Celtics ☘️ Sentinel

 I was slotted to draft third in one of my Fantasy Basketball Leagues , and I p icked Jayson Tatum over Giannis Antetokounmpo . I had a reason. My thinking was that I truly believed that Tatum would have improved his game over the summer , a time of year when the great ones make critical strides . That seems to have happened for the Missouri native now in his sixth NBA season. The Celtics are off to a perfect start to the 2022-23 season with a 3-0 record. Jayson now holds the franchise record for most points scored through the first three games , having scored 104 total points - thereby eclipsing Larry Bird's previous record of 96 points over that first-three-games stretch. Tatum leads the League in scoring at 34.7 points per game and continues his dominance on the boards with 8.3 rebounds/game . His assists are at 3.0 APG , while adding 1.0 steals and 1.7 blocks per contest. His field goal percentage is a whopping 58.7 %.   The MVP chants will certainly get louder for th...

Is it a coincidence that most of the top-rated teams in the NBA have a dominant big man? Maybe not. In the East, top-ranked Toronto has Serge Ibaka , not terribly dominant on his own, but ably assisted by two potential MVP candidates, Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry . The Milwaukee Bucks are second in the East and boast the Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo . Philadelphia starts Joel Embiid in the front-court and Indiana has Myles Turner . Detroit's Andre Drummond completes the East's top-5, all with winning records . The 60's Celtics Championship teams had Bill Russell . The 70's teams had Dave Cowens . In the 80's, it was Robert Parish - and add in 6'10", freakish-wingspan Kevin McHale and 6'9" Swiss-Army-Knife Larry Bird if you wish. Kevin Garnett was just the addition the Celtics needed after a long Title drought. Those four dominant bigs and their teammates accounted for 15 Championships . Particularly if focused on this season, Al...

With last night's loss to the Knicks , Boston has dropped to 8th place in the Eastern Conference. There is something gravely wrong with this team as it is currently constructed and employed. One thing that is right would be the overall play of Kyrie Irving . He started the season sluggishly, but has really raised his game lately. Over the last 10 games , Kyrie ranks 3rd among NBA guards in scoring (26.4 PPG), 11th in rebounding (5.2 RPG), 11th in assists (7.0 APG), 4th in steals (2.6 SPG) and 1st in Fantasy Points. Among the Celtics many negative issued, don't include Kyrie. Regardless of Boston's struggles, you can't question Kyrie Irving's effort. That dude has been playing so hard all season long. — Marc D'Amico (@Marc_DAmico) November 22, 2018 Irving is not in the basketball-reference's top-10 MVP rankings , and the main block is the Celtics 9-9 record . The 8-8 Hornets' Kemba Walker is at #10 in the rankings but all nine of the other ...