Are the Celtics cruising towards an NBA Championship or setting up for a Finals letdown? | Good Word with Goodwill
Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Vincent Goodwill and senior NBA reporter Jake Fischer look at the Celtics’ potential road to the NBA Finals and whether they’re cruising towards a ring or primed for a letdown. Hear the full conversation on “Good Word with Goodwill” - part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Is Boston in your mind with everything that you've seen in the playoffs so far.
Are they still the favorite that they were overall going into the playoffs or are you a little alarmed by having not seen maybe the most serious approach of game in and game out?
I think they're doing what they've done all regular season.
Like they're going to drop an egg, they're going to, that's just kind of, they, they don't have what Denver has to your point earlier of like, they're not gonna beat themselves.
The Celtics will beat themselves not often.
Jason Tatum said it after game two went on a kind of long monologue about how the Celtics don't necessarily get the credit for being a super team because like every time they lose the skies falling, but they pretty typically respond after that loss and they did like, I, I was really rooting to see a, as healthy as possible.
New York team against Boston.
I really wanted to see Boston go up against the team that I saw playing against Philadelphia in the first round.
If we're not gonna get that, I don't think Boston is gonna have much resistance until they get to the finals, which that's a whole another conversation of sure they'll, they'll have won three series to get there.
But if Denver had to claw back against a really tough Minnesota team and then they're gonna have to be a pretty good team that comes out of this.
Okc Dallas matchup, which right now, I feel like any of the four teams in the west have passed to making it.
Like you can't say that about the East and I do wonder about setting up Boston for a potential letdown come finals time or are they gonna be like saving body blows that these other teams are, are, are, you know, having to suffer through to get there?
I don't know, we'll have to find out.
I, I think it's a weird thing.
I think Boston sits in such an interesting spot because we've seen them in different iterations and we assume that every team is the same team and this isn't the team that went to the finals in 22.
This isn't the team that kind of melted down even last year in a game seven or in the Eastern conference finals altogether.
They, they melted down the game seven because they had nothing left after that, you know, 30 comeback against the Miami Heat.
But Christoph Porzingis is on the man like the longer you can go without needing to press that button and getting him back on the floor, the better it is for them, like the most, the rest that they can get, that's better for him.