Brooklyn IS awful.
Yeah, without Lopez I don't see this squad working like last years did.
The point wasn't to compare this team's to last year, or argue that they're equal or better. Just an affirmation that without Lopez, they have nearly the squad that took them to the playoffs last year, to the 2nd round.
The point was that they still have talent on that team. And the dismissiveness of Johnson and Williams is unneeded.
Johnson had a monster playoffs performance and Williams is healthier than he's looked in the last handful of years, and that can't be ignored, who also had a strong preseason.
Garnett looked very good yesterday as well, hitting jumpers without problems, getting to the paint and doing some very good moves, getting into position, etc.
And as mentioned Jarret Jack is very good off the bench, no need to ignore his skill set as different as it may be from Livingstons.
The main problem yesterday for Brooklyn was other than playing against the Celtics who had their number all preseason, was coaching & rotation. For example, underplaying Kirilenko and Teletovic when they were hurting for PF play yesterday.
But we don't have to go to the extremes to downplay the Celtics' performance, which was the main gist of it all.