The Celtics are set to face either the Heat or the Bulls in their first-round playoff series. The determining game will take place on Friday night when the Miami Heat, without their star player Jimmy Butler due to an MCL sprain, host the Chicago Bulls for the No. 8 seed. The winner will advance to play Boston, with the series starting Sunday at TD Garden. CLNS Media's Bobby Manning and Celtics Blog's Noa Dalzell discuss it all in a special in-studio edition of the Garden Report.
0:00 Intro
2:12 Heat Matchup
8:10 Bulls Matchup
12:58 Jontay Porter BANNED from NBA
26:08Biggest Questions for Celtics in playoffs
This episode of the Garden Report is brought to you by:
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0:00 Intro
2:12 Heat Matchup
8:10 Bulls Matchup
12:58 Jontay Porter BANNED from NBA
26:08Biggest Questions for Celtics in playoffs
This episode of the Garden Report is brought to you by:
Get in on the excitement with PrizePicks, America’s No. 1 Fantasy Sports App, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into serious cash. Download the app today and use code CLNS for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy! Go to https://PrizePicks.com/CLNS
Elevate your style game on and off the course with the PXG Spring Summer 2024 collection. Head over to PXG.com/GARDEN and save 10% on all apparel.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 The Garden Report is powered by PrizePix, the exclusive daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network.
00:07 Hey, Bobby Manning here. Welcome to another edition of the Garden Report in studio with Noah Del Azel from Celtics blog.
00:15 I am Bobby Manning from CLNS Media and we got playing games to talk about. We are halfway to
00:22 deciding the Celtics first round opponent. That will be done on Friday between the Bulls and the Heat.
00:28 Who came out of those Wednesday games completely ravaged Noah. Jimmy Butler
00:34 sprained his MCL as the Heat confirmed now and he could miss multiple weeks according to reports.
00:40 Certainly this winner-take-all playing game for the 8th seed and
00:44 Alex Caruso banged up on the Chicago side as they beat the Atlanta Hawks to move into position to clinch the 8th seed as well.
00:52 Atlanta Hawks eliminated. So one team that's given the Celtics some issues here. The only team out of these three
00:58 that has beaten the Celtics this year. So they're eliminated and you look at Philadelphia team
01:04 that's challenged the Celtics at different times. It's won nine straight and
01:07 even have they really they have won nine straight now with with Embiid back. So you avoid them. So with Butler out
01:15 Sixers on to the Knicks. Hawks out of the picture.
01:19 And the Magic Cavs second round potentially here. You're looking at a pretty enviable path for the Celtics now.
01:27 Yeah, I mean I will say you never know. I think everybody is kind of imagining this bulls pathway.
01:32 I still think a Heat team without Jimmy Butler is very dangerous and could be a difficult matchup
01:39 despite the fact that that might not make any logical sense.
01:41 And so I don't think they should counter, what's the expression? Counter chickens before they hatch.
01:47 I don't think they should get ahead of themselves.
01:49 But certainly, you know, there was a moment there where it looked like they were gonna be facing a healthy 76ers team in the first
01:54 round and that would be a much more difficult matchup
01:56 just based on the way that Philadelphia's looked and based on the way that Joel Embiid has looked for much of the year until really
02:01 last night didn't look great. But yeah, I think you got a pretty good pathway here.
02:05 That being said, you also want to be ready for the finals.
02:08 And so, you know, that'll be a difficult series regardless.
02:12 All right, let's start with the Heat because I think they're gonna win too on Friday.
02:16 We'll see what the impact of no Butler is. They're 13-9 without him this year. I think they can manage.
02:22 But I think also it's the opposite effect of what we talked about last week on the show.
02:27 We both wanted the Heat because you go into a series against Butler,
02:31 bam, and the team that beat you last year and you're on high alert right away forces you to bring your best game and
02:37 you're gonna have to
02:40 not take them lightly.
02:42 Now you go into a series against the Heat.
02:44 I think you take them lightly because Butler's not out there. They look vulnerable.
02:49 They haven't played well and you're gonna think that you're just gonna roll through that series
02:54 potentially here, at least based on how the Celtics have handled stuff like this in the past.
02:57 Not as much this year.
02:59 I feel like they've done a good job being consistent and just playing the game in front of them and taking things
03:04 seriously, even the lesser teams that they play.
03:07 But it's gonna be harder to do that with no Butler on the other side. And you remember the Lakers game though.
03:12 No Davis, no LeBron. Boom.
03:15 Complete upset, let down game and they lose. So that's in the play right now.
03:20 I don't know what your big concern is with the Heat if you go into a series against them, but that's mine.
03:24 I don't think that they're gonna take the Heat lightly.
03:26 I don't know that you can take the team that sent you home, you know, two of the last three years lightly.
03:31 Even without Butler? Yeah, I don't think so because
03:34 to me, like he's not even the reason that they lost in the conference finals last year.
03:38 Like yeah, he had that crazy series against Milwaukee. So against Milwaukee, like yes, that he was the guy.
03:43 But for the rest of the way, it was a lot of other factors that made them the team that they were.
03:47 Starting at the top, starting with their defense and their coaching schemes.
03:50 And if that's not enough, like if the Celtics aren't
03:54 looking at Miami as like this is the team that sent us home on our home court in
03:58 front of all of our fans when we were about to make history and blew us out.
04:01 Like that's all they're gonna be thinking about in my opinion.
04:04 You know, I think that has to be the front of mind.
04:06 And so I'm not overly concerned about this idea that they might
04:10 overlook their opponent in the first round.
04:13 I also just think like they had a few of those games this year where they overlooked their opponent.
04:17 You know, Lakers game obviously being one.
04:19 But for the most part, they played really well against poor teams and they played well when stars were missing.
04:24 Like this wasn't the same as we've seen in years past where they totally kind of dismiss opponents.
04:29 For an entire series, though,
04:31 they're still gonna have to lock in at that highest level against the Heat because you see, Butler gets hurt in that first quarter,
04:36 plays through it, isn't himself the rest of the night.
04:39 But they still scheme it up defensively. They're running that zone. I think they forced 13
04:43 turnovers on Philadelphia in that first half, which was just ridiculous to watch.
04:48 And they build that double-digit lead and you're like, whoa, the Sixers about to fall here. And then they blew it.
04:53 It's a half-court execution. There's so many weaknesses on that team, even the depth that they have to go to right now.
04:59 I don't know if Duncan Robinson's gonna play in Friday's game.
05:02 I guess he's back, at least according to the injury report that I just looked at.
05:06 But you don't have Roger again, who's dealing with a neck injury. You have DeLon right out there,
05:10 who I totally forgot about coming in the buyout mark, and he's playing big minutes in this play-in game.
05:15 Kevin Love's out there, vulnerable defender. You just look at the individual pieces here in this roster as a whole and you're like,
05:21 what's there to be scared of? As we've talked about in the past.
05:25 But there is, as you said, just something with the Heat, the coaching. You see Eric Spoelstra after the game
05:30 exasperated and he's gonna throw some crazy game plan together on Friday.
05:34 I think they're gonna get it done and you still have to take them seriously.
05:38 Because they're gonna scheme it up defensively, even if they're just playing you straight up with Bam on Porzingis and doing some switching.
05:46 And they're so good at it, even without Butler.
05:48 It's gonna be a challenging series without him and
05:51 it's just hard to get up for it the same way it is if he's out there. It's natural.
05:56 I don't even think it's a Celtics thing.
05:58 I don't know. I hear you.
06:00 I do think that that is generally a trend, but I have to think this team is going to be different just because of the history.
06:06 And also when we talk about Miami in general, the thing that's tough is I feel like all analysis is out the window.
06:11 In theory, this should be an ideal first round matchup. They're so short-handed.
06:16 They have not had a good season. All the factors. Compared to Philly, especially.
06:19 Yeah, compared to Philly. Even Chicago right now looks like a better... they have more offensive firepower.
06:23 Just looking across their roster, they have Kobe White just playing great, DeMar DeRozan.
06:28 Like guys that can get you buckets. We don't really know who those guys are in Miami right now.
06:31 And even so, I just think this time last year Miami lost their first play-in game.
06:37 The entire fan base of the Heat was like, "Blow it up. Let's get in the lottery. Rebuild the whole thing."
06:43 And then they went on that crazy run.
06:45 And so I'm gonna go against all logic and just go with the fact that we've seen them turn it around before.
06:50 And there's a very good chance that they're gonna get swept in the first round and then
06:54 this will be a stupid take, but I also think there's a good chance that they surprise people.
06:59 Just because we've seen that it doesn't really matter who they have.
07:01 When they have that system, until Eric Spolstra is not on that team, on that sideline,
07:06 I will never lose faith in Miami as a potential upset, as a potential really difficult matchup.
07:11 And I would think that a lot of the players on the Celtics would have the same mentality just because
07:15 they've been sent home by them too many times to forget that.
07:19 I still have the PTSD. I think it will go five, six games, maybe even seven if the Celtics do take it lightly.
07:25 Even without Butler, I think they're that formidable in terms of how they can scheme some stuff up,
07:30 play good defense, get out in transition.
07:32 They still have that BAM hero pick and roll too, which is pretty effective if that's what they're playing around.
07:37 The depth's hurt right now though. If they don't have Robinson, they don't have Roger, that just makes it all the more difficult.
07:41 Roger's a big one. I mean, I think he would be in a play-in game,
07:45 he would be an X-factor to be able to just bring some offensive firepower.
07:48 He was very missing.
07:50 So you think it would be a short series, Celtics-Heat?
07:52 I would think so, yeah. I think they would get it done in five if I had to make a prediction.
07:58 But I wouldn't be shocked if it was six. I wouldn't be stunned if it was seven.
08:03 I would not expect it to be seven. I would be stunned if they lost in the first round.
08:08 I'm going longer on it. We'll see if it's them, if it's the Bulls.
08:13 Celtics swept them as well during the regular season in more dominant fashion too.
08:17 You had the play-in game where they ran it up to 50.
08:19 That was a different Bulls team though. Back then the Bulls were so bad.
08:23 You would never guess that they'd be in this position.
08:25 And they played the Celtics well the last time they played in Chicago.
08:28 I think they had two second-half games in Chicago that were pretty competitive.
08:32 Celtics pulled away late in both of those games.
08:35 Kobe White, as you mentioned, takes over the offense.
08:38 He's been efficient and effective throughout the years since taking over for Levine.
08:42 There'll be, of course, no Levine in this series, no Patrick Williams either, who had a difficult season.
08:46 But the guys out there have played well in their roles.
08:49 Nikola Vucevic challenged Christoph Sporzingis in those games.
08:53 And you have a physicality on the perimeter with some guys that can get into the Celtics, I feel like.
08:58 In offensive rebounding through Drummond.
09:01 There are some things there. They're an analytical team. They get up threes.
09:05 They can go to the mid-range a little bit too through DeMar DeRozan.
09:08 So they offensively have some versatility that can keep them in the game.
09:14 Defensively, it's going to be a challenge for them.
09:16 Celtics are going to go at White. They're going to go at some of these other smaller guys on the perimeter.
09:21 And Vucevic, if you put him into some actions, pretty weak defender out there.
09:26 This one to me would be the short series.
09:29 I don't think there's a letdown factor there.
09:32 I don't think the Bulls are good enough to win games in that series.
09:35 They could keep it close. But I would have the Celtics over the Bulls in four.
09:40 I would probably make that prediction.
09:41 I think the Celtics team is primed for a first-round sweep.
09:46 If we're ever going to see that, this would be a good...
09:49 They were such a dominant first seed.
09:51 And the Bulls are as low-performing of a regular season team to get into the playoffs as you could possibly have.
09:57 I don't know how many games they were under 500.
09:59 But it's kind of absurd that they're even in the position to be a game away from being in the playoffs.
10:04 I think that would be a smart prediction. You should just imagine a first-round sweep.
10:07 That being said, with the way Kobe White played last night,
10:10 and with the way we know DeMar DeRozan can play,
10:12 they still have a higher ceiling than they've shown throughout the season.
10:17 There was no reason for them to be as bad as they were for such an early part of the season.
10:21 When we were talking about the play-in game, and the Celtics had to win by 27 points or something like that,
10:26 there was a legitimate conversation around hitting that number,
10:29 which is kind of absurd when you think about it.
10:31 It wasn't even just about winning, but it was like, "Can we blow them out by this number?"
10:34 And then they got it.
10:35 This is a Bulls team that has turned it around a little bit.
10:38 They looked really good last night. It was hard to say.
10:40 Atlanta did not look good, and Atlanta has been super inconsistent all year.
10:44 But I would actually kind of love to see that series,
10:46 just because I think it's one that nobody really expected.
10:48 It would bring a lot of players that we haven't really seen in the playoffs for a while.
10:51 So it would be kind of a fun thing to just give DeRozan an opportunity to
10:55 have it maybe put together a little bit more of a memorable playoff run.
10:58 I think Kobe White, to me, is one of the most exciting players right now on the come-up.
11:01 But yeah, I don't think that they would have a real shot at Boston,
11:04 or at least even a shot to make it challenging.
11:06 Interesting that Atlanta loses.
11:08 The only team of these four that beat the Celtics twice.
11:10 They showed that they can make it difficult on the Celtics
11:14 and win those games in the matchup a couple weeks ago.
11:17 Late season, I think some guys sat in the first game,
11:20 and a 30-point collapse is a pretty big anomaly.
11:24 So I don't know how close that could have gone.
11:26 No 10-seed has won this playing game still to this day,
11:29 so I guess you could have expected this.
11:30 And then Philadelphia, you're talking about them sneaking into the series
11:35 in a pretty major way if they lose that game last night, and they almost did.
11:38 So I think the Celtics probably dodged the most difficult opponent in Philadelphia.
11:43 And then you could have considered Atlanta too.
11:45 So let down factor in, maybe fall asleep against one of these opponents.
11:50 But if you take the Bulls, or the Heat for that matter, seriously,
11:54 you should be able to get out of here reasonably fast in this first round.
11:57 We'll have more previewing who a matchup will be.
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12:56 But I do want to get into the article you wrote for Celtics Blog today
13:01 on Jonte Porter, banned for life in the NBA,
13:05 from the NBA rather, due to gambling that he did on games,
13:11 allegedly talking about sinking his own results to win some prop bets,
13:18 and then betting on the Toronto Raptors, against the Toronto Raptors,
13:22 allegedly due to some of these details in the NBA investigation here.
13:26 Who knows what's next for him,
13:28 if there's going to be any legal consequences for this.
13:30 But he's out of the league, Adam Silver came down pretty hard in this circumstance,
13:34 and you wrote today in Celtics Blog that you actually disagree
13:37 with that decision to ban him for life.
13:39 Yes, I'm getting a lot of heat for it.
13:41 So here's what I'll say, and I think the article goes into this further,
13:44 so if anyone's curious, you can check it out.
13:47 But the fact that in a matter of a couple of weeks,
13:50 we were able to not only get a swift resolution, but a lifetime ban,
13:54 it's unprecedented behavior for the NBA.
13:56 I mean, we have never seen them act this quick.
13:58 I still think that there's--I'm sure that there's plenty of information
14:01 that they're collecting.
14:02 Who knows if there's going to be other people implicated,
14:04 who knows what else they might find.
14:06 It might be a lot worse than we think, it might be a little bit better,
14:08 I don't know.
14:09 But they figured this out in a matter of weeks,
14:11 and Adam Silver called it a cardinal sin,
14:13 and there was just an outright ban on him from ever participating
14:17 in basketball and NBA.
14:19 And there's a couple of reasons why that decision rubbed me the wrong way
14:22 and why I chose to write that article,
14:24 and one of them being that we've just seen very severe crimes be committed.
14:29 And I'm not talking just about allegations or rumors,
14:32 I'm talking about people that have gone out there and pled guilty
14:35 to domestic violence, people that have pled no contest,
14:38 which we know what that means.
14:40 And so effectively, the fact that the league has really played
14:43 a kind of hands-off role across the board over the last few years,
14:46 or really over the last 20 years,
14:48 the only player that has gotten a ban was OJ Mayo in 2016.
14:52 Before that, it was-- -For drugs, right, PEDs.
14:54 -For drugs, yeah, and that was a two-year ban.
14:56 He never was reinstated, but he was the only one since 1995.
15:00 And so we're talking about 30 years of--
15:03 and I wrote a whole article earlier in the year
15:05 about all the domestic violence cases that were left unaddressed.
15:08 There's a whole list of them.
15:09 Some of them are active players, some of them are past players,
15:11 active coaches, past coaches.
15:13 The league has played a pretty hands-off role on those.
15:16 And so to me, it was just a little bit hypocritical
15:18 to then act really swiftly here.
15:20 And I understand that these are two very different things,
15:23 and it's a difficult comparison to make,
15:25 and I tried to make it artfully, and I'm sure that there are things
15:27 that I left on the table that are logical fallacies.
15:31 And I understand that this is about the integrity of the game
15:34 and the rules of the game, but I also think the NBA
15:37 is getting in some really dangerous territory here
15:39 with sports betting and the way that it's being promoted.
15:42 And I get the irony that, like, little A wrote an article on a website
15:45 where I know there were sports betting ads all over it,
15:47 I know this video is going to have sports betting ads.
15:49 I understand that that's the culture of the reign right now.
15:51 But the fact that the NBA is promoting sports betting on League Pass,
15:55 that to me is, like, one step that is just a little bit inexcusable
15:58 because you're now making this so available.
16:01 And so people that are battling addiction, of which there are many,
16:03 like, I don't know, maybe John T. Porter became addicted to gambling,
16:07 and, like, maybe he could have been rehabilitated.
16:09 And, like, at the end of the day, none of this really matters
16:11 because he was never going to be in the NBA anyways
16:13 because he was already a fringe NBA player who was a two-way,
16:16 who the Raptors would have waived, and that was going to be it
16:18 because who wants to meddle with all this?
16:20 But I don't like the precedent that it sets, that there is this ability.
16:23 This is a tool that we've had in our toolkit.
16:25 We just haven't used it to date because it didn't hurt our bottom line.
16:29 And so there's a lot to this.
16:31 I think this could be an hour-long conversation,
16:33 but those are some of my kind of initial thoughts on it.
16:36 Yeah, it's an interesting comparison.
16:37 Many have made it at this point, the punishments there,
16:40 and Miles Bridges, 30 games, right?
16:42 I hated that punishment,
16:44 especially because he got time served effectively for the season he was out
16:48 where he missed 82 games by not being on a team,
16:52 and they gave him, I think it was like half the suspension or something to that degree.
16:57 So he only ended up missing 10 games at the beginning of the next season.
17:00 So it was a record punishment for domestic violence,
17:04 but it didn't actually impact him to that degree
17:06 because he was already out the year before
17:08 where he sat out most of those games that they gave him credit for.
17:13 So I think that's a serious issue in the league
17:16 and that they haven't addressed it appropriately.
17:18 And it's something that players and the league have to work on together.
17:21 And I understand why players don't want to have the option to get banned for life
17:24 if they're charged or alleged to have done something like that.
17:27 So I think that's what prevents the league in these circumstances
17:30 from doing something like that,
17:32 that they're okay to ban someone for gambling in exchange for the money,
17:37 and the league's making the money,
17:38 and the players are making the money at this point.
17:40 So you haven't heard many players come out and make these statements.
17:44 That's where I think you get into the hypocrisy a little bit here.
17:47 At the same time, he had a go.
17:50 Yeah, I mean, listen, the allegations against him were brutal.
17:53 Like, they were honestly embarrassing.
17:55 And we've all seen that clip of the three-point shot that he didn't mean to make, apparently,
17:58 that he banked in. Have you seen that video?
18:00 When you are impacting the game and the results and the stats and meddling with those,
18:09 I actually think that is one of the worst things you can do in a league.
18:13 But here's the thing, though.
18:14 Can you be rehabilitated?
18:16 That's the question.
18:17 I mean, that's what this is about, right?
18:18 When your teammates know you were throwing games,
18:21 stepping out of games, and diminishing your stats for money,
18:25 I don't think that's trust that can ever be returned.
18:27 Well, fine, then nobody should sign you, right?
18:29 I mean, I can be totally on hand.
18:31 So you just want him to have the option to come back.
18:33 I just think the NBA saying, "We are going astray,"
18:36 after 25 years of how we've treated all sorts of wrongdoing,
18:40 to me it was just a money move.
18:42 I mean, I totally understand that nobody would want this guy on their team.
18:45 I can understand the Raptors immediately wanting him gone.
18:47 I can understand nobody wanting to sign him.
18:49 That's the natural course of how things play out when you treat the game terribly.
18:54 The worst thing you could do is a basketball player on the court, right?
18:57 And so to me it's the same idea as, like, OK, if you go beat up five of your teammates,
19:01 well, in theory nobody would want to sign you,
19:03 especially if you're a two-way guy that doesn't even have a marginal value to this team.
19:07 I mean, he wasn't even playing.
19:09 That might be the key point here. How would they have treated X All-Star if he did this?
19:13 Oh, yeah. I wish it was somebody more prominent
19:15 because I think this whole conversation would have been different.
19:17 I mean, I guess I shouldn't wish that.
19:19 But in a sense, to me, it's like, why is the NBA getting involved?
19:22 Why couldn't he have just been waived?
19:24 I mean, obviously there was going to be a punishment, but why set the lifetime ban?
19:27 What if for the next five years he gets rehabilitated,
19:29 we find out that he was addicted to sports betting,
19:31 he wants to get another chance in three years,
19:33 like, does the league have to have a lifetime ban on him?
19:35 Again, I'm being hypocritical. I'm playing devil's advocate here
19:38 because I don't actually think that he was ever going to be in the league again.
19:41 But the fact that this is the way that this was approached
19:44 when we've seen for so long on so many just terrible stories,
19:47 they've never taken this pathway before.
19:50 I think you make a good point.
19:51 I do think the lifetime ban is appropriate, though, just because it's the number one rule.
19:55 It's the one thing. They got it in the locker room.
19:59 They got it plastered all over your contract, I'm sure.
20:03 They probably have a meeting to begin every year saying--
20:06 They've won. I looked at the CBA. They have one meeting every year.
20:09 Just don't bet. And I know you're allowed to bet on other sports, right?
20:13 But I'd tell them, just don't bet.
20:16 I'm sure that there are other players that are sitting there right now being like,
20:20 "Well, that's it for me." There's no way he was the only one.
20:23 It's rampant now. And he did go through legal apps,
20:26 at least according to the details here, to do this.
20:29 Even the props he had on himself there, which I don't know how there wasn't a guard rail against that.
20:34 How are there props on John Day Porter?
20:35 I don't know how that exists either. Yeah, it's absurd.
20:39 There need to be guard rails.
20:41 There need to be reductions on the, I think, just in-your-face nature of this
20:48 and the culture that they develop here.
20:49 And I do think those are all pretty valid points here about,
20:52 "Try it. Try it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it."
20:55 There's just such an association with the game there that I think it's hard to not believe
20:59 that those two things go hand-in-hand there.
21:02 At the same time, when we're talking about the Shohei Otani situation here
21:07 that also came to rise, and we asked Tatum and Mazzuola about it,
21:12 it exists no matter what.
21:13 And that's been Adam Silver's argument, is that now that it's legal,
21:16 you have these alarms that can go off if someone does this.
21:20 You're able to handle it pretty cleanly here by just having them banned from the league,
21:26 and you move on about your day with this.
21:29 So there's two different discussions to be had because I do think they handled this case right.
21:34 I do think it needs to further push along this conversation about the culture
21:39 that this is developing around the game.
21:41 And we were there in Atlanta. We asked Mazzuola, "What do you think about this?"
21:44 There was a situation with J.B. Bickerstaff where he said his family was getting threatened
21:48 with some of these lines and the way he coaches games.
21:50 Haliburton said that too.
21:51 Haliburton said he feels like a prop out there.
21:53 So all this stuff has impacted the way we watch these games.
21:56 Mazzuola said it, though.
21:58 This has been around forever. Everybody has dealt with this.
22:01 Even some of these controversies existed, at least on the collegiate level,
22:04 before gambling was legalized too.
22:06 So listen, if it's not for you, it's not for you. I get it.
22:09 Some people just don't like it. I've grown to dislike it too,
22:12 and I used to be someone who dabbled in this stuff a little bit.
22:14 I just think it's nasty stuff in a lot of ways.
22:17 But I think there's a lot of arguments with many of this stuff that if it's legal,
22:23 if it's regulated the right way, and it might not be regulated the right way right now,
22:27 that's better than just having it in the darkness and potentially this stuff happening
22:32 behind the scenes with no way you can track it.
22:35 Yeah. I think you make a lot of good points, but I totally disagree with Adam Silver's point
22:39 that now that it's legalized, we can control it.
22:42 People were not sports betting the way that they bet now.
22:44 They haven't controlled it since it came out.
22:46 I'm not even going to dig it. I dug into the numbers for my article
22:49 and just how much rates of addiction have increased or people calling hotlines have increased,
22:54 but it's hard to measure. All I know is that three years ago,
22:58 the people in my life were not sports betting.
23:00 They were maybe betting each other a little bit, and now every time I turn on a basketball game,
23:04 everybody that I'm with is like, "Who do you have money on? I have money on this guy.
23:06 I have money on this guy." It's completely different.
23:10 The fact that players are now getting heckled about their prop bets,
23:14 what Jason Tatum told us is like, "I'm constantly hearing about this."
23:17 That wasn't the case five years ago.
23:19 The rise of the apps have totally changed the game.
23:21 People like me that never would have sports bet, when all the free promos were happening last year,
23:25 I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to jump on these. I follow sports. I'll get the $200."
23:30 I stopped after a few months because I was like, "Okay, I got the free promos,
23:33 and now I don't want to start spending money on this."
23:36 But it got people. It was totally effective.
23:39 To me, this is a moment where if the NBA wants to lay down the law on Jontae Porter
23:43 and make an example out of him, which is clearly what's happening,
23:46 then they also need to start considering some of the other things that they are responsible for.
23:50 To me, it's like thinking about gambling addiction prevention,
23:54 thinking about can we have Shams be the guy that is also a FanDuel sponsor and also an insider?
24:02 How do we know that the things that he says – there's a lot here to unpack.
24:06 There's the fact that you can't watch a pregame show or a halftime show
24:08 without getting just completely spammed with numbers and stats.
24:12 I just think there's a lot to consider here.
24:15 The domestic violence thing, it's kind of like two different issues that I'm drawing attention to.
24:19 One is the fact that clearly we have this tool at our disposal, and the league has just shied away from it.
24:23 And then the other is the fact that I do think the sports gambling ecosystem has,
24:28 in the last two years, gone from very marginal to totally just dominating the way we consume sports.
24:34 Jontae Porter is 24. I'm 25. I feel like I could make a stupid mistake.
24:39 I'm not going to say that it was an excusable mistake. It was not excusable.
24:44 But a lifetime ban with no path to rehabilitation, it seems to me like I'm never going to accept that, honestly.
24:51 They tried to turn $80,000 into $1 million, and they didn't think anyone was going to notice.
24:56 So stupid.
24:57 They thought they were just going to get away with a million-dollar win on Jontae Porter's two-point –
25:02 Why are we even able to bet on Jontae Porter?
25:05 That's what I said a few minutes ago. I don't know how that wasn't a guardrail that existed on whatever app that was.
25:10 Yeah. And I will say Charles Barkley is one person – I don't always agree with his takes, but he's one person –
25:14 Maybe it was through someone else. That would have to be what it was.
25:17 I've totally agreed with Charles Barkley on a lot of these things.
25:19 He's the one that asked Adam Silver about domestic violence earlier in the year.
25:22 He's one of the only prominent media members that's actually used precious time with Adam Silver to ask him about this.
25:27 And he said today that he thinks Jontae Porter should get five years.
25:31 And after five years, we can go through the motions of trying to re-enter the league.
25:35 And probably he wouldn't have any ways.
25:38 So, yeah, I found an ally in the media space.
25:40 Don't you think it sends a message, though?
25:42 And that's what they're obviously trying to do here.
25:44 The message of don't process.
25:46 Don't even go near this. Yeah.
25:47 Right. And it's a powerful message.
25:48 So why can't we send it about other things that are also really important?
25:51 It's fair.
25:52 That's my thing.
25:53 I think the domestic violence thing is there's been absolutely no sending of a message.
25:56 The message is actually like, "Don't put us in this position because it's awkward."
26:00 That's something they're going to have to work together on, obviously, too,
26:03 and there's blame on both sides of the league and the players for that not being in a better place.
26:07 We will get back to an on-the-court topic here as well to close it out.
26:11 A couple of practices in the books.
26:13 There'll be one more for the Celtics going into it.
26:15 Joe Mizzou has talked about the playoffs not being that different from the regular season.
26:19 I feel like that's been a prevailing message this week in terms of the way that they're going to prepare for the game,
26:26 what they're going to focus on in those games.
26:28 He even a couple of weeks ago said that he'll use the bench as much as he did in the regular season
26:32 or insinuated that, that they have to be able to go back to that and utilize those guys.
26:37 I'll ask you going into the playoffs what your biggest question is
26:40 because we probably won't record again until after the first couple of games here.
26:43 What do you want to see most in their first handful of games here in this postseason series?
26:48 What do you think is going to be the biggest question that determines how far they're able to go here?
26:53 To be honest, health.
26:55 We just saw Zion and Jimmy Butler both be eliminated for a couple of weeks in one play-in game.
27:00 I think that's the main thing that I'm going to be watching is can they stay healthy because there's a long run ahead.
27:05 I don't even just mean don't blow up your knee, but can you be prepared for a long playoff run?
27:11 We saw in 2022 that lingering things added up and it ultimately cost them.
27:15 Other than that, I think the play of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown.
27:19 They need to be at their best to ultimately carry this thing over the top.
27:24 I'm viewing it as there's a world where they're facing Jamal Murray and Nicole Jokic in the finals.
27:29 It's going to ultimately come down to if those two guys are being severely outperformed by Jokic and Murray,
27:34 they're probably not going to win the championship.
27:36 I'm curious. I think there's been a lot of discourse around particularly Tatum as of late,
27:39 whether he's going to be first-team all-NBA. He didn't have the best end to the season.
27:43 I'd love to see him come out and just be really dominant from the get-go and be really efficient.
27:48 Just be playing at his best because he did have a pretty good year overall.
27:51 I think the last few weeks are maybe peony. It keeps sticking in people's minds.
27:55 Pretty meaningless basketball ultimately, but that'll be something that I'm looking out for.
27:59 I'm going to go on the flip side of both of those. Tatum and Brown's a good one.
28:02 Those are the guys with the ball in their hands in crunch time.
28:04 We've talked about it 100 million times at this point, but they did not have a great season
28:08 in the last minute or two of games. They're within a couple points.
28:11 Those are going to happen. They're not going to, despite their 10-plus net rating,
28:16 which was all-time and the amount of blowouts they stacked out this year,
28:19 they're not going to blow out teams all the way to a championship.
28:22 They're going to have to win some key games in key series, maybe not round one,
28:25 but at least later in the series. They're going to have to take care of those games
28:28 to not allow series to go longer, which is my number two, and I think it goes hand-in-hand
28:32 with your health point. Take care of business. Sweep that first-round series.
28:36 Win the second one in five. Have the layoff. Have the rest, the recovery, and the practices
28:41 between these series that you can here. Take advantage of those.
28:45 You have a good path here. Miami, Chicago potentially both injured and damaged.
28:50 Cleveland and Orlando, you're not going to get ahead to them, but those are better-looking teams
28:55 to face in the second round, I think, than Indiana, Milwaukee, New York,
28:59 some of these other teams on the other side of the bracket here.
29:01 So take care of business quickly so you can rest, so you can be healthy.
29:05 Those series going long last year, Atlanta, Philly going seven, Miami going seven
29:10 because you went down 3-0, that's what made Tatum turn his ankle in a game seven
29:14 that you shouldn't have never been in, and Grant had his hand torn up,
29:18 and Rob sick in that game seven. That's all a product of going too long,
29:21 and if they do that again this year, you could end up hurt, as you mentioned.
29:24 So that's a big one for me as well, and yeah, it's going to come down to Brown and Tatum.
29:28 I think a lot of the other questions are answered, including the bench,
29:30 which I think has been pretty good this year.
29:32 I am curious, though, to your point about Mazzullo insinuating that they're going to keep
29:35 the rotation as it is as much as possible. I'm very curious to see how Peyton Purchaser
29:38 is going to hold off in the playoffs because, as you know, I'm very high on him.
29:41 Three guys who have never played significant roles in the playoffs,
29:45 and Brad talked on Tuesday and said, "I'm excited about the guys who have
29:49 playoff experience, but I'm also excited about the fresh naivety," I think he said,
29:54 "of the guys who haven't." So they're going to use those guys.
29:57 How are they going to perform in their first run here?
29:59 It's a question I think lower on the list because they played well all year.
30:02 I feel pretty good about them going in.
30:04 It's lower on the list, but it's what I'm excited about because I do think
30:07 Peyton Pritchard at full strength, full confidence, the way that we've seen him
30:11 over the last few months, is an enormous asset for a playoff run.
30:14 We've seen guys like him be the difference between a championship and not a championship
30:18 historically. You win games with a guy like Peyton Pritchard.
30:22 So I would hate for him to have a couple of bad games and maybe lose those minutes,
30:26 and next thing you know he's playing eight or nine minutes a night,
30:29 and he's no longer the same guy that we're seeing right now.
30:32 It is an asterisk storyline, but it's one that I'm interested in watching play out.
30:36 Game one Sunday, 1 p.m. We'll be at TD Garden. Noah will as well.
30:41 So follow along with her coverage at Noah Dalzell NBA and Celtics blog.
30:45 We'll have more Garden reports to come, including another postgame show I believe
30:49 after this Bulls Heat game when the Celtics will finally figure out who they're going
30:53 to be playing in that game one.
30:55 We are brought to you by a couple of great sponsors, one of them PXG.com/garden.
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31:49 She's Noah Dalzell. I'm Bobby Manning.
31:51 This has been another in-studio edition of the Garden Report.
31:54 We'll talk to you next week.
31:55 Hey, Bobby Manning here.
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