It’s always good to beat LA. Always.
And it’s always good to beat LeBron James.
And it’s great that LeBron joined the Lakers in order to make victories all the sweeter.
For me, I sometimes wonder what LeBron thinks of Boston in his heart of hearts. He’s far too savvy to say anything out loud about the team, but consider that the Celtics were in his way starting in 2008; in fact, they were so much in his way that he left Cleveland and joined Miami to get past them.
And he was able to get past the Celtics,
first as a member of the Heat, and then, again, as a Cavalier. He had a roughly 7-year run where he pretty much owned Boston, knocking the C’s out of three conference finals appearances and four playoff appearances overall.
But, inexorably, time has caught up with LeBron, and now, as he’s facing the end of his career and the Celtics are back again.
To be sure, LeBron did add a championship with the Lakers, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the Lakers tie the Celtics for most titles won, but that tie was short lived. The Celtics secured another title in 2024, and appear poised to contend for more titles in the future. The Lakers, Luka Doncic notwithstanding, do not.
Yes, the Celtics are once again the better team, as evidenced by two thorough spankings of the purple and gold this season, and a record of 10-6 against the Lakers since LeBron joined the team.
A different kind of respect for Luka
During the game, Joe Mazzulla paid Luka a very high honor.
He had two of his greenest players defend him for varying stretches.
Now with pretty much any other team, putting a rookie and a second year guy on the other team’s leading scorer is a sign of disrespect, insanity, or a fervent hope to secure a high draft pick (don’t use the “T” word — the league is on high alert for such things these days).
But Boston isn’t other teams, and Baylor Scheierman and Hugo Gonzalez play defense as though their life depended on it. Mind you, their playing time pretty much does.
The two wings held Luka to 25 points, 7 less than his season average, and the difference was basically one less made basket and about four fewer free throw attempts.
Yes, these two kids, and I don’t mind calling Scheierman a kid, since he’s young enough to be one of mine, effectively locked down Luka without sending him to the line. That’s a level of skill that one simply does not associate with newcomers to the league.
Overall, the team also limited Luka to just three assists, well down from his season average of 8.6. His season average is 54.1 passes per game, and on Sunday he made just 37.
One of the easiest insights to give someone new to the game regarding its likely outcome is to see which team has to work harder for its points. Now, it’s not a perfect indicator, but it’s a good eye test for neophytes.
The Lakers, and Dončić especially, had to work much harder for their points on Sunday, and that’s down to the exceptional defense played by Boston.
At least Riley’s statue is wearing nice clothes
But what was especially enjoyable about the victory on Sunday, though, was that it was Pat Riley Day.
Now, normally, I would say that a Celtics win, especially one delivered in clear and convincing fashion, would be sufficient to ruin Riley’s day, but in this case, I think Riley’s day was actually ruined when he saw his statue.
I find Riley’s statue ugly not because I’m a Celtics fan, but because I was an art major.
Of course, some really nifty work was done to give character to the clothes, and perhaps that’s an appropriate tribute to Riley—his clothes look good.
But that statue—that statue is what happens when you try to make a sculpture based on a photograph.
There’s a lack of coherent anatomy in the sculpture. Try to hold your hand in the position that Riley is holding it—it feels awkward and kind of painful. His raised arm looks a bit like a piece of licorice, with no clearly defined elbow, and the legs suggest a contrapposto pose that just isn’t carried through into the torso. He’s stepping forward and leaning backwards in a manner does not reflect the way that any sober person walks.
And then there’s the face. Now the thing about Pat Riley is that he does have a rather heavy brow, but he must have winced mightily when he saw his features given an almost Cro Magnon appearance.
There’s a far more well-done sculpture of an NBA coach near Faneuil Hall.
The statue, of course, is Red Auerbach’s, capturing him, cigar in hand, poised to get up off the bench he’s sitting on and do some characteristic bit of Auerbach showmanship or gamesmanship.
Now this statue is no Moses by Michelangelo, but it’s better executed than Pat Riley’s, and it’s well, it’s just more fun. Anyone can sit on the bench with an appropriately larger-than-life Red, and in fact, there are parts of Red’s sculpture that have been buffed to a nice shine from passersby stopping to interact with it.
A small version of the statue, stripped of its championship ring, is presented annually to the league’s Coach of the Year.
Anyone but Joe
On Wednesday, CelticsBlog’s Jeff Clark started a poll regarding this season’s Coach of the Year award.
I think it should go to anyone but Joe Mazzulla.
Why?
First of all, I think that Gregg Popovich might have been the only other coach in recent memory who could match Mazzulla in disregard for that particular award, so hey, it might as well go to someone who appreciates it.
Secondly, I think the award should be routinely given to coaches of teams that are not the Boston Celtics, because that little sculpture of Red Auerbach about to celebrate a victory over some other team is a nice tiny little reminder of where the Celtics fit in the NBA’s grand scheme of things.
Which isn’t to say that Mazzulla isn’t richly deserving of the award.
Coming into the season, 40 wins seemed an unlikely outcome for all but the most optimistic fans, and the C’s could achieve that with 22 games left on the calendar.
40 before 20—almost
The big watch, this week, was whether Boston could get to 40 wins before 20 losses. That mark is considered a leading indicator of whether a team has legit potential to contest for a championship.
As it turns out, the C’s fell just short, losing to Denver at the end of a longish road trip that took them on a tour of California and the western states.
Looking at the schedule, most of us had our doubts about Wednesday’s game against Denver. It was Boston’s third road game in four nights, and it was a back to back.
I think the team held Jaylen out of the Phoenix game at least in part to have him better rested for Denver, but it wasn’t enough. The team, which hustles more than most at both ends of the court, ran out of gas, or legs, or something in the third quarter, and Denver, coming off a two day break, cruised to victory.
Here’s where I say that as much as I like these Celtics, they’re not championship caliber without Jayson Tatum. I don’t know how much Tatum the Celtics need to be true championship contenders, but I’m pretty sure that it’s more than zero.
If Tatum comes back in early March and the C’s can make it to the second or third round of the playoffs, I think there’s a good chance that Tatum will have recovered to the point where something magical could happen, but that’s my best case scenario.
Even so, this team has been as much fun to root for as any Celtics team in my memory.
And in case you’re wondering
Boston’s overall record against the Lakers is 212-166.
