Not Ready Yet

That's one conclusion drawn by Shank after the Celtics lost Game 6 (and the series) to the Golden State Warriors:

By blowing a massive opportunity, these Celtics showed they’re just not ready yet

The Celtics’ magical 2022 playoff run crash-landed on Causeway Street Thursday as the still-worthy Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship with a 103-90 Game 6 victory at the TD Garden.

Years from now, perhaps we’ll look back and see this as a building block for Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Co., but right now, it feels like one of the worst blown opportunities in 21st century Boston sports.

“It hurts that we fell short, but the future is bright,’’ said Celtics rookie coach Ime Udoka. " . . . This is just a start. The foundation’s been set. We can hit the ground running next year.’’

Missed Opportunity?

Shank looks at the Celtics' prospects after losing Game 5 of the NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors:

It’s not over for the Celtics yet, but it sure feels like it after this lost opportunity

It’s not over yet. It just kind of feels that way.

The Celtics lost Game 5 of the NBA Finals to the Warriors, 104-94, at the Chase Center Monday and trail this championship series, three games to two as they ready for Game 6 in Boston. If these Celts are to win the franchise’s 18th banner, they’ll have to beat the Dubs Thursday at home, and again Sunday in San Francisco.

Possible . . . but unlikely. This feels like one massive missed opportunity.

The Celtics need to stop complaining about officiating and regain their composure. And Jayson Tatum needs to step up and play like an All-NBA first teamer. Tatum had 27 points and 10 rebounds Monday, but this was a 1-point game going into the fourth quarter and Tatum again turtled down the stretch, making 1 of 5 shots with no rebounds and no assists in 11 soft minutes of the fourth. He was minus-13 for the night.

Missed Shots

You stop paying attention for a few days, and what do you know? Shank's been banging out the Celtics columns. A few days ago he's talking to Celtic greats Bob Cousy and Satch Sanders about the current crop of Celtics, yestrday Shank and a bunch of Globies make their series predictions (Shank says Celtics in 7 games), and last night Shank was quick out of the gate with a column on the Celtics winning Game 1 of the NBA Championship. I spotted the column about 35 minutes after the game was over, and there's almost no way to do a column that quick, so I'm going to ask him - is it voice to text he's using or is he like a 110 words a minute typer?

Doubling Down On Stupid

If you've been following the NBA Finals, you may have noticed how talented the 2016-2017 Golden State Warriors are. They were one win away from an accomplishment no other NBA team has ever done - winning every single playoff game without losing a single game. They have blown out the Cleveland Cavaliers twice on their home floor and will play tonight, once again on their home floor. Rational observers would conclude that tonight's game will be Mission Impossible for the road team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Then there's this guy:

I’m pulling for the Cavaliers, and for good reason

Go Cavs. Go LeBron. Bring the NBA Finals back to the Q, back to the land of the $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon, back to the city where Oil Can Boyd once said, “They built a ballpark by the ocean.’’

I don’t know about you, but I am loving these NBA Finals and I don’t want the series to end. The likelihood, of course, is that Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and the rest of the indomitable Warriors will finish off the Cavaliers on Monday night at Oracle Arena. confetti and superlatives will fly.

Durant will get his unearned ring and the “Warriors are the greatest ever” narrative will resume. I might have to submit that, like the UConn women, the Warriors are ruining their sport (only kidding, Geno).

He's delusional. Kevin Durant's the reason Golden State's been as good as they've been. You can make the argument that Durant's been playing as well as Lebron has. It's insulting to read something this ignorant, but we're reading a column by Dan Shaughnessy, so it comes with the territory.

But wouldn’t it be much better if the Cavs beat the Warriors in Game 5 and bring the series back to Cleveland for Game 6? Wouldn’t it be great to see the front-running Warriors play with some actual pressure for a change? Wouldn’t it be great if the Cavs could fly Kevin Millar into town and have him start telling everyone some basketball version of “Don’t let the Cavs win this game tonight. ’Cause then they got Schill and Pedro and anything can happen in Game 7!’’

Nothing reeks Shank quite like a Red Sox reference in an NBA Finals column!

I give you all of that. But Durant’s shameless ring-chasing (“Can’t beat the 73-win Warriors as a member of the Thunder? Think I’ll join them”) and the rush to anoint the Warriors best ever has made me a Cavaliers fan.

Question for Shank - how different is this from, um, LeBron James joining the Miami Heat years ago? Shank's suffering yet another case of Convenient Memory Loss in order to make a point.

And, of course, we need to mention Larry Bird! and those Celtics / Lakers teams of yore:

The star power of this matchup is as good as the NBA has offered since Celtics-Lakers gave us Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, and Robert Parish all in the same series. Those guys faced one another three times in four years. Now we have LeBron, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Durant, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Curry. We have had memorable moments in every game.

This is a quintessential Shank NBA Finals column as they get, Shankisms and all. Thank the Almighty we're one Warriors win away from not having to read another one for fifty weeks.

Columnist Republishes Column / Contradiction Watch

Dan Shaughnessy, May 11, 2016:

He is one of the top 10 talents in the history of the league. He still has some trouble closing and has won championships only twice in six appearances in the NBA Finals, but I can’t believe there’s a coach out there who would not take LeBron first if all players were available for an open draft to assemble a team for this year’s playoffs.

I will never understand the irrational LeBron hate that pollutes the sports landscape. Certainly “The Decision” was odious, and LeBron is a bit of a poseur, but he has done little to earn the hate that is showered on his huge head nightly.

Dan Shaughnessy, about two hours ago:

Another story line is the myth that LeBron doesn’t show up in big games (you were saying? - ed). It’s a big part of the irrational LeBron hate that infects most of the non-Cleveland world.

I love watching James play basketball and have never really understood all the LeBron hate. Sure, he was offensive with “The Decision,’’ and the “not one, not two” smokeshow in Miami. That was a long time ago. He can be something of a poser and sometimes hurts himself when he talks. He’s been known to launch himself into the baseline camera row for effect. He whines to the refs. He can be a coach killer. But the amount of hate and anger he generates is way out of proportion.

Shit like this ought to get you suspended or fired. Instead, we'll just have to settle for mocking him for epic laziness.

A 'Hidden' Gem

This Shank column from Saturday just sort of came out of hibernation from the Globe's website. Naturally, Shank doesn't like the Warriors and contradicts himself while complaining about it:

This series is supposed to be about the new and future brand of basketball played by the Splash Brothers.
...
I want the Cavaliers to win because I think it would be better for basketball. This is not Warrior-hating.
...
No one loves long-range shooting more than me (Larry Bird loves your long range shooting! - ed.), but I don’t want the Warriors’ game to be celebrated as the future of basketball. What they do flies in the face of more than a century of pick-and-rolls, give-and-gos, and three-man weaves. The fact is, Curry and Splash-mate Klay Thompson are legitimate freaks, able to do things that had never been done. They can create space and arc shots from international waters over 7-foot defenders. But this is not how the next generation of teams should be built. It is simply not sustainable.

Last night's Game 2 was more or less a repeat of Game 1.

So, to recap - Shank states that this series is about some 'new and future brand of basketball', compliments Curry & Thompson, then laments said new and future brand of basketball by going off on a half 'get off my lawn' tirade because the game of professional basketball may or may not be changing. The pick & roll and give & go cited by Shank (and ignoring the fast break for whatever reason) are not by themselves what defines professional basketball. It has always been changing - the implementation of the shot clock, the three-point line, the introduction of flagrant fouls (partly because of this epic Kevin McHale clothesline) and other tweaks & refinements more or less render Shank's arguments moot. I suspect he's just butthurt because Cleveland does not have the starting five and bench to compete against the Golden State Warriors, something that has been bloody fucking obvious to anyone (excluding Shank, apparently) who bothered to watch NBA basketball in recent months.