The Weekend Greenie Bag: How Far Can This Streak Go?

By now football is winding down until the Sunday Night game, to those of you who advanced in your fantasy playoffs congratulations, and hopefully your Sunday Scaries aren’t setting in too bad just yet. Since we all need to kill a little time until Bears/Rams, why not check in with the Stoolies after a pretty eventful week for the Boston Celtics. Things were a little more positive as you can imagine, and as a reminder you too can be a part of this weekly blog by either tweeting me with #GreenieBag or you can email greenieceltsbag@gmail.com. It’s open at all hours of the day whenever something pops into your head so don’t be shy.

Now, to your questions….

Hey Greenie, is it just me or does everyone over analyze the interactions of the players on and off the court (social media) in mass paranoia that maybe they don’t really like each other? – Ryan C

Ummmmm, yeah Ryan that’s the whole point of social media. If we cant overreact and make things up based off social media interactions of people who will never know or care that we exist, what’s the point? Remember that whole Marcus Smart and Kyrie Irving nonsense? Oh how about whenever Jaylen is out and there’s a picture of him sitting down staring people think he’s mad or jealous of whoever is playing his minutes.

Half the time I’m sure players are trolling the rest of us on the internet, but this practice that you’re talking about is certainly not new nor will it be going anywhere anytime soon.

Well, since Thanksgiving, Hayward is second on the team in drives per game at 5.8. That’s the good news. The bad news is he’s shooting just 25% on those drives, and his pass% is 25.7%, which is basically the same as Kyrie’s. So I don’t know if it’s a matter of him passing too much on drives, but he 100% has to finish better. That’s come over time you think, and at least he’s showing the aggression in the first place. It would be nice if we saw him drive and dunk a few times, but I’ll settle for anything, just be better than 25% whicn is bar far the worst on the team.

At the same time, I don’t want him forcing things. He’s such a good passer off the dribble especially when he attacks, I trust him to make the correct basketball play. If that means he never actually shoots it when he drives but the Celts still get a great look off it, I have no complaints.

ey Greenie,

So i have a theory that i’ve had on my mind for a few months now and want to get your input. It might sound kind of crazy and you can tell me if I’m a moron but I have a take on Kyrie and his committing to resign with the Celts. Lemme preface this by saying I love Kyrie and I would love for him to be a Celtic for life. But the skeptic in me has some questions.

Obviously, Kyrie’s health has been a bit of an issue in his career. He’s managed to stay healthy so far this year, but who knows what could happen. And as much as Danny Ainge must realize how talented Kyrie is, if there’s any GM in the league who has the balls to look at a guy like Kyrie and decide he’s too injury-prone to commit a ton of money and years to, it’s him. Is there any way that Kyrie and his camp decided that they’d come out before the season and declare that he planned to re-sign so that, if he gets hurt and misses more time this year and Ainge decides to move on, Kyrie looks like the victim and the Celts come out as the bad guy? Sounds crazy cynical I know, and I’m sure it’d be a worst-case scenario for Kyrie and he’d rather lead us to a title and resign from there, but I just can’t shake the idea that it may have been his motivation in saying he wants to resign so early. He’s already made it clear what he wants, and the only option is the super max, so if he gets hurt again this year the Celtics have the option to either commit a ton of money to a guy they can’t keep on the court or let him go and have the public think they hung him out to dry.

Please give your input so i can take off my tin foil hat.

Viva,
Sean

OK we have a lot to digest here, let’s take it from the top. First off, I don’t think you’re all that crazy. Offseason negotiations are all about leverage right? Why wouldn’t Kyrie say all the right things publicly so that he wins over the fanbase, and then if when the time comes and Ainge offers anything less than the full max, that’s his out. Now the problem is this only works if Danny Ainge actually gives a flying fuck what the fanbase thinks, which he clearly does not. If Kyrie does get hurt again there are always going to be a portion of the fanbase that wouldn’t want Ainge to commit long term money and years to him anyway. So in that sense it sort of cancels out. Now if Kyrie doesn’t get hurt and Ainge still doesn’t give him the max, that’s a whole different story.

Remember this is a man that traded Perk, that traded Isaiah, that traded the Big 3. He doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks, Ainge only cares about making the team better. At this point the rebuild has been so successful you have to just blindly trust the man. No doubt in my mind Kyrie was posturing though with those early comments, it’s all part of the game.

Greenberg …. sup …

Ryan here. So, I have noticed Jaylen Brown has more energy and feels more involved when he is with the second unit. When he is part of the first unit, I feel like there are too many swingmen on the court, and he always ends up the odd man out making rushed and ill-advised decisions. With the second unit, he can be the first or second option.

Still wondering if Trader Dannyboy will make a splash before the deadline. As always Viva!! – Ryan

It’s no lie that since Jaylen has come back off the bench, he’s been awesome

To me, I see a guy who was playing pretty well in the prior 5 games before his injury too, so I’m not sure it’s the fact that Jaylen is coming off the bench so much as it is he’s simply coming out of his early season slump. I think the opponents he’s had to go against has helped as neither the Knicks or Bulls have elite wing defenders, but everything about his play on both ends has been a billion times better. It’s why Brad probably won’t mess with lineups for a while, and eventually we’ll see both him and Hayward back in the starting five because I still believe that group is the lineup we end up with.

Greenie,

Four game win streak, what do you think we are going towards? Do we overtake the Raptors and the Bucks? Also, do we see the Irving/Brown/Hayward/Tatum/Horford lineup soon? We saw a two minute glimpse or so last night and I thought the ball movement looked great then Brad pulled Tatum and Horford instantly. Hope you respond. – Lance

It’s impossible to predict how many games in a row this team will win if only because I still don’t think they can be trusted against bad teams. I’ll say this, they have 5 more games until the MIL game on 12/21, I expect at least 4-1 and 3-2 at worst. I think the way this team started they realize they can’t overlook anybody, and that MIL game will be a nice test.

Now can we overtake MIL and TOR? Well certainly not TOR any time soon, they’re too many games ahead. But as of now the Celtics are only 2 games out of the two seed, and that’s without MIL potentially losing tonight. So yeah you could definitely see them work their way into the top 2 seeds after this little stretch if they continue to play well. But to pass TOR it’s going to have to be sustained for muuuuuuuch longer, and they’ll need the Raptors to help out some as well.

As I said I think we get that original starting lineup eventually, but I think Brad doesn’t want to mess with what’s working right now since they still need to collect wins.

Sup Greenie,

Is it just me or has Jaylen’s stagnated massively on the defensive end. Given his athleticism and intelligence, I always envisioned him as developing into a dynamic force on that end and he hasn’t shown it yet. I was hoping he would pop majorly on that end this year and we just haven’t seen it outside of small spurts in the playoffs. – Carlton

It’s complicated. To start the year, he was awful. I mean really, really, really bad. His rating was horrific and guys were scoring on him at will. However, since November 1st, he’s had a 103.1 rating, which of normal rotation players is the 4th best. Over that timeframe opponents are shooting 44/33% which isn’t awful. His steal% is down slightly from 1.6 to 1.2, and his defensive win shares certainly leave more to be desired. I would say over the last handful of games he’s been much better, and remember Brad usually tosses him on the opponent’s best player, so there are always going to be times when he gets cooked.

Just like his offense is rounding into shape, the defense is as well. Not really that hard considering how bad it was to start, but when Jaylen is active and committed as a defender, he can be a monster. Remember he’s what, 22 years old? There’s still plenty of time for him to continue to develop on that end. While it’s fair to demand more because we know the type of defender he can be, I think by the time it truly matters, he’s going to be fine.

And that’s it! Thank you to everyone who wrote in for this week, as always this blog would be nothing without you. Hopefully this helped you kill some time and distract you from the reality of Monday morning knocking on our doorstep. Enjoy the night gave everyone!