the end of the season just because in three seasons he he really hasn’t moved the needle a whole lot and granted this season you know he hasn’t had the best tools to

Work with um but he also you know there maybe is the opportunity to bring in a new voice and maybe that change some things in Portland they they may give him one more season as well but if the Blazers are like this a year from now

You know with like 30 games under 500 um close to what they are now I can’t imagine chony would be the coach this time next year the Blazers are still in the same situation so that kind of brings you’ve kind of answered the next question I had was just how the coaching

Kind of goes like what type of systems they running how you’re feeling defensively offensively cuz you you can always like contextualize where a team is based on talent but then you can also look at it from well are they being is that Talent being put in an area to

Thrive right we see teams overperform their expectations all the time so what is it that you’re not kind of feeling with chony right now is it the offense is it the defense or is it kind of just everything it’s you know the thing with Chanty is ideally like on excuse me on

Paper chony is a perfect coach for this team almost you know a team that is trying to build off of um off of point guards you know Chon is about to be a Hall of Fame point guard um you know so that’s ideally like that’s exactly the

Kind of guy you want for a team like this but I just feel as if um you know the offense has obviously struggled um but at the same time you know it’s like the team like the that’s why I’m like kind of okay that chony gets another

Year because if you look at the team that he has this year it’s a very different group than he had last year you know most of the guys that were playing in this Raptors game you know because the Blazers as like at full strength is is one of the bottom five 10

Teams in the league but they’re not at full strength right now like they are playing without Jeremy Grant they’re playing without Brockton they’re playing without um you know they were’re playing without scoot Henderson up until you know last night when he returned from his injury so um you know most these

Guys Henderson R uh Ryan ruper duop Reef uh DeAndre Aon Chris Murray Delano Banton who the Blazers acquired from the Celtics you know most of these guys were not on the team last year I think Anthony Simon the only one uh and matis styel who came in midseason last year

Were the only players that played in the Raptors game that were on the team a year ago so he’s had to really start from scratch this year I mean the two seasons he had with Dame um where they underperformed is more kind of what leads me to believe that he isn’t the

Right coach for this team but that being said um you know you can’t necessarily look at the other two years and this year as the same thing you have you have to give him uh you have to give him some handicap because he is handicapped with this roster um and the expectations for

This team it’s not where it was a year ago so having him you know if if chony gets a full offseason with this group and he’s able to you know figure things out with some of these younger players you know maybe he gets another season but I’m not too confident that the results

Will flip right away especially considering what this draft looks like um there’s not really like a true game changer for the Blazers that they can go out and get um so I just feel like with Chanty um like it’s not that he’s doing a bad job but he’s not doing a good

Enough job to make me feel like he is the coach for the next Blazers playoff team yeah that’s fair I mean sometimes you just need that bridge guy right that’s going to develop the one or two guys that you need before you flip him and then I think they’re kind of and

First of all I need to apologize to Banton because I said this the Blazers had two Celtics it’s free obviously with Bandon I completely forgot he went there he had a 30-point game the other day right he did he he had high himay against the rockets and

Then 25 against the Raptors on Saturday so so he’s going off been yeah he’s been given like a true opportunity Shaden Sharp’s been injured um so that has opened up a spot in the in the starting lineup for uh banson and he’s taken advantage you know six straight games of

Double digits scoring um the 30 points was a career high um and I believe it was like 24 was his previous career high um and he had that uh so and he broke that again on on Saturday so he’s been given a he’s been given an opportunity

As well to kind of uh you know showcase his skills something he wasn’t able to do with a contender like Boston um so yeah I think and and look if if uh Saturday was any indication playing against a former team of his you know I could I could see him have that same

Kind of energy when he plays the Celtics uh on Monday so I think uh I think Bon’s probably like the player to watch um in this game for uh the Blazers maybe your exactor if you want to call it that um and he he’s been he’s been kind of like

The the main catalyst for scoring with all of these different guards out so uh watch out for uh watch out for Banton see I’d like to see Banton play well just because as you said he didn’t really get a chance with Boston this year he played hard when he did I always

Like the way he could get to wherever he wanted to on the floor just in terms of Court navigation um the scoring was very questionable for me now I know that we said we keep it to 15 20 minutes I just want to end with this we’re nearly at

The end of the season you know we’re down to the last like quarter of it if not less so you’ve pretty much got a good feel for who scoot Henderson is as a rookie who like where he’s at in terms of level where he’s kind of flaw

Projects to be in a few years time how confident are you that you’re looking like the the franchise Cornerstone guard obviously you’ve mentioned how Simons might be that guy but just in terms of like Henderson’s overall like trajectory right now you know scoot has this um how

Do I say it it’s like we we’ve seen what he is as a rookie and while it isn’t like in in redrafts this summer he’s probably not going number three he may not even go in the top five um you know he’s he hasn’t necessarily lived up to

The hype you know the oh he’s Victor Winan’s you know draft class buddy and they’re always going to be linked and as we’ve seen you know wemi is a little bit further along than where where scoota is I mean obviously you know when you’re seven foot4 and you know have the

Ability to block five shots a game you know that that’s gonna put you ahead of the pack a little bit but with scoot um you know he struggled in terms of shooting and that that’s been arguably the biggest hurdle for him he’s only shot about 37% from the field and 30% from

Three and obviously as a lead guard for your team it’s not going to cut it um but he has the mindset of a franchise guard and that to me is more prom like that to me leads me to believe that scoot can be the guy because he has the

Mindset to be someone like that he’s goingon to you know he had the summer with Dame you know he’ll have another summer and he’s gonna he’s gonna be training with some of the top players in the league and I and I do believe that he has the willingness and and the

Desire to be great and and to me that is enough for me to still feel like scoot is gonna be okay um obviously if we’re talking the same conversation a year from now and we still haven’t seen a whole lot of growth and Anthony Simons

Is on the trajectory that he is you know that that might change some things um but with scoop the jury’s not out on him yet and uh it’d be silly to dismiss him you know just 44 games in his career that’s fair that’s fair I think that you

Know it’s always hard when you’re looking at like Miller’s having a really good few months in terms of like proving himself and breaking out a little bit as you said wy’s unfair I try not to even use him as a comparison because you you CL if you’re talking about wemi you

Basically talking about somebody that came into the league as an All-Star already it’s just yeah it’s a bit sucky the only time I want to kind of compare wemi is if I’m talking about cat um but Henderson’s definitely that question mark right because for me I’m looking at

Him the same way I’m looking at Brandon Miller and trying to see who’s having like the bigger impact whose ceilings higher there that’s kind of the two I’m comparing more but just to round this all off I know that you’ve said that you’re not expecting the Blazers to win

But I like everybody to kind of end the show with a prediction so where you at um Celtics by 60 no I mean they did the Warriors by nearly 50 the other day it’s not stretch how about Celtics by 16 maybe that sounds a little bit better yeah I mean

Like I said it’s not a stretch to go 60 after what they did to Golden State a few last this time last night you know absolutely yeah knows we we’ll go 116 100 just to have a round number how about that sounds good sounds good and just so everyone knows where can they

Find you if they want to check out your work because you cover two different teams yeah I cover two different teams Mo but I cover honestly it’s probably beyond that if there’s there’s if there’s a team I’m probably covering it as a freelance writer that’s kind of how

It goes in the World of Sports but if you’d like to follow me on Twitter you can do so at Jeremy brener that’s JM y b r n e r awesome man thank you very much for jumping on and um I feel you on the freelance Sports uh writing thing I try

Only focus on like three four teams at a time um just because I you can’t watch enough games otherwise how how lucky are you I I it’s just dude I find it so hard to write about a team when I’m trying to be as thoughtful as possible but I

Haven’t seen enough of their games to provide that thoughtfulness do you know what I mean absolutely you know it’s it’s it’s a quality versus quantity thing I feel like with me you know I try to add as much quality to my work as possible but obviously my I I’m trying

To hit quantity as well but with the Celtics you know you got real strong quality with the Celtics so uh keep keep doing what you’re doing and uh and I hope I can do the same and add a little bit more quality to my work man I do the

Quantity thing on the side too man I know exactly how you feel right we’re going to let you out of here with some get this high and everybody make sure you’re tuning into the post game with Will and gregl today if you’re not already hit that subscribe button go

Down into the description follow the Celtics Chronicles so you can get newsletters on Celtics update sent straight to your inbox and we’ll catch you later [Applause] peace every I lose take much no more until I hit the floor every time I get high it’s you I F it don’t take much no More you cut me to my core baby what can I say you got me on the floor you know I came to play I know I shouldn’t but you seem to take my pain away and every time I score Jason tat and fade away I close my eyes and I’m floing your Riv

Adam is joined by Jeremy Brener of SB Nation to preview the Boston Celtics game against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday. Jeremy is an editor for Blazers Edge. The guys discuss Scoot Henderson’s struggles, the Deandre Ayton X-Factor, and the coaching battle between Joe Mazzulla and Chauncey Billups.

Tap in for a preview of what the Celtics can expect when facing the Trail Blazers.

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