Picks 'n Pops: Mentality, two-for-ones, and the ultimate smear of a player

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because my brackets are already a smoking pile of embers

- Payton Pritchard is a maniac. He and Joe Mazzulla are cut from the same cloth. Whenever Pritchard’s NBA career is over, don’t be shocked if Mazzulla gives him an immediate spot on his coaching staff. 

- Guys in the NBA make the “too little” gesture all the time. So why was it SO annoying when Patrick Beverley did it? 

Actually, I know the answer. It’s because everything he does is annoying. I bet he brushes his teeth in an annoying way. 

- Speaking of annoying, look at this ridiculous foul grift by Kyle Lowry

Intentionally tripping over a fallen player to draw the foul is a new one for me. I guess that's a foul, but I’d be embarrassed to call that if I was officiating.

- Mazzulla has been told he can’t challenge after-the-whistle shots in front of his bench anymore. When did Roger Goodell become NBA commissioner? 

- If I was an opposing player, I’d dribble the length of the court after a timeout was called just to shoot in front of Mazzulla now. 

- I had a conversation with Xavier Tillman. He’s new, so I asked him to describe the mentality of the team and how it might differ from other situations. He told me the key in Boston is the focus on the day-to-day details, and letting the big picture take care of itself. 

“I think you're at your best when you can stay in the moment, and you're at your worst when you’re overthinking. So if you’re over here only thinking about getting a championship, and you're making bad plays, and it's doubling down on you, like, ‘man, we're never gonna get there if I'm making bad plays,’ then obviously, that can impact you. Versus just staying present in the moment and understanding that ‘okay, bad plays happen, but like how fast can you get off that in your head and just again, staying present. And that's gonna help you when we're really in the playoffs and teams going to run and we don't let our minds travel, you know?  Just stay really present.”

It’s a smart way of thinking about it. Last year’s marketing tagline was “unfinished business,” and that summed up the big-picture thinking that probably hurt them last year. This is why Mazzulla changed the focus, and this is part of why I’ve been adamant that Mazzulla is good for this team. 

- LeBron James on the two-for-one shot at the ends of quarters: “I understand why the two-for-one is important. Obviously, it’s numbers. You get two possessions, the other team gets one possession. In theory, it’s a free shot. But what people sometimes don’t account for, the four, five possessions before that, are we on a run, are we on a heater, have we gotten a good shot over the last two and a half minutes, what is the other team doing, are they in a great rhythm? If we haven't gotten a great shot in two and a half, three minutes, and we’ve been turning the ball over, why am I just going to dribble down and shoot a 40-footer with 33 on the clock. Why not get a great look? Because that great look at the end of the third, even if we get one shot, may give us momentum going into the fourth quarter”

Yes, yes, a million times yes. I’m pro analytics, but I'm anti-adhering to the numbers to the point of rigidity. Teams fight for a good shot all game long but when the freebie two-for-one comes along, any old shot will do?

- The quickest way to lose me is to start a sentence with "Gilbert Arenas thinks..." He's watching Kendrick Perkins get a big ESPN contract off a willingness to say anything and trying to follow in his footsteps.

- Sam Hauser was absolutely breaking that Celtics' 3-point record. He will get another chance, though. Playing off these guys, with the way he can get hot, this will be the first of many cracks at double-digit 3-pointers.

- No, there's no room in the NBA for John Calipari. 

- Brad Stevens deserves a lot of credit for putting together a great team, but he also deserves credit for putting together a team of great people. Obviously, everyone is focused on winning a championship, but can we take a second to appreciate that this is a team full of good human beings? I think it’s important to recognize that. 

- It also makes them boring. But that's my problem, not theirs. It's not like I have another full month of content to create or anything. 

- Kristaps Porzingis is averaging 20.4 points, seven rebounds, 1.8 blocks, and three fist pumps at the crowd per game this season. 

- How can Jack Gohlke say he’s not going to make the NBA when he just made 10 3-pointers in a big game and Joe Mazzulla exists?

- Congrats to Isaiah Thomas on getting another shot. 

- Nikola Jokic is doing Larry Bird stuff out there

That man is playing chess. He knew that pass would be there as soon as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope cut. All he needed to do was draw that double team. He had the whole thing mapped out and it went exactly as planned.

- Oh and then there's Luka Doncic

Nothing to see here. Just a three-quarter court alley-oop right on the freakin’ money like it’s no big deal. 

I’m going to change my last name to something that ends with “ic” and see if that's some magic basketball cheat code.

- I actually don’t play anymore because my brain is still in its 20s while my knees are probably closing in on 70. I’ll try to do something I haven't been capable of since 1998 and end up in some orthopedic journal as the only person to tear every lower body ligament at the same time.

- Shout out to whoever tripped the alarm at 1 a.m. at the Garden while I was recording my podcast after the Pistons game. 

I don’t think that was the fire alarm. I think that was the “you’re not famous enough to be using the star dressing room as a podcast studio” alarm. 

- It has taken Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore an incredible amount of time to scrape together the money to buy the Timberwolves. If money is that tight as soon as they walk in the door, how much are they going to be willing to spend to keep that team together? 

- ESPN really puts a lot of energy into pumping up Western Conference play-in teams. 

- If you make a documentary and people interviewed feel “duped,” then you’ve done it wrong. 

- The rise of documentaries produced or influenced by the subjects is troubling to me. That's not a documentary. That's a biography. That's a big difference. 

- We can debate NIL if you want, but ESPN just paid almost $8 billion for the rights to broadcast the college football playoff. Don’t tell me college athletes don’t deserve a cut of some of the money they're generating for these schools. And DON’T tell me the free education is their pay. Not when that much money is involved from just the playoff of just one sport. 

- This line in the New York Post’s report on OG Anunoby missing more time due to an elbow injury is dirty: 

“According to people familiar with his tenure in Toronto — where Anunoby missed lots of time with injuries — the 26-year-old isn’t comfortable playing through pain.”

Whew, people in the Raptors organization were just waiting to dump that little nugget on someone. The line was buried in the bottom half of the report, but it’s the line that everyone grabbed and ran with on social media. And that's exactly what the Raptors wanted. 

Is there a greater smear of an athlete than he doesn’t play through pain? 

- This week’s Bing AI-generated image: The Celtics are cruising to the finish line

- Your current NBA Belt champion: The Denver Nuggets

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored