March 31, 2025 • 22 mins
SOUND OFF is back! We're sounding off tonight on the Celtics absolutely rolling after they set multiple franchise records on a single night in Memphis. They're heading back to Boston on a nine-game winning streak and we're breaking down Al Horford's season-best scoring effort, Boston winning no matter who's in the lineup, and the top-notch effort they're bringing to the table every night. Let's go!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Sound off with me folks on the postgame pod. Being back,
let's go. I missed you all over the last three months.
I missed the energy, I missed the genuine love of
the Celtics, I missed the awesome postgame analysis from all
of you. And I am happy to be back. So
let's get into it, because the Boston Celtics are rolling.
(00:29):
The Celtics just closed out a season long road trip
in historic fashion. We'll start out with this. The Celtics
just logged a six and oho sweep of a road
trip for the very first time in franchise history, in
franchise history, anytime you can say that with the most
(00:51):
storied franchise in the game of basketball, it is a big,
big deal. And the Boston Celtics just did it. Now,
I know what a lot of people out there are
gonna say. The competition hasn't been the best, mostly sub
five hundred teams. Most of these teams are playing for
the lottery, not for the playoffs. I don't care. I
(01:17):
don't care who they played. I don't care who did
play and who didn't play. It doesn't matter. I can't
even explain to you how hard it is to go
six and zero on a road trip in the NBA,
let alone, winning them all by double digits, which is
exactly what the Celtics just did. This is nearly impossible.
(01:43):
It's insane. You need so much to go right, and
you need to be so damn consistent in order to
do something like this, and that's exactly what the Boston
Solics were on this trip. They were consistent from top
(02:04):
to bottom. Consistency. That's what you want to see as
the NBA playoffs are rolling around. You don't want dips,
you don't want to go from highs to low's. You
want to be consistent. And that's exactly what happened with
the Boston Celtics on this trip. It didn't matter who
(02:25):
in their lineup was in, who was out, who they
played against, how they played the game. They got it
done on all six nights over the course of almost
two weeks. And I just can't relay how impressive this is.
It is good to be a part of Celtics nation
(02:46):
right now. That is for damn sure. Now let's get
into the other part of this record setting night, and
that was Derek White. He just set the all time
franchise record for most three pointers ever made by a
Boston Celtic in one single season. Oh and by the way,
there's still seven games left. He needed two three pointers
(03:09):
to set the record. Tonight he wound up with three,
and now he's got two hundred and forty seven on
the season. Now, let me give you some context around
just how impressive that is and just how mind blowing
that is considering the start of his career. Okay, this
(03:30):
is a guy and I sent this out on my
Twitter and Instagram, but this is a guy Derek White,
who made three hundred total three pointers in his four
plus seasons with the San Antonio Spurs before joining the Celtics.
He's now made two hundred and forty seven this season alone,
(03:54):
more than anyone ever in a Celtics uniform. Let me
re repete that, in case you didn't catch it the
first time. He had made three hundred total three pointers
in his career with San Antonio in four plus seasons
before joining the Celtics. Now, this season alone, he's made
(04:16):
more threes than any player in franchise history, with two
hundred and forty seven this season with seven games left
to play. You want to talk about putting in the
work believing in yourself in figuring it out to become
just an absolute sniper from distance. That is what Derek
(04:40):
White has done since he joined the Boston Celtics. A
pretty incredible story really when you just think about the
context around how he began his career as a shooter
and what he's doing right now. As Drew Carter was
saying throughout the broadcast tonight, on top of making two
hundred forty seven in a record setting number here with
(05:01):
the Celtics this season, he has the highest clutch three
point shooting percentage in the league. In the league, the
guy doesn't miss when it matters, and he barely misses
in general. Really incredible what he's pulling off this season. Now,
one more thing I want to cover about this game tonight.
(05:24):
As we get closer to the playoffs, it's important to
watch how the Celtics respond coming out of timeouts. Do
they execute what Joe Missoula draws up. Do they stop
opponents runs when Joe Missoula calls for timeouts. These are
important factors as you get closer to the playoffs, because
(05:45):
you have to do those things when you want when
you get into the postseason and when you're trying to
make a long run. Tonight they as the test. The
game changed after Joe Missoula called for a timeout mid
way through the second quarter. Okay, Boston was down by ten. Okay,
Memphis had just gone on a little run. They scored
(06:06):
a couple straight buckets. Joe Missoula said, timeout, we got
to regroup. Okay, we got to hone in and get
back to our style of basketball. And the Celtics immediately
responded after that timeout. What did they do? A ten
two run over the next couple of minutes, basically erasing
the deficit, and they dominated the rest of the night
(06:29):
from that moment on. That timeout changed the game. And
yes it starts with Joe Missoula having the feel to Okay,
my team needs a break right now. We got to refocus.
But more importantly, it's on the team and the players
for how they respond when they step back onto the court,
(06:52):
and tonight they did it at such a high level
to completely turn the game in that moment, the ten
two run coming out of the timeout, and then they
dominated the rest of the night from that point on.
That is championship DNA right there. You can't measure it,
but being able to do that in a critical moment
(07:13):
of a game is what's critical to making a deep
playoff run. And as I said, they aced that test tonight.
It was impressive and it's a very important takeaway to
take from this game. We got to watch this moving forward,
as well as executing in the clutch out of timeouts.
These are very important things. But tonight they aced that test.
(07:34):
All right, we got a lot more to get into,
so let's take some comments from the fans. First up,
we got Liam on the Celtics winning while missing key players.
They've been doing that a lot this season. They continue
to do that on this trip. Next up, we've got
Stephanie on Al Horford looking like he's twenty seven, not
going on forty. And then lastly we've got Celtics Talk
(07:57):
Weekly on the effort the Celtics are playing with right
now every single night they take the floor. So first
up again we've got Liam, then we've got Stephanie, and
then the last but not least, we've got Celtics Talk Weekly.
Let's dive in first one right here. All right, first
comment of the night coming from Liam saying absolute wagon.
(08:20):
Only team in the league that can be like, yeah,
let's rest Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum and still win
by ten plus. This has been the story of the
year so far for the Boston Celtics. Maybe the most important,
I would say, the most impressive part of them being
(08:41):
on pace to win sixty plus games yet again this season,
it's that they haven't been healthy. I don't know the
exact number, but I'm pretty sure the starters, like the
full group of starters, White, Holiday, Brown, Tatum, Porzingis, I'm
pretty sure they've only played like twenty two games together
(09:01):
this season something like that. It's crazy. Out of almost
eighty and here the Celtics are with fifty seven wins
and on pace to win sixty plus. It's crazy. But
recently it's been even more impressive. Like Liam is alluding
to here, Like Jalen Brown missed tonight's game, as did
(09:22):
Luke Cornett. That's two of the top nine on the team.
Cornett's out. You gotta throw other players into the rotation.
Xavier Tillman started this game in a spot start in
the Celtics don't miss a beat. Jalen Brown has missed games,
multiple games on this trip. He's missed a good amount
(09:45):
of games recently as he recovers with that knee. The
Celtics don't miss a beat. Jason Tatum has missed games.
The Celtics don't miss a beat. Drew Holliday misses games,
don't miss a beat. Christas Porzingis is out, don't miss
a beat. Al Horford on the second night of back
to backs, he's out. Don't miss a beat. It's incredible
what the Celtics do on a nightly basis and the
(10:07):
consistency they play with when they don't have any consistency
with their lineup. I don't know if I have ever
seen a team that's been able to play at this
high of a level for the high majority of the
season with a lack of consistency from a health perspective
and who is active on a night to night basis.
(10:29):
If they're this good without their full team and without consistency,
just imagine how good they could become in the playoffs
if they do have health and consistency on the health
front and consistency on the lineup front. This team is
(10:51):
so talented. They've got so many players who can step
into any role that they need to step into on
a nightly basis. It's truly incredible to watch. I hope
that you are all soaking this in and understanding exactly
what the Celtics are accomplishing, because they have not been
(11:11):
anywhere close to as healthy this season as they were
last year. Okay, and that's when they won sixty four
games last year. Like this, truly is incredible what the
Celtics are accomplishing right now. So let's hope that they
(11:35):
can work themselves and hopefully that's part of the plan
right now of these guys missing games, is that they
need to miss games, they need to be able to recover,
and they need to be as close to one hundred
percent as possible when the playoffs arrive in just a
couple of weeks. I'd like to think that's the plan.
Hopefully that plan comes to fruition and all these guys
(11:56):
can stay healthy and get healthy. But man, the fact
that they just continue to win, in to Liam's point,
they don't only win, they win by double digits while
missing some of the best players in the NBA incredible.
What they've been able to accomplish this season as a
(12:19):
group as a team top to bottom. That is accountability,
that is consistency, and that is trust. And the guy
that's next to you on your right, on the guy
that's next to you on your left, the guy who's
in front of you, and the guy who's behind you.
Everyone trusts each other no matter what direction they are
(12:41):
looking into, and that is one of the most important
factors as to why the Boston Celtics are having this
incredible season that they're putting together right now, great comment, Liam,
and baby it is an absolute wagon right now. All right, Stephanie,
you are up next, and here's the comment, Al Horford
going back in time, Drew's game coming into true form,
(13:05):
Derek making history, the entire team peaking at the right
time banner nineteen exclamation point. I want to concentrate on
the first part of this comment from Stephanie, and that's
Al Horford going back in time. I mean, does this
guy age? Does he age? He looks exactly the same
(13:25):
today as he did when he first joined the Celtics
almost ten years ago. Like his game does not age
at all. The defense is there, the intelligence is there,
the shooting is there, the rebounding is there. He just
seems to get better as he ages. Most big men.
(13:53):
Let me take a step back, Lebron James like, it's
unfathomable what he has been able to accomplish playing in
year twenty two or whatever it is as a wing
and still being as great as he is. When you're
a player who's blessed with that level of athleticism and
(14:13):
skill and vision and all of these things, that's just
straight god given talent cannot be measured. There's a way
to hang around and be great basically forever until you
want to hang them up. Let's be honest right now,
(14:33):
like Al Horford wasn't blessed with this incredible level of athleticism,
And to be quite honest with you, big men typically
don't age well in the NBA. Typically it's big men
and guards who rely solely on speed and quickness. Those
are the ones who age out of the NBA the quickest.
(14:57):
But here's Al Horford pushing forty and given the Celtics
what he was giving in maybe even more than what
he was giving them when he first joined them. Tonight,
he said a season high with twenty six points. He
came off the bench, let Xavier Toilman get the spots
(15:17):
start twenty six points off the bench, nine rebounds, two assists,
nine of eighteen from the field, six of thirteen from
three point range, a fifty forty one hundred performance from
him shooting the basketball tonight because he made both of
(15:38):
his three pointers. Like Horford has delivered all season long,
there have been no dips in his game. He has
been great from start to finish. On nights like tonight,
where they call on him to play thirty seven minutes,
he does it at an extremely high level. On he
(16:00):
started more games than he's come off the bench this season,
and by the way, this is the second straight season
he's done that. But it doesn't matter if he starts,
doesn't matter if he comes off the bench. He's the
same guy every night, and that same guy is one
of the most important role players in the NBA with
all of the things that Al Horford brings to the table,
(16:23):
with his size, with his shooting, with his versatile defense.
I don't know how his agility, like his side to
side movement, has not aged with his age, but he
can still stay in front of these guys. He can
still defend at an incredibly high level. He's been awesome
(16:45):
this season, and tonight was arguably his best game of
the season, with the season high twenty six points to
go along with nine rebounds. So great to see big
Al playoff Al warming up for what's coming around the corner.
Drew Holly doing the exact same thing. We've seen his
game kind of tick up a bit here over the
(17:05):
past few weeks when he's been on the court. Eighteen
points tonight along with seven assistants, six rebounds, grab the steal,
shooting the ball well. You can see the rhythm of
the ball coming off of his fingers from long distance.
He looks good, he looks like he feels good, and
this is the right time of year to see him
start to round into his true form. As Stephanie says, Yep,
(17:25):
Derek made history, as she also mentioned, and the team
is just peaking like this is the best basketball that
they've played all season long. As we said in the
last comment. Now it's just a matter of getting everyone
healthy to be on the court at the same time.
And if that does happen, God bless all the other
teams that the Boston Celtics have to play all right,
(17:49):
last comment of the night coming from Celtics Talk Weekly.
I think this is a free promotion for your podcast,
Celtics Talk Weekly. This comment says, amazing efforts given every
game with guys in and out every night. You'll love
to see it with three shamrocks at the end. Let's
(18:13):
talk about this effort though, because it is a hallmark
of this team this season. There is no We've kind
of touched on it, you know, throughout this episode and
throughout the season, but there's just no drop off. There's
no drop off in effort. This team plays hard every
single night. This team plays smart. As you hear possibly
my dog's toy squeaking in the background, you couldn't wait
(18:35):
until this was over to start doing that. Okay, the
effort doesn't drop off any night. The intelligence in basketball
IQ doesn't drop off on any given night. This skill
doesn't drop off on any given night, no matter who
is in or out of the lineup. These guys are
so talented, smart in play so hard every single game.
(18:56):
That is why broadcasters continue to say I just don't
see anyone beating this team four times out of seven
in the playoffs. That's why I tend to agree with them,
especially when it comes to the Eastern Conference. We're gonna
see you never know what can happen. But if the
team stays healthy, and if they play with this level
(19:16):
of effort, it's just hard to see anyone beating them
four out of seven games. Like I said, especially in
the Eastern Conference, you get to the finals, you possibly
see Okay, see is far and away the best team
in the league this year. They deserve that. That is,
they have earned that Moniker, They've earned that attention. They're
(19:38):
the best. The Celtics are. They're defending champs though, and
they are rolling right now. And like I said, when
they play with this type of effort, man, they are
tough to beat. Now, we just gotta get everyone healthy,
get them all on the floor at the same time,
(20:00):
get them a few more reps before the playoffs come around,
and then let's hope the Celtics are playing with clinch
opportunities in mid to late June. All Right, as we said,
we're talking about a few more opportunities to kind of
sharpen the tools here. Well, we've got another one coming
up Wednesday night. It is going to be the first
(20:22):
game of a three game homestand okay, it's opening up
Wednesday night against Miami at seven thirty at TD Garden.
The Celtics have not played a home game in more
than two weeks come the time that that game starts out.
The last home game was back on March eighteenth. That's
a long time ago. Well, they're gonna be home Wednesday
(20:45):
night and they're playing the Heat, who, by the way,
are playing much better basketball right now. They just won
their fifth straight game tonight. They're playing much better basketball
than when the Boston Celtics just saw them on the
road down to Miami earlier this month on what was it,
March fourteenth, and then they saw them a couple weeks
before that as well. So Miami's playing better basketball. The
(21:07):
Celtics are gonna have a challenge Wednesday night. Then after
that they're gonna have the Phoenix Suns coming to town
Friday night. That should be a fun game. I know
the Suns aren't playing great, but they still have Devin
Booker and they still have one of the greatest players
in the history of the game, Kevin Durant. So those
are the next couple games coming up Wednesday and Friday.
(21:28):
I will be back in studio with the video versions
of the postgame podcast sound off. I hope you all
sound off with me after the game Wednesday night and
again on Friday, Enjoy the rest of your week. Enjoy
the Celtics having a historic night on this game tonight
out in Memphis, taking down the Grizzlies one seventeen to
(21:50):
one oh three, and all the while setting a record
with a six in oh road trip, something the Celtics
have never done in All the while, Derek White sets
the all time single season three point record for three
pointers in a single season with the Celtics two hundred
and forty seven game counting
Sound off with me folks on the postgame pod. Being back,
let's go. I missed you all over the last three months.
I missed the energy, I missed the genuine love of
the Celtics, I missed the awesome postgame analysis from all
of you. And I am happy to be back. So
let's get into it, because the Boston Celtics are rolling.
(00:29):
The Celtics just closed out a season long road trip
in historic fashion. We'll start out with this. The Celtics
just logged a six and oho sweep of a road
trip for the very first time in franchise history, in
franchise history, anytime you can say that with the most
(00:51):
storied franchise in the game of basketball, it is a big,
big deal. And the Boston Celtics just did it. Now,
I know what a lot of people out there are
gonna say. The competition hasn't been the best, mostly sub
five hundred teams. Most of these teams are playing for
the lottery, not for the playoffs. I don't care. I
(01:17):
don't care who they played. I don't care who did
play and who didn't play. It doesn't matter. I can't
even explain to you how hard it is to go
six and zero on a road trip in the NBA,
let alone, winning them all by double digits, which is
exactly what the Celtics just did. This is nearly impossible.
(01:43):
It's insane. You need so much to go right, and
you need to be so damn consistent in order to
do something like this, and that's exactly what the Boston
Solics were on this trip. They were consistent from top
(02:04):
to bottom. Consistency. That's what you want to see as
the NBA playoffs are rolling around. You don't want dips,
you don't want to go from highs to low's. You
want to be consistent. And that's exactly what happened with
the Boston Celtics on this trip. It didn't matter who
(02:25):
in their lineup was in, who was out, who they
played against, how they played the game. They got it
done on all six nights over the course of almost
two weeks. And I just can't relay how impressive this is.
It is good to be a part of Celtics nation
(02:46):
right now. That is for damn sure. Now let's get
into the other part of this record setting night, and
that was Derek White. He just set the all time
franchise record for most three pointers ever made by a
Boston Celtic in one single season. Oh and by the way,
there's still seven games left. He needed two three pointers
(03:09):
to set the record. Tonight he wound up with three,
and now he's got two hundred and forty seven on
the season. Now, let me give you some context around
just how impressive that is and just how mind blowing
that is considering the start of his career. Okay, this
(03:30):
is a guy and I sent this out on my
Twitter and Instagram, but this is a guy Derek White,
who made three hundred total three pointers in his four
plus seasons with the San Antonio Spurs before joining the Celtics.
He's now made two hundred and forty seven this season alone,
(03:54):
more than anyone ever in a Celtics uniform. Let me
re repete that, in case you didn't catch it the
first time. He had made three hundred total three pointers
in his career with San Antonio in four plus seasons
before joining the Celtics. Now, this season alone, he's made
(04:16):
more threes than any player in franchise history, with two
hundred and forty seven this season with seven games left
to play. You want to talk about putting in the
work believing in yourself in figuring it out to become
just an absolute sniper from distance. That is what Derek
(04:40):
White has done since he joined the Boston Celtics. A
pretty incredible story really when you just think about the
context around how he began his career as a shooter
and what he's doing right now. As Drew Carter was
saying throughout the broadcast tonight, on top of making two
hundred forty seven in a record setting number here with
(05:01):
the Celtics this season, he has the highest clutch three
point shooting percentage in the league. In the league, the
guy doesn't miss when it matters, and he barely misses
in general. Really incredible what he's pulling off this season. Now,
one more thing I want to cover about this game tonight.
(05:24):
As we get closer to the playoffs, it's important to
watch how the Celtics respond coming out of timeouts. Do
they execute what Joe Missoula draws up. Do they stop
opponents runs when Joe Missoula calls for timeouts. These are
important factors as you get closer to the playoffs, because
(05:45):
you have to do those things when you want when
you get into the postseason and when you're trying to
make a long run. Tonight they as the test. The
game changed after Joe Missoula called for a timeout mid
way through the second quarter. Okay, Boston was down by ten. Okay,
Memphis had just gone on a little run. They scored
(06:06):
a couple straight buckets. Joe Missoula said, timeout, we got
to regroup. Okay, we got to hone in and get
back to our style of basketball. And the Celtics immediately
responded after that timeout. What did they do? A ten
two run over the next couple of minutes, basically erasing
the deficit, and they dominated the rest of the night
(06:29):
from that moment on. That timeout changed the game. And
yes it starts with Joe Missoula having the feel to Okay,
my team needs a break right now. We got to refocus.
But more importantly, it's on the team and the players
for how they respond when they step back onto the court,
(06:52):
and tonight they did it at such a high level
to completely turn the game in that moment, the ten
two run coming out of the timeout, and then they
dominated the rest of the night from that point on.
That is championship DNA right there. You can't measure it,
but being able to do that in a critical moment
(07:13):
of a game is what's critical to making a deep
playoff run. And as I said, they aced that test tonight.
It was impressive and it's a very important takeaway to
take from this game. We got to watch this moving forward,
as well as executing in the clutch out of timeouts.
These are very important things. But tonight they aced that test.
(07:34):
All right, we got a lot more to get into,
so let's take some comments from the fans. First up,
we got Liam on the Celtics winning while missing key players.
They've been doing that a lot this season. They continue
to do that on this trip. Next up, we've got
Stephanie on Al Horford looking like he's twenty seven, not
going on forty. And then lastly we've got Celtics Talk
(07:57):
Weekly on the effort the Celtics are playing with right
now every single night they take the floor. So first
up again we've got Liam, then we've got Stephanie, and
then the last but not least, we've got Celtics Talk Weekly.
Let's dive in first one right here. All right, first
comment of the night coming from Liam saying absolute wagon.
(08:20):
Only team in the league that can be like, yeah,
let's rest Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum and still win
by ten plus. This has been the story of the
year so far for the Boston Celtics. Maybe the most important,
I would say, the most impressive part of them being
(08:41):
on pace to win sixty plus games yet again this season,
it's that they haven't been healthy. I don't know the
exact number, but I'm pretty sure the starters, like the
full group of starters, White, Holiday, Brown, Tatum, Porzingis, I'm
pretty sure they've only played like twenty two games together
(09:01):
this season something like that. It's crazy. Out of almost
eighty and here the Celtics are with fifty seven wins
and on pace to win sixty plus. It's crazy. But
recently it's been even more impressive. Like Liam is alluding
to here, Like Jalen Brown missed tonight's game, as did
(09:22):
Luke Cornett. That's two of the top nine on the team.
Cornett's out. You gotta throw other players into the rotation.
Xavier Tillman started this game in a spot start in
the Celtics don't miss a beat. Jalen Brown has missed games,
multiple games on this trip. He's missed a good amount
(09:45):
of games recently as he recovers with that knee. The
Celtics don't miss a beat. Jason Tatum has missed games.
The Celtics don't miss a beat. Drew Holliday misses games,
don't miss a beat. Christas Porzingis is out, don't miss
a beat. Al Horford on the second night of back
to backs, he's out. Don't miss a beat. It's incredible
what the Celtics do on a nightly basis and the
(10:07):
consistency they play with when they don't have any consistency
with their lineup. I don't know if I have ever
seen a team that's been able to play at this
high of a level for the high majority of the
season with a lack of consistency from a health perspective
and who is active on a night to night basis.
(10:29):
If they're this good without their full team and without consistency,
just imagine how good they could become in the playoffs
if they do have health and consistency on the health
front and consistency on the lineup front. This team is
(10:51):
so talented. They've got so many players who can step
into any role that they need to step into on
a nightly basis. It's truly incredible to watch. I hope
that you are all soaking this in and understanding exactly
what the Celtics are accomplishing, because they have not been
(11:11):
anywhere close to as healthy this season as they were
last year. Okay, and that's when they won sixty four
games last year. Like this, truly is incredible what the
Celtics are accomplishing right now. So let's hope that they
(11:35):
can work themselves and hopefully that's part of the plan
right now of these guys missing games, is that they
need to miss games, they need to be able to recover,
and they need to be as close to one hundred
percent as possible when the playoffs arrive in just a
couple of weeks. I'd like to think that's the plan.
Hopefully that plan comes to fruition and all these guys
(11:56):
can stay healthy and get healthy. But man, the fact
that they just continue to win, in to Liam's point,
they don't only win, they win by double digits while
missing some of the best players in the NBA incredible.
What they've been able to accomplish this season as a
(12:19):
group as a team top to bottom. That is accountability,
that is consistency, and that is trust. And the guy
that's next to you on your right, on the guy
that's next to you on your left, the guy who's
in front of you, and the guy who's behind you.
Everyone trusts each other no matter what direction they are
(12:41):
looking into, and that is one of the most important
factors as to why the Boston Celtics are having this
incredible season that they're putting together right now, great comment, Liam,
and baby it is an absolute wagon right now. All right, Stephanie,
you are up next, and here's the comment, Al Horford
going back in time, Drew's game coming into true form,
(13:05):
Derek making history, the entire team peaking at the right
time banner nineteen exclamation point. I want to concentrate on
the first part of this comment from Stephanie, and that's
Al Horford going back in time. I mean, does this
guy age? Does he age? He looks exactly the same
(13:25):
today as he did when he first joined the Celtics
almost ten years ago. Like his game does not age
at all. The defense is there, the intelligence is there,
the shooting is there, the rebounding is there. He just
seems to get better as he ages. Most big men.
(13:53):
Let me take a step back, Lebron James like, it's
unfathomable what he has been able to accomplish playing in
year twenty two or whatever it is as a wing
and still being as great as he is. When you're
a player who's blessed with that level of athleticism and
(14:13):
skill and vision and all of these things, that's just
straight god given talent cannot be measured. There's a way
to hang around and be great basically forever until you
want to hang them up. Let's be honest right now,
(14:33):
like Al Horford wasn't blessed with this incredible level of athleticism,
And to be quite honest with you, big men typically
don't age well in the NBA. Typically it's big men
and guards who rely solely on speed and quickness. Those
are the ones who age out of the NBA the quickest.
(14:57):
But here's Al Horford pushing forty and given the Celtics
what he was giving in maybe even more than what
he was giving them when he first joined them. Tonight,
he said a season high with twenty six points. He
came off the bench, let Xavier Toilman get the spots
(15:17):
start twenty six points off the bench, nine rebounds, two assists,
nine of eighteen from the field, six of thirteen from
three point range, a fifty forty one hundred performance from
him shooting the basketball tonight because he made both of
(15:38):
his three pointers. Like Horford has delivered all season long,
there have been no dips in his game. He has
been great from start to finish. On nights like tonight,
where they call on him to play thirty seven minutes,
he does it at an extremely high level. On he
(16:00):
started more games than he's come off the bench this season,
and by the way, this is the second straight season
he's done that. But it doesn't matter if he starts,
doesn't matter if he comes off the bench. He's the
same guy every night, and that same guy is one
of the most important role players in the NBA with
all of the things that Al Horford brings to the table,
(16:23):
with his size, with his shooting, with his versatile defense.
I don't know how his agility, like his side to
side movement, has not aged with his age, but he
can still stay in front of these guys. He can
still defend at an incredibly high level. He's been awesome
(16:45):
this season, and tonight was arguably his best game of
the season, with the season high twenty six points to
go along with nine rebounds. So great to see big
Al playoff Al warming up for what's coming around the corner.
Drew Holly doing the exact same thing. We've seen his
game kind of tick up a bit here over the
(17:05):
past few weeks when he's been on the court. Eighteen
points tonight along with seven assistants, six rebounds, grab the steal,
shooting the ball well. You can see the rhythm of
the ball coming off of his fingers from long distance.
He looks good, he looks like he feels good, and
this is the right time of year to see him
start to round into his true form. As Stephanie says, Yep,
(17:25):
Derek made history, as she also mentioned, and the team
is just peaking like this is the best basketball that
they've played all season long. As we said in the
last comment. Now it's just a matter of getting everyone
healthy to be on the court at the same time.
And if that does happen, God bless all the other
teams that the Boston Celtics have to play all right,
(17:49):
last comment of the night coming from Celtics Talk Weekly.
I think this is a free promotion for your podcast,
Celtics Talk Weekly. This comment says, amazing efforts given every
game with guys in and out every night. You'll love
to see it with three shamrocks at the end. Let's
(18:13):
talk about this effort though, because it is a hallmark
of this team this season. There is no We've kind
of touched on it, you know, throughout this episode and
throughout the season, but there's just no drop off. There's
no drop off in effort. This team plays hard every
single night. This team plays smart. As you hear possibly
my dog's toy squeaking in the background, you couldn't wait
(18:35):
until this was over to start doing that. Okay, the
effort doesn't drop off any night. The intelligence in basketball
IQ doesn't drop off on any given night. This skill
doesn't drop off on any given night, no matter who
is in or out of the lineup. These guys are
so talented, smart in play so hard every single game.
(18:56):
That is why broadcasters continue to say I just don't
see anyone beating this team four times out of seven
in the playoffs. That's why I tend to agree with them,
especially when it comes to the Eastern Conference. We're gonna
see you never know what can happen. But if the
team stays healthy, and if they play with this level
(19:16):
of effort, it's just hard to see anyone beating them
four out of seven games. Like I said, especially in
the Eastern Conference, you get to the finals, you possibly
see Okay, see is far and away the best team
in the league this year. They deserve that. That is,
they have earned that Moniker, They've earned that attention. They're
(19:38):
the best. The Celtics are. They're defending champs though, and
they are rolling right now. And like I said, when
they play with this type of effort, man, they are
tough to beat. Now, we just gotta get everyone healthy,
get them all on the floor at the same time,
(20:00):
get them a few more reps before the playoffs come around,
and then let's hope the Celtics are playing with clinch
opportunities in mid to late June. All Right, as we said,
we're talking about a few more opportunities to kind of
sharpen the tools here. Well, we've got another one coming
up Wednesday night. It is going to be the first
(20:22):
game of a three game homestand okay, it's opening up
Wednesday night against Miami at seven thirty at TD Garden.
The Celtics have not played a home game in more
than two weeks come the time that that game starts out.
The last home game was back on March eighteenth. That's
a long time ago. Well, they're gonna be home Wednesday
(20:45):
night and they're playing the Heat, who, by the way,
are playing much better basketball right now. They just won
their fifth straight game tonight. They're playing much better basketball
than when the Boston Celtics just saw them on the
road down to Miami earlier this month on what was it,
March fourteenth, and then they saw them a couple weeks
before that as well. So Miami's playing better basketball. The
(21:07):
Celtics are gonna have a challenge Wednesday night. Then after
that they're gonna have the Phoenix Suns coming to town
Friday night. That should be a fun game. I know
the Suns aren't playing great, but they still have Devin
Booker and they still have one of the greatest players
in the history of the game, Kevin Durant. So those
are the next couple games coming up Wednesday and Friday.
(21:28):
I will be back in studio with the video versions
of the postgame podcast sound off. I hope you all
sound off with me after the game Wednesday night and
again on Friday, Enjoy the rest of your week. Enjoy
the Celtics having a historic night on this game tonight
out in Memphis, taking down the Grizzlies one seventeen to
(21:50):
one oh three, and all the while setting a record
with a six in oh road trip, something the Celtics
have never done in All the while, Derek White sets
the all time single season three point record for three
pointers in a single season with the Celtics two hundred
and forty seven game counting
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