"We Are Going To Be Coming To Take The Title Away From Them (The Celtics)" - Daryl Morey May Be Drunk On Hope While Talking Out Of His Ass But His Overall Point Will Define The Celtics Season

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For the most part, I'm a Daryl Morey guy. He got his start back in 2002 as an executive with the Celts, he was obviously an early adopter of how important three point volume was and how would change the landscape of the NBA which ultimately brought us both Mazzulla Ball and an NBA title, he's one of the best at turning something out of nothing (Ben Simmons trade for example), and I do believe he was an CP3 pulled hammy away from having a title of his own.

But for the moment, he's the enemy. That's just how things work given what team he runs, which is why I couldn't help but notice his comments from yesterday

Look, what else do you expect him to say? July is the perfect time in the NBA calendar for hope, and it's what the Sixers do best. They and their fans are loud from July-April and then you don't really hear much from them after that. When it comes to this specific Celtics/Sixers matchup though, there's only one problem. Since Joe Mazzulla arrived, things most certainly haven't been pretty for the Sixers

Not to mention….you know….what happened in their most recent playoff series

And while anything can happen in the NBA, what we know is that in a playoff series, everything comes down to matchups. If you present a problem that your opponent simply cannot solve due to their roster construction, things aren't going to work out well for them. We just saw it in this year's playoffs in both conferences. 

To beat the Celtics 4 out of 7 times in a series, you need to be able to do several things. You need an elite point of attack defense at the guard position, you need wings with size and length who hold up defensively and shoot the ball, and as a team, you need to be able to match the Celts 3P volume and production. Teams who can do that were the ones who gave the Celts issues last season.

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The Sixers, for all the "big moves" they made this summer, did not really solve those problems

Jayson Tatum got whatever he wanted in this matchup, averaging 47% from the floor with a 60.3% TS%. Jaylen Brown averaged 48.9% from the floor with a 57.4% TS%. Unfortunately, Kelly Oubre Jr didn't do much to limit things on the wing, and sadly Caleb Martin isn't doing that either. Paul George is certainly an upgrade over Tobias Harris, but he is 34 and Tatum/Brown have each had their success against him as well.

In terms of the guard defense, Maxey/Lowry/Jackson isn't all that different from last year's group who had all sorts of problems slowing down both Jrue Holiday (14 a game on 47/44%) and Derrick White (18 a game on 42.6/40%). If you can't stop the dribble drives into the paint, you will not beat the Boston Celtics 4 out of 7 times. It's really that simple.

Even Joel Embiid's struggles against the Celts (and Al Horford) are well documented. His 23.5 points per game vs BOS were the lowest Embiid scored against any opponent not named GS (1 game, 14 points) this past season, and that includes games that Porzingis didn't even play. 

Again, a 6-2 record over the last two years combined with yet another playoff series win isn't by accident. It's a matchup issue, no different from what 95% of the rest of the NBA also experiences when playing the Celts. 

But at the end of the day, I have no real problem with Morey talking like this. It's what he's supposed to do and it illustrates the biggest storyline of the upcoming season, which is something the Celts are going to have to be ready for.

They are now the hunted.

This is what happens with every champion. You have the target on your back and 29 other teams are gunning for what you have. It happens every year with every champ. We saw how the Nuggets dealt with it this past season, and now after finally reaching the top of the mountain, it's time for the Celts to prove they not only can handle it, but are ready for it.

Something I think that works in their favor is the fact that they had a very similar target on their back for the entire 2023-24 season. Every single team they played treated that game like it was the Finals. Everyone wanted to beat the "superteam Celtics", shit the Hawks basically made a movie about the back to back wins they had in late March!

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so the idea of the Celts being the "hunted" isn't exactly new for this group. It's basically been that way for the last few years of the Tatum/Brown era given their success, only now they face that challenge as champions. That's really the only difference.

Sometimes when a team finally reaches their goal, they get complacent. That's what I'm most interested in seeing now that the Celts have finally gotten over the hump. It makes me think back to these Joe Mazzulla quotes

And have I said it multiple times, winning can be just as detrimental as losing if you don’t handle it the right way. And so our guys are doing a good job of handling it.”

What Morey said is no different from what the GMs of every other "contender" will be saying/thinking heading into the year, and that's the pressure that comes with being a champion. Everyone wants what you have and everyone starts the year 0-0. How the Celts handle that responsibility is not only going to define their season, it's going to determine whether or not they can find a way to repeat. As we just saw with the Nuggets, nothing is guaranteed.