Pre-Game 4 - Celtics vs. 76ers

Won't say much here...I know...Shocker, but let the series play out.  OK, maybe just a little extra.  I am not surprised that the media, in this case ESPN, wrote an article about PHI's after-G3 (team) meeting where things were aired out, things were said about other players mothers, blah, blah, blah.  Just like during Joe's after G2 presser, he was taken aback by the fact that the media was not asking questions about how Boston adjusted and came storming back to beat the crap out of PHI in G2.

I'm always leery of these "reported" team meetings.  It's clear the media is all-in on the PHI story and far less on ours since the media will get the story they want either way with PHI, win or lose.  We come across as an annoyance or afterthought to the press.  Right now they are desperately hanging on the to the hopes that PHI can turn this thing around beginning today at 3:30pm.  Watch their tone change like day and night if and hopefully when Boston takes G4.  It will go from we're writing and saying everything we can Kumbaya love-fest for PHI to finally get the never ending Process completed this year to a pride-led Animal Planet gazelle ambush on the Serengeti.    

Here's what Boston needs to do.  Do exactly what they did in the last two games.  Flush out all the other background noise and surgically take PHI out of the equation today.  In other words...acting like champions.  It's just business.  Nothing personal.  Now we have a few ghosts of our own which the media (and us, myself included, on this site) like to harp on when they pop up, but I'm positing that a corner has now been turned and it will finally begin to manifest itself today.  The way our players are acting, the way they talk about each other, the way they talk about TEAM play, the way they play...they are acting like and playing like past Celtic champions.  Everyone is on the same page.  Nothing rattles them.  Calm, cool and collected.  Boston's weapons are too many and too deep to overcome.  We know it and we're acting like it.  Confident, not cocky, no loose canons mouthing off.  Same page.  

Don't get me wrong.  I like Embiid.  He is a great face of and for the league going forward along with Antetokounmpo (just showing off spelling without checking!).  He deserved the award just like all our well-coached media savvy players said in their respective post-game pressers.  But our players and coach did not let that distract them.  They let that motivate them just as when Russell discovered the balloons in the rafters in LA 1969 going back and telling the team pre-game.  

And that's what I think will happen today.  Yes, PHI had a team meeting.  So did we after G1 but nobody covered that or wrote a story about it.  They just expected us to win G2 and that was it.    

I have to give the media credit on this one.  Riding the PHI horse this season makes the most sense as it's win/win for the scribes.  If Boston blows this series, they'll leave us behind like an ass-wiped piece of toilet paper at the airport.  We're young, we'll be back blah, blah, blah.  But if PHI loses, especially today, the narrative will turn on PHI like no other because the media knows destruction and sex sell WAY better than Dr. Feelgood true champion stories like ours.  Heck if PHI does lose this series, the media may just take off and completely ignore the ECF to focus on what in Hell's Bathroom will be going on in PHI.  Doc would be gone before the EFC even starts, but he'd be the easy scapegoat.

All I'm sayin' is, I think we've turned a corner mentally as champions and it should manifest itself before our eyes beginning today around 3:30pm.

Hallelujah! Amen!

db

The Embid conundrum continues.  

A Celtics/Sixers playoff series adds to a rich history for Celtics fans.

Let me reference a little history about slaying the beast.

Wilt Chamberlain played against the Celtics 49 times during the playoff,  He averaged 25 PPG 28 rebounds and 4.4 assists.  His record vs the Celtics was 1-7.  His only playoff win came in 1967.

The Sixers won that series because Wilt was not the guy.  He averaged around 21 PPG on only 14.4 FGA.  However he led his team with 50 assists in 5 games or 10 assists per game.  

The point I am trying to make is that Embid can best help his team win by being more of a distributor against what has turn into a swarming defense against him  Make no doubt about it.  The Sixers are an outstanding 3 point shooting team.  They do not take enough 3 point shots.

Will Embid step up in game 4 after having a crappy game 3 outing?  Will he try to do that by scoring more points?  Will he become a self-imposed black hole?

This game should be fascinating.  How CJ and his team adjust to different strategies during the game will decide the final outcome.