Remember who really believed when the stories change

[BudweiserCeltic]

Gotta say drza, I was one of those guys saying you might have to admit you were wrong because of the horrible last 4 months of the season so if the C's win this series, you might have to add me to that list of people. really never expected they could just flip a switch but appears they could and did.

People just get caught up in the wrong details, mostly fueled by the negative always getting an exponential focus for whatever reason that may be. The wrong questions were being asked, and all the possibilities were not being explored... and many of the more plausible ones were dismissed incorrectly even when good evidence was being presented. People also start getting caught-up in random stories that the media tries to propagate because it makes for good drama, which at the end of the day is mostly crap.

This switch people are speaking off wasn't as abrupt as people are making out to be. Since February, even though there were some setbacks along the way, we were quite steady in the improvement of our team... which coincided curiously with our team getting healthier. Suddenly good games became flukes, and bad games were being considered as the ultimate representation of our team... as if nothing we had done in the last 3 years mattered at all. Don't quite understand it.

In all, I was quite dumbfounded by what was going on in the latest few months around here. Just as I am dumbfounded by the booing in a playoff game, after the type of playoffs these guys have been playing so far just because they had a tough day playing wise. It happens.

[FallGuy]

I don't think they're much different a team than they were in the regular season. They're more focused, to their credit, but still very capable of blowing big leads and phoning in games. We've seen both of those things happen this series.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I don't think they're much different a team than they were in the regular season. They're more focused, to their credit, but still very capable of blowing big leads and phoning in games. We've seen both of those things happen this series.

Same as 2007-2008 as well. Nothing new here.

[FallGuy]

I don't think they're much different a team than they were in the regular season. They're more focused, to their credit, but still very capable of blowing big leads and phoning in games. We've seen both of those things happen this series.

Same as 2007-2008 as well. Nothing new here.

That team was a lot better than this one.

[guava_wrench]

I don't think they're much different a team than they were in the regular season. They're more focused, to their credit, but still very capable of blowing big leads and phoning in games. We've seen both of those things happen this series.

Same as 2007-2008 as well. Nothing new here.

That team was a lot better than this one.

Yeah. That defense was consistently great.

Then again, we went 7 games in the first 2 rounds.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I don't think they're much different a team than they were in the regular season. They're more focused, to their credit, but still very capable of blowing big leads and phoning in games. We've seen both of those things happen this series.

Same as 2007-2008 as well. Nothing new here.

That team was a lot better than this one.

Yeah. That defense was consistently great.

Then again, we went 7 games in the first 2 rounds.

Throughout the season... but then again, that team didn't suffer any big injuries during the season. And I'd say that during the playoffs, this current team is playing better.

But, what I was suggesting at was the idea that the 2008 team didn't suffer from lack of focus and let downs. They were quite bad holding leads and had as much of a turnover problem as we currently have. Or don't we forget all those 4th quarter meltdowns that we were lucky to get away with because time just ran out on the opposing team?

So, in all, these issues we've faced this year are nothing new... just a bit more pronounced.

[Drucci]

There are still 8 games to play to accomplish our goal, but it looks like some of us were not so foolish to keep believing, uh?

[drza44]

Update for the Celtics/Magic series:

Again we're 2 games in before I had a chance to update, and again obviously this series isn't over so my posting is more about consistency/posterity in the thread than gloating.  That said, here are some of the things that were said before the ECF began:

1) ESPN's thoughts:



2) ESPN again: panel of "experts" explain why Magic will win, with 6 of the 7 picking Orlando (only Broussard went with Boston).  Also in there is this gem from Hollinger:

"The Magic are 27-3 with a plus-14 scoring margin in their past 30 games, have home-court advantage, won three of the four regular-season meetings and beat Boston last year with Rafer Alston in place of Jameer Nelson. They have the best players, more depth and more rest. There's simply no plausible reason to bet against them."

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/sundaydime-100516/abc-sunday-dime

3) Charley Rosen, Foxsports.  Rosen gives pros/cons for each team, but the tone of the article suggests he believed the Celtics would win.  http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/boston-celtics-orlando-magic-eastern-conference-preview-051410

4) Britt Robson, CNNSI: Magic in 6 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/britt_robson/05/14/final.magic.celtics/index.html

5) Best Sportsbook: Magic in 6.  http://bestsportsbook.name/sportsbook-review/celtics-magic-betting-%E2%80%93-magic-will-succeed-where-cavaliers-failed/

6) Wil Bradley (random writer) on Bleacher Report: Points out how great Rashard Lewis has been playing, especially in the postseason, and how he was going to put up numbers even against Garnett. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/392687-why-is-nobody-talking-about-orlandos-rashard-lewis

7) My prediction: I predicted the Celtics in 6 (just like I did over the Cavs), but unlike Cleveland I just didn't think Orlando was on the Celtics' level.  Here is the summary of the article:

"In summary, after looking at the match ups, the Celtics are built to beat this team.  The danger in the Magic is their versatility, but the Celtics have even more ways to attack than the Magic do.  The Celtics also have the edge and swagger that comes with knowing that they are champions, while the Magic just hope that they are.  Finally, and this ties back to my themes from previous articles...the Celtics are just better than the Magic."

http://www.celticsblog.com/2010/5/16/1474165/where-are-we-now-part-2-why-the#storyjump

Hopefully my next update will be a preview of the Finals sometime next week...just need the Cs to continue to take care of business and keep the hammer down on the path to #18.

[Brendan]

Just read this thread - wow. It's great and TP for the OP.

I also followed your link to the professor on rotosynthesis

This is a money quote (a bit long) that covers his point, but the whole thing should be read.

They came out the first couple of months looking a lot like they did the past two years ... their 23 - 5 record with an excellent win margin through the first two months looked very familiar.  Then, three key things happened at the end of December:

1) KG reinjured the knee that ended his season last year and missed the first of what would be a 10+ game absence
2) Paul Pierce went down with the first of several injuries that would keep him out for 10+ games
3) The Cavs and Lakers kept winning, putting HCA against either team out of reach

The rest of this is purely my conjecture.  But I believe that the Celtics looked up, after going 9 - 10 in the 19 games where Garnett and/or Pierce sat out, and realized that they couldn't catch the Lakers or Cavs.  I think they also were feeling their mortality after losing out on a chance to contend last year due to an injury.  And I think the whole focus of the team became: let's make it to the playoffs healthy, and if so we've got a shot.  I think they revved it up a bit in March to see if they still had it during a stretch when they went 6 - 1 with a win in Dallas, and I think they revved it up again in their last game against the Cavs as a bit of a measuring stick.  Once they proved to themselves they could still do it, they essentially started the end-of-season shut-down that you saw from a lot of the teams who couldn't really change their postseason position...but I think they started it a bit earlier.

...Nevertheless, when I look at the available theories for this season, to me this is the one that makes the most sense.  Age is a bear for pro athletes, but mainly due to injury or long-term skill erosion.  If they're healthy (which they seem to be), you can't convince me that the Celtics suddenly aged so much between December and April that they forgot how to play.  Likewise, you can't convince me that all of a sudden some of the most passionate players in this generation suddenly got content and decided they didn't care anymore if they won or not.  Neither of those make sense to me.

Emphasis mine - and slightly redacted for fair use purposes .

[Neurotic Guy]

I remain amazed -- stunned in a good way -- that the C's are where they are right now. 

It should be noted that only 1 of the experts listed above is already 'wrong'.  Magic in 6 or 7 is still possible.  I don't count chickens.

I have enjoyed the posts in this thread and understand and respect the OPs intent is not to gloat.  But in defense of the 'experts' I do want to say that I never hold predictions in sports as a measure of someone's expertise.  Yes -- there are terrific handicappers out there who can provide 'prediction' based on likelihood, but even those professionals are just trying to be correct more often than they are incorrect.  When someone makes a prediction and is 'wrong' they reveal nothing about their knowledge or competence.  They have merely taken a shot based on head or heart or hunch -- something we all do -- and just like the 'experts' we are as frequently incorrect as we are correct. 

[drza44]

I remain amazed -- stunned in a good way -- that the C's are where they are right now. 

It should be noted that only 1 of the experts listed above is already 'wrong'.  Magic in 6 or 7 is still possible.  I don't count chickens.

I have enjoyed the posts in this thread and understand and respect the OPs intent is not to gloat.  But in defense of the 'experts' I do want to say that I never hold predictions in sports as a measure of someone's expertise.  Yes -- there are terrific handicappers out there who can provide 'prediction' based on likelihood, but even those professionals are just trying to be correct more often than they are incorrect.  When someone makes a prediction and is 'wrong' they reveal nothing about their knowledge or competence.  They have merely taken a shot based on head or heart or hunch -- something we all do -- and just like the 'experts' we are as frequently incorrect as we are correct. 

It can get lost in a thread this long, but if you go back to the OP, the point of this thread wasn't to point fingers at people that guess wrong.  I can see that some of that could definitely happen in a thread like this, but that wasn't the original point.

No, the point was that a lot of times you'll have the writers and "experts" (and even fans) completely change their story after the fact to something they weren't espousing all along.  The original examples I used were how the '04 Wolves (that many didn't think would work) in memory became this stacked squad.  Similarly, the '08 Celtics were roundly criticized by many because of the lack of depth and lack of proven ability outside of KG/Pierce/Allen, and many questioned whether those 3 alone could do it.  But after they won, all of a sudden in hindsight it was like this foregone conclusion that they would be champs.

This thread was meant to counter that for this team.  I always figured that this team would win the title (which, of course, is still not yet decided) but there are/were a lot of people that disagreed with me.  And that's fine.  But if you disagreed that the Celtics could win a title from October to May, I don't want to read any articles in June from these same writers trying to minimize the achievement because "they knew it all along". 

This may not be so much of a concern after the way the season went, as pretty much NO expert thought the Cs could win so they can't possibly claim to have known it all along...but at this point I've put in most of a year already to keeping track of these types of articles, so I might as well finish it off strong so we have a somewhat complete timeline of what folks thought of the team through the year.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I remain amazed -- stunned in a good way -- that the C's are where they are right now.  

It should be noted that only 1 of the experts listed above is already 'wrong'.  Magic in 6 or 7 is still possible.  I don't count chickens.

I have enjoyed the posts in this thread and understand and respect the OPs intent is not to gloat.  But in defense of the 'experts' I do want to say that I never hold predictions in sports as a measure of someone's expertise.  Yes -- there are terrific handicappers out there who can provide 'prediction' based on likelihood, but even those professionals are just trying to be correct more often than they are incorrect.  When someone makes a prediction and is 'wrong' they reveal nothing about their knowledge or competence.  They have merely taken a shot based on head or heart or hunch -- something we all do -- and just like the 'experts' we are as frequently incorrect as we are correct.  

It can get lost in a thread this long, but if you go back to the OP, the point of this thread wasn't to point fingers at people that guess wrong.  I can see that some of that could definitely happen in a thread like this, but that wasn't the original point.

No, the point was that a lot of times you'll have the writers and "experts" (and even fans) completely change their story after the fact to something they weren't espousing all along.  The original examples I used were how the '04 Wolves (that many didn't think would work) in memory became this stacked squad.  Similarly, the '08 Celtics were roundly criticized by many because of the lack of depth and lack of proven ability outside of KG/Pierce/Allen, and many questioned whether those 3 alone could do it.  But after they won, all of a sudden in hindsight it was like this foregone conclusion that they would be champs.

This thread was meant to counter that for this team.  I always figured that this team would win the title (which, of course, is still not yet decided) but there are/were a lot of people that disagreed with me.  And that's fine.  But if you disagreed that the Celtics could win a title from October to May, I don't want to read any articles in June from these same writers trying to minimize the achievement because "they knew it all along".  

This may not be so much of a concern after the way the season went, as pretty much NO expert thought the Cs could win so they can't possibly claim to have known it all along...but at this point I've put in most of a year already to keeping track of these types of articles, so I might as well finish it off strong so we have a somewhat complete timeline of what folks thought of the team through the year.

The only "expert" that has come out of this ahead has been Skip Bayless.

And Legler. Though he picked the Cavs, his analysis has been spot on for the most part.

[Drucci]

I love this thread! 

4 more wins and it will undoubtedly be the thread of the year.

[Cman]

No, the point was that a lot of times you'll have the writers and "experts" (and even fans) completely change their story after the fact to something they weren't espousing all along.  The original examples I used were how the '04 Wolves (that many didn't think would work) in memory became this stacked squad.  Similarly, the '08 Celtics were roundly criticized by many because of the lack of depth and lack of proven ability outside of KG/Pierce/Allen, and many questioned whether those 3 alone could do it.  But after they won, all of a sudden in hindsight it was like this foregone conclusion that they would be champs.

This thread was meant to counter that for this team.  I always figured that this team would win the title (which, of course, is still not yet decided) but there are/were a lot of people that disagreed with me.  And that's fine.  But if you disagreed that the Celtics could win a title from October to May, I don't want to read any articles in June from these same writers trying to minimize the achievement because "they knew it all along". 

Are there any examples yet of writers who wrote the Celtics off, only to change their tune and say "they knew it all along"?

It would be great to get a list of the writers ("experts" -- hah!) with their original quotes next to their later quotes.

[GreenFaith1819]

I really like Tim Legler...even when he has voted against us, he has had very good reason to do so. He is one of the most leve-headed commentators there.