Boston’s Emirates NBA Cup dream is over. Once again, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown must feel the sting of failure and grapple with the disappointment of …
… hold on, I have it here somewhere … ah, yes, here we go …
… having four unexpected days off before a home game against the Detroit Pistons and then two more days off before a quick trip for another game against Washington.
Yup. Boston’s “punishment” for being eliminated from Cup contention is a welcome break after this stretch of six games in nine nights. Instead of traveling to Milwaukee or New York and then to Las Vegas for a week, the Celtics get to stay home, have a few practices, and face two non-playoff teams.
The Celtics have an opportunity to spin themselves into galaxy-brain thinkers who planned this whole thing this way. I can picture Joe Mazzulla thinking it through and realizing that mathematically, a bunch of bad teams would miss out and Boston falling short would add two more likely wins to their schedule.
It’s the NBA equivalent of getting T-Rex arms when the check comes.
That's probably not how it went, but I’m sure there are teams in the tournament looking at what Boston has and thinking they’d rather have that than a couple of road games and, perhaps, and 83rd game on the schedule.
The NBA Cup is in its infancy, so the skeptics, haters, and even the ambivalent are all quite loud. The league is trying to make regular season games in November and December matter more, but there's no way to make that possible for contending teams like Boston.
Championship teams have some similarities in that they are contending with a short turnaround after a summer of celebration and there is generally a veteran or two who could use a chance to ease into the following season. They are dealing with the weight of “let’s do it again” expectations while figuring out how big a bloody mary is needed to get past their championship hangover.
How many times have you been hung over and excited to go right back out and party at 11 a.m.?
That's what the NBA is hoping a champion does when they hit them with NBA Cup games right away. The league expects a champion to take this seriously but, in reality, that's a big ask. The Celtics barely obliged with lip service … emphasis on “barely.”
Mazzulla was asked “why does the NBA Cup matter” and shot back with an immediate “who said that?”
When asked a follow-up of whether it does matter, Mazzulla said “it's an opportunity to win. I think that's the most important thing is, you have an opportunity to win and then that's the goal that we have is can we make every day the most important day and can you win every single game every single day? Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, but it presents an opportunity for us to go after something, to win something. To me, over the course of a long season, it presents something good can come from it. If you lose, you're pissed off because you didn't achieve your goal of winning. If you win, you achieve your goal of winning, so it's a win-win over the course of a long season for us. That's kind of the opportunity that we have.”
What kind of dressing would you like with your word salad?
I admit, this whole thing comes off as a bit elitist. I’m looking down my nose at this tournament because the Celtics are champions and too good for it. But the fact is that in a championship-or-bust society, a champion is beholden to pursue one thing and one thing only. Everything else, no matter how much hype the NBA tries to manufacture, is not part of the goal.
And as much I’d like to say it’s fine if the Celtics happen to win the Cup along the way, I don’t want them playing an 83rd game this season and then be forced to celebrate with champagne and raise some banner like it’s a big deal. I’m sure it’s the last thing Mazzulla would want, too. That first game back against Chicago would be a disaster.
I’m not just saying this because Boston is the champion. Every champion should find a way to opt out of this thing. It does nothing to help the pursuit of a repeat.
My tune will change whenever the Celtics enter a rebuild. A team like Orlando can learn a lot from pursuing something like this. Hell, even the OKC Thunder, a true contender, can get a taste of an NBA-led event like the NBA Cup in Las Vegas and carry that over when their surroundings change come playoff time. There's value in the cup for a lot of teams with something to prove. The tournament might need tweaking, but it’s not awful.
It’s just awful for Boston. I’m glad they got bounced. And considering how the schedule shook out for them, I’m pretty sure they're glad too.
