Gut Check

No, Shank is not talking about his efforts at weight loss but about tonight's Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors:

It’s time for a Brad Stevens team to step up and win a gut-check game. The 2020 Celtics will be defined by what happens in Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors Friday night in the Orlando bubble.

Impressive grasp of the obvious...

Six games have established that the Celtics are better than the Raptors. It’s been clear throughout this series. Boston won the first two games, and led Game 3 by 2 points with 0.5 seconds left. The Celtics were a half-second away from a de facto sweep of the defending NBA champs.

Wait a minute - this is a seven game series, and the Celtics were going to sweep the series with three wins? Am I missing something here?

Oh, it's a de facto sweep - silly me!

OG Anunoby’s miracle three gave Toronto new life, but the Celtics recovered and thoroughly pantsed Toronto in an easy Game 5 win. The Raptors needed two overtimes and some critical calls Wednesday to force a seventh game.

I'm not sure I buy that logic; after all of that they're tied with three wins each.

So here we are. To advance to the NBA’s Final Four, all the Celtics have to do is beat a clearly inferior Raptors team.

This is it. No excuses. No complaining about Nick Nurse complaining (maybe Brad could find his inner Red Auerbach and get in the ears of the officials now and then). It’s time for these Celtics to demonstrate that they are as good as their blindly loyal fan base says they are. Time for the Celtics to put on their big-kid pants and fulfill the great expectations fans have for them.

You may have noticed by now the 4,624th interation of one of Shank's finest column templates - place huge (and perhaps unrealistic) expectations on the local pro sports franchise so you can take the mother of all shits on them if they lose ('they simply aren't that good', etc.). Time will tell but I'm a little more certain of this now than I was when the Bruins bowed out of the playoffs.