Pacers vs Knicks Game 7 Post Game Show | Celtics East Finals Preview

Pacers vs Knicks Game 7 Post Game Show | Celtics East Finals Preview

[Music] can you say hard hats folks hard hats lunch PES steal to a boots anything show of a championship this year is a fail look at this Boomer right here you’ve just got so much talent here somebody said we need to apologize for J can I quot the John what do we apologizing for what do we say what’ we do [Music] you like that Chris I do I do I love the intro well done well done onit we love them um here we are East final Celtics Pacers on Deck I can’t believe this is where we are but it is because the Knicks just physically crumbled in that East finals even up 3-2 uh they couldn’t close it out and insult injury with a Jaylen Brunson broken hand uh in the later stages of what was a runaway below a win for this one and probably a game that should put people’s antennas up a little bit to what the Pacers are capable of here uh I think a lot of people are probably going to look at this series here and uh say it’s going to be a walkthrough and it might be uh just because the Pacers do not have much of a defense at all no real defensive posture on that end so there’s certainly a vulnerability there that the Celtics can take advantage of and roll through but I do think there’s a little bit of respect you have to pay for watching a team into the late stages of the fourth quarter shoot over 70% from the field they started 22 or 27 in that first half Chris just silly stuff from them here today and a great comeback to win this series yeah you see what the the danger point is with the Pacers is it’s offense right Bobby it’s offense they’re the highest scoring team in the postseason they were the highest scoring team in the regular season have the best offensive rating in the postseason and you’re looking at team that shot 67% from the field for the game and 54% from three all their starters scored at least 17 points hey how’ you like old friend Aaron n Smith going eight for eight in the game um so that’s the danger with them is the offense they’re capable on a given night of doing what they did here in game seven which is shooting the lights out and dropping 130 and they’re probably going to beat anybody you know when they do that when they shoot to that degree and you look the games the Celtics have lost in the playoffs it’s been Miami and Cleveland shooting the lights out from three the Pacers are capable of doing that in multiple games now do I think they can do it for four games that beat the Celtics I don’t I don’t think they can do that but you are right people should put some respect on the Pacers name just because of what they can do offensively and their depth offensively and I think this will be the toughest series the Celtics will face in the East which let’s be honest is not saying much but that’s the truth I think this will be the the toughest Series yeah because they’re mostly healthy and the way it’s gone for the Celtics who knows if that continues uh they are missing Benedict Maan who’s been out for a while now so they’ve gotten used to that and pretty much everyone else of importance there on that Indiana side is is good to go here and that wouldn’t have been the case with the Knicks now I’m mourning Chris because I I just think New York Boston if there was any health whatsoever on that Nick side it would have been alltime fun great back and forth between the fans two amazing environments like I think we just it reminds me of last year when the Celtics and Lakers wi the East uh and West finals both lost and you ended up with heat nuggets and it was like oh so the Celtics are in it which is I guess the difference there but you missed out on Celtics Knicks and that that’s crushing and it could happen in one of the coming years here the Knicks are certainly going to bring back plenty of talent uh but man from a storyline perspective from an energy around the series standpoint even us just covering this and trying to you know Garner interest wow we missed out on something great there I feel like yeah it’s certainly a great situation with the Boston New York rivalry and Tom Tibido having been the basically the defensive coordinator for the 2008 Celtics the last team to win a championship just a ton of storylines there I mean even Jaylen Brunson I mean his dad Rick is from Salem I went to Rick’s basketball camp when I was a kid so there’s like all these great connections right but here’s the reality of I think you’re going to get a better series and better basketball with the Pacers certainly the Knicks have the better brand name but based on all the injuries and look I give a lot of credit to ogn and Obi and Josh Hart for trying to give it a go today and Hart was in the game all the way until he foued out there at the end ogn and Obi could only give you five minutes but they were such a banged up team that while they have the brand recognition I don’t know how good the basketball would have been all the ancillary stuff you’re talking about yeah it would have been amazing you know Boston New York Celtics Knicks all that stuff Madison Square Garden TD Garden but I think you’re going to get if you just from a pure basketball standpoint I think you’re going to get a better series more entertaining series with the Pacers remember some of those games the Celtics and Pacers played during the regular season like how about when the Pacers eliminated the Celtics from the IST how great was that game or the other game the Celtics lost there with Jaylen Brown and the call got overturned they played some really exciting games this year and there’s a little bit of History right with the Pacers I mean the whole you know Paul Pierce wearing the bandage in a press conference Chuck person Reggie Miller versus Larry Bird Larry Bird’s face slamming on the floor in the old garden and coming back Willis Reed style so there is some connection some rivalry with the Pacers I’m not going to pretend it’s the same as Celtics Knicks because it’s not but I do think there is still a little bit of a rivalry here and I think you’ll actually get better basketball so I’m sad but I’m not that sad about it based on the state that the Knicks were in by the end of their season and the end of this series yeah certainly and you got nce Smith you got Rick Carlile who played for the Celtics you got uh Larry Bird in the middle of this who’ll probably be visible at least on the Indiana side I don’t think it’ll be how about Brad Stevens being an you know Indiana guy you know they have that angle the whole Brad Stevens Indiana angle so there’ll be plenty of angles here I I think the real let’s be honest about it the sad part is a lot of the beat writers would rather go to New York than Indianapolis that’s part of it absolutely there is no doubt uh last time these two teams played January 30th you mentioned the good games they played during the regular season this is probably the only one you can pull from and even this one’s tough because buddy heeld was a big part of that Indiana team and they traded him after this one so he’s no longer in the picture he was five and N with 12 in that game three steals four assists six rebounds he was awesome for them and then they sent him out to Philadelphia never really replaced him but Pascal cakam comes in he just had a fantastic series taking advantage of open paint space against the Knicks the Celtics have been a little bit vulnerable there vulnerable in transition as well this is the highest Pace team that you can imagine playing and that’s going to probably be the key for the Celtics in this series is trying to keep the pace at a manageable level because uh they end up pulling out this game 129 124 one point earlier in the year I think it was the heeled one the uh no call there that you mentioned they lost a 133 to 131 game to this team and that’s the kind of game you can’t play against this team if it’s up and down if it’s just basket for basket that works in the Pacers favor because they at least on paper at least statistically they have the better offense in this series yeah it’s true now that game I’m talking about where the the call where Jaylen Brown got hit in the head and got overturned Jason Tatum didn’t play in that game so the thing I like about this from from the Celtics standpoint is what the Pacers do best is offense but I still think is particularly if porzingis comes back that the Celtics have more offensive Firepower at the end of the day than the Pacers you know I know the Pacers are great offensive team and all the numbers in the regular season and postseason bear that out but I just have a hard time envisioning them beating the Celtics four times by kind of for lack of a better term out offens them I think that’s going to be a challenge because the Celtics offense is as good as it gets for for you know my money in the NBA in terms of the depth of options the other thing I think you have to like if you’re a Celtics fan and I looked this up before we came on go look at the numbers for Tatum and brown against the Pacers this year they a averaged basically 61 points per game like and I know it’s a different team you know because Zak’s here and you can’t draw from everything in the past during the regular season because it’s a it’s a different team I get that but I just sort of question even with old friend Aron Smith there and SE yakum there do they have the wing Defenders to slow down the Jays I don’t I don’t really think they do I don’t think so either and that’s where you miss mathine someone in the chat mentioned here they had Bruce Brown as well who went on in that seak trade who could here um you got toen off the bench who’s not much of a Defender yeah there’s not there’s not a lot perimeter defense here so it’s gonna be nce Smith on Tatum and brown who have basically shoved him to the side in a lot of their matchups too he was great in that last game but that’s a heavy responsibility for him trying to guard both of them at different times here I’m sure sakam will probably get Tatum um at least to start this series and you Turner was a pretty good rim protector there the most intriguing I think matchup wise in this series and we’ve seen it play out in some of the games between them is the Pacers basically on defense go all out on guarding the three it’s kind of a weird style where they’re going to give up the basket and take away the three it’s sort of the reverse of how a lot of teams play and the Pacers opponents during the regular season shot the fewest threes per game of any team I think like 29 per game opponents got off against them so that does does play to their advantage a little bit against the Celtics here but we’ve seen in different points in the playoffs when teams try to take away the three aggressively like Cleveland just did to some degree the Celtics can go inside and score and get to the free throw line so they’re gonna have to do that here because the Pacers are going all out to take those three-point attempts away uh and I I think they’re capable of it but they’re gonna have to shift their mindset toward that a little bit well let me ask you this then how important is Chris Taps porzingis to play in this series then because some people were saying before this like oh you know just let him rest like they they don’t even need him in the Eastern Conference Finals and I know the W report was he’d missed the first two games but the way you’re sort of describing the Pacers you know taking away the three and it’s interesting because you’re right about that strategy because during the regular season uh they tied with Washington for the highest field goal percentage allowed in the NBA you know overall but you’re right a big part of that is hey we’ll sell out to take away the threes and give up some twos so in your mind how important is it to get porzingis who really supposed to be the answer that the Celtics have now when somebody tries to play that way I I don’t think you need him to win this series but if he’s out for the entirety of the series or most of it which is kind of how I’m feeling at this point even just kind of seeing him today mostly just riding the bike not really on the court and we’re about to hit that three-point week since the injury it’s going to be a longer series I think if he’s not available just cuz as we saw last series the every other day style doesn’t work to Horford’s Advantage this is going to be a series where Horford’s probably out on the perimeter guarding a lot they probably have to switch a little bit more uh just to cut off some of the Pacers shooting and uh just abilities overall offensively so there’s going to be a heavy load on him again in this series and it’ll be interesting to see how cornette holds up in this series too like guess he is able to play against this much shooting this much speed this small of a team across the perimeter out there so I if we’re looking at like the four-week mark being poringa sitting out the first three four games of the series let’s say you could be looking at a six game series here and then at that point like does he come back for six does he come back for a seventh if that’s uh gonna happen here you don’t want it to get to that point because I think the Celtics have that level of a talent advantage in this series that they should be able to take care of business but if he’s not able to get back at all in this series which is certainly possible just given this injury and how long it can linger you’re starting to talk about a little bit of a touchy series I feel like Chris do you agree yeah I mean I just off on the on the head of it just looking at it off the jump I I would say I think Celtics in six I don’t think this is kind of how I’m feeling yeah I don’t think this is a series they can win in four or five games I I I have to give the Pacers credit for what they can do offensively um poor zingus I would like to see him be able to play in in this series at some point because I do think not only does it help them in this series but I think you want to be fully tuned finely attuned when you get to the NBA finals you don’t want him sort of trying to feel his way back to playoff basketball in an NBA Finals game and maybe that cost you that one game and maybe that’s the difference between winning the championship or not so I’d like to see him come back if he can physically before that but it is interesting just what you were talking about with the team that’s going to sell out to take away the three because again the answer for that was supposed to be porzingis being able operate from the post the mid post the high post being able to give them that versatility and when we’ve seen Al you know Al at this point of his career really when he does his best work as you said it’s it’s out on the perimeter it’s not in in there and how does that affect the Celtics in terms of being able to take advantage of the Pacers you you certainly don’t want to force threes or take a bunch of contested threes even though they can make them that’s not what you want to do obviously they can drive to the basket Jaylen Brown’s been great at doing that in the postseason but you also want to have sort of that other element of your offense for spacing and this is one of the things and this is not so much offensively but I’m just thinking about what you were talking about defensively with Luke cornette if I have one kind of small quibble with Joe Missoula to this point in the playoffs is I’ve sort of felt there was a point they they would need Tilman and he might be a better option than cornette and I do think there were opportunities in the Cleveland series maybe to work him in a little bit more so that if you do need him in a series like this potentially and he’s maybe a better option that you feel like you can go to him and he is somebody who is in playoff form playoff shape playoff mode I think there have been some opportunities throughout the playoffs to maybe give him a little bit more run and a little bit more of a look I know they’re really comfortable with cornette and he played you know a really great game in that Cleveland series but I do think you want to have that up there’s a reason Brad Stevens went out and got Tillman and I think potentially a series like this with the greater Mobility he has the greater defensive flexibility he has is one of those reasons yeah I’m going to try to pull it up quickly here the amount of midrange shots Indie T because the thing that made work well for cornette last series is that the Cavs shot so few mid-rangers I think they shot like the lowest frequency of them in the league during the regular season I’d have to assume the Pacers shot a little bit more than that during the regular season they’re like middle of the league so definitely more than Cleveland in terms of like shooting over a drop but not a ton they’re not one of those mid-range heavy teams they’re probably more of a three-point shooting team which you know can still hurt cornette you know how much that Chang with with SE yakum though because we’ve talked about you know those num like siakam’s kind of a mid-range Master right I mean that’s kind of his game and so they didn’t have him all year long so so like we’ve talked about throughout this discussion it’s hard sometimes to extrapolate some of those Pacers numbers from the season because they’re a little bit of a different team I’m just thinking of like SE yakum now like that guy is going to shoot from the mid-range yeah and they shoot 50% there um which is a good number that’s actually highest in the league really yeah going to be interesting to watch there so this isn’t a cornette series to me and I’m a big cornette fan but he’s matchup dependent certainly and I think you’re 100% right and a lot of the fans agree there had to be opportunities in those earlier series to get a look at Tillman and even during the regular season I didn’t love that they played him at the four a lot just stashed him in the corner you know he’s not really much of a three-o point shooter historically throughout his career and he was just trying to fit in as a corner three-point shooter there I like the idea of a ATA five I think he can seal off a smaller guy finish over him inside he’s talked a little bit about how he’s got post moves he can go to and he liked the opportunity to be able to post up a little bit here so if you’re going to use him in the series I’d like to see him actually Sub in for Horford not Sub in alongside him and try to play bigger uh because I think that’ll hurt you from a speed perspective in this series too if you’re trying to play those two guys together out there so you can go to him you know I I think that won’t be a crazy move to make at that point even if he didn’t play a ton earlier in the playoffs I think he’s got to be ready to go in this spot and part of it’s got to be on him to play a little bit better too because I don’t feel like he played amazing in those spots certainly dealing with some knee stuff and maybe some other physical ailments uh that we’re lingering from the regular season there so I wonder if that’s a part of it but he’s going to be a factor in this series or at least I think he needs to be H for them to match up here and survive this porzingis loss and I’ll ask you yeah because I you know my antenna is starting to go up a little bit here because you know you hear it’s like 21 17 days for porzingis we’re kind of past that point now mou is not talking about it I don’t think that’s a red flag or anything like that because I think some coaches just don’t talk about injuries we’ve certainly seen that fair share of coaches around here just not address them but at what point in this series especially with him being ruled out the first couple games already especially with Giannis you know having that three4 timeline with that and really after four weeks still not being close as he mentioned after their season ended are you starting to get at least a little bit worried that this poor zingus thing might linger a little too long here for them oh it’s a good point um you know it’s funny I have to be honest you know you’re on the beat you’re around them all the time I’m not so initially I was like oh when he first suffered the injury against Miami and they said it’s not as bad as we think and also and then but then we it sort of like stabilized I like all right we’re not going to see him till the finals then all of a sudden he was like out there shooting and they would seemed like super positive and I was was thinking oh he won’t play against Cleveland but I think he’ll be ready for the Eastern Conference Finals then the W report comes out he’s not going to play in the first couple of games and now you’re telling me he didn’t really do much at practice so now it seems to be trending in a completely opposite direction from at the beginning when they were like oh we dodged a bullet it wasn’t as bad as we thought it’s come almost full circle to where I’m questioning whether he’s going to be ready before the NBA finals and that would be disappointing to me not because of anything he’s doing an injury is an injury yeah but just I was hopeful that he could come back in the Eastern Conference Finals for the reason I said before that I think there is still an element when you miss this much time and it’s the most intense pressure Pack basketball of the year to jump back into it and just say oh it’s automatically like riding a bike and you’re going to be great and you’re going to be fully optimized right out of the gate I just don’t think that’s realistic like as much as we deal with the numbers in today’s NBA these guys are still human beings and human nature is if you take some time off you’re going to be a little bit Rusty maybe your conditioning is not what it was the speed of the game it could take you a little while to get used to and so what I don’t want is him jumping in in the finals without any experience and maybe he plays a game that’s not great and they end up losing a game in that series and their margin for errors lower and the series goes seven and you end up losing because if if zingas had played if his first game back had been able to be in another series and he had shaken off that rust and didn’t have a rust game in the finals you wouldn’t have lost that one game and maybe you end up winning the whole thing so you know maybe that’s overthinking it but really if he’s good enough to go and the chances of reinjury are not like if he gets to 85 90% in this Eastern Conference Final series I want to see him out there so that he can figure out what he can do what he can’t do with this injury shake off the rust be good to and by the time they get to the finals at least they know and he knows what he’s dealing with like would if you’re moua wouldn’t you want to know ahead of time like oh man porzingis is never going to be 100% again the rest of the postseason he’s not going to be the player that he was for us most of the Year we’re gonna have like about 65% of KP and I have to coach around that as opposed to finding that out in like game two of the finals and trying to adjust from there ESP if you’re going against joic at that point because when they’ve played yic during the year their strategy has been to put porzingis on him so he’s getting thrown out there against joic who’s averaging like 405 and 15 and he’s got to do that while carrying the load that he does offensively now he’s talked about wanting to return at a historic rate that’s still kind of the talk around the team is that he’s pushing he’s pushing he wants to be out there so I think he’s doing everything he can and if he’s back four weeks later you know next week for a game three or four you feel good about that I’m just anticipating us getting to that point and maybe he’s still not quite there hasn’t done enough in practice or hasn’t done enough work uh to get on the floor at that point because here we are three weeks later and it doesn’t seem at least you know I’ve asked Joe a couple times has he done the three on three has he done the fouron four stuff like that contact and there’s really nothing there so we don’t have a ton to go off of other than that W report which said the hope is that he can play later in the series and that’s not concrete right they’re hopeful he can play later in this series it’s not great cuz you know going back to Giannis injury the same exact injury same talk like he’s out there he’s shooting you see him on the floor he’s doing some stuff but he’s not practicing he’s not going he’s not close and then I think his words after that series were like he was like 30 40% you know to use the percent thing there so that was four weeks after his injury um against the Celtics there at the end of the regular season so it’s a concern here and you would hate you know again they shouldn’t lose to the Pacers because they don’t have porzingis here but you would hate to get to the end of this season and say o they lost because they didn’t have porzingis because they’ve sustained it so far they’ve sh that they can win without him throughout the whole season regular and postseason and then if they get into a matchup he’s just not quite ready to go or like you said he gets out there and he he’s just not ready for that level of intensity yet at that point that’s tough and so I do want to get in a little bit of Horford here because obviously he’s going to carry another heavy load in the series with porzingis for for long is of course we’re brought to you by prize pick go check out prize picks use the code clns get 100% deposit match up to $100 Conference Finals about to get going here got hockey playoffs you got baseball my favorite part of prize picks is just going in there seeing what they think these guys are going to score what their rebound totals are going to be you just pick two guys you can even cross Sports pick more or less on their 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Breakout game six just incredible a real moment probably my favorite moment of this postseason run so far was that Horford game 2215 and five just ridiculous especially after what he did two days prior really struggling missing 11 straight threes between games three and five he’s going to have to play significant minutes again here every other day as I mentioned is how the series is scheduled so there’s no longer layoffs between these games and again porzingis expected to miss the start of this series what’s your confidence level in Horford uh being able to uphold this workload deep into the playoffs at 38 37 38 um I would say it’s probably about 50% you know I don’t think you’re going to get no one was expecting him to score 22 points every night but I also think realistically you’re not going to get Al’s best every night I just think at this stage of his career he’s not really built for that in a series that’s every other night if he can give you really strong defense in six out of seven games of a series I think that’s more important than what he does offensively I mean it’s so funny you mentioned game five after he missed I think it was his first three he missed in that one or the first two or whatever was he had missed like 14 straight threes uh across the the series and then he ends up having a great game so he he’s a confident guy obviously he kept shooting and he had that kind of night I’m not as much worried again about his offense it’s just defensively I think he’s G to be really important in this series and can he can he keep up can he cover as much ground as he needs to cover I thought he was great towards the end of that series and particularly in game five when he got switched out on Darius Garland and was able to stay in front of him or block his shots and do stuff like that but I still think if you’re Rick carile and the Pacers you’re G to test Al Horford you’re gonna you know can’t will he be able to get out and contest stuff on the perimeter will if you switch off you know will he be able to stay in front of guys will he be able to do it and I think you’re also going to say I know they don’t want to give up threes but if you are going to give up a three you’re probably GNA Give It Up to Al and make him make shots so I think that they’re going to need him to play well in this series to be able to win this series you know primarily on the defensive end but they will need some offensive contribution at this point this was always sort of the concern right about the front court for the Celtics when you have Horford at his age and you have porzingis with his injury history it’s a little bit perilous right it’s a little bit fragile it’s a fragile front Court overall and this was kind of the concern that you had though I don’t want to say it’s worst case scenario because we anticipate porzingis will be back worst case scenario would be some season ending injury but this was the scenario that I think a lot of people Envision at some point which was porzingis not available and you’re asking Al who really wore down in last year’s playoffs like really wore down after that Philadelphia series to be able to go out there and carry a load and can he do it yeah and you know part of surviving out there is being a threat offensively too so he’s just got to at least be that um and it’s you know it’s it’s going to be weird against Indie because Cleveland they drop back they let him shoot Miami similar deal like teams were willing to just back off him I feel like the Pacers are actually going to try to run him off the line a little bit and take away the three from him and can he make them pay in that circumstance like they just they just sort of scramble around defensively there’s not a lot of Rhyme or reasoning what they do other than taking that three away and that’s a huge opportunity for Tatum and brown Brown’s been fantastic I mean he shot 59% in that last series which was just silly Tatum of course struggling with his shot throughout the playoffs so this is a real opportunity for them to get going here and if they’re struggling against this defense which you know as we mentioned doesn’t have a lot of perimeter Defenders or size out there Turner’s a good rim protector but other than that like there’s not going to be a lot between Tatum Brown and the basket you start to get worried at that point that they’re just really struggling right now and it’s not just you know a bad shooting spell or whatever you know we’ve kind of said to this point this is the kind of Series where Tatum’s got to step up and score close to 30 points a game because it’s going to be single cover it’s going to beith it’s going to be those guards on him you got to make Halbert and pay out there you know make him work because he’s going to be doing everything on the offensive end so you want him working defensively too so this is a series where there’s really no more excuses for Tatum in particular I’m not even going to Loop Brown in there because he’s been great uh for the most of this run this is a big series for Tatum to finally show his scor in prowess yeah I mean I really liked what I saw from him you know obviously I was pretty critical of him through the first first seven games of of the the postseason overall just because the standard’s really high he’s one of the best players in the league and it’s not like he was playing terrible basketball no you know his his his okay is like most guys great but you expect him to be great and I thought the last you know three games of that series he imposed his will there you know he averaged more than 30 points per game game five Was His Highest shooting percentage in the postseason nine of 16 the threes still aren’t going in which is kind of weird and that’s a trend on the last two postseasons he has not shot well from three which is bizarre to me I don’t know what’s going on with that but yes I agree with you you know he really has to make Indiana pay in this series and he has to force them to make some tough I think decisions defensively in terms of what they want to do and open it up for some other guys and you it’s hard to score 30 you know I’m not expecting him to score 30 points every game it’s just when they need it he has to deliver and I think I think overall greater offensive efficiency and the thing that I liked about the last three games when he shot you know 44% from the field and average about 30 game was the rebounds and assists actually went up from the prior seven games and that was my whole thing you know people were saying well you know you’re a casual you’re like not watching what he’s doing he’s doing all this other stuff and I’m like he’s a great player he can do that stuff and score and I just think it was interesting that when he started getting his scoring mojo back his boards and assists actually went up in those three games so he can do it all and this is one of those series you should walk away from this series saying Jason Tatum was clearly the best player on the floor in this series yeah I mean you understand Mitchell out playing him because Mitchell’s capable of that at his best you understand if uh if Jimmy was doing that round one because we’ve seen it before from Jimmy halberton I love and we should probably talk a little bit about him just a phenomenal performance today chirping to the crowd in shots uh the passing from him is just out of this world he’s one of my favorite play probably one of my five favorite players in the league right now tyres hbert and and you know to wrap up Tatum real quick he averaged 33 you mentioned this earlier 33 11 and six against during the regular season 58 from the field 49 from three uh got to the free throw line 24 times though the numbers should be close again he doesn’t need to score 30 a game but they should be over 25 in this series at least no I totally I totally agree with with you on that and I love halberton too I’ll say the year he was drafted I was praying he would drop to the Celtics I wanted him a lot of teams he did he did I wanted him to drop to the Celtics so badly obviously that didn’t happen he lands at Sacramento they make the trade for um damat sabonis and but he before I’ll tell you what before he got injured this season he was having like an incredible he was kind of like making the leap before he got injured and just what he did today was funny because they were talking on the broadcast about how he needed to be more aggressive in that first quarter and then from that point on he just went off in that first quarter yeah and you got to give him credit because he’s the engine for this team and they have seak now too so they can probably survive the minutes he’s off the floor a little better now than they could previously but last year they were six seed for a lot of the Season based on what he was doing and then he ran into some injuries again they they probably held them out for the later portion of that year just based on where they were and they just fell off the right back into the lottery and that’s the level you know when we talk about MVP that’s the kind of stuff I value most like if you’re not on the floor and your team just completely falls apart and that’s why you know I’m a big yic guy in that regard I think halberton if he played more this year if he had a better second half should have been like that Brunson Tatum territory of MVP this year and maybe it will be one day but again that injury derailed them up until that injury as you just mentioned he was averaging 24 Game 12 and a half assists per game shooting 40 from three on eight attempts and 50 from the field um some real like Steve Nash kind of stuff from him I feel like is like a good comparison he’s just an engine out there unto himself and not the best defender so you’re G to be able to go at him a little bit there uh size probably an issue on that end a little bit strength and consistency for him a little bit of an issue too this postseason he’s had some great games he’s had some really shaky games so they can’t survive his shaky games and they’re just going to have to make it hard on him uh that’s really all it comes down to and they’re good at that so that’s got to be something you feel confident about coming into the series is their ability to key in on the other team’s best player and their ability to make him work on defense yeah absolutely I mean you know again I think he’s probably a better Defender than this but I I sort of think about what the Celtics did to Tyler hero in the first round you know how hard they made him work on defense and how that ultimately ended up sort of affecting his offense and how they were hunting him out h burtt’s a better def than that he had a really nice you know steal on venzo early in this game that got overturned on replay he is a guy that can be opportunistic with the Steals and stuff but he’s a little bit of a gambler I think it doesn’t always stay in front of guys so you know make him work and I would say Bobby not just physically make him work defensively but like make him work mentally because I think that sometimes defensively he loses focus in terms of what the coverage is or what he’s supposed to be doing or what the other team’s trying to do offens L and where he needs to be um he’s a guy that I feel like sometimes can just kind of get lost in the mix he will lose focus on the defensive end so I think make he overthinks things a little bit out there and was talk on the broadcast of that even today like him just kind of being in his own head during this series and during this postseason it’s his first postseason effectively here no I agree totally no I think and that’s what I’m saying you know make him process on both ends of the court and make him process things defensively and maybe sort of getting his own head and get you know so he’s he’s he’s hesitant he’s not sure where to be he’s kind of trying to process instead of just play so I think if you do that and you put that burden on him on that end that could maybe help you in terms of trying to slow him down offensively the thing I like about the Pacers just overall and halberton is the engine of this but if you look at them in the postseason uh they have the highest assist percentage they have the best assist to turnover ratio so it’s not just halberton they move the ball pretty well well and with Rick Carlile as sort of their offensive architect they just seem to make the right play a lot of times the shots don’t always go down for them but they do seem to move the ball and make the right play so you know that’s something that I do have to give the Pacers credit for overall and the Celtics might have to dig in a little bit more or maybe a little bit longer on certain possessions than they have had to do throughout this postseason run just because of the Pacers pension for you know running their offense and being able to make the right right play even even under duress that’s going to be my favorite thing the coaching match up in this series the contrast between Rick who just fires off timeouts like he has 40 of them and Joe who never ever calls them that’s a funny contrast in these games that they’ve played through this year they’ve played five times this year so there’s a little bit of you know a thing there you know they’ve seen each other a lot they’ve played some good games I think there’s going to be some good games in this series certainly here too uh number two on that list is n Smith who it’s just great to watch him out there doing this isn’t it I really like it I got to know him a little bit while he was here he came on our show at one point he’s a great guy he is just being around him he’s got like a fire to him too that you really didn’t see come out until he got traded and he certainly has taken that personally and a couple of guys on that side have said as much uh eight for eight today as you mentioned he’s inconsistent still he’s he’s sort of goes as his shot does to some degree on the offensive end but defensively he’s always just going 100 his Motors just massive he’s put on so much weight too you know he’s got a great frame at this point since he moved over there and he’s you know a starting caliber player in this league at this point and he’s certainly gonna want to get back at Boston in this series I I love that component to this here even though we lose a lot of the juice of the New York thing as we talked about earlier n Smith’s going to try to make up for that the Celtics have made it tough on him he’s had a tough time standing in front of brown and Tatum defensively but that last game he played against him he had 262 and seven which was incredible to see you had a look at a game tying three late in that game too that white blocked so I’m excited to see what he’s capable of in this series and I don’t think anyone’s gonna look back at it and say like oh man they shouldn’t have traded him because you get Brogden then you get holiday but I do think the second guess is he had this in him could You’ have given him more opportunity could you have developed them a little better after drafting him and that’s on two coaches and eay who really didn’t have a lot of trust for him and Joe certainly didn’t either in that first year there so um oh wait no that was on emay yeah because he got traded after that last eay year so um I love the N smith thing I don’t know where you at on him yeah know I liked him I was excited when the Cel got him that was the pick that I I wanted um you know he was a technically a lottery pick in the draft and I always liked him it was hard for him I think to duplicate and has been hard for him to duplicate the shooting particularly from three that he had his last year at vanderville but he shot the three ball pretty well during this year 42% he has not shot well in the postseason which is other than today you know he has not really shot the basketball very well going to today he was only shooting 38% from the field and and only 27.9 from three which is and that speaks to what you’re saying in terms of how streaky he is but for a guy who was really an offense first player in college the way he’s been able to remake himself in the NBA the whole crash Persona and how hard he plays he’s a hustle guy defense guy can knock down shots he’s accepted the role player role and he’s gotten better and I I again you’re right you can’t question the trade but I do wish they’d given him more of an opportunity to develop and I think he’ll definitely have something to prove in this series going up against the Celtics and that will clearly be one of the subplots of of this series more so for him as you mentioned on defense he’s not been great against the JS but he’s going to get that assignment and it’s kind of the Little Brother Big Brother thing right you’re the little brother and you get beat up on you get beat up on you get beat up on but you keep coming back you keep coming back and all of a sudden one day you can stand your ground I think if you’re a Celtics fan you’re hoping this is not the one day that that Aaron n Smith is able to stand his ground that it doesn’t happen in this series well that’s one I got you on this series and usually I save this for the end because it’s really at the bottom of importance but it is interesting in this series a little bit the benches we will talked a little bit about cornette pritchard’s been fantastic I mean 53 from the field and 50 from three last series so that’s an advantage for you there we’ll see with the bigs Howers how’s been okay this postseason nothing off the that jumps off the page so you look at Indiana’s bench and it’s Obi toppen who I think is just such a great energy player who showed a level of skill in this series too making a lot of shots uh TJ McConnell who’s just I mean McConnell Pritchard is going to be like looking in the mirror there I I was gonna say that I agree with you you nailed it those two guys have like the same game and McConnell you know if they are going to try to put someone small smaller and pesky but with a level of defensive skill in front of a Browner a Tatum he’s going to be an interesting guy in that regard and then Isaiah Jackson who’s you know a solid um you know Rim Running Center that brings a level of physicality too that they’ll probably have to utilize here so shorter benches on both sides uh you know up and down results on both ends so far but I do feel like that might be a small Edge for Indie and it’s going to matter in some of the games in this series probably I think what minute what kind of minutes and contributions those guys are going to be able to give you especially with what we talked about with porzingis and Horford earlier on that Center position no I I agree with you on that Bobby another guy I’ll throw in there for Indie is you know Ben Shepard I think that you know he’s been getting more minutes he’s a guy who was a great shooter in college he can knock down some shots obviously young player inconsistent but you know that’s another guy he’s maybe sort of like you know their Hower in some ways um not as established as Hower obviously but you know that sort of thing there I don’t really think either side has a clear you know bench Advantage here maybe like you said slight Advantage uh Indie McConnell’s playing so well right now but so is Pritchard but I think the story of this series will ultimately be the starters you know it’ll be the starters the Celtics sort of big five versus what Indie is putting out there and their five is the starters I think that will ultimately determine what this series is and we’ve spoken about this Indie offensively they are capable of winning one or two games in this series and so then if the Celtics were to give away let’s say the Celtics give away another game somehow by not playing well then you look at it and you could be in a seven game which is not what you want to be in in this case so I I do think over you know a lot of people were talking there was a lot of debate legitimate debate what was the better opponent for the Celtics which team should the Celtics want to play I was pretty adamant that it was the Knicks they should want to play just because the Knicks were so beat up didn’t have a lot of depth although Alec Burks went crazy today in that game whereas I look at Indie and I just feel like Indie is healthier uh they’re more potent overall and I think they’re more capable of sort of sticking in a series with you for longer a longer period of time and longer games because when I look at Indie and yes the the offensive rebounding for the Knicks in the postseason was absolutely fantastic but when I looked at the Knicks overall they played so hard and I appreciated that but I was like what is the one great thing the Knicks do I guess you could say it was the offensive rebounding but what they just play really hard to me whereas I look at Indian what’s the one thing they do in an elite love offense they’re an elite offense their offense is Elite so that’s what Indie is bringing into this series where I sort of felt like the Knicks didn’t really bring any particular one Elite area of the game that would give the Celtics trouble over the course of a six or seven game series whereas I feel like with Indie the offense at least has the potential to do that yeah and I do think of the rebounding a little bit too because you mentioned it there uh they’re going to be able to defend their defensive glass cuz I think in moments the Celtics are great on the offens glass too and as I look at it here Indie is 14th out of 16 uh playoff teams at defensive rebounding so that could be an advantage for the Celtics here too uh but you mentioned it 122 is the Pacers offensive rating uh 119 for Boston so there’s a real gap between those two teams offensively and the pace they want to play at too uh certainly here pretty sizable too uh Celtics have the slowest Pace in the playoffs right now at really I didn’t know that does that surprise you I you’ve covered the team all year along I I didn’t know that so to me that’s kind of surprising I think it’s a little bit matchup based I think the Cavs want to play slow and you end up in that kind of series and um heat too slower Pace team two more defensive oriented Series so I don’t think it’s because the Celtics red to a hall but there were moments in those Series where the offense stagnated a little bit um impressive through all that and Tatum struggles and everything that there still second offensively postseason and they’ve used their defense as a real weapon at times I think to turn into offense so they should they should win this series they should certainly be favorites in this series I think they have a lot of advantages in this series but the Pacers actually have bodies depth a star in h Burton and a style that can make them competitive here and even though I’m heartbroken about New York not getting here um I’ll take it for the basket ball because I think this is going to be a much better series than we would have seen if I mean could you imagine if Brunson went down and they won today and it was that crew coming out there Alec Burks and whoever’s left for yeah Al bur dece McBride you know I mean it’s it’s just look credit to the Knicks they they maximize what they had unfortunate with the injuries but I really do think it’s a tougher series for the Celtics but if you like basketball I think it’s going to be a better series for the Celtics and you know I know we didn’t touch on this but look when you look at this overall for the Celtics there is some element at least in my mind of when you get out of the East you do want to be as prepared as you can be for what you’re going to face in the west and probably for some closer games and I don’t know I just think Indie maybe has a better chance of doing that against you than New York did you don’t want it to be completely easy no no I don’t think that benefits you and here’s the other thing the Celtics just have not played in my mind really close game like I don’t know how you feel about this I don’t feel like they’ve really played a close game yet now I know people will say game four against Cleveland because that did get close in the fourth quarter and they had that scoreless drought was it 420 Sor not scoreless 420 without a field goal it was a fake close game yes exactly thank you Bobby they were up by 15 had that cushion and then it came down it wasn’t like a game that was within like six basically the whole fourth quarter it was you had a 15-point cushion that you had built which was great and it got winow down and then you were able to sort of you know Jaylen Brown hits the three off the great pass from Tatum and you survive but to me that doesn’t count as like a close game because you had such a cushion going into it so I wouldn’t mind seeing the Celtics in a close game or two in this series just so they’re ready by the time they get to the finals and know how to respond in a close game which I do I do think that stuff matters I had the date right in front of me April 5th was their last close finish 44 days ago uh against the Kings and it was funny because I was at asking Mike Brown before that game because they had play in a lot of close games and have really good results there and I was like what how do you how do you guys win so many of these crunchtime games and he goes I go to church every Sunday that’s a great answer so I was really I had my eye on the crunch time thing then and the Celtics have had their struggles there this year so to not get reps not get opportunities to do that I think is a valid concern going into a potentially tough final series and we’ll obviously get a prettyy good look at who it could end up being tonight with Denver and Minnesota about to play a game seven so uh we’ll go check that out I’m really interested to see where that’s going to go here but the Celtics do have to get by the Pacers first East final starts tuesday8 o’clock uh we’ll have coverage throughout here we’ll have a full Garden report series preview tomorrow night so stay tuned for that the whole crew coming back to talk about that after our week off here effectively between series and appreciate Chris stopping by in the meantime of course check out all his work at uh the Bost Globe you still got the nesson show going we have yep Boston Globe today’s sports every Friday at 5: pm on nessen hosting that and you can always catch me on 985 The Sports Hub as well I’m on felger and Maz on Fridays from 3: to four and then Gasper and Murray with my good buddy Jim Murray on Saturdays we’re on from 11 to two and that 12 to one hour uh this is the demographic man 12 to1 is the sports sub Celtics show we appreciate you coming on that Bobby hopeful we can get you on again during the postseason but that whole Hour on Saturdays 12 to1 is completely dedicated to Celtics talk yeah and I think the chat loved having you here too lot of uh positive reviews there so that’s always good hopefully we’ll get you back as well wait till they’re down in the series Chris I know then they’ll love you still I’m sure uh we’ll see fingers crossed one more shout out to one of our sponsors here pxg great Golf Apparel it’s summertime it’s about to warm up I think 80° a couple days this week so if you’re out on the course awesome gear to have lightweight feels good on a hot day out there wearing this and when you feel good you play good out there so check out their polos shirts hats a lot of good stuff over there pxg and you can get a 10% discount uh with our code gar report so go to pxg.com Gar report and check that out thanks again to Chris uh I’m about to go record with NOA we’re doing our St Studio edition of the show tonight so we’ll have a little bit more uh talking about this series and the playoffs that’s been so far from the Celtics with her she’s done a great job throughout this postseason covering the Celtics as well over at Celtics blog so check that out that’ll probably be out tomorrow as we pre-record that so uh that’s that a lot of lot of busy time Chris but it’s good and then we’re off to Indiana so we’ll be out there this weekend covering that as well um unfortunately not New York but that’s a wrap here for this edition of the gar report thanks again Chris and uh we will talk to everybody tomorrow

Bobby Manning welcomes Chris Gasper of the Boston Globe to the Garden Report to talk about the Celtics’ East Finals opponent, the winner of Pacers vs Knicks Game 7.

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