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John Corrales (1:12)

Lockdown Celtics Podcast, is this still next season's preseason's Jalen Brown sacrifice and records that could be set against the Washington Wizards locked on Celtics pot, Home of the winners welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here in the Lockdown Podcast Network. Where is your team every day? Your team is the Boston Celtics and I talk about them every Monday through Friday bonus podcasts throughout the week. Plus on the weekends they play the Wizards on Saturday. So Saturday night I will give you a podcast bonus podcast so make sure you're subscribed. Wherever you get your podcast, watch a show on YouTube, get into the comment section and share your thoughts with me there. I'm John Corrales and beat writer covering the Celtics for Sports illustrated Celtics on SI. I've been covering the team for 20 years doing this podcast for 10 and today I'm opening them up, opening up the mailbag which I'm overdue for. You can get your questions in@john corrales.com mailbag john corrales.com mailbag to submit your questions. I will answer them here. Sometimes I will answer them on si.com Again that's Celtics on SI. I will let you know here when I've done that there so you can get I I just want to answer as many questions as possible and every once in a while I'll do a bonus podcast that answers questions so I can get to as many of these as possible. So let's just dive into the mailbag. Later on, we'll get into the fun question about records the Celtics could set against the Wizards, which is a thing that's happening right now. Why the Celtics didn't adjust against Victor Wembanyama. Jason Jalen Brown sacrificed now that JT is back. But let's start with a a theme of mine from Andy, who said you've said that this year was written off in your mind. Even if Tatum comes back, that the rest of the year is next year's preseason, is that still the case after seeing Tatum since he's come back? It's a, it's a yes and no answer because I still don't think the Celtics win a championship unless Tatum can be a somewhat full version of himself. So he's still not that yet. However, he's not as far behind any of this that than I thought he would be like. You have to understand, this is not normal. Jason has accomplished something here that is beyond normal. Getting back at 10 months is incredible. And that's not the surprise. The surprise is that he's back on the on the floor playing NBA basketball at 10 months. He and that he looks as good as he does and that he's playing 27 minutes on a regular basis and that he probably could play more if he wanted to. I don't know how that would impact his recovery. And he has said, he said after that game against San Antonio I could have played more. But this is part of the plan. And so it's part of the plan for a reason. But my anticipation was that and I've said it, that Tatum would come back and play a couple of seven, eight minute stints off the bench and it would be a process of getting winded very quickly and looking like 60% of himself and then working himself up. He's probably three or four weeks ahead of what I anticipated. And listen, my, my job here is not to be green teamer, ultimate fan. You can be that. That's fine. My job here, as I see it, is to be real with you. I'm not going to be positive if I don't think the situation is positive. I'm not going to be negative if the situation is not negative. I am going to treat things as I see them, as I expect them. And every time I have a take, it's generally, with rare exception, well reasoned. At least in my mind. It's there's a reason for me coming to a conclusion, it's not just pulled out of thin air. I promise you, I'm not just taking aside to get attention or clicks. If I wanted to get attention and clicks, trust me, I could. This show does well and it could. If I wanted to be Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless, I could be. I'm not. So I promise you, the takes that I have, even if they're wrong, in my mind, there's a reason for me getting to where I am. And I don't mind being wrong as long as me getting to that place is, I think, well reasoned. So why I said this is going to be next year's preseason because I expected Tatum to be almost a month behind of where he is. And it's March and so March and April are. Where he is now in March is like where I expected him to be is probably where he was in April. You follow me like that? I, I just expected him to be less than this. So I know that the Celtics need Tatum and, and Brown to be their absolute peak to win a championship. So why I said this was the preseason because I pinned championship hopes on next season. This season was gravy. And even now, no matter what happens, there's no reason to be negative about this season. Even if they lose in the first round, which I don't expect, but even if they do, let's just say that they do, so what? This has been such a great, positive season that if something happens and they, it just, it doesn't work. They lose in the first or second round. So what? This has been so great. This has been such a fun, positive season that I just don't, I just don't see it, any of it as a negative. But I did anticipate Tam to be further behind what he is. And, and that's why I, I thought this was going to be next year's preseason. It's not. It's not anymore. He's, he's more advanced. He's probably a few weeks away from 30 plus minutes a game. Jalen is still great. Before he got kicked out of the spurs game, I thought Jalen was playing, honestly, one of the best games of his life. I, I saw him playing, making reads, make, anticipating things. I was just like, wow, this is another level, another level for Jalen. So it's, it's surpassed my expectations. So it's not really. It is still next year's preseason in that we're getting Jason ramped up for a championship run next year. But hey, by the way, he's very capable of being part of a championship run. This, this year. They can get out of the East. They can, they can get to the NBA Finals. Once you're at the NBA Finals, who knows what can happen? So I, I still say that you need Tatum to get to a certain level to be a championship team next year. It's just that he can get there this year and maybe, maybe, I can't say no. I think it's, I think they are among the favorites, probably the favorite in the east at this point. At the very worst, they're at the Detroit level. So congratulations, man. Congratulations to Tatum, congratulations to Joe Missoula, to Jalen Brown, to all of these guys for putting themselves so far ahead of expectations. It's been, it's been amazing. Related Here's a question from Adam before we get into the next segment. What metrics could we use to track Tatum's recovery in return to return to form? Is there tracking data like how fast he's moving on the court or types of shots that he's taking? What number will best show us that he's back? And honestly, Adam, I don't think there's a number. I, if there's one number that maybe you could look at, considering where he's been, it's a simple like effective field goal percentage because his efficiency has been low. So him just shooting better will get you a little bit more of a sense of where he is in his recovery. It's, it's not an advanced metric. I don't think he's moving slowly. Right. Again, going back to the previous question, if he was what I thought he was going to be, then I would say yes. Tracking data, speed, distance traveled, those would be perfect kind of numbers to track. But that might increase some. But I don't think he looks slow necessarily out there. Maybe his drives, which I haven't checked, but maybe his drives picking up, that would be a good place. If we're looking at tracking data, an increase in his drives would be a good indicator of where he is because he's probably not driving as much as he will normally. He's probably a, a 10, 11, 12 drive per game guy and he's. I'm sure he's not at that point yet. And that's, that's more wind than it is apprehension about the Achilles. So that could be something. But I, I just don't think that's the, the end all be all kind of number. It's, I just, I just think his efficiency, once he becomes a more efficient scorer then that means his legs are back and he's, he's just getting more into a rhythm of the game. So that, that's the simplest thing that I can tell you. And that again, that's a testament to how far along he is because it, if he was where I thought he would be, there would be a number of statistics that I would easily pull out and say, yes, track all of these things because he's here and he needs to get to here. And no, he's already further along. So shout out to Tatum, Nick sang, the trainers, the surgeons, everybody, it's been, it's been an amazing recovery. It's a blueprint for how to handle this. Honestly, the, the number one thing that should come out of Jayson Tatum's injury is that teams and players should get, once it's diagnosed, get the surgery done asap. That's the lesson for everybody. All right, we're going to come back. We're going to talk about Jaylen Brown's sacrifice in just a moment. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash. Listen, it's the playoffs are here. It's the the season where there are parties being thrown and DoorDash has DoorDash has a way to keep fans in their bag the whole way through. 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There's something for everybody. The board is set. The flavors are ready. I've got my number one pick. Now. There's different flavor profiles. Every one of these has zero sugar. I know some of these may sound kind of like wow. Confetti craze has zero sugar. Birthday cake has zero sugar. Yes. It's not about sweetness. They deliver the right amount of sweet, the right amount of energy. You're not getting that sugar crash. So yes, of course if you are a sweet tooth kind of person you can get into the, I don't know, the confetti crazy. I keep bringing up confetti craze. Okay, let's get into that. It's buttery freshly baked confetti cake, vanilla frosting kind of taste so you get those notes. Sugary sprinkles, a smooth dessert like taste profile. But again it's indulgent but not sugar. Sugar filled. It's it's zero sugar. I like something more fruity like a tropical burst. Tasty caffeine with island vibes. Smooth rounded flavor, island style fruit punch vibe. But my go to is always going to be grape. Grape is that simple conquered grape flavor. I use the Concord grape jelly in my peanut butter and jellies. I like the grape candies. I like grape juice. So I'm going with grape. Consistent, straightforward taste. The classic purple candy style finish. It's all available at five hour energy.com the number five hourenergy.com or on Amazon. Thanks for making Locked on Celtics your first listen every day. Check out the lockdown every day or club? You you're with me every day Monday through Friday. You're an everydayer joining me on bonus podcast Join the everydayer club for $5 a month, 50 bucks for the year. You get access to ad free audio. You get access to our Discord server and listen. If you join now, use the code March. You get your first month free if you do it before the NCAA tournament tips off. You can get into the everyday club bracket pool on Discord and you get a chance to win lockdown merch. The URL is locked on celtics.supercast.com I'll drop that link in the show Notes. Let's get back to the mailbag again. John corrales.com mailbag to ask your questions. They will be answered here. They will also be answered on SI.com the Celtics on SI page so check it out there as well. Check out bookmark Celtics on SI because all of my Celtics coverage is there. It's free, so check that out there. Adam says asks is Tatum a 4? Now is Jalen a 3? Does it matter? The answer is simply no. It doesn't matter. It does. Distinctions like three or four are done. The distinctions on positions are ball handlers, wings and bigs. Those are the three positions in the NBA I know we talk about. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center. And in the Celtics, typical starting lineup, it's Derrick White, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Namishkeda, and Sam Houser. So White is the point guard, the one, Hauser is the two. Jaylen Brown is the three. The small forward, Jayson Tatum is the four, power forward, and Namishkada is the five. The center. In traditional senses, that's what the numbers are, how they correlate. But in reality, the ball handlers. The ball handler is Derrick White, the wings are Hauser, Tatum, Brown, and the big is Keda. That's the real distinction how NBA teams look at it, and that's how we should look at things, because that makes the most sense. Jalen, Jason are both ball handlers to some degree. The I. I cannot put Jason Tatum as a four in the same category as Kevin McHale. You just can't do that. Kevin McHale was a traditional power forward, and all that meant was he was a center who was 2 inches shorter than the. The other guy. Right? That. That's all a power forward was somebody who was. Your center was 7ft. Your power forward was somewhere between 6, 9, and 6, 11. Your small forward was somewhere between 6, 6 and 6, 9. Your shooting guard was supposed to be somewhere between 6, 3, and 6, 6. And your point guard was 6, 3, or less. That's the general kind of perception of positions that doesn't mean a damn thing anymore. That's not how the game is played. And so we shouldn't look at it that way. Ball handlers, wings, bigs. That's it. Those are the distinctions. So just. It's so much easier when we look at it that way. All right, let's get back to Joel now. He says it seems like Jalen has already taken a step back since Tatum's return, playing more off ball, no aggressive drives. What happens to his MVP chances now? So this is part of, you know, Jalen said post game a couple games ago, what was that? Cleveland, where he said, look, it looks great now, but there's a lot of work to do. I'm not going to overreact to Jalen doing a little bit more standing in the corner right now. There's a. A process of working through all of this. Jalen will figure it out. Jason will figure it out. You need to. Jalen needs to defer a little bit more to Jason right now to get Jason up to speed. Eventually, Jason will need to defer a little bit more to Jaylen because Jalen has demonstrated a very strong ability to handle ball handling duties, to handle shot creation duties. And so Jalen's ball handling shot creation should be higher than it's been in years past, which means Jason's will be a little bit lower than it has been in years past, which allows Jason to be a little bit more of an off ball guy. It's not a negative. It's not saying, and I know this is how people think and how people will react on Twitter. They'll say, oh, oh, wow, Jason's the best player. Why is he going to defer? It's not deferring. It's adjusting. It's making things fit. Things are different now. There's nothing wrong with playing Jason off the ball a little bit more. We should be happy that Jason is playing off the ball a little bit more. He doesn't have to be the guy with the ball in his hands, constantly drawing two and. And passing. Let Jalen be the guy that draws two and passes so it can be pass, swing, and Jason gets the ball. If you're a Jason Tatum fan, this should make you happy, not sad. If you're a Jason Tatum fan, getting Jason off the ball should make you feel, like, great. That means when the ball swings two times, Jason is going to be that guy catching it and he's going to be able to make a play. And, and it's not wasting Jayson Tatum's talents by saying, you go draw two and let everybody else play four on three and, and hope that the Celtics can score. Give Jalen some of that responsibility to draw two and, and create and start the ball rolling that way. So that's, I think, where this, this discussion gets off the rails so much. Both of these guys can do that. Now. Jalen might have been able to do that more in the past. We haven't seen it because he hasn't been put in that situation. Now he has. We've seen it. And so let's use it. Let's utilize it. Let's use Jason to draw two and get Jalen some opportunities. And let's flip it. Let's get Jalen out there drawing two and get Jason some opportunities and Derek some opportunities. There's. There's just. This isn't. This is a chance for the Celtics to maximize, everybody. It's just an adjustment. So Jalen, what. What does this do for his MVP chances? Let's be honest. He was never going to get MVP this year unless guys fall out of, like, if Shea and Jokic and Wemby all fall below the 65 game threshold, then Jalen would probably be in that next conversation. But he's Jalen, Cade, Cunningham, those guys, they're not getting mvp. They're in the discussion and it's good that they're getting into these, these, I think, very rational kind of discussions about where they stand in the league. But I, I just don't think Jalen was ever going to get an MVP this year. It's always going to be Shea, it was always going to be Jokic, it's always going to be Wimby, those three. Now if those three guys all fall below 65 games, then, then we have a legitimate conversation with everybody else. But I'm not going to say that Jason coming back costs Jalen his spot or anything like that. All right, we're going to come back, we're going to have some fun. We'll talk about the, the records the Celtics could set against the Wizards when we come back. Today's show Today's show is brought to you by TurboTax. Tax season is here. It's chaotic, but we know that the old way of doing taxes is a lot. Trying to book an appointment that's not the most convenient. It's sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers. Who wants to do that? Emailing back and forth and wondering if they really get your situation. This year though, you're getting a major upgrade. Intuit TurboTax now has in person locations nationwide. You can meet face to face with a real TurboTax expert and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot. Just like that, you're done. 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Thanks for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day check out Lockdown NBA Lockdown NBA game night game night is seven nights a week covering every game in the league with all the local experts and then locked on NBA daily during the week Monday through Friday debate show style covering all the big stories. So check that out as well. Let's get back to the mailbag john corrales.com mailbag to get those questions in the question from Alan who says Wembanyama, this is from the spurs game, made at least four of his eight threes. Why didn't the why didn't Joe Missoula make any adjustments to prevent Basically the question is sorry, Allen's asking the question why didn't the Celtics adjust to Wembanyama making a bunch of threes? And now I I was prepared for this question and then it surprised. It surprised. I knew it. Alan is asking the question for Mexico. It's my fault Alan, because I had it worded right and then I I botched. I botched the execution. That's my fault. Why didn't the Celtics adjust to Wembanyama shooting threes? Because the game plan was to allow Wembanyama to shoot the open three pointer which he struggles with. The you have to live with something with Wemby and you're not going to. You're not going to let him get to the rim. He shoots. I think I saw the number 32, 33% on wide open three point attempts which that's something you want to you sure 32% now he shot like 50%. The question becomes when do you ditch your game plan and adjust because a guy is actually doing something that's aberration in the regular season. I can See you letting that go because it's not, it's not the time to throw out every adjustment that you have in the book. Jalen was out because he got thrown out. Derek hurt his knee. Jason's on the minutes restriction. You're not going to, you're not going to throw every answer that you might have at the spurs because there's a chance that you could be in the NBA Finals against this team and you don't want to give them the film that they could use to say, oh, wow, this is how they guarded Wemby. We have this evidence of them making this particular adjustment and now we're prepared for it. You throw that out in game one. If it, if it steals you a game against the spurs in a game one of the NBA Finals, then it gives you an advantage. That's the theory. So you don't throw everything at a team in the regular season. You do what you do, you play your game and you hope your execution is going to be enough to win you games and you just live with it. So they lived with Wemby taking these shots. He hit them. Congratulations. Are you going to be able to do that in four out of seven games in a series? If you are, congratulations. You're Caleb Martin and you're the Miami Heat against the Celtics from a few years ago and you deal with it. But more likely that, that, that's a one game thing and that's a strategy that will kind of serve you well over a series. So I can understand why the Celtics don't make that adjustment. A question from Ben. What is the biggest difference from the last championship team and what's the Celtics biggest challenge for winning again? So the biggest difference, Ben, from the last championship team is how much veteran help there was. Because you had Al Horford, you had obviously Kristaps Brzingis, Drew Holiday, and now you're relying on younger guys and prove it guys and try hard guys. And so the last championship team had a bunch of guys that understood, hey, we're okay if we, if we lose this game, not a big deal. We're not going to overextend ourselves in these games to win regular season games when it's going to put us at a physical disadvantage. Right? Al Horford's a great example here where Al makes businesses, business decisions all regular season long. There are games where he's just like, ah, I'm not, I'm not giving it 100% effort. Al Horford has plenty of regular season games over the past few years where it's just like, okay, I'm not. I'm not going all out. But important games, playoff games, he does. He understands. He's a pro. He gets it. He knows where he is. He knows where his body is. Holiday's the same way Porzingis, when he's healthy is and kind of managing his own body. These guys understand this is what we're capable of. This is what I need to do right now to make sure I'm healthy, and this is what I'm going to do. This year's team, Baylor, Jordan, Ugo, all of these guys, they're just flat out energy guys. Nemi, Luca, all of these guys are try hard. They are going to put forth all 100% effort all the time to win as many games as possible because they're all fighting for their roles, their basketball lives, their future contracts. Even though they're all under contract for next year, it's. It's still something that they're all fighting for. And that. That. That's a big difference in the dynamic from this year's team. So the biggest obstacle to winning a championship again at this point is the inexperience, the mentality, because Horford, Holiday and those guys, they understand. They've been there. They. They know what it takes to win. Holiday, especially a guy like Baylor. Do you trust where his head is going to be in a clutch moment in the conference finals? Do you trust where Ugonzales is going to be? Do you trust where Mimi is going to be? Do you trust where Luca is going to be in these. These clutch moments? There is a. There's incredible value to the calmness of, hey, man, we're down four with 30 seconds to go. That's still so much time. So don't overreact. We got plenty of time. And if you've got two timeouts with 30 seconds to go, not a big deal, like, obviously you're up against it, but in that moment, Drew Holiday, Al Horford, they're like, it's cool, my babies. We got this. Whereas Baylor and Nemi and Jordan, they haven't been in that. That position in a playoff game. What are they going to be like? Are they going to be like, oh, my God, four points. We got 30 seconds. We have to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That manic kind of position is where you might get into some problems. So that's the biggest obstacle. It's the mentality. All right, one last question. Here comes from. It comes from Andrew. What records will the Celtics break when they play the Wizards on Saturday? All of them? No. So this is obviously a Bam at a bio related question. Sure. That. That was a one game kind of thing. And look, congratulations to Bam. 83 points is 83 points. And honestly, I can't comment too much. I didn't see the game Celtics were playing. I didn't go back and watch what Bam did. I. I've heard that there was absurdity, and I trust the people who I've heard that from. I'm sure there was plenty of absurdity, but also, 83 points is 83 points. So congrats to Bam, guys. Guys in the NBA, when they have an opportunity to do something crazy special, they'll do it. So I'm not going to. I think both sides have a point when it comes to Bam. Did. Was there some unethical basketball being played? Yeah, sure. The dude took 46. Three free throws. That is an insane number. There's some unethical stuff going on there. At the same time, there's a. So what? Like, so what? Stop him. Go stop him. Right? The Wizards. The wizards are still NBA players. Stop him. So I'm not. I'm not. I'm not going to lose my mind about it. I'm not going to lose my mind about Kobe or. I'm not going to get all uppity about, you know, oh, it's. It's unethical and whatever. And you shouldn't be whatever. He scored 83 points. You score 83 points in an NBA game. No one gets to say that they do that except for Bam out of bio. If it was me, I could not. I. I can't sit here and be like, well, I would have done blah, blah, blah. No, when you're in a position to score 83 points, you go score 83 points. You go do it. Because in 10 years, people are going to be like, oh, mommy, oh, my God. Bam scored 83 points. That's amazing. They're not even going to think about all this other stuff. So, yeah, go do it. What records will the Celtics set? I mean, any number of records are possible, but shout out to the Wizards for being there and being part of history. Thanks for the questions again. They come in@john corralis.com mailbag. They'll be answered here on the podcast. I went long, so. But they will be answered here. I'll do bonus podcasts where I answer a couple of questions as well. They'll be answered on SI.com Celtics on SI. Bookmark that. You can see my links on Twitter on Blue Sky. So all of that stuff is available everywhere. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Thank you for getting into the comments section on the YouTube page. Thank you for sharing the podcast and telling everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team every day.