March 7, 2023 • 50 mins
In episode five of this season, Al Horford, Brad Stevens and ESPN’s Doris Burke join hosts Marc D’Amico and Sean Grande to look back on the chaotic ending to Game 3 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Semifinals against Philadelphia, which has been called ‘The Confetti Game.’ Marco Belinelli hit a desperation shot for Philly to send it to OT, but the combination of a 19-year-old rookie named Jayson Tatum bursting onto the scene, and the timely play of Playoff Al Horford, boosted the Celtics to a dramatic win and 3-0 series lead over Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and the 76ers.
1:22 – Celtics/Sixers Rivalry
7:48 – Remembering The Confetti
9:29 – Belinelli’s Game-Tying 3
14:27 – Brad Stevens Explains How He Came Up With After-Timeout Plays
20:12 – Jaylen Brown Ties The Game With 24 Seconds Left
28:15 – Jayson Tatum’s Coming Out Party
33:25 – Inside The Horford Basket That Won The Game
41:55 – How Playoff Experience Has Impacted The Celtics’ Core
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Play off basketball in the NBA. When you walk in
a building, it's so tense that you could reach out
and touch the electricity. It's just a dog funny. It
was a battle. It was a low scoring battle. I
didn't really get caught up in the you know, in
the contrutty part of it kind of is what it is.
(00:22):
But you know, looking back on it, I think it's
pretty funny. MARKA. Nikoe, Sean Grandy here for yet another
episode of You from the Raptors. Behind the scenes with
the Boston Celtic. We're in the Paul Pierce Room here
at one hundred Causeway Street, the Celtics new front office.
What do you think of these digs shows, just where
(00:43):
he does all his videos. It is, it is not.
I don't think that would pass here. I don't think
that would fly. Hey, before we get into this, just
want to remind you all to give us a rate
review and subscribe. We appreciate you for listening. Hopefully you
guys tune in every week and you get those notifications
every Tuesday and Wednesday day. There's a bill, right, there
is a buttification or something like that. Yeah, there is
(01:04):
like a text. Yes, I actually get it. On my
own phone. We're all Pavloerd, Pavlovian. Now thing, somebody's happening,
Run to your phone. But yes, so Sean. Today we're
diving into Celtics sixers history and one game in particular.
We're not going to go there yet, but Celtics in
sixers has quite a background. I just want to go
(01:24):
through this list of names that we've got in the
history of this rivalry. So they've met fourteen times in
the playoffs, eight times in the Eastern Conference finals, and
here we go, decade by decade by decade. Russell and
Will in the sixties have the check and Doctor J
in the seventies, Bird and Doctor J in the eighties.
I ever sent him Pierce in the two thousands, KG
and Evan Turner in the two tens. Shout out to
(01:47):
Evan Turner the Goat. And then now we've got Tatum
in and Beid going back and forth. This has to
be the best conference rivalry in the NBA. Am I wrong? There? No,
it still exists, you know among the fans, there's still
a thing. The generationally, it's sort of been passed on. Obviously.
I'm been with Cedric Maxwell for twenty two years and
it runs deep. The Laker thing is significant with him,
(02:09):
but I think the Sixer thing really runs the strongest
in a lot of ways, and it goes back to
in two thousand and nine, the Celtics Bols has that
epic first round playoff series in which we were all discussing,
including you know, with the you know with Doris who's
going to join us later, that is this the greatest
playoff series ever? And man I fall back and Max
(02:29):
thought it was as it was going on, that's the best,
which to me was amazing considering he played in the
one I consider to be the best series ever, which
is the eighty one Eastern Conference Finals. But it not
only has the three one comeback, but every single game
went down to the wire, and that as we move
into this twenty eighteen series, this is a theme you're
(02:50):
going to hear a lot. This was a seven game
series disguised as a five game series because the games
were so close and this easily a couple of balls
bounce a different way. The Sixers Witness series, no question
about that, and Brad Stevens, as you'll hear later in
this episode, he talks about that, and you teas it there.
We've got some real star studded guests that are coming
(03:11):
on this show today. We've got you, obviously, we've got me.
That's not quite on the level of Al Horford, Brad
Stevens and Doris Burke, who actually called the game that
we're talking about today. And I called the game too.
You did call the game we're talking about the radio broadcast. Okay,
Sean called the game as well. Maybe we'll get you know,
that just sums up the last twenty two years people,
We'll get I was in my car. I had to listen.
(03:32):
I couldn't get to it too well, maybe we'll get
a couple of year calls where it's into this. But
with that being said, just to let everyone know what
game we're talking about here, I've got a little surprise
for you. So I want you to flip this envelope over,
tell me what it says, and then take a look
and set says the Academy Award goes to Chris Rock.
Oh no, this is from ah from the Confetti Game,
(03:55):
which is May fifth in twenty eighteen. And let me
guess what's inside. Is this actually coffetti? Red is actual confetti,
real life confetti from that game. I'm not throwing this in.
Our producers shown us to throw it in the air.
We'll do that at the end, but right you don't
do it. If we listen, if we were to throw
the confetti now, that would be throwing it prematurely before
(04:15):
the game. Oh sing. And that's exactly why we're here.
That's exactly why we're here. This is one of the
most memorable games that I've ever covered. And I was there.
I know you were there. But to have an envelope
filled with confetti from a specific game, you've got to
know that it's a big deal, and this one certainly was.
We're talking about twenty eighteen Eastern Conference Semifinals Celtics versus
(04:36):
six Ers, Game three. It goes down to the wire,
and it's one of the wildest endings that I've ever seen.
With for a moment, it seemed like neither team wanted
to take it. For a moment, it seem like both
teams wanted to give it away. What do you remember
most about that game as you were calling it. I
think the first thing you flash back to is the
owl play and you sort of replaying it over and
(04:57):
over again, and then you get to the confetti and
Belle Nelly and was good and wasn't it good? But
you know, to set the stage properly for Game three,
you have to remember these seasons that these two teams had,
because this is the first time. This is the process
in Philadelphia, finally coming to fruition, they thought. But remember,
(05:18):
compared to what had been the Sixers had been a
terrible team, they'd be winning fifteen eighteen games or fans
have been going through it waiting for this playoff run.
And then the Sixers went crazy in the second half
of the year. Remember this is the year that begins
on Opening Night with Gordon Hayward breaking his leg in
five minutes. Celtic sasion has ruined. What got overlooked that night,
(05:39):
which will forever be remembered for the Gordon Hayward injury,
is that that was Jason Tatum's debut, his rookie game
in the NBA, in the starting lineup. It's a really
good point and that everyone always forgets that part. He's
got the hair and the whole thing. It's like, oh
my gosh. Then when he really was nineteen years old
and the Celtics lost the next night to Milwaukee and
the home opener and then put together one of the
(06:00):
most absurd and improbable sixteen game winning streaks in NBA history.
It came after that, and the Celtics had the lead
in the East all year the entire year, culminating with
the win over Philadelphia. Had twenty point comeback win against
the Sixers in London, and the Celtics were up by
like five games. Well, flash forward to where we're going
to be here in a few months. The Sixers had
(06:21):
been significantly bet They had been one of the best
teams in the NBA the second half of that year,
and they had almost caught the Celtic. Celtics had home
court advantage, but they had been pushed to seven by
Milwaukee in the first round, and many people thought, and
logically so, that the Sixers were gonna win the series
because they had been playing significantly better in the month
or two going into this series. Celtics win Game one
(06:42):
and Game two, the Sixers are up by twenty two
in the second quarter, Robert Covington's hitting threes, and the
Celtics looked like they're going to get run off the floor.
And they come back and win that game. They get like,
you know, Tatum went on the runt bainestead a big
three in that game. But already you're getting to Philadelphia,
and the Sixers feel this is why I'm set up
this way, Because the Sixers feel we're the better team
going in, playing much better. This should be one one
(07:06):
right now, and so they're thinking out, we're gonna get
these two games in Philadelphia, and we're gonna have the
momentum by and he left something else out there. Kyrie
Irving's not playing for the Celtics, and Mayrie Irving gets
hurt late in the year and he won't come back,
and all of a sudden, this leads to the Milwaukee
series before, which was the you know, the Scary Terry
coming out party. And late in this game, Marcus Smart
follows out ye Jalen Brown is coming back from missing
(07:27):
game with his hamstring injury, and so there's a minute's
limit on him. So it just seemed like everything that
could possibly be stacked up against the Celtics going into
this game and then late in the game was stacked
up against them. Yet they still found a way to
take this game home. So let's dive in and just
take a watch. Shall we do that or should you
(07:48):
know what. Let's talk about the confetti first. Let's talk
about the confetti first. When that was happening in real time,
I know what was going through my mind, and it's
just I'm dying laughing because it's just it was kind
of a laughter moment at another organization. And listen, that's
not to say that the Sixers are a laughing stock
or anything like that. I'm just saying in that moment,
(08:09):
it was very entertaining for me to see that the
game was not over and yet there's confetti, and it's
it's not just a little bit of confetti, it's a
ton of confetti falling down, and that that game has
to be stopped. I think it was stopped for seven
or eight minutes. That's what I was thinking, is just
how funny this situation is before here, Well, here's the
translation to that and the confetti, which is what everybody's
going to remember, is that here you have Geno right,
(08:32):
the victory cigar. The degree to which the Geno thing
is carefully guarded as if you can remember that even
the first year it was running the championship er of
oh wait, we had an assistant coach same armand Hill
and I remember running it up by thirteen fourteen points
with two minutes to go, and A'm freaking out on
the bench that it was too soon, too early back
(08:53):
And by the way, in two thousand and eight, you
didn't come back from fourteen down. Of course you can,
but then you know, playing that too early that was
as verboten as it gets. So to have that moment
to be on the trigger the irony for me when
you're asking me what was going on in the moment.
I think a lot of people know because they've ward
this over the years, and in this era, the last
fifteen years, radio in the NBA has been thrown just
(09:17):
the way you so dismissively spoke of it at the
start of the podcast. We've been thrown to different parts
of different arenas, and you can't see the I mean,
obviously Boston's the all time worst. You can't see the
court from where you're sitting in Philadelphia, of all the
places in all the world to be it was one
of the first places where we had to go up
in two thousand and six. And it was not center
Court as it's supposed to be. It was right near
(09:38):
the baseline. But it's that baseline that we're going to
be talking about or looking out if you're watching on YouTube.
So of all the radio locations in all the world,
I had a perfect view of the fact that Bell
and Eli's foot was on the line, and I called
it like that. In real time, I thought he was
on the line. So you're waiting. You never know when
you have a review, but it just felt to me
in a real time like immature celebration. Bell and Ellie
(10:02):
catch it. Shoot, they rolled a two. We're going to overtime.
That's what you thought, and I think some other people
thought that too. Let's listen here real quick to our
guests with Doris, Al and Brad about what they were
thinking in that moment. You know, we feel pretty good
about the game, that we have it wrapped up, and
(10:23):
then m Bell and Ellie makes and I'm believable play
hits the shot from the corner um during real time.
I actually saw I remember seeing him stepping on the line,
so uh, you know, I knew that it was at
two at that point from the broadcast position. Dave Pash
was on the call and Marco was in the far corner,
(10:45):
and you know, for a play by play guy can
you see it? Are you calling it off the monitor?
There was some question whether it's a two or three.
It's called the two, the the officialism in the perfect
spot and Bell and Ellie, to his credit, hit the shot.
But I was standing on the sideline and I could
see I thought it was a two, right a Wetton,
And so obviously the game got stalled there for a
(11:08):
minute after that when the confetti all rang down and
then the confetti started to come down, So that that
sequence is all I remember. Then, the confetti coming down,
and a lot of other players like running off to
the locker room thinking the game was over, and yeah,
that was that confetti. That was that was something, all right,
So that's what they had to say, that's what they remember.
Sean this game going down to the wire. I think
(11:30):
there was fifteen lead changes in the game, twelve ties,
neither team led by more than ten at any point,
and here we go down to the final minutes. So
we're just going to dive in to the final two
minutes of this game, watch it unfold, react and talk
about what we were thinking in those moments. And then
also here from what our guests had to think in
those moments. So here we go, two minutes left in
the game, game tied up at eighty three, eighty three,
(11:52):
shot clock at five right with Toy on the timer
drives that puts it off. It's a two. What a shot.
I think we also have to remember it too as
the game is getting tight. Now this becomes the absolute
must win for the Sixers, and that sort of changes
the way you play. Maybe you force really tough shots
(12:14):
like that that shot by Reddick in that moment. I
remember sitting in my baseline seat right and I'm looking
at that and I'm like, Okay, this this just isn't
the Celtics night. There's no way they're going to overcome
a game when the guy is hitting a shot like
that to take the lead during the final couple of minutes. Yet,
you know, nobody, Jj'd tell you nobody had tough shots
like that in Hill bas But and again watching a
(12:36):
nineteen year old, this was a lot of a big
element of this game. Again, we're gonna remember the confetti, well,
remember the al play, but Jason Tatum and the Jaalen
play and the Jay play. But Tatum, as we're watching now,
it's less sort of jarring than it was in the
moment where you realize, oh, my goodness, he is what
we say he is, and it's happening now a real time.
(12:59):
It's not Eclipse himself at what he's doing every night
or most nights in MBP caliber seasons. It wasn't obviously
as frequent in his rookie year, but all of a sudden,
he's doing it. He's doing it on this stage and
Sean's talking about right now, one minute, thirty four seconds
left in regulation, Jason Tatum pulls up in The Celtics
(13:19):
had been running this action for him that Brad talks
about called stack, that they had been running it over
and over during this game because it was it was
his comfort zone. It was Brad's comfort zone. He knew
that this rookie could make the right reads, make the
right plays, and get them a good look anytime they wanted.
And that's exactly what he did here with a pull
up jumper to tie the game at eighty five eighty five. Yea, Listen,
(13:39):
there's a cliche we're using it all the time about
rookies that you're not a rookie anymore right at this
point of the season, But this is what we're talking about.
Where you know, watch Jason Tatum the first fifteen twenty
games of the year got to we'd talked about that
opening night game against Cleveland when Lebron just for Jackson's
don contamp and all these things. He's trying to figure
it out. But one of the things about Tatum we've
seen throughout his career is how he adjust two situations
(14:02):
and not being effected like this on the big stage.
And he just said the key word Brad had the
comfort with him as a nineteen year old rookie to
houches insane. I have a go to for him in
a second round playoff here, so Bell and Ellie gets filed.
At the other end, he puts home a couple of
free throws. You know, we're looking at Celtics. We're looking
at forty one point two seconds left here, Celtics down
(14:24):
by two, and this is just chaos here. Jalen Brown's
taking a baseline and basically Brad Stevens comes in from
the corner just in the nick of time, and he's like, Okay,
we need to call a time out. We need to
call it time out. What do you remember about that
unfolding that those are always dangerous It's funny because we're
talking about Jason ten getting a feel and where are
we with Brady? This is your five for Brad Stevens
(14:46):
by this point. These are the kind of things you
can't last be prepare for when in an NBA situation
as a new NBA coach, What are you calling a
time out of the middle of a possession and it's
it's later the session. You know, there's everything happens at
a real time. These are all real time, quick twitch
decisions that you have to make, and this was one
(15:08):
of them where you know what it gets ten nine,
you're the pl You know the risk reward of calling
a time out gross with each second that comes off
that clock. And this is the first moment during these
final couple minutes of regulation and overtime where Brad does
step in and calls it a timeout, and we're going
to have an ATO coming out of this. But ATOS
(15:30):
is something that he and that's after timeouts for anyone
who doesn't know what that term stands for. But this
guy built such a reputation. We're talking about he's only
been coaching for five years at this point. He built
such a reputation for being able to get quality looks
at the basket, and it blew my mind what he
accomplished in this game. I could not believe the two
looks the Celtics got out of timeouts in this game.
(15:51):
Most things you see in an NBA game that looked
like their improvisation are things that have been prepared for
and practiced and thought about for years and years and years.
Brad Stevens was preparing to be an NBA head coach
many years before he became an NBA head coach. He
was studying out of time out plays. And I don't
think he thought in twenty ten, well, in three years,
(16:13):
I'm going to be the coach of the Boston Celtics.
Nobody thought that. But listen go back to Brad's conversations.
This always struck me. When people say, oh, Brad's a
college coach or he wants to go back to college,
I would laugh. And here's what. Listen to Gordon Hayward.
I've had conversations with Gordon Hayward about the conversations he
would have with Brad and when he first went in
(16:34):
the NBA's first couple of years, and Brad would call
him up, and of course it was how are you doing,
how's the family, how's everything going? And then because it
was Brad, it would be, Hey, tell me about that
play you ran, you know, And now it was because
Brad was watching that is that's the mind at work.
And by the way, we're in an era now we're
who did you know? Joe Massoula get a lot of
these out of time out plays him And as I've
(16:56):
said many times, Brad didn't necessarily create these, he stole them.
Like all great artists. This is what we say mark
about anyone that uses words or writes. Good writers borrow
occasionally from other writers. Great writers steal outright, and that
is what you know great coaches do. It's a matter
of there isn't a lot new, there isn't a lot original.
It's I better call this time out with eight on
(17:19):
the shot clock and implement this particular play at this
particular time. That's what separates the elite. And now it's
time to hear Brad talk about that exact topic of
the studying and all the time that goes into being
able to prepare for a moment like this, And then
Doris will come in right after him to talk a
little bit about what she thought about his ETOs at
that time. Well, you've got to be able to perform
(17:39):
in those moments, and you know, coach's job is to
call the right time outs, advance the ball, and try
to get a great look the way that I approached it.
And Matt Reynolds, who is our at the time was
our video coordinator as now an assistant coach, always gave
me the last two minutes of close games of our
(18:03):
opponent and all of the need plays on what we
call need plays on offense and defense. So if a
team was down two against Philly or down three against Philly,
I had every time that happened throughout the whole year
already watched and how they guarded it right, So you
have to know, Okay, is there a chance they go zone, Well,
(18:24):
Philly wasn't a zone team. Is there a chance they
stay attached to their man, Well, Philly would mix that up.
Is there a chance there a switch one through five team?
Philly would do that a lot. I remember how uncomfortable
he was in the course of our coverage of Brad
with the notion that he was like the basketball genius.
He was truly uncomfortable with it. But you could not help,
(18:48):
but notice the details of preparation, and in particular, we
talked often about their ability to execute after time out,
so special, you know, situate the actual situation basketball where
you know you're thinking in your head as a coach. Okay,
their closing lineup is these five guys, which particular person
(19:13):
am I going to go to in a particular moment.
The other factor against Philly, Yeah, I coached against Brett forever,
and Brett was a heck of a coach, and one
of the things that he made really difficult was the
inbounder on the defending the defender on the inbounder. Oftentimes
it was Simmons was a he was a little bit
(19:37):
of a riverboat gambler, like he would go and break
your play up. He would go and shoot a passing lane,
he would go and take a cutter, and they would
do a coaches call exit, So you didn't have an
exact of what they were going to do. But sometimes
that's why you watched throughout the course of the previous
few weeks in the year and everything else. And if
(19:59):
you think about it, the stretch two times he gets
two different guys isolated an individual situations for layups, for
layups and both guys score. All right, so we're back
out of the time out. Here sean twenty five point
eight seconds left on the game clock. Celtics down to
eight seconds left on the shot clock. I don't know
(20:19):
what you were expecting, but I wasn't expecting a layup,
and that's exactly what we get here with Tatum tossing
it over the top to Jalen for the layoup lop
inside Brown catches it puts it in a tie the
game in eighty seven. Put a play out of the timeout.
The Sixers have a timeout left. We'll see if they
use it. The beauty of this and obviously you know
as the play unfold, it's foreshadowing of the play that's
(20:43):
going to decide the game later, which most things that
happened he plays. There's always foreshadowing because there's always something
that happened before it, whether it's two minutes before in
a previous game in the series. Something can happen in
the regular season, or something that happened six months ago,
or something can happen in the the previous year. That this
accumulation of information that's going through coaches heads and players
heads is what always plays out in these situations and
(21:06):
this that couldn't have been a better foreshadow what was
about to have. And we're not going to hear Brad
talk about it right here, but he told us when
we were having our conversation with him, he has never
had more trust in an inbounder than Jason Tatum. And
Jason Tatum is the man who was inbounding this ball.
He was able to read it on the fly and
toss it perfectly over the top. And listen, credit to
(21:28):
Jalen too, because he had to have the athleticism to
he bumped his defender back and was able to catch
it over the top and finish. But Jason Tatum was
the man that he wanted passing the ball in that moment,
which again we're talking about this kind of being his
coming out party. He may not have scored that basket,
but he certainly created it with that incredible passive. It's
the subplant of this series, of this particular game. But
(21:51):
Ben Simmons was a rookie too. When you think of
the IQ, and obviously their careers have gone the way
they've gone, that's what you think about the YES when
you think about the IQ, and remember that was the
big chant that that's a rookie at Tatum in Boston
because Ben Simmons had sat out the year and then
one Rookie of the Year, Ben Simmons beat Jason Tatum
out for Rookie of the Year this year. But two
players that young have that crazy basketball i Q. That's insane.
(22:13):
All right, let's hear what our guests had to say
about this play that tied the game up at eighty
seven with twenty four seconds left. So, as you're looking
at it from a coach's perspective, number one is stop,
are they going to be tight or are they going
to protect the rim? So right now, you see because
wysemb tight because Al's out there, which is exactly what
(22:34):
you were just referencing. So then it is are they
going to stay home or are they going to switch?
And so and they were switching right and look who's
on the ball. Yep. So if I run something to
try to throw it in front of Simmons, he might
screw up the play by himself. So the ball's got
to go somewhere else in my opinion. Otherwise, you better
(22:55):
have an elephant and bounder who puses pass phase and
you can trick somebody. I think a couple of things
on that play number one. It's execution requires timing. If
you're going to isolate somebody on the post, it is
you know, four guys moving appropriately, screening at the appropriate time,
vacating particular areas on the floor at a particular time,
(23:19):
and sometimes trying to identify and hunt a matchup and
setting your screens in such a way. And then the
delivery of the past. Like, there's a lot of moving parts,
Mark that have to come together, all right, Sean, So
next up, games died at eighty seven sixers bring the
ball up court, and then the absolute unthinkable happens. Yeah.
(23:39):
Remember now there was this year no time out. Now
remember early in the year, Bogdanovich in Indiana had thrown
away a inbound task. So there have been crazy steals
like this, but this is the like, as you said,
there's a live ball turnover and it's the very last
thing you're expecting. So we are so accustomed to these
(24:02):
playoff games happening with here's a possession time out, here's
a possession time out. Here's a possession time out. And
in your head, you're on the bench, you're thinking, if
you're the sixers, you're either tied or you know, with
getting the ball, you're ahead. You're the last thing you're
thinking here with a live ball is that you're going
to be down by two calls out the play. Here's
a Reddick with eight seconds to go, made Raddick a
(24:23):
loose ball picked up by Rosier, pick out a breakaway
Rose here to prow Pit puts it in with the
one point seventh lap. A traject turnover by Philadelphia leads
to a lamp on the other end and perhaps a
for you nothing series lead. Yeah, this this play. I
just remember thinking, how like JJ Reddick is not the
type of player who's going to turn the ball over
(24:45):
in that moment. He is one of the most intelligent
players that you and I have probably ever seen, that
many people have ever seen playing the game of basketball.
This was just a complete miscommunication at the most important
juncture of the game to that point. Big moments can
subtract point from your basketball IQ seen it for you.
What are you saying, um saying, that's what a couple subtracted, Sean.
(25:06):
The disbelief on the Philly fans faces in this moment
after Jalen Brown puts this bucket home. I mean watching
back on it. I kind of enjoy seeing it on screen.
I know you do. It's a great listen. By the way,
it's it's a great telecast. Um, And I know we're
talking to Doris here. I'd think would be remiss. I'd
be remiss. It's not my you know, I would be
not comfortable if we didn't talk about a guy. There
(25:28):
are a lot of underrated play by play guys, and
my profession, day Pass is absolutely one of them. He
is one of the best all around dude and he
you know, I think he rose to the moment of
this game too. And again that's my particular slams. I'm
always gonna look at the telecast first before the eighth
as Brad looks at Atos, I'm watching the telecast to
see how it's all produced and directed it. He had
a great story to tell, and that helps. But I thought,
(25:49):
I thought everybody here or at that ESPN did a
great well speaking to that in a moment, he's gonna
have to fill eight minutes of Aaron Jones well do nothing,
as s Gallini. This year, I had to do what
forty five Yeah, I don't show that that might have
been a little bit worse, all right. So here we go,
final possession of regulation, one point seven left on the clock,
Celtics up by two. After Rogier picked it off and
(26:10):
gave it to Jalen for the transition layup, and here
comes KOs Llanelli catch it. Shoot, it's good. They ruled
it two. They were going to overtime. Marco Bellanelli sends
it to an extra session. They've mopped the floor here
(26:32):
in that quarter where the fans are. I'm on the
side where the cameras are, and I'm right on the baseline.
That's just where I happened to be of all the
places in all the world. And to me, you just
have naked eye reactions, and you have to have instant
reactions even if you're far away. And to me, it
just it just looked like he was on the line.
I'd surprise with the biggest surprise to me was how
long it took. Oh my gosh, I just that moment
(26:53):
was one of my favorite moments ever. Knowing that it
was a two. The players knew that it was a two,
at least the Celtics players. The coaches knew that it
was a two, and yet here's this confetti just raining
down for eight minutes, one piece at a time, ten
pieces at a time, just delaying an NBA playoff game
that is basically going to decide the series. It's gonna
take a while to get the confetti off the floor
(27:16):
here in Philadelphia, as we've got overtime coming after Marco
Bellinelli hits a baseline jumper ruled on the floor as
a two, confirmed by replay as a two. The confetti
is actually still coming down from there's a ton of it.
Let's go take a while. Yeah, so sean absolute chaos unfolds. Finally, finally,
I think the confetti still might be falling down in Philadelphia,
(27:37):
but somehow we got the game resumed. This is a
borderline fetish for you, your enjoyment. I small it. I mean,
you put that under your pillow. I've got to I've
got to come clean here. This is not my envelope.
This is our producer's envelope, John Piccard. This is is
in the moment he was smart enough to grab grab
up a few pieces of that confetti and three, in
(27:57):
full full disclosure, I have some from the parade, you know.
Eight Okay, so not the same, no, but it's I'm
just saying it forgetting not the only person who's kept
king trendy for all right. So we get into ot
the game continues to go back and forth, and now
we're looking at a minute thirty four left. Celtics are
down by four at this point. If they don't score
and Philly puts one home, that might be the game
(28:19):
right there. But who did the Celtics go to old
reliable in this game? The nineteen year old rookie and
this was one of my favorite plays that I've seen
from him in his career. Crosses up joehl embiid gets
to the basket and throws the pump. Fake has the
patience to make the right play there. Like forty minutes tonight,
(28:40):
shot clock at a Tatum against MB Tatum gotta beat
off his space freak finish at the rim two point
game again, how about that play from the rookie. This
was the moment where my eyes bulged and I said, okay,
all right, the Celtics don't just have a really good rookie,
(29:03):
they have a player who could potentially be an all
time great. I just think the I don't know if
it's ironic or whatever it is, because Joel Embid wasn't
a dominant player in twenty eighteen. He wasn't dominant yet.
And when you talk about when we talked at the
start of the podcast about rivalries and what makes them great,
it's something we don't get as much in professional sports,
which is the same player staying with the same team
(29:24):
for many years over and over again, and that abs
or rivalries. And you're reading this list of Havelcheck and
Doctor Jay and Larry because those guys stayed with the
team turned nine ten and of course, but Evan didn't.
This is my point, which one of these doesn't belong
here for that reason. Of course, even Turner should have
been in twenty years six or we all know that,
but it didn't happen. So point being here it is,
we're sitting here looking back when nostalgia to a game
(29:46):
five years ago, and we can talk about a game
a couple of weeks ago where Tatum and Embid are
now going head to head and the layups that Tatum
has gotten against Embiid over the years with different moves
and everything, you know, was sort of born, as you said,
at this moment, and it's not just Dus who thought that,
everyone else so let's hear what they had to say
about Jason Tatum and really what most people see as
his coming out party. And this is when he established
(30:08):
himself as I'm a player. Everyone needs to pay attention to.
This action stabilized me in that game. It felt like, Okay,
we need a good shot. Tatum will figure it out
with a simple step in this and that's when I
knew that it was he was at a different level
(30:29):
than even a couple months before. Then the next game,
he reads a cut and he backcuts for the game winner. Right,
So I forget if it was Smart that hit him
or he hit Smart yep, I can't. I can't. One
of them read the cut and the other cut and
it was just like a It was a It was
a twenty seven year old veteran read, not a nineteen
(30:52):
year old read. But this action, which there were several
versions of this in this game, and he read it
several different ways, was just designed to give him a
step and a read and he just made the right
play over and over. He'd given me chills because he
could pull it off. And Joel Embiad has been one
of the elite defenders. Not only is elite, he's got
(31:14):
dancer's feet at seven foot two hundred and fifty plus pounds.
He can turn left and right, he can navigate east
and west. And I go back to what I said
about the demeanor. So Jason hits him with a move.
You've got to get by and not to be sped up,
(31:35):
not to have your mind ahead of where you want,
so to dead stop in the restricted area with that
guy in front of you, and to have the presence
of mind to keep your pivot down and then send
the upfake that gets that defender committed, and then finish
the play. At that age, I mean, I couldn't believe
(31:57):
he pulled it off. I was like the fearlessness to
attack in the moment and then again to be able
to execute the move. I mean, shoot, pretty incredible stuff.
I was just impressed with this poise. Um. I remember
just kind of looking over my shoulder and being like
like okay, um, like like we we got something here.
(32:20):
Because he it was timely plays. It was you know,
reading the defense, making the simple play, making the right play,
but also not afraid, not afraid at all, or the moment.
He I feel like he almost like you know, he
wanted to be in those positions to make, make those plays,
(32:40):
make those decisions, and uh, and down the stretch. You know,
he was huge for us. But but yeah, I feel
like that Philly series, Uh, you know, it was kind
of a in my eyes, it was kind of like
a like a coming out party for him. So greatness
takes what an insatiable appetite to attack your weakness, and
(33:01):
we have seen that from the outset of Jalen or
Jason's career. Jason has identified, Oh, I made that mistake
once in a critical moment. I'm not going to repeat
that mistake. Oh I don't finish going left, I don't
finish well enough in the restricted area. I'm going to
fix that. It takes humility and it takes work habits,
(33:24):
and he's got both. That's how you become great. So, Sean,
we're now fast forwarding to the final seconds of overtime.
The Celtics are down by one. We've got nine point
four seconds left on the clock. Yet again, Brad Stephen says,
I don't like what I'm seeing. I gotta draw something up.
But the funniest part about this, Sean, is that he
(33:45):
calls the time out. The team gets side out and
he has to call another time out because he didn't
like what he saw. Again, That to me is speaking
to me and saying, Okay, Brad knows exactly what he
wants to get here. He didn't see it the first
time around. Now he's got to make another adjustment to
get exactly what he wants. There was too many time
outs back then, too, is the other thing. It shows
(34:05):
you don't see consecutive timeouts very often. No, you don't.
And you know, again, I think the margin with this
team again going back to the beginning, no Gordon and
no Kyrie. It wrote a great story with this team
doing it without the two guys you thought you were
going to lean on throughout the course of the year.
And it just underscored what an amazing Celtic Al Horford
has been that he's never kind of grabbed the headlines
(34:27):
that there are. I'm glad he got this signature moment
because he deserved it for the year he had and
just sort of dragging this team through the playoffs and
to run a play for him and something that you know, again,
Brad has seen this before. I let brid talk about
it because he's gonna talk about it obviously in a
lot more detail, But from a step back thirty thousand
(34:49):
foot view of the season, the fact that Al would
have his moment here could not have been more appropriate,
because when you we're talking about Jason Tatum, this and
that out party, Terry Rozier and Scary Terry and all
the stuff, But who is the glue in twenty eighteen
opening night with all the injuries that everything had happened
because Al got here and his first year was ruined
(35:10):
by the vertigo and he had to We didn't know
what was going to happen. He didn't have a great
start here, but this was I think this entire year.
Game one to Game eighty two was the beginning of
his true love affair with the city. Mister consistent playoff
out always shows up when you need him most. I mean,
it's it's as sure as the thing can be. And
(35:32):
here it is eight point four seconds level. It will
be Morris to inbound it again with eight point four
seconds to go in regulation, having trouble to get inbounding
spires to Harford. N Harford gets it to go one
point lead for Boston. Time I'm Billy was five point
five remaining. We're hit over time. Marcus Morris Senior over
(35:53):
the top. Al Horford seals his defender gets the lay
up going away to his left. Let's hear from add
about the drawing up the play and what he was thinking,
from Al about his execution of the plan, and then
from doors for about her reaction to seeing this unfold
live in front of her. They switched on the Jalen
play and they switched on that play. So you're probably
(36:15):
not going to be playing against traditional coverages. You know,
you're not going to be playing against a zone. So
you and you know you you think you know again
where they're going to be matched up. Although they flip
it here, I believe and and so, and you know
they're going to be tight to their men. There's not
going to be like a guy standing at the rim
(36:35):
if you're cutting and moving. So and then you try
to draw up based on the hours and hours of
film you watched, you know, either something that you've used
in the past or something that you stole from somebody
else as you're watching them play against them. This play
I ran for Andrew Smith at Butler to tie a
(36:57):
game against LaSalle in two thousand. That is incredible, um
and we ran it several times. We ran it for
Jay Crowder against Washington, not in an out of bounds play,
but on just a action to win a game in
Washington one year. You know, it was a pretty pretty
great play. Um. And uh, you know, Jalen did it,
you know, in regulation. And then when when it was
(37:19):
my turn to do it, Uh, I remember that coach
drew it up and I was just like, man, I
don't know if this is gonna work. Like, you know,
they already you know, we already did it once. They
kind of know you know that that's a possibility. And um,
and it was a great pass. And at that point
I was like, man, you just have to I just
have to finish it, you know, you just have to
(37:40):
finish it. My biggest concern was and I think now
that I was thirty six of the books probably out
on him with him catching it on the other side
of the room and finishing. Yeah, because he's usually at
the time now that he's gotten older and better, he's
got a nice little game to his right shoulder. At
that time, he wasn't quite as good as he is now.
(38:02):
He's exactly right going in the in the in the
other way. You know, if you can account probably in
one hand, the amount of times I shot a left
hand you know, hook or a little push shot and uh.
And then when he drew it up like that, you know,
it's one of those things that it was like, hey,
you know, we need you to, you know, to take
us home type thing. And my mindset quickly shift to
(38:26):
you know, I got to make a play, gotta make
it happen. But that pass I can't credit it enough.
It was literally it was perfect and um and the
play worked out just like he envisioned it basketball in
particular in a playoff game, but in the final, the
clutch time, final five within five, all those things. It's
(38:47):
about the minutia and the details and the angles of
screens and all the things. You know, there's a reason
you talk over the course of season about building habits
and getting comfortable. And I don't know, Al, I feel
like was the stabilizer on that basketball team, And so
I thought that was a pretty special moment. And that
(39:08):
rolling around the rim. Who cares, right, Like, the margin
of winning in the NBA is so small, So many
times I almost find the way that ball went through
the hoop appropriate. So Sean Al scores the go ahead
basket and he's gonnay, what do we say in baseball? Right,
when you make a great defensive play, you lead off
the next ending. But the ball you can hide from
(39:30):
the ball when you want to. In basketball, and the
big players would make the big plays in the big games.
The ball finds them and it found him here again,
five point five seconds left. The Sixers are taking the
ball side out. They've got plenty of time to get
a shot off here, but they don't get a shot off.
Al Horford jumps the passing lane. Ben Simmons just really
(39:51):
an uncharacteristic pass on his part, kind of seemed like
he thought that there was no chance that a defender
being there. But al Horford again jumps the pass lane,
takes it the other way, almost ran the clock out.
They followed him. He makes a couple of free throws
and essentially the game's over at that point. Here's what
al Horford thought on that particular play, and you're gonna
be interested to hear his mindset going into this play
(40:13):
with Ben Simmons trying to inbound the ball to Joel
and Bead at the top of the ark. Going back
on it, I'm usually like, uh, you know, more conservative
when it comes on the defensive end, especially on the
inbound plays. UM. During that game and and throughout, I'm
never really taking risks like that, UM, but this time
(40:34):
I was like, Man, I'm gonna make an effort um
to just kind of jam and bead and uh and
make it tough for the inbound and I'm just gonna
go and make a play for it. I don't think
they're gonna expect it. And um, and and you know
I took the gamble and and and when I when
I will say, would have tipped the ball. My whole
thing was like, man, let me just run and just
try to dribble the clock out, like you're saying. And
(40:56):
you know they followed me and uh and UM. But
it but it was great. You know at that point,
I think they were you know, I think we shok
them up pretty good because they you know, they had
chances before that to kind of put us away, and
we just kept finding ways. So Al Horford steals the game,
makes the free throws seals the game. Obviously, Bell and
Nell the clinks went off the back of the rim
at the buzzer, but the Celtics outlast. You can see
(41:19):
how excited. These these guys are on the court in
that moment. This was a dog fight, Sean, This was
a dog fight, and the Celtics knew at this very
moment that the series was there. Well it's three oh,
when it easily could have been You're easily could be
down to one of this easily, right, and easily easily
could be down to one with having to play a
(41:39):
Game four in Philadelphia, which Celtics did not play well.
So I think it's what we've learned over the years
and why the Celtics have had success and more of
success than we thought they would in the playoffs, as
the margins are so small and it's all these little
plays we're talking about that make the difference, and the
Sexers weren't you know, maybe you go back the previous year,
remember the Celtics out of nowhere, go to the conference,
(41:59):
find the Isaiah Thomash year and that stuff. Playoff experience matters.
Under the twenty two Celtics in the finals against Golden State,
playoff experience matters. Finals experience matters. And maybe as we
look back five years later, with the eyes were looking
at Yeah, Philadelphia was playing better. Yeah they were on
a role. But maybe the Celtics having been there and
played all those playoff games this group the year before,
(42:21):
with the exception of Isaiah but remember without your Hey,
you add Kyrie Yad, Gordon Hayward, but they're not here
in the playoffs. Maybe all those playoff games, coming from
two oh down against Chicago, seven game series against Washington,
maybe some of that, you know, paid off in the
little moments in this series a year later. I would
also say, kind of a little twist on what you're
saying there is that these moments in this series and
(42:43):
in the Milwaukee series before that, going forward with Jalen
Brown and Jason Tatum going through that, Marcus Smart to
an extent, like he was still the young player at
that time, that might have contributed in a significant way
to who these guys have now become. And we're talking
about Defensive Player of the Year from Marcus Smart. We've
got two NBA All Stars and probably all NBA players
(43:03):
this year in Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. I mean,
these moments in being able to overcome that is history
that your body and your mind are never going to forget.
And these are these are miles that you put on
the car. But they are a man. They are all
terrain uphill miles, and they do pay dividends. And look
back at the history of this league, the teams that win,
(43:26):
generally speaking, have gone through adversity. The always Celtics are
sort of an exception, but sort of not because the
individual players had gone through it and had runs that
fell short, but as a team they hadn't. But yet,
the teams that win historically are teams that tried to
climb the mountain and couldn't and learn the lessons and
brought them back a year later. And as we know,
the Celtics go on to the conference finals, and this
(43:48):
season they almost got there to the NBA Finals, didn't
quite make it against Lebron. But after this series conclude,
I mean, what was your takeaway and what do you
remember kind of looking back on that moment when the
Celtics did secure secure the series to move on to
the next ground. I a couple of things that you
know in the in the heat of the moment, and
(44:09):
maybe you'll hear the call, maybe you won't, but I
remember thinking that there was an irony the previous year,
my call of the beating Washington in Game seven, the
Kelly OLLENNI game was and you know, the Celtics has
done this and the Eastern Conference Finals and go figure,
Brad Stevens is back in the Final four and flash
fort a year later. And there were two elements of
storytelling I was trying to do at the end when
(44:31):
the Celtics one game five, which is one Brad Stevens
at Butler had gone to the Final four. Then Gordon
Hayward left and he went back to the Final four
anyway the next year, and look at what had happened.
He goes to the Final four, score and Hayward and
he gets back to the Final four the next year.
And the element that at this time there wasn't a
Jason Tatum hype trade. There was a Ben Simmons hype
(44:52):
trade back in twenty and he was the next Scot.
He was going to be the next best player in
the league. And that I think I said something along
the li that he was the Prince of the league
and the Celtics had beaten the Prince and now they'll
face the king, which was you know Cleveland. Obviously, in
Game seven, you really felt the Cellers were gonna have
home court, that they were gonna have a shot, you know,
(45:13):
in that series, but that it was another you know,
step forward, here we are five years later when it's
a championship or bust mentality. Then it was wow, do
you think you know they get back to the conference finals.
None of this was supposed to happen that year, And
we're supposed to go sixteen and two with Kyrie Irving
carrying them after the Gordon Hereward injury, and you certainly
weren't supposed to make this run without the two of them,
(45:33):
and here you are back in the conference finals, and
it was amazing how quickly it had all happened. That
three years earlier, Brad Stevens started what forty and eighty
one something like, you know, the first year and a half,
and the Celtics had become a top five team again.
With some teams go through five year rebuilds, eight year rebuilds,
whatever Celtics rebuild was eighteen months. The juxtaposition of those
(45:55):
emotions that you kind of just spoke about those first
five minutes of the season, I mean, you saw it
and I saw sive person. I mean, I couldn't fathom
what was going on in front of my eyes, and
there was so much height before that season with the
Celtics kind of new new Big three with you've got
Horford and Gordon and Kyrie out there. You just think
(46:16):
that the season is over. Yep. Then sixteen in two out,
like how does that even happen? And then you fast
forward to this moment where you're thinking, oh my god,
they don't have Gordon, they don't have Kyrie. Can this
team legitimately get to the finals? Like is this real
life right now? You know, we're looking at it, Mark,
We're looking at it with the Kyrie eyes that we
(46:37):
have now. Let history not forget that Kyrie was an
MVP candidate in twenty eighteen. He was phenomenal in his
first year as a Celtic and he carried as he
often is, his first year. Were ear to that, I know,
I think, oh, there's no question that it was. Yeah,
in seventeen eighteen, he was everything he wanted to be.
You know, he was the guy that you know, things
happened and we look at it with the eyes we
look at it now like without Kyrie and they went
(46:59):
farther and yeah, we know how everything played out. But yeah,
I don't think that should be lost, you know, at
all of this, but it was a you know, a
game we're gonna remember for al Al keeping his feet
on the floor and them unable to keep the confetti
coming from the seam and finishing it going away l Orford.
He used every bit of the rim on that bucket.
But we're glad that he did. He made the confetti
(47:21):
game the confetti game because you were not looking back
on this today if he didn't lead the Celtics to
the win down there in the clutch. And so because
there was the confetti game, flash forward two years later,
and this is my only story on it because I
don't get into social media stuff. I don't get into
the the six years. You know, let's listen. You know,
I've got friends that run that organization or whenever, the
coach and the GM, but they get aggressive on social media,
(47:43):
some teams doing, some teams don't, and they do. We don't.
Flash forward two years later, and then we're going to
talk about Eileen here, who runs our social media, because
in this moment I remember her face forever. Two years later,
we go into Philadelphia. Celtics were not playing well at January,
had lost to think five or six, had lost all
three games to the Sixers, right, And so the Sixers
won the season series. We're on the bus getting ready
(48:05):
to go to the airport and they're putting a tweet
out as if they won the championship beat the Celtics
in a season series, And my first ties, are you
going to put a banner up for that? Like beat
the Celtics in a season series in twenty But okay,
that's there. Whatever style works for you. I'm not sitting
here like, get off my lawn. Shouldn't do that in
social media. If that's your thing, do it. It's great.
But they had a big tweet, you know, just flexing, yeah,
(48:29):
on winning a season series, and remember it, just Eileen's
face that night, like what do you do? How do
you counter it? How do you answer it? And you
know we didn't. We don't do that again. Seven months later,
Celtics and the Sixers meet in the Bubble in the
playoffs in the first round, and the Celtics, of course
sweet the series. While I never do this because I
remember it, I wanted to do this for Elena, I remember,
(48:50):
because she couldn't. And that night Celtics win fourth game
and they sweep the season series, and I quote tweeted
the tweet from January which said Celtics, you know, Sixers
win the season series and I quote tweeted it and said,
dropped the confetti little early again did and there it is,
Mike drop for Sean Grandy or would you call that
tweet drop? I don't know you guys, You guys deal
(49:12):
what they're leaving leave it us. Yeah, no, But an
unbelievable moment in not only this rivalry but the development
of some of these great young players and really watching
these guys grow up right before our eyes to become
what they have become today. And listen, it's on the
other side too. Joel Embiid has grown leaps and bounds
since this time in his career. Five years. We were
(49:34):
unbelievably lucky when the Celtics and Lakers met. Are No, wait,
that wasn't supposed to happen, and yet here we got
to have the second generation, right, a new generation of Celtics.
Lakers were unbelievably fortunate to have another generation of Celtics sixers,
for these games really matter, and who knows, maybe a
couple of months were mind we might be seeing these
teams go at it again. But that's it. Looking back
(49:54):
on the Confetti Game, one of my favorite games that
I've ever covered here with the Boston Celtics, Sean, I
hope it's there for you. And wait, what is this?
Do we have a little there it is? That's the
confetti dropping down, the real, live, actual confetti, and that's it.
And with that, that's the rat Shan. The Confetti Game
is in the books.
Play off basketball in the NBA. When you walk in
a building, it's so tense that you could reach out
and touch the electricity. It's just a dog funny. It
was a battle. It was a low scoring battle. I
didn't really get caught up in the you know, in
the contrutty part of it kind of is what it is.
(00:22):
But you know, looking back on it, I think it's
pretty funny. MARKA. Nikoe, Sean Grandy here for yet another
episode of You from the Raptors. Behind the scenes with
the Boston Celtic. We're in the Paul Pierce Room here
at one hundred Causeway Street, the Celtics new front office.
What do you think of these digs shows, just where
(00:43):
he does all his videos. It is, it is not.
I don't think that would pass here. I don't think
that would fly. Hey, before we get into this, just
want to remind you all to give us a rate
review and subscribe. We appreciate you for listening. Hopefully you
guys tune in every week and you get those notifications
every Tuesday and Wednesday day. There's a bill, right, there
is a buttification or something like that. Yeah, there is
(01:04):
like a text. Yes, I actually get it. On my
own phone. We're all Pavloerd, Pavlovian. Now thing, somebody's happening,
Run to your phone. But yes, so Sean. Today we're
diving into Celtics sixers history and one game in particular.
We're not going to go there yet, but Celtics in
sixers has quite a background. I just want to go
(01:24):
through this list of names that we've got in the
history of this rivalry. So they've met fourteen times in
the playoffs, eight times in the Eastern Conference finals, and
here we go, decade by decade by decade. Russell and
Will in the sixties have the check and Doctor J
in the seventies, Bird and Doctor J in the eighties.
I ever sent him Pierce in the two thousands, KG
and Evan Turner in the two tens. Shout out to
(01:47):
Evan Turner the Goat. And then now we've got Tatum
in and Beid going back and forth. This has to
be the best conference rivalry in the NBA. Am I wrong? There? No,
it still exists, you know among the fans, there's still
a thing. The generationally, it's sort of been passed on. Obviously.
I'm been with Cedric Maxwell for twenty two years and
it runs deep. The Laker thing is significant with him,
(02:09):
but I think the Sixer thing really runs the strongest
in a lot of ways, and it goes back to
in two thousand and nine, the Celtics Bols has that
epic first round playoff series in which we were all discussing,
including you know, with the you know with Doris who's
going to join us later, that is this the greatest
playoff series ever? And man I fall back and Max
(02:29):
thought it was as it was going on, that's the best,
which to me was amazing considering he played in the
one I consider to be the best series ever, which
is the eighty one Eastern Conference Finals. But it not
only has the three one comeback, but every single game
went down to the wire, and that as we move
into this twenty eighteen series, this is a theme you're
(02:50):
going to hear a lot. This was a seven game
series disguised as a five game series because the games
were so close and this easily a couple of balls
bounce a different way. The Sixers Witness series, no question
about that, and Brad Stevens, as you'll hear later in
this episode, he talks about that, and you teas it there.
We've got some real star studded guests that are coming
(03:11):
on this show today. We've got you, obviously, we've got me.
That's not quite on the level of Al Horford, Brad
Stevens and Doris Burke, who actually called the game that
we're talking about today. And I called the game too.
You did call the game we're talking about the radio broadcast. Okay,
Sean called the game as well. Maybe we'll get you know,
that just sums up the last twenty two years people,
We'll get I was in my car. I had to listen.
(03:32):
I couldn't get to it too well, maybe we'll get
a couple of year calls where it's into this. But
with that being said, just to let everyone know what
game we're talking about here, I've got a little surprise
for you. So I want you to flip this envelope over,
tell me what it says, and then take a look
and set says the Academy Award goes to Chris Rock.
Oh no, this is from ah from the Confetti Game,
(03:55):
which is May fifth in twenty eighteen. And let me
guess what's inside. Is this actually coffetti? Red is actual confetti,
real life confetti from that game. I'm not throwing this in.
Our producers shown us to throw it in the air.
We'll do that at the end, but right you don't
do it. If we listen, if we were to throw
the confetti now, that would be throwing it prematurely before
(04:15):
the game. Oh sing. And that's exactly why we're here.
That's exactly why we're here. This is one of the
most memorable games that I've ever covered. And I was there.
I know you were there. But to have an envelope
filled with confetti from a specific game, you've got to
know that it's a big deal, and this one certainly was.
We're talking about twenty eighteen Eastern Conference Semifinals Celtics versus
(04:36):
six Ers, Game three. It goes down to the wire,
and it's one of the wildest endings that I've ever seen.
With for a moment, it seemed like neither team wanted
to take it. For a moment, it seem like both
teams wanted to give it away. What do you remember
most about that game as you were calling it. I
think the first thing you flash back to is the
owl play and you sort of replaying it over and
(04:57):
over again, and then you get to the confetti and
Belle Nelly and was good and wasn't it good? But
you know, to set the stage properly for Game three,
you have to remember these seasons that these two teams had,
because this is the first time. This is the process
in Philadelphia, finally coming to fruition, they thought. But remember,
(05:18):
compared to what had been the Sixers had been a
terrible team, they'd be winning fifteen eighteen games or fans
have been going through it waiting for this playoff run.
And then the Sixers went crazy in the second half
of the year. Remember this is the year that begins
on Opening Night with Gordon Hayward breaking his leg in
five minutes. Celtic sasion has ruined. What got overlooked that night,
(05:39):
which will forever be remembered for the Gordon Hayward injury,
is that that was Jason Tatum's debut, his rookie game
in the NBA, in the starting lineup. It's a really
good point and that everyone always forgets that part. He's
got the hair and the whole thing. It's like, oh
my gosh. Then when he really was nineteen years old
and the Celtics lost the next night to Milwaukee and
the home opener and then put together one of the
(06:00):
most absurd and improbable sixteen game winning streaks in NBA history.
It came after that, and the Celtics had the lead
in the East all year the entire year, culminating with
the win over Philadelphia. Had twenty point comeback win against
the Sixers in London, and the Celtics were up by
like five games. Well, flash forward to where we're going
to be here in a few months. The Sixers had
(06:21):
been significantly bet They had been one of the best
teams in the NBA the second half of that year,
and they had almost caught the Celtic. Celtics had home
court advantage, but they had been pushed to seven by
Milwaukee in the first round, and many people thought, and
logically so, that the Sixers were gonna win the series
because they had been playing significantly better in the month
or two going into this series. Celtics win Game one
(06:42):
and Game two, the Sixers are up by twenty two
in the second quarter, Robert Covington's hitting threes, and the
Celtics looked like they're going to get run off the floor.
And they come back and win that game. They get like,
you know, Tatum went on the runt bainestead a big
three in that game. But already you're getting to Philadelphia,
and the Sixers feel this is why I'm set up
this way, Because the Sixers feel we're the better team
going in, playing much better. This should be one one
(07:06):
right now, and so they're thinking out, we're gonna get
these two games in Philadelphia, and we're gonna have the
momentum by and he left something else out there. Kyrie
Irving's not playing for the Celtics, and Mayrie Irving gets
hurt late in the year and he won't come back,
and all of a sudden, this leads to the Milwaukee
series before, which was the you know, the Scary Terry
coming out party. And late in this game, Marcus Smart
follows out ye Jalen Brown is coming back from missing
(07:27):
game with his hamstring injury, and so there's a minute's
limit on him. So it just seemed like everything that
could possibly be stacked up against the Celtics going into
this game and then late in the game was stacked
up against them. Yet they still found a way to
take this game home. So let's dive in and just
take a watch. Shall we do that or should you
(07:48):
know what. Let's talk about the confetti first. Let's talk
about the confetti first. When that was happening in real time,
I know what was going through my mind, and it's
just I'm dying laughing because it's just it was kind
of a laughter moment at another organization. And listen, that's
not to say that the Sixers are a laughing stock
or anything like that. I'm just saying in that moment,
(08:09):
it was very entertaining for me to see that the
game was not over and yet there's confetti, and it's
it's not just a little bit of confetti, it's a
ton of confetti falling down, and that that game has
to be stopped. I think it was stopped for seven
or eight minutes. That's what I was thinking, is just
how funny this situation is before here, Well, here's the
translation to that and the confetti, which is what everybody's
going to remember, is that here you have Geno right,
(08:32):
the victory cigar. The degree to which the Geno thing
is carefully guarded as if you can remember that even
the first year it was running the championship er of
oh wait, we had an assistant coach same armand Hill
and I remember running it up by thirteen fourteen points
with two minutes to go, and A'm freaking out on
the bench that it was too soon, too early back
(08:53):
And by the way, in two thousand and eight, you
didn't come back from fourteen down. Of course you can,
but then you know, playing that too early that was
as verboten as it gets. So to have that moment
to be on the trigger the irony for me when
you're asking me what was going on in the moment.
I think a lot of people know because they've ward
this over the years, and in this era, the last
fifteen years, radio in the NBA has been thrown just
(09:17):
the way you so dismissively spoke of it at the
start of the podcast. We've been thrown to different parts
of different arenas, and you can't see the I mean,
obviously Boston's the all time worst. You can't see the
court from where you're sitting in Philadelphia, of all the
places in all the world to be it was one
of the first places where we had to go up
in two thousand and six. And it was not center
Court as it's supposed to be. It was right near
(09:38):
the baseline. But it's that baseline that we're going to
be talking about or looking out if you're watching on YouTube.
So of all the radio locations in all the world,
I had a perfect view of the fact that Bell
and Eli's foot was on the line, and I called
it like that. In real time, I thought he was
on the line. So you're waiting. You never know when
you have a review, but it just felt to me
in a real time like immature celebration. Bell and Ellie
(10:02):
catch it. Shoot, they rolled a two. We're going to overtime.
That's what you thought, and I think some other people
thought that too. Let's listen here real quick to our
guests with Doris, Al and Brad about what they were
thinking in that moment. You know, we feel pretty good
about the game, that we have it wrapped up, and
(10:23):
then m Bell and Ellie makes and I'm believable play
hits the shot from the corner um during real time.
I actually saw I remember seeing him stepping on the line,
so uh, you know, I knew that it was at
two at that point from the broadcast position. Dave Pash
was on the call and Marco was in the far corner,
(10:45):
and you know, for a play by play guy can
you see it? Are you calling it off the monitor?
There was some question whether it's a two or three.
It's called the two, the the officialism in the perfect
spot and Bell and Ellie, to his credit, hit the shot.
But I was standing on the sideline and I could
see I thought it was a two, right a Wetton,
And so obviously the game got stalled there for a
(11:08):
minute after that when the confetti all rang down and
then the confetti started to come down, So that that
sequence is all I remember. Then, the confetti coming down,
and a lot of other players like running off to
the locker room thinking the game was over, and yeah,
that was that confetti. That was that was something, all right,
So that's what they had to say, that's what they remember.
Sean this game going down to the wire. I think
(11:30):
there was fifteen lead changes in the game, twelve ties,
neither team led by more than ten at any point,
and here we go down to the final minutes. So
we're just going to dive in to the final two
minutes of this game, watch it unfold, react and talk
about what we were thinking in those moments. And then
also here from what our guests had to think in
those moments. So here we go, two minutes left in
the game, game tied up at eighty three, eighty three,
(11:52):
shot clock at five right with Toy on the timer
drives that puts it off. It's a two. What a shot.
I think we also have to remember it too as
the game is getting tight. Now this becomes the absolute
must win for the Sixers, and that sort of changes
the way you play. Maybe you force really tough shots
(12:14):
like that that shot by Reddick in that moment. I
remember sitting in my baseline seat right and I'm looking
at that and I'm like, Okay, this this just isn't
the Celtics night. There's no way they're going to overcome
a game when the guy is hitting a shot like
that to take the lead during the final couple of minutes. Yet,
you know, nobody, Jj'd tell you nobody had tough shots
like that in Hill bas But and again watching a
(12:36):
nineteen year old, this was a lot of a big
element of this game. Again, we're gonna remember the confetti, well,
remember the al play, but Jason Tatum and the Jaalen
play and the Jay play. But Tatum, as we're watching now,
it's less sort of jarring than it was in the
moment where you realize, oh, my goodness, he is what
we say he is, and it's happening now a real time.
(12:59):
It's not Eclipse himself at what he's doing every night
or most nights in MBP caliber seasons. It wasn't obviously
as frequent in his rookie year, but all of a sudden,
he's doing it. He's doing it on this stage and
Sean's talking about right now, one minute, thirty four seconds
left in regulation, Jason Tatum pulls up in The Celtics
(13:19):
had been running this action for him that Brad talks
about called stack, that they had been running it over
and over during this game because it was it was
his comfort zone. It was Brad's comfort zone. He knew
that this rookie could make the right reads, make the
right plays, and get them a good look anytime they wanted.
And that's exactly what he did here with a pull
up jumper to tie the game at eighty five eighty five. Yea, Listen,
(13:39):
there's a cliche we're using it all the time about
rookies that you're not a rookie anymore right at this
point of the season, But this is what we're talking about.
Where you know, watch Jason Tatum the first fifteen twenty
games of the year got to we'd talked about that
opening night game against Cleveland when Lebron just for Jackson's
don contamp and all these things. He's trying to figure
it out. But one of the things about Tatum we've
seen throughout his career is how he adjust two situations
(14:02):
and not being effected like this on the big stage.
And he just said the key word Brad had the
comfort with him as a nineteen year old rookie to
houches insane. I have a go to for him in
a second round playoff here, so Bell and Ellie gets filed.
At the other end, he puts home a couple of
free throws. You know, we're looking at Celtics. We're looking
at forty one point two seconds left here, Celtics down
(14:24):
by two, and this is just chaos here. Jalen Brown's
taking a baseline and basically Brad Stevens comes in from
the corner just in the nick of time, and he's like, Okay,
we need to call a time out. We need to
call it time out. What do you remember about that
unfolding that those are always dangerous It's funny because we're
talking about Jason ten getting a feel and where are
we with Brady? This is your five for Brad Stevens
(14:46):
by this point. These are the kind of things you
can't last be prepare for when in an NBA situation
as a new NBA coach, What are you calling a
time out of the middle of a possession and it's
it's later the session. You know, there's everything happens at
a real time. These are all real time, quick twitch
decisions that you have to make, and this was one
(15:08):
of them where you know what it gets ten nine,
you're the pl You know the risk reward of calling
a time out gross with each second that comes off
that clock. And this is the first moment during these
final couple minutes of regulation and overtime where Brad does
step in and calls it a timeout, and we're going
to have an ATO coming out of this. But ATOS
(15:30):
is something that he and that's after timeouts for anyone
who doesn't know what that term stands for. But this
guy built such a reputation. We're talking about he's only
been coaching for five years at this point. He built
such a reputation for being able to get quality looks
at the basket, and it blew my mind what he
accomplished in this game. I could not believe the two
looks the Celtics got out of timeouts in this game.
(15:51):
Most things you see in an NBA game that looked
like their improvisation are things that have been prepared for
and practiced and thought about for years and years and years.
Brad Stevens was preparing to be an NBA head coach
many years before he became an NBA head coach. He
was studying out of time out plays. And I don't
think he thought in twenty ten, well, in three years,
(16:13):
I'm going to be the coach of the Boston Celtics.
Nobody thought that. But listen go back to Brad's conversations.
This always struck me. When people say, oh, Brad's a
college coach or he wants to go back to college,
I would laugh. And here's what. Listen to Gordon Hayward.
I've had conversations with Gordon Hayward about the conversations he
would have with Brad and when he first went in
(16:34):
the NBA's first couple of years, and Brad would call
him up, and of course it was how are you doing,
how's the family, how's everything going? And then because it
was Brad, it would be, Hey, tell me about that
play you ran, you know, And now it was because
Brad was watching that is that's the mind at work.
And by the way, we're in an era now we're
who did you know? Joe Massoula get a lot of
these out of time out plays him And as I've
(16:56):
said many times, Brad didn't necessarily create these, he stole them.
Like all great artists. This is what we say mark
about anyone that uses words or writes. Good writers borrow
occasionally from other writers. Great writers steal outright, and that
is what you know great coaches do. It's a matter
of there isn't a lot new, there isn't a lot original.
It's I better call this time out with eight on
(17:19):
the shot clock and implement this particular play at this
particular time. That's what separates the elite. And now it's
time to hear Brad talk about that exact topic of
the studying and all the time that goes into being
able to prepare for a moment like this, And then
Doris will come in right after him to talk a
little bit about what she thought about his ETOs at
that time. Well, you've got to be able to perform
(17:39):
in those moments, and you know, coach's job is to
call the right time outs, advance the ball, and try
to get a great look the way that I approached it.
And Matt Reynolds, who is our at the time was
our video coordinator as now an assistant coach, always gave
me the last two minutes of close games of our
(18:03):
opponent and all of the need plays on what we
call need plays on offense and defense. So if a
team was down two against Philly or down three against Philly,
I had every time that happened throughout the whole year
already watched and how they guarded it right, So you
have to know, Okay, is there a chance they go zone, Well,
(18:24):
Philly wasn't a zone team. Is there a chance they
stay attached to their man, Well, Philly would mix that up.
Is there a chance there a switch one through five team?
Philly would do that a lot. I remember how uncomfortable
he was in the course of our coverage of Brad
with the notion that he was like the basketball genius.
He was truly uncomfortable with it. But you could not help,
(18:48):
but notice the details of preparation, and in particular, we
talked often about their ability to execute after time out,
so special, you know, situate the actual situation basketball where
you know you're thinking in your head as a coach. Okay,
their closing lineup is these five guys, which particular person
(19:13):
am I going to go to in a particular moment.
The other factor against Philly, Yeah, I coached against Brett forever,
and Brett was a heck of a coach, and one
of the things that he made really difficult was the
inbounder on the defending the defender on the inbounder. Oftentimes
it was Simmons was a he was a little bit
(19:37):
of a riverboat gambler, like he would go and break
your play up. He would go and shoot a passing lane,
he would go and take a cutter, and they would
do a coaches call exit, So you didn't have an
exact of what they were going to do. But sometimes
that's why you watched throughout the course of the previous
few weeks in the year and everything else. And if
(19:59):
you think about it, the stretch two times he gets
two different guys isolated an individual situations for layups, for
layups and both guys score. All right, so we're back
out of the time out. Here sean twenty five point
eight seconds left on the game clock. Celtics down to
eight seconds left on the shot clock. I don't know
(20:19):
what you were expecting, but I wasn't expecting a layup,
and that's exactly what we get here with Tatum tossing
it over the top to Jalen for the layoup lop
inside Brown catches it puts it in a tie the
game in eighty seven. Put a play out of the timeout.
The Sixers have a timeout left. We'll see if they
use it. The beauty of this and obviously you know
as the play unfold, it's foreshadowing of the play that's
(20:43):
going to decide the game later, which most things that
happened he plays. There's always foreshadowing because there's always something
that happened before it, whether it's two minutes before in
a previous game in the series. Something can happen in
the regular season, or something that happened six months ago,
or something can happen in the the previous year. That this
accumulation of information that's going through coaches heads and players
heads is what always plays out in these situations and
(21:06):
this that couldn't have been a better foreshadow what was
about to have. And we're not going to hear Brad
talk about it right here, but he told us when
we were having our conversation with him, he has never
had more trust in an inbounder than Jason Tatum. And
Jason Tatum is the man who was inbounding this ball.
He was able to read it on the fly and
toss it perfectly over the top. And listen, credit to
(21:28):
Jalen too, because he had to have the athleticism to
he bumped his defender back and was able to catch
it over the top and finish. But Jason Tatum was
the man that he wanted passing the ball in that moment,
which again we're talking about this kind of being his
coming out party. He may not have scored that basket,
but he certainly created it with that incredible passive. It's
the subplant of this series, of this particular game. But
(21:51):
Ben Simmons was a rookie too. When you think of
the IQ, and obviously their careers have gone the way
they've gone, that's what you think about the YES when
you think about the IQ, and remember that was the
big chant that that's a rookie at Tatum in Boston
because Ben Simmons had sat out the year and then
one Rookie of the Year, Ben Simmons beat Jason Tatum
out for Rookie of the Year this year. But two
players that young have that crazy basketball i Q. That's insane.
(22:13):
All right, let's hear what our guests had to say
about this play that tied the game up at eighty
seven with twenty four seconds left. So, as you're looking
at it from a coach's perspective, number one is stop,
are they going to be tight or are they going
to protect the rim? So right now, you see because
wysemb tight because Al's out there, which is exactly what
(22:34):
you were just referencing. So then it is are they
going to stay home or are they going to switch?
And so and they were switching right and look who's
on the ball. Yep. So if I run something to
try to throw it in front of Simmons, he might
screw up the play by himself. So the ball's got
to go somewhere else in my opinion. Otherwise, you better
(22:55):
have an elephant and bounder who puses pass phase and
you can trick somebody. I think a couple of things
on that play number one. It's execution requires timing. If
you're going to isolate somebody on the post, it is
you know, four guys moving appropriately, screening at the appropriate time,
vacating particular areas on the floor at a particular time,
(23:19):
and sometimes trying to identify and hunt a matchup and
setting your screens in such a way. And then the
delivery of the past. Like, there's a lot of moving parts,
Mark that have to come together, all right, Sean, So
next up, games died at eighty seven sixers bring the
ball up court, and then the absolute unthinkable happens. Yeah.
(23:39):
Remember now there was this year no time out. Now
remember early in the year, Bogdanovich in Indiana had thrown
away a inbound task. So there have been crazy steals
like this, but this is the like, as you said,
there's a live ball turnover and it's the very last
thing you're expecting. So we are so accustomed to these
(24:02):
playoff games happening with here's a possession time out, here's
a possession time out. Here's a possession time out. And
in your head, you're on the bench, you're thinking, if
you're the sixers, you're either tied or you know, with
getting the ball, you're ahead. You're the last thing you're
thinking here with a live ball is that you're going
to be down by two calls out the play. Here's
a Reddick with eight seconds to go, made Raddick a
(24:23):
loose ball picked up by Rosier, pick out a breakaway
Rose here to prow Pit puts it in with the
one point seventh lap. A traject turnover by Philadelphia leads
to a lamp on the other end and perhaps a
for you nothing series lead. Yeah, this this play. I
just remember thinking, how like JJ Reddick is not the
type of player who's going to turn the ball over
(24:45):
in that moment. He is one of the most intelligent
players that you and I have probably ever seen, that
many people have ever seen playing the game of basketball.
This was just a complete miscommunication at the most important
juncture of the game to that point. Big moments can
subtract point from your basketball IQ seen it for you.
What are you saying, um saying, that's what a couple subtracted, Sean.
(25:06):
The disbelief on the Philly fans faces in this moment
after Jalen Brown puts this bucket home. I mean watching
back on it. I kind of enjoy seeing it on screen.
I know you do. It's a great listen. By the way,
it's it's a great telecast. Um, And I know we're
talking to Doris here. I'd think would be remiss. I'd
be remiss. It's not my you know, I would be
not comfortable if we didn't talk about a guy. There
(25:28):
are a lot of underrated play by play guys, and
my profession, day Pass is absolutely one of them. He
is one of the best all around dude and he
you know, I think he rose to the moment of
this game too. And again that's my particular slams. I'm
always gonna look at the telecast first before the eighth
as Brad looks at Atos, I'm watching the telecast to
see how it's all produced and directed it. He had
a great story to tell, and that helps. But I thought,
(25:49):
I thought everybody here or at that ESPN did a
great well speaking to that in a moment, he's gonna
have to fill eight minutes of Aaron Jones well do nothing,
as s Gallini. This year, I had to do what
forty five Yeah, I don't show that that might have
been a little bit worse, all right. So here we go,
final possession of regulation, one point seven left on the clock,
Celtics up by two. After Rogier picked it off and
(26:10):
gave it to Jalen for the transition layup, and here
comes KOs Llanelli catch it. Shoot, it's good. They ruled
it two. They were going to overtime. Marco Bellanelli sends
it to an extra session. They've mopped the floor here
(26:32):
in that quarter where the fans are. I'm on the
side where the cameras are, and I'm right on the baseline.
That's just where I happened to be of all the
places in all the world. And to me, you just
have naked eye reactions, and you have to have instant
reactions even if you're far away. And to me, it
just it just looked like he was on the line.
I'd surprise with the biggest surprise to me was how
long it took. Oh my gosh, I just that moment
(26:53):
was one of my favorite moments ever. Knowing that it
was a two. The players knew that it was a two,
at least the Celtics players. The coaches knew that it
was a two, and yet here's this confetti just raining
down for eight minutes, one piece at a time, ten
pieces at a time, just delaying an NBA playoff game
that is basically going to decide the series. It's gonna
take a while to get the confetti off the floor
(27:16):
here in Philadelphia, as we've got overtime coming after Marco
Bellinelli hits a baseline jumper ruled on the floor as
a two, confirmed by replay as a two. The confetti
is actually still coming down from there's a ton of it.
Let's go take a while. Yeah, so sean absolute chaos unfolds. Finally, finally,
I think the confetti still might be falling down in Philadelphia,
(27:37):
but somehow we got the game resumed. This is a
borderline fetish for you, your enjoyment. I small it. I mean,
you put that under your pillow. I've got to I've
got to come clean here. This is not my envelope.
This is our producer's envelope, John Piccard. This is is
in the moment he was smart enough to grab grab
up a few pieces of that confetti and three, in
(27:57):
full full disclosure, I have some from the parade, you know.
Eight Okay, so not the same, no, but it's I'm
just saying it forgetting not the only person who's kept
king trendy for all right. So we get into ot
the game continues to go back and forth, and now
we're looking at a minute thirty four left. Celtics are
down by four at this point. If they don't score
and Philly puts one home, that might be the game
(28:19):
right there. But who did the Celtics go to old
reliable in this game? The nineteen year old rookie and
this was one of my favorite plays that I've seen
from him in his career. Crosses up joehl embiid gets
to the basket and throws the pump. Fake has the
patience to make the right play there. Like forty minutes tonight,
(28:40):
shot clock at a Tatum against MB Tatum gotta beat
off his space freak finish at the rim two point
game again, how about that play from the rookie. This
was the moment where my eyes bulged and I said, okay,
all right, the Celtics don't just have a really good rookie,
(29:03):
they have a player who could potentially be an all
time great. I just think the I don't know if
it's ironic or whatever it is, because Joel Embid wasn't
a dominant player in twenty eighteen. He wasn't dominant yet.
And when you talk about when we talked at the
start of the podcast about rivalries and what makes them great,
it's something we don't get as much in professional sports,
which is the same player staying with the same team
(29:24):
for many years over and over again, and that abs
or rivalries. And you're reading this list of Havelcheck and
Doctor Jay and Larry because those guys stayed with the
team turned nine ten and of course, but Evan didn't.
This is my point, which one of these doesn't belong
here for that reason. Of course, even Turner should have
been in twenty years six or we all know that,
but it didn't happen. So point being here it is,
we're sitting here looking back when nostalgia to a game
(29:46):
five years ago, and we can talk about a game
a couple of weeks ago where Tatum and Embid are
now going head to head and the layups that Tatum
has gotten against Embiid over the years with different moves
and everything, you know, was sort of born, as you said,
at this moment, and it's not just Dus who thought that,
everyone else so let's hear what they had to say
about Jason Tatum and really what most people see as
his coming out party. And this is when he established
(30:08):
himself as I'm a player. Everyone needs to pay attention to.
This action stabilized me in that game. It felt like, Okay,
we need a good shot. Tatum will figure it out
with a simple step in this and that's when I
knew that it was he was at a different level
(30:29):
than even a couple months before. Then the next game,
he reads a cut and he backcuts for the game winner. Right,
So I forget if it was Smart that hit him
or he hit Smart yep, I can't. I can't. One
of them read the cut and the other cut and
it was just like a It was a It was
a twenty seven year old veteran read, not a nineteen
(30:52):
year old read. But this action, which there were several
versions of this in this game, and he read it
several different ways, was just designed to give him a
step and a read and he just made the right
play over and over. He'd given me chills because he
could pull it off. And Joel Embiad has been one
of the elite defenders. Not only is elite, he's got
(31:14):
dancer's feet at seven foot two hundred and fifty plus pounds.
He can turn left and right, he can navigate east
and west. And I go back to what I said
about the demeanor. So Jason hits him with a move.
You've got to get by and not to be sped up,
(31:35):
not to have your mind ahead of where you want,
so to dead stop in the restricted area with that
guy in front of you, and to have the presence
of mind to keep your pivot down and then send
the upfake that gets that defender committed, and then finish
the play. At that age, I mean, I couldn't believe
(31:57):
he pulled it off. I was like the fearlessness to
attack in the moment and then again to be able
to execute the move. I mean, shoot, pretty incredible stuff.
I was just impressed with this poise. Um. I remember
just kind of looking over my shoulder and being like
like okay, um, like like we we got something here.
(32:20):
Because he it was timely plays. It was you know,
reading the defense, making the simple play, making the right play,
but also not afraid, not afraid at all, or the moment.
He I feel like he almost like you know, he
wanted to be in those positions to make, make those plays,
(32:40):
make those decisions, and uh, and down the stretch. You know,
he was huge for us. But but yeah, I feel
like that Philly series, Uh, you know, it was kind
of a in my eyes, it was kind of like
a like a coming out party for him. So greatness
takes what an insatiable appetite to attack your weakness, and
(33:01):
we have seen that from the outset of Jalen or
Jason's career. Jason has identified, Oh, I made that mistake
once in a critical moment. I'm not going to repeat
that mistake. Oh I don't finish going left, I don't
finish well enough in the restricted area. I'm going to
fix that. It takes humility and it takes work habits,
(33:24):
and he's got both. That's how you become great. So, Sean,
we're now fast forwarding to the final seconds of overtime.
The Celtics are down by one. We've got nine point
four seconds left on the clock. Yet again, Brad Stephen says,
I don't like what I'm seeing. I gotta draw something up.
But the funniest part about this, Sean, is that he
(33:45):
calls the time out. The team gets side out and
he has to call another time out because he didn't
like what he saw. Again, That to me is speaking
to me and saying, Okay, Brad knows exactly what he
wants to get here. He didn't see it the first
time around. Now he's got to make another adjustment to
get exactly what he wants. There was too many time
outs back then, too, is the other thing. It shows
(34:05):
you don't see consecutive timeouts very often. No, you don't.
And you know, again, I think the margin with this
team again going back to the beginning, no Gordon and
no Kyrie. It wrote a great story with this team
doing it without the two guys you thought you were
going to lean on throughout the course of the year.
And it just underscored what an amazing Celtic Al Horford
has been that he's never kind of grabbed the headlines
(34:27):
that there are. I'm glad he got this signature moment
because he deserved it for the year he had and
just sort of dragging this team through the playoffs and
to run a play for him and something that you know, again,
Brad has seen this before. I let brid talk about
it because he's gonna talk about it obviously in a
lot more detail, But from a step back thirty thousand
(34:49):
foot view of the season, the fact that Al would
have his moment here could not have been more appropriate,
because when you we're talking about Jason Tatum, this and
that out party, Terry Rozier and Scary Terry and all
the stuff, But who is the glue in twenty eighteen
opening night with all the injuries that everything had happened
because Al got here and his first year was ruined
(35:10):
by the vertigo and he had to We didn't know
what was going to happen. He didn't have a great
start here, but this was I think this entire year.
Game one to Game eighty two was the beginning of
his true love affair with the city. Mister consistent playoff
out always shows up when you need him most. I mean,
it's it's as sure as the thing can be. And
(35:32):
here it is eight point four seconds level. It will
be Morris to inbound it again with eight point four
seconds to go in regulation, having trouble to get inbounding
spires to Harford. N Harford gets it to go one
point lead for Boston. Time I'm Billy was five point
five remaining. We're hit over time. Marcus Morris Senior over
(35:53):
the top. Al Horford seals his defender gets the lay
up going away to his left. Let's hear from add
about the drawing up the play and what he was thinking,
from Al about his execution of the plan, and then
from doors for about her reaction to seeing this unfold
live in front of her. They switched on the Jalen
play and they switched on that play. So you're probably
(36:15):
not going to be playing against traditional coverages. You know,
you're not going to be playing against a zone. So
you and you know you you think you know again
where they're going to be matched up. Although they flip
it here, I believe and and so, and you know
they're going to be tight to their men. There's not
going to be like a guy standing at the rim
(36:35):
if you're cutting and moving. So and then you try
to draw up based on the hours and hours of
film you watched, you know, either something that you've used
in the past or something that you stole from somebody
else as you're watching them play against them. This play
I ran for Andrew Smith at Butler to tie a
(36:57):
game against LaSalle in two thousand. That is incredible, um
and we ran it several times. We ran it for
Jay Crowder against Washington, not in an out of bounds play,
but on just a action to win a game in
Washington one year. You know, it was a pretty pretty
great play. Um. And uh, you know, Jalen did it,
you know, in regulation. And then when when it was
(37:19):
my turn to do it, Uh, I remember that coach
drew it up and I was just like, man, I
don't know if this is gonna work. Like, you know,
they already you know, we already did it once. They
kind of know you know that that's a possibility. And um,
and it was a great pass. And at that point
I was like, man, you just have to I just
have to finish it, you know, you just have to
(37:40):
finish it. My biggest concern was and I think now
that I was thirty six of the books probably out
on him with him catching it on the other side
of the room and finishing. Yeah, because he's usually at
the time now that he's gotten older and better, he's
got a nice little game to his right shoulder. At
that time, he wasn't quite as good as he is now.
(38:02):
He's exactly right going in the in the in the
other way. You know, if you can account probably in
one hand, the amount of times I shot a left
hand you know, hook or a little push shot and uh.
And then when he drew it up like that, you know,
it's one of those things that it was like, hey,
you know, we need you to, you know, to take
us home type thing. And my mindset quickly shift to
(38:26):
you know, I got to make a play, gotta make
it happen. But that pass I can't credit it enough.
It was literally it was perfect and um and the
play worked out just like he envisioned it basketball in
particular in a playoff game, but in the final, the
clutch time, final five within five, all those things. It's
(38:47):
about the minutia and the details and the angles of
screens and all the things. You know, there's a reason
you talk over the course of season about building habits
and getting comfortable. And I don't know, Al, I feel
like was the stabilizer on that basketball team, And so
I thought that was a pretty special moment. And that
(39:08):
rolling around the rim. Who cares, right, Like, the margin
of winning in the NBA is so small, So many
times I almost find the way that ball went through
the hoop appropriate. So Sean Al scores the go ahead
basket and he's gonnay, what do we say in baseball? Right,
when you make a great defensive play, you lead off
the next ending. But the ball you can hide from
(39:30):
the ball when you want to. In basketball, and the
big players would make the big plays in the big games.
The ball finds them and it found him here again,
five point five seconds left. The Sixers are taking the
ball side out. They've got plenty of time to get
a shot off here, but they don't get a shot off.
Al Horford jumps the passing lane. Ben Simmons just really
(39:51):
an uncharacteristic pass on his part, kind of seemed like
he thought that there was no chance that a defender
being there. But al Horford again jumps the pass lane,
takes it the other way, almost ran the clock out.
They followed him. He makes a couple of free throws
and essentially the game's over at that point. Here's what
al Horford thought on that particular play, and you're gonna
be interested to hear his mindset going into this play
(40:13):
with Ben Simmons trying to inbound the ball to Joel
and Bead at the top of the ark. Going back
on it, I'm usually like, uh, you know, more conservative
when it comes on the defensive end, especially on the
inbound plays. UM. During that game and and throughout, I'm
never really taking risks like that, UM, but this time
(40:34):
I was like, Man, I'm gonna make an effort um
to just kind of jam and bead and uh and
make it tough for the inbound and I'm just gonna
go and make a play for it. I don't think
they're gonna expect it. And um, and and you know
I took the gamble and and and when I when
I will say, would have tipped the ball. My whole
thing was like, man, let me just run and just
try to dribble the clock out, like you're saying. And
(40:56):
you know they followed me and uh and UM. But
it but it was great. You know at that point,
I think they were you know, I think we shok
them up pretty good because they you know, they had
chances before that to kind of put us away, and
we just kept finding ways. So Al Horford steals the game,
makes the free throws seals the game. Obviously, Bell and
Nell the clinks went off the back of the rim
at the buzzer, but the Celtics outlast. You can see
(41:19):
how excited. These these guys are on the court in
that moment. This was a dog fight, Sean, This was
a dog fight, and the Celtics knew at this very
moment that the series was there. Well it's three oh,
when it easily could have been You're easily could be
down to one of this easily, right, and easily easily
could be down to one with having to play a
(41:39):
Game four in Philadelphia, which Celtics did not play well.
So I think it's what we've learned over the years
and why the Celtics have had success and more of
success than we thought they would in the playoffs, as
the margins are so small and it's all these little
plays we're talking about that make the difference, and the
Sexers weren't you know, maybe you go back the previous year,
remember the Celtics out of nowhere, go to the conference,
(41:59):
find the Isaiah Thomash year and that stuff. Playoff experience matters.
Under the twenty two Celtics in the finals against Golden State,
playoff experience matters. Finals experience matters. And maybe as we
look back five years later, with the eyes were looking
at Yeah, Philadelphia was playing better. Yeah they were on
a role. But maybe the Celtics having been there and
played all those playoff games this group the year before,
(42:21):
with the exception of Isaiah but remember without your Hey,
you add Kyrie Yad, Gordon Hayward, but they're not here
in the playoffs. Maybe all those playoff games, coming from
two oh down against Chicago, seven game series against Washington,
maybe some of that, you know, paid off in the
little moments in this series a year later. I would
also say, kind of a little twist on what you're
saying there is that these moments in this series and
(42:43):
in the Milwaukee series before that, going forward with Jalen
Brown and Jason Tatum going through that, Marcus Smart to
an extent, like he was still the young player at
that time, that might have contributed in a significant way
to who these guys have now become. And we're talking
about Defensive Player of the Year from Marcus Smart. We've
got two NBA All Stars and probably all NBA players
(43:03):
this year in Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. I mean,
these moments in being able to overcome that is history
that your body and your mind are never going to forget.
And these are these are miles that you put on
the car. But they are a man. They are all
terrain uphill miles, and they do pay dividends. And look
back at the history of this league, the teams that win,
(43:26):
generally speaking, have gone through adversity. The always Celtics are
sort of an exception, but sort of not because the
individual players had gone through it and had runs that
fell short, but as a team they hadn't. But yet,
the teams that win historically are teams that tried to
climb the mountain and couldn't and learn the lessons and
brought them back a year later. And as we know,
the Celtics go on to the conference finals, and this
(43:48):
season they almost got there to the NBA Finals, didn't
quite make it against Lebron. But after this series conclude,
I mean, what was your takeaway and what do you
remember kind of looking back on that moment when the
Celtics did secure secure the series to move on to
the next ground. I a couple of things that you
know in the in the heat of the moment, and
(44:09):
maybe you'll hear the call, maybe you won't, but I
remember thinking that there was an irony the previous year,
my call of the beating Washington in Game seven, the
Kelly OLLENNI game was and you know, the Celtics has
done this and the Eastern Conference Finals and go figure,
Brad Stevens is back in the Final four and flash
fort a year later. And there were two elements of
storytelling I was trying to do at the end when
(44:31):
the Celtics one game five, which is one Brad Stevens
at Butler had gone to the Final four. Then Gordon
Hayward left and he went back to the Final four
anyway the next year, and look at what had happened.
He goes to the Final four, score and Hayward and
he gets back to the Final four the next year.
And the element that at this time there wasn't a
Jason Tatum hype trade. There was a Ben Simmons hype
(44:52):
trade back in twenty and he was the next Scot.
He was going to be the next best player in
the league. And that I think I said something along
the li that he was the Prince of the league
and the Celtics had beaten the Prince and now they'll
face the king, which was you know Cleveland. Obviously, in
Game seven, you really felt the Cellers were gonna have
home court, that they were gonna have a shot, you know,
(45:13):
in that series, but that it was another you know,
step forward, here we are five years later when it's
a championship or bust mentality. Then it was wow, do
you think you know they get back to the conference finals.
None of this was supposed to happen that year, And
we're supposed to go sixteen and two with Kyrie Irving
carrying them after the Gordon Hereward injury, and you certainly
weren't supposed to make this run without the two of them,
(45:33):
and here you are back in the conference finals, and
it was amazing how quickly it had all happened. That
three years earlier, Brad Stevens started what forty and eighty
one something like, you know, the first year and a half,
and the Celtics had become a top five team again.
With some teams go through five year rebuilds, eight year rebuilds,
whatever Celtics rebuild was eighteen months. The juxtaposition of those
(45:55):
emotions that you kind of just spoke about those first
five minutes of the season, I mean, you saw it
and I saw sive person. I mean, I couldn't fathom
what was going on in front of my eyes, and
there was so much height before that season with the
Celtics kind of new new Big three with you've got
Horford and Gordon and Kyrie out there. You just think
(46:16):
that the season is over. Yep. Then sixteen in two out,
like how does that even happen? And then you fast
forward to this moment where you're thinking, oh my god,
they don't have Gordon, they don't have Kyrie. Can this
team legitimately get to the finals? Like is this real
life right now? You know, we're looking at it, Mark,
We're looking at it with the Kyrie eyes that we
(46:37):
have now. Let history not forget that Kyrie was an
MVP candidate in twenty eighteen. He was phenomenal in his
first year as a Celtic and he carried as he
often is, his first year. Were ear to that, I know,
I think, oh, there's no question that it was. Yeah,
in seventeen eighteen, he was everything he wanted to be.
You know, he was the guy that you know, things
happened and we look at it with the eyes we
look at it now like without Kyrie and they went
(46:59):
farther and yeah, we know how everything played out. But yeah,
I don't think that should be lost, you know, at
all of this, but it was a you know, a
game we're gonna remember for al Al keeping his feet
on the floor and them unable to keep the confetti
coming from the seam and finishing it going away l Orford.
He used every bit of the rim on that bucket.
But we're glad that he did. He made the confetti
(47:21):
game the confetti game because you were not looking back
on this today if he didn't lead the Celtics to
the win down there in the clutch. And so because
there was the confetti game, flash forward two years later,
and this is my only story on it because I
don't get into social media stuff. I don't get into
the the six years. You know, let's listen. You know,
I've got friends that run that organization or whenever, the
coach and the GM, but they get aggressive on social media,
(47:43):
some teams doing, some teams don't, and they do. We don't.
Flash forward two years later, and then we're going to
talk about Eileen here, who runs our social media, because
in this moment I remember her face forever. Two years later,
we go into Philadelphia. Celtics were not playing well at January,
had lost to think five or six, had lost all
three games to the Sixers, right, And so the Sixers
won the season series. We're on the bus getting ready
(48:05):
to go to the airport and they're putting a tweet
out as if they won the championship beat the Celtics
in a season series, And my first ties, are you
going to put a banner up for that? Like beat
the Celtics in a season series in twenty But okay,
that's there. Whatever style works for you. I'm not sitting
here like, get off my lawn. Shouldn't do that in
social media. If that's your thing, do it. It's great.
But they had a big tweet, you know, just flexing, yeah,
(48:29):
on winning a season series, and remember it, just Eileen's
face that night, like what do you do? How do
you counter it? How do you answer it? And you
know we didn't. We don't do that again. Seven months later,
Celtics and the Sixers meet in the Bubble in the
playoffs in the first round, and the Celtics, of course
sweet the series. While I never do this because I
remember it, I wanted to do this for Elena, I remember,
(48:50):
because she couldn't. And that night Celtics win fourth game
and they sweep the season series, and I quote tweeted
the tweet from January which said Celtics, you know, Sixers
win the season series and I quote tweeted it and said,
dropped the confetti little early again did and there it is,
Mike drop for Sean Grandy or would you call that
tweet drop? I don't know you guys, You guys deal
(49:12):
what they're leaving leave it us. Yeah, no, But an
unbelievable moment in not only this rivalry but the development
of some of these great young players and really watching
these guys grow up right before our eyes to become
what they have become today. And listen, it's on the
other side too. Joel Embiid has grown leaps and bounds
since this time in his career. Five years. We were
(49:34):
unbelievably lucky when the Celtics and Lakers met. Are No, wait,
that wasn't supposed to happen, and yet here we got
to have the second generation, right, a new generation of Celtics.
Lakers were unbelievably fortunate to have another generation of Celtics sixers,
for these games really matter, and who knows, maybe a
couple of months were mind we might be seeing these
teams go at it again. But that's it. Looking back
(49:54):
on the Confetti Game, one of my favorite games that
I've ever covered here with the Boston Celtics, Sean, I
hope it's there for you. And wait, what is this?
Do we have a little there it is? That's the
confetti dropping down, the real, live, actual confetti, and that's it.
And with that, that's the rat Shan. The Confetti Game
is in the books.
Host
Marc D'Amico
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