After All-Star Game, C’s eye sprint to playoffs
The Celtics will resume their season Thursday night and will embark on playing 36 games in a span of nine weeks.
There’s been little time for rest in the 2020-21 NBA campaign, which started on Dec. 23 and saw each team plow through half of the 72-game schedule in 10 weeks.
For a team like the Celts, who advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference finals last September in the Disney World bubble, the whirlwind has been even more pronounced.
The majority of the league had a chance to recharge their batteries this past weekend during the All-Star break. Celtics’ rookie guard Payton Pritchard posted photos on his social media platforms that showed him sunbath
ing in the sand and swimming in the ocean, surrounded by palm trees.
But if you were an All-Star like C’s wings Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, you weren’t afforded that rest and relaxation.
It’s seemingly been all basketball, all the time since last July.
“The bubble, as much as I enjoyed it and as much as the NBA did a great job, it was a lot,” said Tatum before Sunday’s All-Star Game. “I think we were there for 80 days. Something of that nature just takes a mental toll, and obviously going deep into the playoffs. It was tough. We obviously had a really quick turnaround. But we’re not the only team. The Lakers went further than we did, they won it. They got some guys that are older than us on our team.”
The Lakers all-star duo of LeBron James, 36, and Anthony Davis, 28 on Thursday and battling a strained right calf and Achilles issue, are older than the 23-year-old Tatum and 24-year-old Brown.
So, yes, the younger you are, the better off you are in this sprint to the postseason. But the rush has made for some inconsistent basketball, as the 19-17 Celtics can tell you first-hand. The C’s resume action against Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night.
“I think that’s why the league
has kind of been so up and down this year,” said Tatum. “I think the bubble had a large part to do with that, especially the beginning of the season. Everybody was trying to get their wind back, trying to get back in shape.”
Tatum was out with COVID-19 earlier in the season and has been open about his recovery from the respiratory impact of the virus.
The coronavirus very much remains a factor as the season progresses.
Philadelphia 76ers’ head coach Doc Rivers, whose team has an Eastern Conference-best record of 24-12, sees a difficult stretch ahead.
“It’s a lot of games, a lot of back
to-backs,” said Rivers, who coached Team Durant in the AllStar Game. “I think there will be missed games by guys. I’m worried about all of that. We often talk about health and protocol, you know health and protocol is rest, too. I’m concerned a little bit about it, I’m concerned for our team.”
Talent impressed Brown
Brown struggled to find his rhythm during the All-Star 3-point contest on Sunday night and was eliminated after the first round.
However, he made up for it during the All-Star game by draining 5-of-7 3-pointers and scoring 22 points for Team LeBron in their 170-150 win.
Brown made a real tough turnaround, fadeaway triple from the corner, over the defense of New York Knicks forward Julius Randle. In the fourth quarter, Brown drilled a three and was fouled for a four-point play.
“I didn’t get the start I wanted in the 3-point contest, I didn’t hear them say ‘go,’” said Brown. “But definitely when I got to the game I felt a lot more comfortable.”
It was a great showing for the first-time All-Star Brown, as he outscored his teammate Tatum by a point and got the win over Tatum’s Team Durant.
Brown said he was inspired by the enormous amount of talent on one floor at the same time. He said he tried to pick the brain of James,
and mentioned how impressive it was to watch the display put on by Golden State Warriors’ guard Steph Curry, who had 28 points (eight 3-pointers) in the game and won the 3-point contest, and Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, who had 32 points (eight 3-pointers).
“When I got hot, Steph was the main person who was cheering me on,” said Brown. “I shot one from the logo, it didn’t go in, but Steph said he liked it. I was like ‘man, I thought I was you for a second.’
“To be honest, to watch some of these guys up close is unbelievable. Steph and Dame, I know they didn’t win the MVP, but some of the stuff they were doing out there was unreal. Shooting from the logo with that much ease and skill level, it just makes me so much hungrier to get in the gym and continue to work on my game.”
Avoiding disaster
There was much discussion on the subject of whether or not the NBA should have gone through with the All-Star Game in Atlanta in the face of the pandemic.
However, aside from a pregame hiccup that caused 76ers’ All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons to miss the festivities because of COVID-19 contact tracing, ESPN reported that all players, coaches and officials returned negative test results from the All-Star game.
“It was more fun than I thought it would be,” said Tatum.