https://youtu.be/D2MDpf3H5lI
And that’s it for the Celtics this season. There was no way they were going to beat the Nets in this series, even taking one game off of them was a legitimate accomplishment, but that doesn’t make the conclusion of their season any less final. The truth is laid bare for all to see: they don’t get to play basketball anymore. At least not in an official NBA capacity. They’re always welcome to ball at my local court, as long as they promise to roll up in fancy cars and greet me like an old friend so all those scrubs I regularly dominate with midrange jumpers think I’m some sort of high-class dude with legit NBA connections.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, coming into the season. There was optimism. Maybe not Bill Simmons “There’s gonna be a lot high fives”-style optimism, but it was going to be a good year for them. I’m not feeling like doing a whole big breakdown of everything that went wrong, even though the collective tears of Celtics fans sustains me through the season, but rest assured that a LOT of stuff went wrong. This overall performance will raise some questions with the fanbase and the front office: is it time for a change of direction?
While supposed superstars like Jaysucks Hateum, JayLeno Brownnoser, Kembad NeedsAWalker, and Jabari Parker occupied various states of badness/injuredness, the Celtics young talent, acquired with the gigantic stockpile of middling picks that Danny Ainge hoarded, languished. And no, I don’t count Jaysucks Hateum and JayLeno Brownnoser as young talent. They’re old news.
Enter Romeo Langford. Having missed most of the season due to a wrist injury (thus making him blameless for Boston’s lackluster season), he finally recovered and got to play as the regular season finished up. A hungry young player, ready to prove his worth, Was he going to be the missing piece?
No.
But he did score 17 points tonight, more points than he has scored in any NBA game prior, while playing more minutes than he has in any NBA game prior, and showing that maybe if you just trust your young talent a bit more, they can do some things that can surprise you. This is the type of performance that will sustain the Celtics faithful through a long and desolate offseason full of soul-searching and thrown water bottles. As dark as those days get, they will always be able to faintly recall the time Langford scored 17 in the final game, while also kinda playing defense on whatever Nets scoring stud he was assigned to.
At least, I assume he was playing defense. Obviously I wasn’t watching close enough to check.