Speaker 1: No, no, come home, Come home, come home.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Heat Check, it's a little
Speaker 2: updates on the New York nixt I know it's a
Speaker 2: back to back next sort of situation, but we have
Speaker 2: new tea, new updates, and boy, they just keep keep
Speaker 2: on keeping on with that whole uh giving up twenty
Speaker 2: five point plus leads might be time to panic. We
Speaker 2: also finally put a little respect on the Boston Celtics,
Speaker 2: just in time for them to lose to the Detroit Pistons,
Speaker 2: the worst team in the NBA. I'm kidding sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, but on that note, drop.
Speaker 1: That beat perfect right lay.
Speaker 2: So, last episode we broke down the inexplicable decisions, well
Speaker 2: decisions yes, by the New York Knicks to stand pat
Speaker 2: at the trade deadline. No one knows why, no one.
Speaker 2: Since then, shit has continued to go off the rails.
Speaker 2: On Saturday, Knicks blow a twenty three point lead in
Speaker 2: the second half to my Blazers getting outscored by thirty
Speaker 2: five to eleven in the fourth quarter. We talked about
Speaker 2: that on Monday, how it's possible to score just eleven
Speaker 2: points in a quarter against one of the worst teams
Speaker 2: in the NBA. Defensively is a mystery to me beyond me.
Speaker 2: And then and then against the trash ass ok Homa
Speaker 2: City Thunder, top bottom two, bottom two team in the league,
Speaker 2: missing their two best players by the way in Shae Kilgris,
Speaker 2: Alexander and Lou Dort completely out of the game. Uh,
Speaker 2: they blew an eleven point second half lead and lost
Speaker 2: in overtime to the again Oh Klahoma City Thunder with
Speaker 2: no Shay and no Doort House way how I don't know.
Speaker 2: And oh, yes, Tibbs tried to call a time out
Speaker 2: late in the game and got teed up because he
Speaker 2: pulled a Chris Webber did not have did not have
Speaker 2: a timeout, which is a bit of a problem. It's
Speaker 2: a Mike McCarthy situation here, folks, like, what are you doing,
Speaker 2: my guy? And that was a bit of a problem
Speaker 2: considering that was a tie game at the end of regulation.
Speaker 2: And then last night they were up twenty eight points
Speaker 2: against the Nets, Yeah, net twenty eight at the Crib
Speaker 2: to the Brooklyn Nets, only to lose handily to a
Speaker 2: team that did not have Kevin Durant, that did not
Speaker 2: have Kyrie Irving, did not have Ben Simmons, did not
Speaker 2: have of course, James Harden because he's been traded. Cam Thomas,
Speaker 2: twenty seventh pick in the draft, went absolutely bananas, shooting
Speaker 2: tween tween from thirty step back, no defense on Cam.
Speaker 2: He had sixteen points in the fourth quarter alone. It
Speaker 2: is officially a sweat, a panic at and within MSG
Speaker 2: not only as the garden, as the umbrella, as the
Speaker 2: corporate structure that owns the Knicks. This team is three
Speaker 2: and thirteen in the last sixteen games, sinking, sinking down
Speaker 2: the Eastern Conference standings. Everyone is struggling, from Evan Fournier, who,
Speaker 2: like I've always been saying, shows up once every three games,
Speaker 2: to Kemba Walker who's consistently in the doghouse, to Emmanuel Quickly, who,
Speaker 2: over his past seventeen games is shooting just twenty six
Speaker 2: point eight percent from the field and twenty three point
Speaker 2: nine percent from three. How bad is this, you might
Speaker 2: ask me, Well, bad enough to write multiple segments on
Speaker 2: them in a week. But old man Thibodeaux, who is
Speaker 2: wed to running his starters out there forty minutes plus
Speaker 2: a game, has just said he is committed to play
Speaker 2: in the youth, to going with the youths. He said
Speaker 2: We've got a young team that can get better, and
Speaker 2: that's where we have to concentrate. Get these guys better.
Speaker 2: Look Mitchell's development, RJ. Barrett's development, Quentin Grimes development, Emmanuel
Speaker 2: quickly Obi topping. That's where our focus is right and
Speaker 2: Julius is still young and can still grow. Sure sounds
Speaker 2: like this is now a rap for the season when
Speaker 2: you're talking about the youth's and developing the youths, especially
Speaker 2: when your name is Tom Thibodeau, who's like basic ethos
Speaker 2: for coaching is fuck them kids, Like I'm running out
Speaker 2: Taj Gibson, I'm running out d Rose in crunch time
Speaker 2: when he's talking about Quentin Grimes, who's a very good
Speaker 2: young player, but he's talking about the youth's in a
Speaker 2: way that is completely counter to his identity as a coach.
Speaker 2: And that's how you know this season is a cooked,
Speaker 2: it's a wrap. He's literally like, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: just see who we have here, see what we have.
Speaker 2: Notice he didn't say Cam Reddish at all in that mix.
Speaker 2: Who they traded for This year is now all about
Speaker 2: assessing who can be the future instead of who is
Speaker 2: here that can help you right now? Because it's very
Speaker 2: clear no one's here that can help you right now.
Speaker 2: Otherwise they wouldn't be three and thirteen in their last
Speaker 2: sixteen games, and they wouldn't have blown eight straight twenty
Speaker 2: point game leads, you know. And so now all of
Speaker 2: this has been fodder for the New York papers to
Speaker 2: sound off on what's the deal with TIBs? Is his
Speaker 2: but medium hot? Super hot? Burning? Is he almost out
Speaker 2: the door? What's happening? This is the man, folks, who
Speaker 2: is your twenty twenty one coach of the year. How
Speaker 2: could he actually be on the hot seat?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Is he actually on the hot seat? I don't know.
Speaker 2: New York Post seems to think he might be in
Speaker 2: my viewpoint, I mean, like, is the Post anyway in
Speaker 2: my viewpoint? Well, considering Tom Timbodau is on a five
Speaker 2: year deal. He got hired to a five year deal
Speaker 2: right when he was brought on board immediate. He is
Speaker 2: there under contract getting paid unless he gets fired for
Speaker 2: costs through twenty twenty five. And Dolan not a huge
Speaker 2: fan of having multiple guys on the books at the
Speaker 2: same time, just simultaneous guys on the payroll. He's not
Speaker 2: a huge fan of one thing for sure, though nothing
Speaker 2: is a certainty in this business. You know. Just ask
Speaker 2: the Brooklyn Nets whether they thought James Harden would blow
Speaker 2: this thing up in less than twelve months time. Which
Speaker 2: is now, why how you know things are bad? How
Speaker 2: you know that anything could change at any given moment
Speaker 2: with this club, is that we're now getting Derek Rose
Speaker 2: injury updates about the fact that he's coming back right away.
Speaker 2: He's here, He's coming back right after all Star break, folks,
Speaker 2: Everything's okay. Once d Rose is back, He's going to
Speaker 2: rate the ship. I was like, that's a strange time
Speaker 2: to put out an injury update on a guy we
Speaker 2: haven't heard about in the last three months, have not
Speaker 2: heard one peep, and now it's like d Rose is
Speaker 2: coming back, he will be back. Should TIBs be the
Speaker 2: one that is primarily held responsible for the Knicks issues?
Speaker 2: Probably not. Who should be held responsible for the issues
Speaker 2: of the Knicks? Well, that is a longer discussion for
Speaker 2: another day. I don't have that time right now. We've
Speaker 2: got to give the Celtics their flowers and that's the
Speaker 2: next segment. Yo, yo, Let's talk about the up until
Speaker 2: last night when they got beaten, my destroyed Pistons, Boston Celtics,
Speaker 2: hottest team in the association right now, and we've seen
Speaker 2: like a little bit of transformation, so it's time I
Speaker 2: have to give you guys your flowers. And the change
Speaker 2: has been remarkable, I would say, and of course credit
Speaker 2: to me. I have to and will always acknowledge when
Speaker 2: I'm wrong. But I wasn't really wrong before because they
Speaker 2: would go on these four game winning streaks and then
Speaker 2: they'd lose seven. They'd win two and then lose four.
Speaker 2: They just up and down and up, and I was
Speaker 2: like constantly last year apologizing and then recanting the apology
Speaker 2: and and then apologizing again. And then I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, maybe that's this identity of this team.
Speaker 2: Maybe all they are is just a roller coaster. Maybe
Speaker 2: they're one of the most inconsistent teams with a ton
Speaker 2: of potential that is going absolutely nowhere. And that is
Speaker 2: exactly what happened, which is why Brad Stevens departed and
Speaker 2: a new general came into town.
Speaker 1: This year.
Speaker 2: They win eight in a row and then checks Notes
Speaker 2: loses to the Detroit Pistons. The day I'm writing a
Speaker 2: segment for the next episode, the worst team in the
Speaker 2: NBA folks, So how much has really changed? I'm kidding,
Speaker 2: I'm kidding. They actually are a good team. I think
Speaker 2: this year they really did lose the Pistons, but somehow,
Speaker 2: someway it feels different. I don't actually see a four
Speaker 2: game losing streak coming. I don't see a skid coming.
Speaker 2: So the question for folks to think about is twofold.
Speaker 2: When did the Celtics become a different team? And more importantly,
Speaker 2: why why? The when question I've identified it is easy
Speaker 2: to answer. Numerous times this season, Udoka has called out
Speaker 2: the Celtics for publicly excoriating really for lacking efforts and
Speaker 2: for being soft, like you are soft, and particularly after
Speaker 2: a terrible loss to the Knicks on January seventh. This
Speaker 2: is what Eme said. It was rock bottom January seventh,
Speaker 2: so like a little more than a month ago, this
Speaker 2: is what he said. It's lack of mental toughness to
Speaker 2: fight through adverse times, and it's across the board. It's
Speaker 2: a turnover here, it's a bad shot there, it's a
Speaker 2: misdefensive assignment here, several misrebounds tonight. And so all of
Speaker 2: this seemed bad at that time, and it came to
Speaker 2: a head following a terrible loss to the Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 2: six ers, which you might not remember. Troe l embiid
Speaker 2: and remarked after the game why the Celtics were so
Speaker 2: easy to beat? And I thought I would play that
Speaker 2: clip for.
Speaker 3: You if you compare you know, uh, tonight from the
Speaker 3: other night. You know, it's kind of easier to guard.
Speaker 3: You know, Charlotte. That moved the ball extremely well, and
Speaker 3: you know they had shooters all over the place, and
Speaker 3: that made a bunch of jump shots. Obviously, you know
Speaker 3: Boston his malls a mall of an isle every team.
Speaker 3: Uh so he kind of becomes easier to kind of
Speaker 3: load up and trying to stop him. And you know,
Speaker 3: I thought, kiss and you know guys, you know, we
Speaker 3: challenge our perimeter guys, uh to contain the ball, and
Speaker 3: I think they did that Tonight's casual.
Speaker 2: He didn't even like clown them. Really, he was just like, listen, Uh, Charlotte,
Speaker 2: they're just a better team, truthfully. Like they shooters, they
Speaker 2: moved the ball really well. They've got them all over
Speaker 2: the place. They make a bunch of jump shots. Boston.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're just he just said it, so chill,
Speaker 2: like Boston, They're just a nice, so heavy team. Everybody
Speaker 2: knows that, so it becomes easier to load up and
Speaker 2: try to stop them. And guys like Matis Steibel, it's
Speaker 2: like work when you know Jason Tatum's gonna go dribble, dribble, drible, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble,
Speaker 2: dribble thirty footer, Like you know, it's pretty easy. Well,
Speaker 2: we know what he's gonna do, which is not past
Speaker 2: the ball. He drug them out back and laid their
Speaker 2: corpse on the street, and he drove over them without
Speaker 2: even meaning to. He said, that's so matter of fact,
Speaker 2: and cue the Jordan meme. The Celtics caught note of
Speaker 2: that presser and they took that personally, and something at
Speaker 2: that very moment apparently clicked in the Boston locker room,
Speaker 2: because since that game, they've been winning. And there's one
Speaker 2: reason we can identify that they have become so much
Speaker 2: better pretty much overnight, besides their defense, passing, just passing
Speaker 2: the ball. It's unusual how just cutting without the ball,
Speaker 2: passing said ball around till you get an open look
Speaker 2: can help you win games. Somehow, some way em Udoka
Speaker 2: has gotten Celtics to do the one thing that they
Speaker 2: haven't done in the last three years as well as
Speaker 2: earlier this year. And his introductory presser, Udoka said, you know,
Speaker 2: Hunter Brad Stevens that we're among the worst in the
Speaker 2: NBA for assists that year, that we are going to
Speaker 2: play team basketball, and he's fought tooth and nail and
Speaker 2: clawed and tried carrots and tried sticks, tried a blend
Speaker 2: of carrots and sticks and found out a way. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's not just me. Maybe Joe l Embiid needs to
Speaker 2: say some mean things. In other words, Joelle being like
Speaker 2: all they do is I soo, which everyone knows, like
Speaker 2: this is not a new concept. We all know that
Speaker 2: that's what Boston Celtics have been doing. But Joe Allenbian
Speaker 2: said it's just so casual, and I think it just
Speaker 2: hit different, hit different, and all of a sudden they
Speaker 2: started to share the rock. Udoka says, I think that
Speaker 2: the Celtics, this team are embracing being playmakers, helping everyone
Speaker 2: else score. And it is pleasing to me and noticeable
Speaker 2: when we play that way. Turnovers are down, assists her
Speaker 2: up because we're just getting rid of the ball and
Speaker 2: that's why they're winning. And that lost to the Pistons
Speaker 2: you can identify and make sense because you realize in
Speaker 2: that game they had no Marcus Smartin, they had no
Speaker 2: Robert Williams, two guys that have been very instrumental to
Speaker 2: this team identity shifting. And because they're buying into EMA's ideas,
Speaker 2: I think this team is not the same as previous years. Also,
Speaker 2: they did go back to ISO basketball when they lost
Speaker 2: to the Detroit Pistons last night, So it just goes
Speaker 2: to show you there's about a one to one correlation
Speaker 2: between ISO and else. Here's another reason I think they're different.
Speaker 2: The Celtics played the Sixers again for the first time
Speaker 2: since Embiid absolutely excoriated them publicly and very casually in
Speaker 2: mid January, and exactly almost one month later this time
Speaker 2: they played them in Philadelphia earlier this week. Udoka gave
Speaker 2: them all of the pregame motivation that they needed, showing
Speaker 2: that quote from Embiid about it being easier to defend
Speaker 2: the Celtics than the Hornets, which the Hornics are not
Speaker 2: like some world beater, They're decent team, but Udoka said
Speaker 2: it stood out to me when he said it. I
Speaker 2: bet it did. I bet it days like listen, you see,
Speaker 2: everyone knows what you're gonna do. Bet it did. So
Speaker 2: the Celtics went out and just took a baseball bet
Speaker 2: to the Sixers. They want by forty eight points. Shite,
Speaker 2: and the Sixers were fully healthy at that time. I
Speaker 2: cannot believe this, but they held Philly to eighty seven points.
Speaker 2: The remarkable number, though, is that they only scored fifty
Speaker 2: seven points in a full three quarters. Deshaan Hoorn scored
Speaker 2: fifty seven points sometimes in a quarter and change what
Speaker 2: three quarters? Fifty seven points? They held mb to just
Speaker 2: nineteen points. They had to sit. Embiid's asked down because
Speaker 2: he was getting such a bad beat down. That game
Speaker 2: was in l as soon as the tip came down,
Speaker 2: Like what, He's only played nineteen minutes and he's averaging
Speaker 2: thirty four points during the previous twenty five games. Let
Speaker 2: me say it again for the folks in the back,
Speaker 2: Joel Embiid right now is averaging thirty four points in
Speaker 2: the last twenty five games. That was his lowest point
Speaker 2: total sense prior to Christmas. We are here thawing snow
Speaker 2: right now, we are a long ways from Christmas, and
Speaker 2: according to The New York Times, Doc Rivers said he
Speaker 2: and this is basically what the New York Times said
Speaker 2: about Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers, the coach of the seventy
Speaker 2: six ers, spent the game looking as though he were
Speaker 2: in line at the DMV. After the game, Doc said,
Speaker 2: you can literally see the improvement of their ball movement.
Speaker 2: The old Boston is more ISOs. This Boston is driving
Speaker 2: and playing with each other, and that is what makes
Speaker 2: them so much tougher. No shit, Like, why is this
Speaker 2: a complicated concept? They've also been one of the most
Speaker 2: best defensive teams in the NBA and they've just gotten
Speaker 2: better by adding Derek White, which as a side road
Speaker 2: kind of going back to the Knicks like this shows.
Speaker 2: This move shows that Brad Stevens is all in on
Speaker 2: emy Udoka because emy Udoka played for and learned under
Speaker 2: Greg Popovich, put a style of play in that San
Speaker 2: Antonio wrinkle and mode, and then they went out and
Speaker 2: got a fucking san Antonio spur to fit right into
Speaker 2: his system. You don't do that when the guy's locked
Speaker 2: down for another three to four years. If you don't
Speaker 2: believe that this is the coach of your future. When
Speaker 2: you get players that do not fit with the style
Speaker 2: of coach that you have, that shows two things. You're
Speaker 2: either stubborn with a huge ego or you don't believe
Speaker 2: in that coach long term. So you're getting other pieces
Speaker 2: that fit some other guy that may be there in
Speaker 2: the future. So that's actually a really good thing and
Speaker 2: shows that e Ma and Brad are on the same page.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, Derek White just plugs right
Speaker 2: into the system being a better defender, doing everything that
Speaker 2: he knows works for where he just was. Have all
Speaker 2: the problems in Boston been fixed? No, I mean you
Speaker 2: just saw. You just saw what they can be. Right,
Speaker 2: It's still a wonky roster. They're times that they revert
Speaker 2: back to their natural state, like their natural DNA is
Speaker 2: to just do a million dribbles and a contested step
Speaker 2: back twenty footer. Or when Marcus Smart is in the game,
Speaker 2: he literally brings the ball up and shoots from the
Speaker 2: top of three nine seconds in the shot clock without
Speaker 2: passing to anyone, sometimes at crunch time, sometimes multiple times
Speaker 2: a game. So this is a team who has that propensity.
Speaker 2: If you can corral them and stop them from doing
Speaker 2: idiotic things like that. This team can be dangerous. Just
Speaker 2: ask the Sixers how capable the Boston Celtics are at
Speaker 2: beating the shit out of a team who was just
Speaker 2: the number one team in the East last year. So
Speaker 2: I would personally love, love, love love to see a
Speaker 2: first round matchup between the Celtics and the Sixers, which
Speaker 2: would be fireworks for days and fodder for an out
Speaker 2: or for revenge situation too. My god, I cannot wait.
Speaker 2: That's all the time that we have for the Heat Check.
Speaker 2: Will be back Monday with a new episode. Please do
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