Record: 22-24 (worth it!)
“A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight!”
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C’mon, don’t tell me that Ebola Embiid didn’t stand up in the Sixer locker room before tip-off and give an African war cry in the mold of Aragorn rallying the troops before storming the Black Gate! Don’t do it!
“Every year we come here to this city to play these players and EVERY YEAR, we have lost. Well guys, I’ve seen death. I’ve spoken to God. What we spoke about is between him and me, but what matters for us here today is that I have accepted fate. I am one with my destiny. And my destiny is to come back from appendix surgery, WHEN ALL Y’ALL NIGGAS DOUBTED ME, and carry us to the Promised Land. Hear me and hear my message. Before my son, Arthur, here today sitting courtside, I will lead us to a place we have never been. Past the Celtics. Past the Oligarchs. Past the Media Monopoly that holds us all down. Today, we stand and fight for the working man! Today, I am going to get an and1 on Derrick “Alien Eyes” White and do my cross chop celebration FOR THE PEOPLE! We are not fighting for our lives, we are fighting FOR THE PEOPLE! FOR FREEDOM! FOR LIBERTY! AHHHHHHH!!!”
Jesus Christ that dick-kicking of the Celtics was cathartic to watch. We are going to disavow any and all accusations of looking at Ebola Embiid’s face during the almost-collapse of the fourth quarter and saying that we didn’t see leadership and competitiveness in that face. We only believed in Ebola Embiid from the second the game started. We looked at the Celtics’ roster and we understood that those players were not NBA-level players. We looked at the Sixers’ roster and we understood that those players were solidly above-average NBA-level players. We only picked the Celtics to cover 7.5 points as an emotional hedge. That’s our story and there will be no debate. We did not pay Stormy Daniels for silence regarding our lack of sexual stamina and saying that the only way to escape the trailer park was to have sex with us so that she wouldn’t embarrass us before the 2016 presidential campaign. We paid for her silence so that we could protect our family.
Who protected us from putting any belief into this substandard Celtics team during the preseason? Certainly not mainstream media, who can’t stop talking about Jaylen “Tin Man” Brown and the Celtics. Certainly not me. I don’t watch the preseason! Really, who fucking thought that this trash Celtics team was worth emotionally investing in? That team is so bad. But before we dig in to the incompetence littering the Boston Celtics’ roster, we have to take shots at Celtics’ Coach. In previous installments of this hallowed tradition unlike any other, we have accused Celtics’ Coach of looking like a pedophile. We might be wrong about that recollection, but we’re pretty sure. Eyewitness testimony is usually fallible. What’s infallible is the coaching strategy of playing good players instead of bad players, and Celtics Coach didn’t do that when he started “Luka Garza” over Neemias Queta. You can take a gander at the box score and plainly see the minutes totals for both of those bigs. You can also see that Celtics Coach started “Luka Garza” in that Game 7. Holy fuck that was just really egregious. The spin that Celtics Coach will put out to defend that decision will really be something special. Sure, Queta makes a lot of loose-ball fouls. That’s not a reason why you bench him for “Luka Garza”. The only thing that “Luka Garza” is better than Neemias Queta at is walking the runway, but they’re man so that’s, like, not important. What is important is shot-faking Andre Drummond into the netherworld and pivoting around Ebola Embiid’s fat ass. Queta did those things! What, Celtics Coach, does Neemias not fill your stomach with butterflies that remind you of the time you had that primordial sexual relationship with your first minor? Fuck you Celtics Coach! We hate the Celtics, but that kind of stuff has no place in Playoff Basketball! It has no place in America!
Listen, apparently, there was a failed challenge by Celtics Coach. We don’t remember watching that. That’s plainly negligent but it’s not why Celtics Coach was a disgrace to America. That was because he played “Luka Garza”. Not just that, but Celtics Coach started him! The plus-minus tells you the correct story about “Luka Garza”. The Sixers got out to a 14-point lead after the first quarter and slowly pissed away the lead over the remaining three quarters. That’s how the game unfolded. And the Sixers only got that lead because Celtics Coach somehow came to the conclusion that “Luka Garza” needed to play. Just wild stuff.
Who else was a bad player who ended the Celtics’ season? Baylor Scheierman. Baylor might’ve had a thirty-point triple-double at the end of the preseason against the Magic, but he was way off on the three open shot attempts that he had in Game 7, and the crazy stepback three that he took hit just the backboard on it’s flight past the rim. Yes, Baylor got some rebounds. That was great. The Celtics gave the Sixers a very frustrating rebounding problem, but Baylor needed to make one of his three three-point attempts, and he needed to make that open floater shot from the side over Ebola Embiid. Baylor didn’t. He’ll be a fine player going forward and he might be the fourth-best Nuggets player if he played with Tom Riddle, but he didn’t meet the moment when Celtics Coach started him.
The last Celtics player who is truly dogshit and makes you wonder how the heck the Celtics got the 2-seed in the Leastern Conference playoffs is Hugo Gonzaléz. Listen, it’s my mission in life to escape the morbid obesity, obnoxious retardation, and billionaire-worship of America and emigrate to Valencia, but not everything about Spain is going to be great. Evidently, I’m going to need to fix the basketball culture when I get there because if Spain is making niggas like this Hugo Gonzaléz dude, that’s not OK. It’s fine that they need me to do that because I’m spiritually Eastern European and Black (basketball!), and fixing an entire country’s basketball culture is well within my range of capabilities.
Here, let me describe to you Hugo Gonzaléz just through his basketball traits! Let me put on my scouting hat! Not just a non-shooter. Incompetent shooter with a mental block against making shots. Misses free throws. Misses open three-pointers that Ebola Embiid begs him to take. Six feet, five inches tall (two meters), so not tall. Not someone who dunks the ball. Does he get that Spanish ass down and slide his feet to contain people like Tyrese Maxey? Well, no one in the world can do that against Tyrese Maxey, but Hugo seemed to only guard Ebola Embiid. Fouls A LOT. That’s how Hugo played defense against Ebola Embiid. He fouled him and asked the dipshit refs not to call every one. 4 fouls in 13 minutes so the dipshit refs kind of accepted the challenge. Gets dipshit refs to call illegal screens. If there is a turnover that results from an offensive foul, Hugo is there to help you out. And after Hugo gets the opponent to get called for an illegal screen, he’ll scream to the crowd like he just made a shot that decided the game.
Listen, I’m all for screaming during the game and being a warrior, but you need to make shots to do that. It’s in poor taste to scream to the crowd after you get a charge or an illegal screen called. That’s not basketball.
Yeah, Hugo sucks and Brad “Our Basketball Twin Flame” Stevens needs to figure out something else with that roster spot.
So that’s the list on truly awful Celtics players who played a lot during that Game 7. Their best player was Neemias Queta (who was benched for “Luka Garza”). Neemias is extremely athletic but he also shot-fakes and pivots like a basketball player. Doesn’t miss free throws. How did Neemias not have the starting spot locked down for the entire season?! Only one offensive rebound for Neemias so we’re going to go with the story that he boxed out Ebola Embiid and allowed Alien Eyes and Peyton “P Rabbit” Pritchard to scurry into the paint and grab offensive rebounds. Really, the Sixers had a rebounding problem. Not like the Nuggets, but it was serious. Quick comparison, the Sixers allowed 10 offensive rebounds in that game and it was obvious and frustrating. The Nuggets allowed 19 offensive rebounds in their Game 6 against the Timberwolves. When dumb assholes who aren’t me tell you that the Nuggets “went out soft”, they’re trying to tell you in their convoluted, inarticulate way that the Nuggets allowed 19 offensive rebounds in a single game. Jesus Christ.
90% from the field, 100% from the line, 12 rebounds from Neemias Queta. And “Luka Garza” started over him! Sometimes when you make a single decision that is so egregiously awful, all your other decisions don’t matter. Famed economist Michael Kremer named the O-Ring Effect, saying that within any complex process, one critical failed component can take the entire value of a project to zero. “Luka Garza” was Celtics Coach’s “O-Ring decision”. “Luka Garza” is the zero that Celtics Coach multiplied his roster by and it erased the entire season’s output.
The Celtics shot terribly. Sometimes they do that. They could’ve overcome that. The threes that the Celtics did attempt were mostly wide-open. Playing a defense that includes this version of Ebola Embiid will allow you to attempt open threes. Now, the problem with that is that Alien Eyes will not convert those open opportunities. Alien Eyes protects the rim and it’s crazy that he does that despite being 6’-5”. Two of Alien Eyes’ blocks were at the rim (Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes), and the other was on an Ebola Embiid fadeaway midrange attempt that Alien Eyes gathered and ran down the other end for a made layup. That’s incredible. That’s amazing. Alien Eyes is a great player who can not be responsible for being the second most important offensive player on a team. He was this year until Tatum came back and since Tatum didn’t play, it forced Alien Eyes to return to a spot that he shouldn’t be in. If it wasn’t for Baylor Scheierman missing all of his open shots and Hugo Gonzaléz being a complete nothing on offense, the Celtics would have overcome Alien Eyes’ abysmal shooting. They didn’t and they lost.
We say hello to Jaylen “Tin Man” Brown, and we bid him adieu! Au revoir, monsieur!
Tin Man also helped out Alien Eyes in the fight to protect the rim. 3 blocks. Yes, Tin Man scored a lot of points and some of those shots were excellent. But Tin Man wasn’t exceptionally amazing. The most noteworthy thing that Tin Man did was get the dipshit refs to call Ebola Embiid for a charge on Tin Man and then somehow get the dipshit refs to call a technical foul on the Sixers. This was not the dipshit refs’ most well-officiated game. It’s kind of a miracle that Ebola Embiid battled through the adversity that the dipshit refs gave the Sixers by giving the Celtics every single 50-50 call. The dipshit refs even gave Nick Nurse (and his extra 30 pounds since he won the championship with Kawhi) an easy opportunity to win a challenge when the dipshit refs thought that Tin Man hitting the ball out of bounds meant that it was the Celtics’ ball. Shout out to Paul George for diving on the floor to force that ball off of the Tin Man’s hands! Paul demanded that challenge call from Nick and Nick happily twirled his finger in the air. Paul George deserves a coach’s respect when asking for a challenge. Who doesn’t? DeAndre Ayton. JJ Redick could not give less of a fuck when DeAndre Ayton gets indignant about a dipshit ref decision. Anthony Edwards also kinda has that lack of credibility with Chris Finch. All the superstars have pull with their coaches when demanding challenges, but one of the non-stars who gets challenges when they ask for them is Mike Conley. OK, we’re done with that.
Paul George looked positively spry from the moment this game started and it’s incredible to witness! Maybe taking 25-game breaks during the preseason can be more customary now that Paul George is showing us what is possible from a 34-year-old, given appropriate load management.
Yes, Paul George got repeatedly shut down by Sam Hauser. Niggas don’t respect Sam Hauser’s lateral mobility and niggas be doing that to their own detriment. That’s fine because Paul George came through with making some of those tough shots that Sam forced him to take. Paul George also set the fucking tone after hearing Ebola Embiid’s pregame speech by dusting Alien Eyes on a jab-step and dunking the fucking ball at the start of the game. Yes, Paul George screamed after that. You scream after making dunks, Hugo! That’s when you do that!
Alien Eyes got lost on that Paul George jab-step and Alien Eyes also lost Kelly Oubre twice on off-ball backcuts for dunks. Kelly won’t make an open corner three, but he’ll dunk that ball if he’s open near the rim. Alien Eyes had some great defensive plays, and also some key screwups. Those among them.
Did we know that Quentin Grimes was good? Kinda. Maybe. We definitely respect Quentin Grimes WAY more now that we watched him play that Game 7. Quentin Grimes had a hesitation while leading the fastbreak that gave pause to the Celtics defenders. Was Quentin actually going to nut up and attack the rim because there wasn’t anyone guarding him, or was he going to pussy out and pass the ball to someone else? Quentin took that ball and tried to dunk that motherfucker! Damn, if Quentin made that dunk attempt over Queta, that would have given Jamal Cain a serious contender for Dunk of the Playoffs. Queta fouled Quentin but the dunk still had a chance to go down. Quentin is a sterling athlete. You see it when he tries to dunk Queta back to Portugal. You also see it when Quentin sits his ass down on defense and moves his feet. Quentin is hard to screen like King Leonidas is/was. When you watch Quentin play defense, you see a junk yard pit bull pull against the chain, rearing to separate limb from limb. Quentin Grimes can play on my team any day. Don’t forget about Quentin’s patience as a post-entry passer. Quentin will pass-fake away and then come back to Ebola Embiid on the block! It’s a slept-on skill of basketball and it’s important. Post-entry passing.
The Sixers also have Tyrese Maxey showing us that he is ready to fight for Rohan when he plays defense. Yes, sometimes we question Tyrese’s strength on defense but he sits down and tries. Like Limp Dick, but the opposite.
But more importantly, Tyrese is impossible to stop on defense. The Celtics have guys who guard smaller players. The Celtics do not have anyone to stay in front of Maxey because such a player does not exist. Tyrese can get to the rack against anyone and against the Celtics, he did exactly that to seal the game when Ebola Embiid got too tired to continue making shots. During the first three quarters, you watched this game and felt that Maxey was not carrying the load. You watched the first three quarters and thought, “Wow, Ebola Embiid is really going to do this, THIS year? Wow!”. Then you thought, “Here we go. Ebola Embiid is going to choke this away. How does he do this every year? This is incredible. Fuck the Celtics.” Then you went to, “What has Tyrese Maxey done in this game to help out Ebola Embiid?!?” Finally, you finished at, “Fuck YEAH. That’s TYRESE MAXEY niggaaaa! Fuck with me! That’s goddamn right Maxey! Win the fucking game!”
So yeah, that was roughly the emotional arch that Dad went through watching the entirety of this game. That turnaround was mirrored in his opinion of VJ Edgecombe. Previously, Dad was unsure about VJ’s “basketball awareness” and now Dad thoroughly endorses VJ as an excellent player. VJ is excellent. He showed up for that competition in a way than Kon Knueppel did not show up for either of the Hornets’ play-in games. Yes, VJ had a terrible outlet pass intended for Ebola Embiid that Ron Harper deflected. Completing that pass was a guaranteed two points. Oh well. There were loads of other plays that VJ made to thoroughly deserve Dad’s endorsement.
Five made threes, 47% field-goal shooting, and 6 rebounds from VJ. Yes, when the Sixers only have 9 turnovers as a team and VJ has a third of those, you really feel each of the three. But VJ hacked down his fair share of orks. Make no mistake. VJ gets more than his share of GMR. Dad and I both love that. You need GMR when Ebola Embiid gets too tired to finish possessions. Paul George, even in his current spry state, is not one to clean up on the glass. VJ is. He really hangs in the air. VJ’s bounce is incredible. His bounce and his mental fortitude to hit shots on the road in a Game 7 as a rookie. VJ Edgecombe will be on my fantasy basketball team next year.
Did Ebola Embiid live up to his pregame speech? Of course he did. Ebola Embiid is assuming his place as Hero Of The Playoffs after that Game 7! Jesus Fucking Christ, Ebola Embiid smelled competition and he showed up. Just amazing shot-making that Ebola Embiid gave us in that game. He jab-stepped and barrelled his way to winning the series! He absolutely got tired and started losing focus but you (and I) can’t complain about Ebola Embiid right now. Not on this day! On this day, Ebola Embiid fought. The king has returned.
Magic 🪄 (+8.5) over PISTONS 🚗
- Sorry, but I just got done picking the Celtics to cover 7.5 points in a game 7. I can’t take another home team to win by margin like that.
Raptors 🦖 (+8.5) over CAVALIERS 🤺
- Same deal. I’m watching this game and I’m kind of excited. I can’t watch this game and be tied to Little Game James. That’s not me. That’s not us. We’re better than that!
