Bradley: "I could hear rondo say C's gave up"

[Celtics4ever]

I saw more than a few times that Jae wasn't giving his all.  He seemed to be "talking"a bit to teammates and some noticables of not gettting back on d

I used to think that JC was a tough guy who did the little things.   Success this year seems to have went to his head.  I see Smart as our toughest player, IT is a warrior, I used to think Crowder was of that ilk but the second half of the season not so much.

[mr. dee]

When you replace finesse players with tough ones, that will change.

It's time for Celtic Pride to come out.   They have to get some stops and do the little things otherwise, they risk being one of the worst number one seeds ever.

This current core doesn't have the traditional pride in them, outside players like Smart or IT. Jae used to be tough, but he's acting like a diva lately and becoming inconsistent.

[Eja117]

I think the whole world said that

[Big333223]

"Gave up" implies they were ever trying. I didn't see them put together 2 straight minutes of real basketball over the entire game last night.

But...

Boston now finds itself in rare company as just the second top-seeded team under the NBA's current playoff format to drop the first two games against an 8-seed.

Here's some positivity that Bradley can lean on: The only other such instance was the 1993 Phoenix Suns, who rallied from two games down to beat the Los Angeles Lakers in a best-of-five series and went on to reach the NBA Finals.

[LilRip]

Bulls are playing with a ton of confidence and the C's look discombobulated. They play with effort in some stretches but they honestly look like they're still playing in the regular season while the Bulls have switched to playoff mode.

As a side note, it's crazy how some people were saying during the season that Crowder is almost just as good as Jimmy Butler. One is a clear All Star, the other is a solid role player.

[Celtics4ever]

This current core doesn't have the traditional pride in them, outside players like Smart or IT. Jae used to be tough, but he's acting like a diva lately and becoming inconsistent.

I think you can learn more about your personnel when its adverse times than when things are going well.   This will be a good measure of whether we have guys who are going to grow into contenders or pretenders.