← Green With Envy: A Boston Celtics Podcast
Green With Envy: A Boston Celtics Podcast
Jaylen Brown is CARRYING the Boston Celtics (+ Special LIVE Episode Friday 930 AM ET with a surprise guest!)
00:40:28
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- [00:00]
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Mike Gorman
And.
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Mike Gorman
This is Mike Gorman and you're listening.
- [00:47]
Will
To Green with Envy with Will and Greg. All right, everybody, back at it again. A Green with Envy post game, but we're the bad boys of Celtics podcasting. There's still 350 left in the game, but we don't give a damn. We're firing up the mics. It's 123, 101 Celtics as we're recording. We're going to talk about this game. We're going to talk about the end of that Celtics jazz game. What a catastrophe that was. We'll talk about that. We'll set you up for the weekend. And we got a big announcement, so stay tuned. Lock in. You guys know the deal. This is Green with Envy. Let's do it. What up, what up, what up? Welcome into another edition of Green with Envy. A Green with Envy post game. That's not actually a post game yet. We're recording here live on YouTube and Twitter. Currently there is 354 still remaining in the Celtics Wizards game. Celtics are up 123 to 101. We'll jump in here with the final as soon as we get there, but we felt like we didn't need to wait around. So as always, this is what will. We're checking in. How you doing? How you living? Joining me as he does each and every time, my best friend, co host and the coach of our podcast, the one and only Greg Manakis. Greg had to have a bounce back. Had to have it tonight, dude.
- [02:16]
Mike Gorman
Jaylen Brown is playing so good that he inspired my lazy ass to get off the coach at the start of the second half, stop eating leftover Halloween candy and get a workout in. That's how. That's how good Jaylen Brown was playing. I literally was like, we got a men's league game tomorrow. If Jalen is out here hooping like this. And I'm here in my underwear just eating leftover Snickers, Twix, Reese's and all the great candies. I need to get up and do something. So I literally got a workout in for almost the entire second half just because of how good Jalen Brown was playing.
- [02:47]
Will
Hey, shout out to Jalen and shout out to you, man. I, I gotta be honest. I. You inspired me to buy a bag of candy. It's, it's been, it's, it's been tough, especially when you have a kid that can't even eat candy. So it's, it's really just extremely self indulgent.
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Mike Gorman
James is allergic to peanuts. We got so many candies with peanuts in the house. I gotta eat them all.
- [03:05]
Will
You gotta eat them. Yeah. You can't let them get near them. Can't let them get near them. But big game for the Celtics right now. It's 128, 101 here. Time is dwindling down. We'll give you the final score as soon as it goes live. Before we get into this game here, which right now we are live on YouTube and on Twitter, so people may start joining in here as the game does go final. Want to make a quick announcement here. We are going to have a special podcast on Friday morning. We're going to be live on YouTube, live on Twitter. It's going to go down at 9:30 Eastern, 8:30 Central. Special guest that we got booked here. I'm not going to give away the name yet because I know things can always change and so I always want to give us. Give ourselves an out just in case something happens. But I will say this, this guest was expensive. So I want you guys to make sure that you show up and show some love for this guest. So Friday morning, special guest, special episode of green with envy. 9:30am Eastern, 8:30am Central. Make sure you guys are rocking with us across all of our socials. But Greg, for right now, let's talk about the Celtics teams. They are on the verge here of going to 4 and 5, getting back to one game under.500 after a pretty disastrous Monday night, which we can talk a little bit about at the, you know, after we get through this game here. But. But first quarter of this game seemed like it was spilling over from what happened on Monday night. And then the Celtics went into turbo mode and that was led by Jaylen Brown, who, as you alluded to, has been incredible tonight. His night is already done, so we can talk about him in totality, 35 points, five rebounds, five assists. He inspired your workout. Inspire me with some of your thoughts.
- [04:42]
Mike Gorman
On Jaylen Brown on Monday night against the Jazz. One thing I like to do during games is just text some buddies that I that you know, that are also watching the games. We can complain about the team, we can talk about Jalen Brown, Peyton Pritchard, Derrick White, Ugo Gonzalez, all the guys that, that are like at the top of mind this season. And Jalen Brown with my guy, Phil Keefe is, is a bit of a polarizing figure because as you know, I'm a huge JB guy. He's been my guy since he's been on the Celtics. He's my favorite Celtics player. And Phil doesn't quite see Jalen the way that I see Jalen. I think Jalen is like at his best, a top 10 player in the NBA and he's absolutely playing like it. But at one point I texted him and I said, I really feel like Jaylen Brown studied SGA this summer. And the reason I say that is because of a very specific thing that he's doing when he's driving to his left hand. Jalen is. Has always weaponized an offhand, but now he's taking it and as he's driving, he's digging his forearm into the waist of the defender. It's something that SGA does really well and it allows you to get away with push offs without the refs necessarily seeing it. Because if you're pushing off up near the shoulders, it's easier for somebody to kind of like exaggerate that contact. But if you're pushing off at the hip level, it just allows you to be extension.
- [06:07]
Will
In years past, right. Where it's very, very obvious.
- [06:10]
Mike Gorman
Right. He's always, he's always weaponized it, but he's doing it in a way where he's getting to his pull up and he's just digging that elbow and that forearm into somebody's hip, creating the contact and pulling up right into that space. And it. It's an SGA move. And Scal even called it out in the. I think it was at the midway through the third quarter. He was like, man, that looks like sga. And I'm glad Scal called that out. Scale has this way of saying the things that I said, even though I'm saying them to myself and in text messages like the very next game. So happened again, happened again where scout called out that JB clearly was studying some SGA tape and it looks great on him.
- [06:48]
Will
Yeah, I think this is to a degree like the Jalen that we always imagined, right, because he's such an asset. He's a little bit of a throwback with a new age twist, if that makes any sense. Like I even saw. I think it was Corrales was. Was talking about a conversation him and Jay King were having that some of his, you know, tonight, getting in the mid range, the pump fakes that he was doing and then drawing contact were kind of Dem Rosen esque, right? And so some of that mid range of SGA DeRozan, you've also compared him to some of Tmax game with his footwork when he gets to certain areas. That's always been. And I was thinking about this tonight that, like, this is kind of the JB that I always want to see offensively, like when he's scoring the basketball where just his shot profile tonight, right? 13 of 21 from the field, 2 of 4 from 3.7 of 9 from the line. Like, that's a really good split for Jalen's game. Now, obviously we have to keep in mind the context of who's defending him against the Wizards. Wizards don't really have any great defensive matchups for him. So these are guys that Jalen's going to be able to get to his spots basically whenever he wants. But this is what superstars do when they play teams of this ilk or have matchups. Like, this is what you see a guy like SGA do, a guy like Giannis do, they're like, cool. Nobody can stop me from getting exactly what I would want to do every single night, every single time. So going to do it and I'm going to abuse it because they can't stop it. And that's what elevates their teams, right, Is the fact that they have this weapon, to your point, that the other team has no counter for. And tonight Jaylen executed that perfectly from the tip all the way through, you know, the beginning of the fourth quarter before, you know, he. He took a seat. As this game is starting to come.
- [08:28]
Mike Gorman
To a close right now, 35, 5 and 5 with a steal and only one turnover. And you know, we. We called out a couple pods ago a few 35 and 5 line as like, man, if Jaylen could put that up for the season, that would be like the best season we could imagine from Jaylen. He goes 35, 5 and 5 in 25 minutes, 53 seconds. Apparently there's only been five guys in.
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Will
In NBA history that was very excited about the stat.
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Mike Gorman
It was like the last thing I heard before we, before we hit record here. So, I mean, Jalen's just. He deserves all the flowers right now, all the praise. He's the one guy that. That has been playing at a level befitting of an NBA Finals MVP and a champion. Right. Everybody else on the team has been kind of dragging behind and dragging him down, but he's trying to pull his guys to victories and he deserves all the credit in the world. He's playing like a top five guy in the NBA right now.
- [09:23]
Will
Yeah. This game has gone final. It is Celtics 136, Wizards 107 is your final score. Celtics now officially back to four and five. Two games this weekend. Coming up against the Magic, who. We'll talk a little bit about that before we sign off tonight night. But back to focusing on this win. Jalen was excellent. Jalen's been excellent these last two games. We will touch on because he was very heavily involved obviously at the end of that Jazz game. But I want to save that. We don't need to talk about that now. I want to focus on this game here and this bounce back game, which as I mentioned started off pretty rough in the first quarter. Minus Jalen Brown, Peyton Pritchard, two fouls in the first 45 seconds. He was then basically on the bench the rest of that first quarter. And from there, other than Jalen, there really wasn't much good they had going, but resiliency, good bounce back from the rest of this team here. And I think at the end of the day, you have a lot of guys that actually played pretty well in this game. And so one of the guys that I do want to start with and highlight here is Nemi Esqueda. I thought Nemi was actually probably the only other guy that I would maybe put in that Jalen Brown category that even in the first quarter I thought was playing pretty well. I think something that he's starting to find his rhythm with is he's still not the world's best screen setter. But as far as when to dive, when to fill the lane and when to seal a smaller guy, he's getting really good at those instinctual things that just make life easy on a big man. And that's what you saw tonight, where he goes 7 of 7 from the field, finishes with 15 points and 12 rebounds, and had 5 assists, which is a huge missing part of this team. Is anyone else besides Pritchard, Derrick White and Jalen Brown that can get more than one assist in a game? Just happens very rarely so far. So for Nemi is Keda. I think Maybe his most complete game. Had a stealing a block in here as well too. Maybe his most complete all around game. And I think just in general, some really positive signs of the growth that we're looking for from him. A lot of that all over this game tonight for him.
- [11:21]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, Nemi's been great, man in a team stat. Real quick. 31 assists. How many turnovers you think the Celtics had tonight?
- [11:29]
Will
I'm looking at it right now, so. I know, but five turnovers. Again, amazing assist. Good to see the 31 assists. It's been a minute. Also funny just, just talking to Scal, one of the things that really stood out to me today is that it seemed this is the first time, at least in the broadcast I've noticed where he's really been like, yeah, man, we're just not that good of a passing team. I don't know if anybody else has noticed this. It's like, yeah, scale. Anyone's been watching, this is the preseason and even going into the season kind of expected this team not to be a great passing team. We've noticed.
- [11:57]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, yeah. But going back to Nemi, I just think, you know, you, you referred to it as an instinctual thing like when to seal and all that stuff. I, I, I don't think that's necessarily an instinctual thing. I think that's something that is skill and drill, you know, like you have to just drill that and eventually it becomes instinctual. But I think until you put in the reps and you have the actual playing time right, it's not second nature to everybody. It's something that you really have to work on. And early in the season, Scal was actually calling that out as like the probably the worst part of Kate, his game where it was he didn't have the timing down, he didn't know when to dive, and now he's getting out of screens. Right. You know, even if it's a high pick and roll, the Celtics are doing a lot of empty side picking roles. And I think Kate is doing a much better job of getting out of those. But I, I think his cuts to the basket, I, he just like knows when to fill the lane. To your point, right? He, he kind of just like see like when Peyton Pritchard drives baseline, for example, and Kate is just kind of hanging around the free throw line area. He's just moves his body and finds open space and finds opportunities for him to, you know, get a put back dunk or to finish a lobby. And he's just, he's just everywhere 7 for 7 from the field tonight. And this is a. About a as perfect of a CADA game as you can ask for, right? 15 12. Four offensive rebounds, five assists, a stay on a block like, I mean that's like Al Horford.
- [13:27]
Will
Nothing else you can ask for. That's, that's it. That's a, that's. That's a neemy game right there. And, and the biggest point is that seven of seven, for all the things that, that we're talking about, like there are seven really easy buckets. They're all slam dunks. They're shots at the rim. It's exactly where you want Nemi to be in those moments. Right. And to your point, you're right. This is not necessarily instinctual. It's more just it. It feels like he doesn't have to. To think about it as much. It's becoming to your points, becoming more, more that way. And so I just think early season, as I'm starting to look at this team, as we approach the 10 game mark this weekend, like Nene for me is one of the guys that I'm like. I think he's been absolutely. There's no doubt he's a solid B, B plus, A minus, depending on how you want to set whatever expectations. Like, he's been good. I, I really can't. I think Nene, who I was a little worried about after some of his couple preseason performances of what we were going to get, he's been pleasantly surprising. I think a lot of the numbers, the on off numbers back it up that when he's out there, the Celtics are still a pretty steady team. It's behind him. You're just not finding much when it comes to the front court. You know, even tonight where almost everybody is a positive in the plus minus, you know, Luca Garza is the one negative at negative three. Right. There just really isn't anything behind him.
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Mike Gorman
He's just not an NB player. Luca Garza.
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Will
Yeah. Yeah.
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Mike Gorman
It's not his fault.
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Will
It's just like it's not his fault. You're right. You're 100, right. And that's, you know, to a point. At one point I texted you and Alex, like, what is this lineup we have out there? It was like Garza, Ugo, Jordan, Walsh, Simons, and maybe Houser. And I was like, this is not an NBA lineup. I don't know what this is. This is not an NBA line that we have out there. But, but Nemi, to your point, I think he's definitely establishing himself as an NBA player. Where that's going to be by the end of the season. I think that's really fascinating to keep an eye on, but I'm loving what I've seen out of Nemi Esqueda so far. Let's go to Josh Minot, because another why not Minot Type of night, man. 8:12 from the field, 3 of 6 from 3, 2 of 2 from the line. Finishes with a new career high, I believe is either second or third career high that he's set this season already. Through nine games, 21 points, five rebounds, three steals. And much like we talked about cadence cutting, Minot's becoming a really excellent cutter and becoming that vertical threat, that athlete off the wing that the Celtics have needed for a long time.
- [15:46]
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- [16:01]
Mike Gorman
Liberty.
- [16:02]
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- [16:20]
Will
What's the game plan?
- [16:22]
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- [16:27]
Will
Liberty.
- [16:28]
Mike Gorman
Liberty. Liberty. Yeah, as a wing, but playing out of the corner, right? Most of the stuff that he's doing is out of the corner. He's really smart at just, like, knowing when to hold the corner and knowing when to get into that dunker spot. Very. Like Aaron Gordon, like, the way that he's. He's kind of been handling the baseline and handling the dunker spot, and everything that he does is just full speed, like, best athlete on the court in terms of vertical. Verticality. And he's just so springy, man. And like, for a team that definitely was resting on its laurels a little bit last season, having to run, you know, run it back, and they didn't quite have the. The exuberance that you were kind of needing from that team. And I think that reared its ugly head in the playoffs, like, Josh Minot is just an injection of energy. Kind of what I was expecting Chris Boucher to do for this team. Like, Josh Minot is doing that. And, you know, times five. And I think we found our starting power forward. Well, like, yeah, like, when you. When you bring Jason Tatum back. There's no reason why Josh Meinott should not hold that power forward, power forward spot down just because he's going to be able to take so much of the pressure off of Jason Tatum and all the stuff that he used to have to do. And then when you factor in Jalen Brown is playing at this level and you're bringing Jason Tatum back from an injury, and you can kind of just like bring him back, but not have him do all the stuff that he used to do, but bring him back slowly and fit in around the other guys as they're playing at the level that they're playing right now. Like, this team could be. Could be interesting come March or April.
- [18:08]
Will
Yeah. And Minot is easily the, you know, the. The best part of this early season for me. Right. Like, just every night I'm waiting to see how Minot is going to insert himself in the game. I. That's the best way to describe what he does, is insert himself. Right. Like, there's not stuff really run for him. Like, he's going to be just on the glass. He's gonna be athletic. He's starting to really find a chemistry. Right? Because I think there's. Sometimes you can see, like, I was noticing, like, towards the end of the game when it was getting a little bit out of hand, like, you know, Simons and Houser still haven't really figured out where they're supposed to be. Like when they're trying to work. Work together. Minot knows where he's. Exactly where he's supposed to be.
- [18:45]
Mike Gorman
Right.
- [18:45]
Will
Minot knows, to your point, playing out of the corners with Derrick White, with Peyton Pritchard, with Jalen with Nemi, like that group of five, they all know where they're supposed to be spatially, that's probably the one group. And like, I'm sure if you insert Hauser just because of the, you know, experience with the group, like, it still feels good. But, like, that grouping is like, where it feels like it makes the most sense with this team right now and mine, you know, and him just hitting three out of six, like, especially in that first quarter when he hit two, when the Celtics were just like, okay, Jalen has like 18, and we have two points outside of that.
- [19:17]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, he was down 10 and he had two straight threes.
- [19:19]
Will
Yeah, that was huge. And so that's a mega bonus. Is Josh Minot hitting, you know, three threes tonight being three of six. You saw him taking them very confident. One of those guys where he hits one or two early and he takes the next Couple with such confidence that, like, he might not make them all, but you see a massive difference in the approach to his shot if he makes one or two early. And so Josh Minot, again, just another really solid game. Yeah, I Josh, my not man, just a revelation so far this season been so fun.
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Mike Gorman
Can we talk about Pritchard?
- [19:50]
Will
Let's do it. Because I mentioned before, you know, he got in follow trouble 45 seconds into this game. And that was a part of that first quarter malaise, if you will. Right. Having to go to Simons so early. And then I think obviously once Peyton was back and I can't remember, I think he might have checked in towards the end of the. Maybe he didn't come back at all in the first quarter. And then that second quarter, he played the whole time and it was great. And I think that really started to change the course of this game.
- [20:15]
Mike Gorman
I just love the way he's playing right now. Like, obviously the shot's not falling to the degree that you want from outside. Will, who have I always compared him to Jalen Brunson? Well, I've always compared to friend Van Vliet, but recently I've been compare comparing him to Jalen Brunson.
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Will
Yeah, you get a lot of comparisons. Yeah.
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Mike Gorman
But I really do feel like he like as much as Jalen study an SGA tape. I feel like Peyton Pritchard is studying Jalen Brunson. Like his ability to play off of two feet right now and just dig. It's very similar to what I was talking about with Jaylen Brown digging into the hips with the off arm. Like, Peyton Pritchard is the master at that. Right. He just gets into your hip, he just controls you with his offarm, and then he plays off of two feet. That little reverse pivot that he's doing for the fadeaway is money, and that is textbook Jalen Brunson basketball right there. So I want to give Pritchard all the credit in the world because when he's able to get into the paint and actually make a difference and not just get like overwhelmed by the size in there and he can find his space and he can hold his dribble and hold his line for that extra beat that he really needs to or he can Nash on the baseline, like all these things that Peyton Pritchard is capable of doing, but he hasn't been able to do against, like, the very best teams out there yet. Right. Probably means when Jayson Tatum comes back, he goes back to his natural position coming off of the bench. But I'm loving everything that I'm seeing out of Peyton Pritchard over the last couple of games. It's going to be interesting, you know, the next time we go up against a real defensive team. What he's able to do is Jalen still able to get to his spots. Because the last time we saw this team really struggle was against the Rockets, right? And the Rock. There was. Obviously that was a schedule loss and everything, but the Rockets just completely overwhelmed both Jalen Brown and Peyton Pritchard. And. And.
- [22:04]
Will
Well, coming up this weekend, the Magic defense has not been what it was that we saw in the playoffs, but there's. There should still be a solid defense somewhere in the Magic. I will. We'll talk. I don't know what the hell is going on with the Magic. I watched a little bit of their game versus the Hawks last night. It's. It's getting weird in Orlando early. But Jalen Suggs, that's going to be an interesting matchup for Peyton Pritchard to go up against and see what that looks like. But to your point, again, Peyton Pritchard has been absurd on two point shots this year. Tonight again, he goes 7 to 12 overall, 2 of 6 from 3. He was 5 of 6 again from two point range. And that footwork inside the lane and just outside of the lane, getting to those spots, getting those shots the way that you were describing, it's been pretty incredible to watch. And it's an element of Peyton's game that we haven't really seen over the last couple because it hasn't been needed.
- [22:54]
Mike Gorman
Right.
- [22:54]
Will
He's been doing what was needed out of him. And so seeing him get this opportunity, opportunity to be this guy when he gets. And he's really, you know, outside of Jalen, basically the only guy getting to the paint, right. Like there's no one else that is getting to the paint off the bounce. If you get Anthony Simons a straight line in transition, he can do it, but other than that, he's not getting there. Right? So it comes down to Peyton and Jalen if we're going to get paint touches. And the Peyton Pritchard shooting over 65 from 2, not something that I had on my, you know, regular season bingo card. Did not see that coming. And every time I think it might stop, it doesn't. And like even tonight at one point, I think it was in the, in the third quarter, Pritchard, I was almost mad because Pritchard had opportunities for like a really easy two point jump shot and he did the Andrew Nemhard, where he ran out. Yeah, White line. And I was like, dude, you don't miss from two right now. Just take. It's like a layup for you. You were so open. Because I'm just loving watching how Peyton's operating with that. With that game. Playing off of two FE. And so just another really nice performance from him. 18 points, five assists, seven to 12 from the field. As you said, two or six from three. But I, I think important in this game, and I'll include Derrick White in this. They only went 4 of 11 combined. I think for the most part they took good threes.
- [24:12]
Mike Gorman
Right.
- [24:12]
Will
And that's for two of them is almost as important as them getting back to making a consistent 40% is. Let's start with the right shots. And then I think the shots just going to go in because they're both shooters. But I think that's really important for them. Even though it was 4 of 11, that's nothing to write home about, but I think it's in a step in the right direction.
- [24:31]
Mike Gorman
I just am so happy that they're both taking shots that aren't ridiculous heat checks. When there's no heat, it's like, what are we trying to shoot ourselves in, in. Into heat, into hotness? Like that. Just not something that you're going to be able to do. I was happy with Derrick White's game tonight. I thought he was an absolute menace on defense. Like, he was everywhere. Deflection, steals, blocks. He ended up with. With five stocks, three steals and two blocks. And I would love to see how many deflections he had because this is. This is the Derek White that we need. We don't need Derrick White right now to be an all star point guard. We just need Derrick White to be what Derrick White has been in the past. He hasn't been anywhere close to what he's been in the past. Right. Like, it seemed like he was forcing everything, trying to do too much. And if he can just be like the dominant role player that he's been, we probably have another win or two on our record. Right now we're four and five. We could easily be six and three. If Derrick White is just playing better basketball, basketball that we're accustomed to. And he's the first to admit it. He talked about how he's.
- [25:32]
Will
Especially after the Jazz game. So he played like.
- [25:34]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, I mean, he knows. He knows he's going to turn it around. I thought, you know, only going 2 for 5 from 3, that's what you want out of Derrick White. Until he finds his shot to your point.
- [25:44]
Will
Yeah, and eight assists too, which I think is big. Which watching this game again about how much finding assists and easy baskets have been a struggle like we talked about. Oh, yeah, Jalen might be a guy who facilitates and then we, we quickly walked that back. Nah, Jalen's got to be the 30 plus guy. Like we need Jalen to be that guy. The guy that probably could be. Take a step back scoring wise, but be more of a facilitation guy. It's probably Derek White. Like that's probably the answer. And part of that's because of his iq, right? Like, I don't think he's necessarily a wizard passing like you see some of these other guys, but with his iq. And again, you saw it a little bit with him and Nemi. They developed a little bit. I'd love to go back and see how many assists, you know, Neemi had off of Derek White passes. I bet you it's at least two or three because it felt like they were developing a little bit of a chemistry. So I like seeing that snowman in the assist column from Derrick White. I think that's going to be something to keep an eye on going forward. I do see a comment in the chat here and I do want to get to this guy here. So let's, let's get to it. Now. We have a comment here from Mr. Mr. Miyagi. Oh, Mr. Miyagi. There we go. I get it. How do we feel about Walshy minutes tonight? And listen, listen, I sent this guy to China. I was done with Jordan Walsh. Still, listen, tonight's they're playing the Wizards. The Wizards are one step above the Nets and Pelicans, which are all barely above G league teams at this point. So we're not going to get carried away. But kudos is due where kudos is due. Jordan Walsh was great tonight. Jordan Walsh was a part of that second quarter turnaround along with Peyton Pritchard, along with, you know, Josh Minot and Jalen Brown. Like Jordan Walsh's energy, his seven rebounds, which again, this team cannot rebound. It was biting them in the ass again in that first quarter and them turning this around. A big part of that was Jordan Walsh. So 7.7 rebounds. Got to give Jordan Walsh's props on a night like this.
- [27:32]
Mike Gorman
Over under 11 and a half the amount of times that we give kudos to Jordan Walsh this season.
- [27:40]
Will
So we're at one. So I'm heavy taking the under on that. I still, I still don't really believe in in Jordan Walsh. But I think in a game like this, to your point, and these are the nights that we didn't even have to kind of break this out last year, where it's like, just give us the energy, guys.
- [27:57]
Mike Gorman
Just.
- [27:57]
Will
Just go, you know, we. We don't need these guys. You know, we don't need the big studs that we had last year. Like, this year, we just. Every night. And you text me this, like, if you're playing 15 guys, you probably don't really have that many guys you actually should be playing. You're just hoping you find lightning in a bottle with one of those guys tonight. And there's like six or seven guys that are going to play every night. Everyone else is kind of. Let's see what you got in your first dip. Don't got it. All right, let's try somebody else. Like, you see, no Boucher, no Tillman tonight. But those guys are going to get plenty of opportunity in other games. Same with Shireman. He didn't play until late, but he got more opportunity, you know, the other night. And so you're going to see a rotation of. A lot of guys are just. Who has it? Who's going to give us a little something where we weren't expecting it. And tonight it was Jordan Walsh.
- [28:43]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, this is a quote that I'm quoting myself here, but I was texting with Phil the other night. I came. I came up with this. I was like, I like this. If you got 15 guys who play, you don't have guys who can play. That's the quote. And that's how I feel about this Celtics team. Yeah, it's a pretty true statement. But, I mean, Jordan Walsh deserves all the credit. Like, as much as we can make fun of the. The 8 through 15 guys on this roster, like, they're gonna get their opportunities because we don't have, you know, the six, seven, and eight men on a normal NBA team. Right? So, like, all those guys are gonna get their opportunities. And tonight was Jordan Walsh's time to step up. And this is why, previously, we've been excited about Jordan Walsh because he's so athletic. He can board up. He has really good.
- [29:29]
Will
You actually saw his athleticism tonight. This is, like one of the few times in the past, mostly when I watch him, I'm always looking for it. I never get it.
- [29:37]
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- [30:23]
Will
Right.
- [30:24]
Mike Gorman
He had two, two steals tonight. I'm sure he had like three or four deflections as well. I was really happy with Jordan Walsh. I still think there's the potential for an NBA player in there. He's just one of those like two years from being two years away guys, he's still so young, you know, he's like barely 21 years old. I think that Jordan Walsh, if he gets a second contract in the NBA, I hope he really gets an opportunity to play and like develop.
- [30:52]
Will
I mean you called it out.
- [30:53]
Mike Gorman
Kind of like Josh Pine.
- [30:54]
Will
I was going to say you called it earlier. He just could be Josh Minor. He just might need to go to a team that is going to give him a full time shot. Like right. Like right. And maybe that's where it sticks, right? Because right now I think Minot and Ugo consistently are going to be above him. But he got his shot tonight, made a lot of it. So we'll see going forward. You know, now Joe at least has something that he can go, okay, Jordan gave me this in this game. Now I can give him another shot here. We know that he's going to give Ugo and Josh Minot has basically solidified himself as a starter for the rest of the season already. So now it's going to be, you know, what moments he can find between Ugo and Baylor. Shireman. But, but definitely, definitely I think, well.
- [31:34]
Mike Gorman
You know, we'll go in Baylor. That's a good point. And we got a comment from, From Rob version 1, one of our OG commenters. He says Walsh performed well tonight. Now if we could get those types of minutes every night he has a shot at overtaking Baylor. And Ugo liked the rebounding from Walsh tonight. Just need his threes to fall. I think one of the great things about having guys like Baylor, Ugo and Walshy is that you're creating competition internally with your team, right. Where like none of those guys are ever Going to feel like they have their spot solidified. They're going to feel like they. Every time they go on the court, this is their chance. Right. And if they don't play well, then there's a guy right behind me that can go ahead and take my spot. Right. So having those opportunities in a. And take advantage of those opportunities like Walsh did tonight, now he's probably going to be first off the bench of those three guys in the next game. Right. So we'll see what he can do. And. And with the. When the coach looks at him before he looks at other guys.
- [32:37]
Will
Yeah. So moving forward here, Celtics again wrap up this one tonight. Final score against the. Let's see, where's the final score here? I've just missed it. 130A. 136 to 107 here against the Wizards. They are now heading off to Orlando where they'll have two games against Orlando shooting on Friday night. NBA cup group B action on Friday night against the Orlando Magic, and then they will stay in Orlando to play them again on Sunday. Greg, do you want to talk about a little bit about looking ahead to the Magic or do you want to touch on what happened on Monday night specifically? Just. It was a disaster of a game for the Celtics, but the blowing call at the end was maybe even worse.
- [33:31]
Mike Gorman
I. Whenever I see somebody fall on the court like Kada did, I'm just like, oh, someone's gonna slip. And then like five guys slipped in like a testament.
- [33:40]
Will
That whole game there was something weird at the floor. I don't know if the Bruins are getting ready to play or something because the whole. There was multiple times that there was multi slip action that happened in that game. And the craziest part to me about that whole Jalen play is it's one thing if one guy slipped like down in the baseline and it caused this kind of chaos. And it was like, ah, maybe it's a weird angle. It was in the middle of the floor like no one else was around. Like it was ISO at the top of the key. The guy goes slip it and slides right into Jalen. And the explanation afterwards was like, oh, I think they slipped at the same time. When I watched the replay, after reading that comment in the replay plays right below, I laughed out loud. It was audibly like hilarious to think that that was your justification for it. And of course that leads to two points right down the other end. Eventually Celtics lose on the. On the nurkic, you know, tip in. But that that play altered the ending of the game. There was A lot of stuff the Celtics could have done otherwise, but completely altered the ending of that game.
- [34:42]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, let's just talk about that and just be, like, angry fans about how bad the refs are for that. Like, I think that's all that we need to do for.
- [34:49]
Will
For.
- [34:50]
Mike Gorman
For this little segment here. Did Jaylen get fined? I saw that he.
- [34:55]
Will
No, so he actually didn't. I saw someone say it was, like, very surprising. He was expecting a fine, but the. I mean, the. The two minute report came out, said, no, he's 100. Right. Like, yeah, it should. And. And that's kind of the way that it should be. Right. Like, I think when guys get technicals, which in the moment, like, hey, whatever, you can't go back and change it. But, like. Or to a degree, maybe you should. If they get it right, if they were upset and you got technical for, like, yelling at the ref and then they were right, maybe you should respect. Send it. Right. And so in this situation, somewhat of a similar scenario, like, I don't think Jaylen took his comments above and beyond. Yes. Probably by the letter of the law, commenting on the refs, yada, yada, yada. Like, you're supposed to get a fine, but if you keep it somewhat measured and you don't go, like, ballistic.
- [35:35]
Mike Gorman
Right.
- [35:36]
Will
But you should technically get fined and then you get proven right. This is the right call. This is like the logical call that for some reason we sometimes ignore in sports, which is always very frustrating to fans, where it's like, there's a logical way to handle this. We're just choosing not to because we have a. A quote unquote letter of the law that we need to follow.
- [35:52]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, it's so silly. And it's not like Jalen did a lewd gesture to the referees like, Joel Embiid. Did you see Joel Embiid get fined.
- [36:00]
Will
For doing the suckers thing? Yeah, I mean, he does it all the time. Like, I just. It's just. I think he's just. This is my thing now.
- [36:06]
Mike Gorman
I'm just gonna get behind such an idiot. Oh, it's great. No, but Jalen, you know, that sucked, man. Like, the Celtics, they should be 5 and 4 right now. Like. Like, yeah, the greatest optimist could say 6 and 3, but we should be 5 and 4. Like, we. That. I think that's where we are as a team right now. Like, hovering above 500 through nine games. I think we deserve one more victory. Do you see that? The. The Sixers lost again tonight, so that's maybe three in A row for them or three out of four for them.
- [36:34]
Will
And that's the game buzzer last night. Let me see here. Oh, the Cavs. Cavs had their full start in five. Back for the first time. Damn. Donovan Mitchell put up 46 points here, four rebounds. Big night from Donovan Mitchell.
- [36:49]
Mike Gorman
Yeah.
- [36:49]
Will
So now there's lost to the Nets.
- [36:51]
Mike Gorman
Pacers lost to the net. They're having a rough season, dude.
- [36:55]
Will
Pacers. Listen, hey, that's. That's kind of the. That's part of the silver lining here, right, is that we were supposed to be on par with the Pacers. I know the Pacers have had injuries that we have not had, but their season is already spiraling to a place where it's like, what's the point of us clawing back in at this? Right? Like, yeah, why are we doing this? Funny, funny footnote though for the Pacers is. I don't know if you remember this, but during the Finals they made this very random trade with the Pelicans to get their first round pick back. I think it was like around game six. So rough time to be the Pelicans. You traded away your unprotected pick and one of the worst trades that like any like asset wise anyone can think of.
- [37:35]
Mike Gorman
And you're.
- [37:37]
Will
You're winless. Yeah, you're winless because of that. And you could have. Also, there's a chance if the Pacers continue to be this bad. There's a world where the Pelicans in like two moves could have had two top five picks in like a loaded draft and are gonna walk away with zero and maybe the worst record in the NBA.
- [37:56]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, they should just.
- [37:57]
Will
Time.
- [37:58]
Mike Gorman
They need to move that. They need to move that franchise, man. I feel that they are in a close game with the maps right now. 8180 mavs. So that's something to watch. Maybe they'll get their first victory tonight. No Zion in that game either.
- [38:13]
Will
Shocking. All right, let's. Let's talk here quickly, Greg, about the Magic, because that's where the Celtics are going to next. The Magic have been a team that obviously I had very high hopes for and I wasn't alone in that. There's a lot of people that were thinking, the Magic, we're going to be kind of that third team behind the Cavs and the Knicks. As far as Eastern Conference contention so far in the season, they are three and five. And the defense that we saw in. And I got to really, I really watched them for the first time last night against the Hawks, probably from the second Quarter till about middle of the third, end of the third, before the game got kind of out of, out of control. They're a mess, man. They're a mess. They got no flow to their team. Bane was supposed to fix, you know, not fix, but help them offensively. Right. He got. I don't know. Did you see how he got thrown out of that game last night?
- [39:05]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, that's as. I haven't watched any Orlando Magic basketball. I've just seen a few highlights, and that was one of the highlights I've seen.
- [39:11]
Will
That was wild. I don't. I. I was, I was watching it. My wife was watching, like, Dancing with the Star or something. So I had it like, on, but I added on very low volume. So I was like kind of like half watch and half talking. And then all of a sudden I, I see Bane pull down. I think it was a kongwu. And then when he volleyball spiked it on his head, I was. And then Mo Gay came in to kind of break it up. And I don't know why. Bane went into like, wrestling mode and kind of like, put out the, like, I want you, like, finger point to him. Yeah, it was a really weird scene. It made no sense from anything that I had seen in the game as far as to, like, why this animosity had boiled up to this point. Like, there was literally no indicating signs of it. So it was very strange. And then watching them operate, fight offensively, it's. It's just completely unclear as to what they want to do. And it felt like last season before, well, I guess they got injured pretty early, but in between the Wagner and the Paulo early season injuries, when Suggs was still there, kind of riding shotgun with each of them at different times, like, it felt like they were figuring stuff out. And now all three of them are back, they've got Bane, and it should make sense and it just doesn't. Doesn't. It's like a lot of nasty, ugly ISO ball people cutting in the wrong at the wrong times, like, just not synced up defensively. I, I didn't. I don't have enough to make a judgment call on that. I've just been seeing the box scores, a lot of 130s and I'm like, what? I. I. And it's really. I watched them play the Celtics really tough last year and I was worried about them. Like, defensively, I can't explain what's happening to them defensively, but I'm gonna be really interested to watch watch this weekend.
- [40:50]
Mike Gorman
Yeah, I don't really have much to offer because I haven't watched any magic basketball. But I, you know that I, I agree that I'm surprised their defense has been as bad as it's been numbers wise. I haven't watched any tape, so I don't know any of the strategy on either end of the ball for them. So it'll be my first look at the magic. And, you know, the, the issue that we've had with them in the past is their size. And that could be an issue with this team especially. So. So we'll see. Looking forward to it.
- [41:18]
Will
All right, well, that's coming up this weekend. Celtics Magic times two again. Friday night will be an NBA cup game. Once again, quick reminder, Friday morning, 9:30 Eastern, 8:30 Central, we will have a green with envy special presentation, if you will. We'll have an added episode for you guys this week. So if you want to, and I recommend you do, tune in live on YouTube, on Twitter. We'll promote it as well a little bit beforehand. But make sure you guys are locked in with us this weekend for that special episode for tonight.
- [41:48]
Mike Gorman
Can I say something, can I say something real quick?
- [41:50]
Will
One more thing?
- [41:50]
Mike Gorman
We've been, we've been trying to. We've been trying to get this guest for five years. We've been trying to get this guest for five years. We finally got him. We finally got him. Cannot wait for it.
- [42:00]
Will
Gonna be a fun time. Can't wait for Friday mornings. I hope you guys join us. Celtics get the win tonight. They go to 4 and 5. Enjoy your night, everybody. Enjoy this. Celtics win. A win they had to have. And now we look ahead to a weekend with the magic rematch of last year year's first round playoff series. We'll catch you guys on Friday morning. Enjoy your Thursdays. Every time I hit this high, it's you. I find it don't take much. No more until I make at your door.
- [42:44]
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