It’s Thursday, March 6 – here’s what to watch the rest of the week
1. How Jackie MacMullen Fixed the Celtics
Who knew that all it took to fix Gordon Hayward and the Celtics was a longform article by Jackie MacMullen, one of the most respected NBA columnists for thirty years now and counting?
The Celtics were in a serious rut. Coming into Wednesday 3/5, they were 3-7 in their last 10 (1-5 since the All-Star break) and the locker room was a mess. Marcus Morris was questioning his teammates’ fight. Kyrie Irving was sparring with the media. Marcus Smart was quoted as saying that the team was “just not together.”
And Gordon Hayward was struggling. Boy was he struggling. He’d been struggling all season, to the tune of averaging 11 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists. Obviously, everyone could see that he still hadn’t come close to fully recovering from that devastating, gruesome ankle injury in the opener of the 2017-18 season. So Jackie MacMullen did what she does best – she wrote about it.
She wrote about Hayward’s physical hurdles. She wrote about Hayward’s mental hurdles. She wrote about Hayward’s loneliness in going through his rehab by himself before he’d really had a chance to make any friends on his brand new team. And frankly, it provided some humanity to the Gordon Hayward storyline.
And you know what else? It apparently fixed the Celtics! Wednesday night, the Celtics absolutely ran the Warriors off the court, to the tune of Golden State’s worst home loss in the Steve Kerr era. The 33-point drubbing in Oakland was a wire-to-wire affair that saw Gordon Hayward pour in 30 points off the bench, likely his best performance in Celtic green.
I wonder if I could convince MacMullen to write an article on my struggles to win the lottery or have sex with Margot Robbie.
2. Yeah, the Warriors Are Struggling – Does it Matter?
I mean, does it?
Everyone’s looking at Boogie Cousins. In the 17 games he’s played since returning, he’s averaging 15.5 and 8. Unspectacular but solid, especially when you remember he hasn’t played in nearly a year and returned to a brand new team midseason.
But where issues are showing up is on the defensive end, as teams look like they’re attacking Cousins. Granted, all of this has been exacerbated by Klay Thompson missing the last two games. But even in Thompson’s last six games in the lineup before his injury, the Warriors were 2-4 (including back-to-back losses to Miami and Orlando).
I think people are just freaking out because the Warriors got absolutely mowed down by the Celtics Tuesday night. Nobody’s going to beat them in a best-of-seven series, and their focus will improve (as it always does) come playoff time.
This team knows that this is its last go-round, one way or another. You can even feel it as an outsider. Everyone can’t stay, and it looks like Durant is going to be the odd man out.
It’s a bit ironic that the Warriors know they must drown out all of the outside noise, and go on one last run for one last championship. But…if they can drown out the outside noise well enough to win another championship, why blow things up at all?
3. Bogut’s Back
Andrew Bogut is back in the NBA, clearly not content with how his previous stint in the league came to a close.
And what was that previous stint, you ask? Well, throwing his 23-game stint with the Lakers last year aside (because really, who actually watched the Lakers last year?), our last impression of Bogut as NBA fans was his legendary stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016-17 season. Bogut played all of 58 seconds before he broke his leg.
Now he heads back to Golden State, where he played a key role for four seasons on those early Warriors teams when they were originally getting over the hump. Like then, Bogut now may be the key piece for the Warriors this time around, and he might propel them to another Finals victory. Lol jk.
Bogut’s career is hard to gauge. He was an NBA Champion with the Warriors in the 2014-15 season, when he also made NBA All-Defensive Second Team. With the Bucks, Bogut was ALL-NBA third Team in 2009-10 and led the NBA in blocks the following season. But he was also the No. 1 overall pick in the 2005 draft, and has spent much of his career bouncing around the league and dealing with injury problems.
What do I think? Well, as a Philadelphia homer, I gotta love a guy who contributed so much to the Sixers. On Feb. 23, 2017, the Dallas Mavericks traded Bogut, Justin Anderson, and a protected first-round pick to the Sixers for Nerlens Noel. Bogut never even dressed and was waived four days later.
4. A Look into the Rest of Luke Walton’s 2019
There are a lot of things we don’t know about the Los Angeles Lakers’ future: which free agents they’ll sign, which current team members they’ll retain, which ones they’ll trade, etc.
But there’s one thing that we do know for sure – Luke Walton is going to be fired at the end of this season. Who knows, maybe they won’t even wait that long.
So, knowing the kind of guy that Luke Walton is, how do we think he’ll spend the rest of his 2019? Here’s my Top 10 List, shoutout to Letterman (an all-time favorite of mine).
10. Dropping acid and following Dead & Company around the country in a Volkswagen van
9. Skipping school to drink soda and go surfing with his friends
8. Leaving voicemails for LeBron James
7. Occupying Wall Street – oh wait shit, that’s over?
6. Organizing nude Guatemalan yoga retreats
5. Studying his father’s teeth
4. Seeing if a basketball bounces higher after talking to it
3. Shopping for candles
2. Leaving more voicemails for LeBron
1. Flinching every time he hears either “magic” or “Johnson”
5. Did You Know?
…that the Pacers continue to blow everyone’s mind?
I (and everyone else) thought this team was colossally $#@!ed after Victor Oladipo went down on Jan. 23 against the Raptors. Season’s over, right? The Pacers ended up pulling that game out against Toronto, but it was little consolation.
Indy proceeded to lose their next four games, and outsiders could plainly see that they were right – the Pacers were colossally $#@!ed without Oladipo.
Here’s what the Pacers have done since then: they immediately reeled off a six-game winning streak, as part of a 10-4 stretch. Have they beaten anyone good in that stretch? Who cares. They’re making me eat my socks, and they have a legitimate chance of holding onto the No. 3 seed in the East.
Is this team going to represent the East in the Finals? No. But you have to admire their fight, and who knows. Maybe a big fish free agent is watching.
