Saturday 3/15/25
I think this is the most open the NBA has been in a long time, if not ever, with as many as a dozen teams having a chance to reach the Finals.
The Celtics, of course, are one of those teams, but I would be very surprised if they defend their title. They're too beatable. Look what the Thunder have done against them--they let the Celtics shoot themselves to death, in effect, behind that three-point line. The Celtics win or die with that shot.
They have all of these excellent basketball players with potentially complete games and a range of skill sets, and they just launch and launch and launch from distance. I could see them going out earlier than anyone else would expect. The Pacers could knock off the Celtics. A surprise team like that, only I don't think it'd be a huge surprise.
We're in a basketball era of win a championship, and that's it for your team. New champion every year.
The Pistons are a scrappy team--I believe I mentioned that in here at the beginning of the year in a loss they had against the Celtics in Detroit--that could cause problems for people.
The Thunder and the Cavs have been the two teams that have separated from everyone else during the regular season, but I wouldn't bet on the two of them meeting up in the Finals.
I wonder if the Cavs will be like the basketball version of the 65-win Boston Bruins from a few years ago. Maybe you peak too early, maybe you're more of a regular season club than a playoff team--there can definitely be a difference. Or maybe they'll slice through the East. But I'm somewhat expecting to for there to be a team in the Finals that would seem like a really unlikely team to get there here in mid-March. Is that Golden State? Minnesota? Milwaukee?
The other day I asked myself the order in which I thought Boston teams would win their next championships; that is, who'd be the next to win on through who'd be the last.
One is bound to get such a thing wrong--well, almost bound to--but I'd go like this:
Red Sox
Celtics
And then way back...
Bruins
Patriots
I understand not having the Celtics first is a strange choice. They could win it this year, after all. And, depending on what happens with the sale of the team, they could have the likes of Tatum and Brown for some time.
These Celtics remind me of the 2004 Pistons, but with more star power. They are at their best as a team, not as a star-led vehicle. Such teams tend not to be dynastic; they often win just once. This is a win-once kind of NBA. Win and that's it for you. Will the Nuggest win again? The Bucks? They could. But would it be surprising if they don't? It wouldn't be, right?
My thoughts on what the Red Sox have been doing over the last few years has been made clear. But in baseball, it's easier to win if you want to win--that is, if you're will to spend.
The Bruins and the Patriots are so far away that neither team might win a title for thirty or forty years--or longer. Again, I could be wrong, but there's something about Mike Vrabel--just to talk about the next iteration of the Patriots--that troubles me. I hear arrogance and to my thinking it suggests a possible fatal flaw.
I don't think people realize where the Bruins are at now. They have a depleted roster, a decided lack of talent. The people who do the draft are abysmal at drafting. This is a good hockey city, a good hockey market, and they can entice free agents to come here.
Charlie MacAvoy is not a player you want on your team. You don't want his game, his attitude, his "leadership." Same with Jeremy Swayman. He killed the Bruins season. They weren't going far, but Swayman, with his holdout, his attitude, the rifts he created, the coach he got fired, the drama, the horrendous play, murdered the Bruins' season.
He is the worst goalie in the league, and again, I'm unsure if people realize how bad he is. This contract is an albatross. You could be looking at the worst contract in the history of Boston sports, and certainly the Boston Bruins. Seven more years? That was, as I wrote at the time, an insane deal. There was no reason to do that. There was no reason to do half that many years or anywhere near that money. They should have moved on from this player.
Want to look at Swayman's last four games? They're a microcosm of his season.
On 3/13 versus Ottawa, he let in 4 goals on 15 shots in the first period and got pulled. That's just not acceptable.
On 3/11 versus Florida, he got the win, surrendering two goals on 28 shots, but if you watched the game, you'd know a different story got told.
These Bruins are offensively challenged. They can't be chasing the score. They need every point they can get. It may seem like they're in shouting distance of a playoff spot, but teams have games in hand, and when teams have games in hand and there are a bunch of teams in front of you as it is, you're really not as close as it appears--you're closer to being done.
Florida won an offensive zone face-off cleanly, with the puck going to the defenseman, who took a slap shot. Swayman had a clear view. No screen at all. He got beat, glove-side, on a shot he saw coming the whole time from sixty feet.
Guys don't play well for all kinds of reasons. But it's not that often that you can plainly see, from a player's game--not at this level--that he isn't focused. That his head is somewhere else. That he's not giving it his best. Swayman is out of position so often. He got his money and he checked out. You're watching a guy who doesn't care like he should care. That is very obvious to me. He's not a number one goalie, and he's a terrible teammate. I don't like anything about this player.
He's bad for your operation. Watching his interview after the game before, in which he was all predictably lachrymose about the departure of people like Brad Marchand--and I think Marchand disliked Swayman, for some of these reasons I'm describing--just made me think about how insincere he is.
It's someone who is full of shit, but in that whiny, Woke-y way. I don't mean politically. But Swayman has the soft attitude of someone who is a member of a soft generation. This isn't an age thing. It's an attitude thing, a weakness thing, a spoiled thing, an entitled thing, a not-exactly-rubbing-shoulders with cold truths and hard realities thing.
As for that game after which he was interviewed: This would be the 3/8 4-0 victory over Tampa Bay, the first contest after the Bruins unloaded a bunch of guys they needed to move on from--they did the right thing with each of those players. I thought this was their best game of the year, with a roster they patched together. What does that say? Well, it tells me that they cared more, that their were players on this team who had infested the attitude.
I don't think Marchand was a good captain. For far, far too long the Bruins had this thing that began with Chara and Bergeron and continued with Rask and Marchand, this attitude of nicey-nice and weakness and it was a lot of pretend nicey-nice and you get complacent and it's about feelings, etc. You don't win when it's about nicey-nice and feelings. That team--that core that dragged it carcass around for years--underachieved. They got all of one Cup, and they got it because they had a goalie who wasn't nice-nice. Tim Thomas was a competitive SOB--and I mean that as compliment--and he won them that Cup. Him and his balls.
But shutout, right? That's great, way to go Swayman. I saw the game. The Lightning hit four posts. That's a lot of puck luck. Game of inches. Easily could have been different. Swayman got beat four times. The puck just stayed out of his net. Not all shutouts are created equally.
Then we come to the 3/4 contest against Nashville, which the Bruins dropped 6-3. Swayman allowed 5 goals on 29 shots. That's an .828 save percentage. Horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
The longer a player like this is on your team, the longer it's going to take to get better. I say the same thing about McAvoy. The Bruins want--or believe they need--both of these guys to form the core of their next core, along with Pastrnak.
The latter isn't that kind of player either. He's a finesse guy who turns the puck over a ton. He's not a responsible player. The numbers he's putting up on this offensive sad-sack of a team are impressive. You know what he'd have been in the 1980s, though? A guy who racked up big numbers on bad teams. Those players can dipsy-doodle as much as they please because the team isn't going to win anyway. If they turn it over a bunch of times and take a -1 for the game, they still notched a goal and an assist.
If you're going to have a Pastrnak who plays like he does and you're going to be successful, he has to be a piece--almost like a luxury item--and not a go-to guy. His game is too sloppy for him to be your go-to guy. And he's not a leader either. Again, luxury item. He plays like a stat padder.
I could have the order way wrong, like I said. And I hope I'm wrong about the Celtics this year. But I see a team that's ripe to be surprised. I think they think that they'll flip a switch, clean up their act at home--which has been an issue all year--and make the plays that need making. Last year was a mirage. That was a fairly easy road to the title. Through no fault of their own, of course, but I don't think it made them battle-tested--watching the Celtics this year, it's made me think it gave them a false sense of security, and that includes their coach, who won't be a long-term NBA success story. He is also arrogant. There's something off about him.
But, you know, sports...one's often wrong about them when it comes to prognosticating.
Comments