11 things I’m thankful for

Thanksgiving is a time to pause, look again, and watch soccer be pleased about the whole lot that’s occurred within the final 12 months. It’s significantly simple to give you a fats gratitude record for Boston Celtics followers who’ve had a heck of a basketball time of late. Listed below are some Celtics issues I’m giving thanks for earlier than the tryptophan hits.

1. The loss of life of basketball

Is Mazzulla-ball ruining the NBA? In fact not, though it would really feel that method to the beleaguered competitors.

Joe heard preliminary criticisms that his groups have been capturing too many threes, and as an alternative of acquiescing to public stress, he cranked that **** to 11. The Celtics, as you’ve heard by now, are capturing greater than half their photographs from past the arc. Oh no, my eyes!

Amazingly, Boston solely has the third-best offense within the league proper now, mere fractions of some extent behind the Knicks and the Cavaliers. These groups rank sixteenth and fifteenth, respectively, in three-point frequency. It’s nearly like there are a number of paths to creating good offense, and that basketball is as alive and properly because it’s ever been!

Mazzulla has created a system that maximizes his personnel. No person and no course of is ever excellent, however we simply watched the Celtics raze the league to the bottom final season, and occasional sleepwalking apart, they give the impression of being poised to take action once more this 12 months.

2. Derrick White

We should always all be eternally grateful for Derrick White. It’s exhausting to reconcile the man benched within the 2022 NBA Finals for being an offensive legal responsibility with the dude who appears to be like like a long-lost Splash Brother (greater than 9 triples per sport this season!). He’s now in his third straight 12 months of setting a career-high for three-point proportion (41.5%), and it’s inarguable that he’s been not less than Boston’s third-best participant this 12 months — and analytically-minded people may need him even larger than that.

He even has a brand new Sam Adams beer, which gave us this Oscar-worthy efficiency. Is likely to be a pleasant pairing with some turkey.

3. The early return of Kristaps Porzingis

Porzingis had a powerful debut Monday evening, notching 16 factors and notably enhancing the Celtics’ protection. The Celtics went 14-3 with out him this season, and so they cruised to an NBA championship principally with out him, too. However that’s not the purpose. Porzingis isn’t vital, precisely, as a result of the Celtics are so good that nearly nobody is important. However he’s insurance coverage and overkill, a security assure. He brings a swaggy ingredient to this Celtics’ staff growing their variety and effectiveness in equal measure.

I’m further grateful as a result of we weren’t alleged to see him till the subsequent main vacation, give or take a couple of weeks. Seeing him seem weeks early as a Black Friday sale merchandise as an alternative of a gift underneath the Christmas tree was an surprising delight.

4. Steve Kerr and Crew USA

Whereas Celtics followers have been aggravated with Jayson Tatum’s lack of enjoying time and Jaylen Brown’s snub, it stored them each motivated and (extra importantly) wholesome to proceed dominating this season. Not rather more must be mentioned right here. Thanks, Steve!

5. The Jays, abiding

I’m grateful Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have continued to buck compelled nationwide storylines that they will’t maximize one another, that they every want their very own staff to achieve full potential. They’ve by no means wavered in phrase or deed, and to see them destroy the league final season (and once more to this point this 12 months, give or take some shaky capturing to start out) regardless of so many defective narratives considerably restores my religion in basketball humanity.

6. The brand new NBA Cup court docket

Perhaps the NBA Cup courts aren’t to your style, however have you ever appeared across the league? When you assume the brand new court docket needed to be one thing obnoxiously garish at baseline, the Celtics completely knocked it out of the park.

(I’m not grateful in anyway for this 12 months’s Metropolis Version jerseys although.)

7. Payton Pritchard’s explosion

I predicted earlier than the season that Payton Pritchard would make a Sixth Man of the 12 months run, and to this point, that’s panned out properly. Vegas at the moment has him because the consensus favourite to win the award.

Between his end-of-quarter heroics and his absurd three-point gunnery, Pritchard is a hooper’s hooper. The basketball gods didn’t give him an alpha scorer’s physique, however he’s normal himself into one anyway. Nothing makes me fairly as gleeful as Payton sprinting round looking triples like his subsequent meal will depend on it.

Whether or not he wins the award or not, Quick PP has made himself right into a power to be reckoned with.

8. The outdated guys

Al Horford and Jrue Vacation proceed to be the Celtics’ Flex-Seals. Each time holes seem within the good ship Celtic, Mazzulla slaps an outdated man on it, and the issue is solved!

Horford’s capacity to repeatedly faucet the fountain of youth every time the Celtics want him is nothing in need of miraculous. He’s been practically computerized from three, an enormous improvement with Porzingis lacking a lot time to start out the season, and whereas he picks his spots a little bit extra defensively, he all the time rises to the event. Al Dependable, certainly.

Vacation has a little bit of a sluggish begin shooting-wise this season, and the protection would possibly’ve slipped a tiny notch. However he stays each wildly overqualified to be a task participant and humble sufficient to cede occasional closing minutes to Payton Pritchard, if want be. That’s a uncommon mixture.

Any fanbase could be fortunate to have one in all these guys to root for. For Celtics followers to have each appears downright unfair, so let’s toast the outdated heads within the room. *Clink*

9. Brad Stevens

Let’s not neglect the architect of this masterpiece. At the same time as he’s pale considerably from the general public eye, his work speaks for itself, and we’d be remiss in not acknowledging his efforts (and the departed Danny Ainge) in maybe the best team-building train the league has seen in many years.

10. Banner 18 and continuity

Look, it’s a brand new season. I don’t wish to spend a lot time speaking about how friggin’ nice it’s that the Celtics are reigning NBA champs (though it’s fairly nice!). Nevertheless it’s tremendous cool (and tremendous uncommon) for a champion to deliver again the very same core for an opportunity to run it again. Banners are endlessly, however back-to-back rings create mythologies. You already know they need it.

I’m unsure what the long run holds after this 12 months, when luxurious taxes, aprons, and typical NBA weirdness would possibly end in a Celtics staff with not less than {a partially} new look. However I’m grateful we’ve had this enjoyable, unbelievable Boston squad to cheer on for therefore lengthy, and nonetheless a little bit bit longer.

11) You all

To not get too Hallmark-movie on you, however the readers make CelticsBlog tick. It goes with out saying that with out you, this website wouldn’t exist. Thanks for being right here with us.

Pleased Thanksgiving, everybody, and tell us what else you’re grateful for within the feedback!