Jayson Tatum return CHANGES everything | Jaylen Brown's ADJUSTMENTS | Celtics Mailbag

0:00It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Nick Gangsta with the Lockdown Mavericks Podcast. This message is a paid partnership with AppleCard. I love that I can run up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase of my AppleCard, which can be automatically sent to my high yield savings account through AppleCard right in the wallet app. With my iPhone, I can use AppleCard with ApplePay basically everywhere I go. You can buy for AppleCard too, right in the wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval, savings is available to AppleCard owners, subject to eligibility, savings in AppleCard by Goldman Sachsbank, USA Salt Lake City Branch, member FDIC, terms and more at AppleCard.com. Hey everyone, this is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Lockdown Podcast Network. If your group chats been a little quiet lately, I want to invite you to come and join ours. If you sign up for the everydayer club, you get access to the members' only group chats for your favorite teams, plus national chats for every sport. Personally, I love watching folks talk a little smack in the NFC South Trash talk chat.

1:01You also get an ad-free version of your favorite Lockdown show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the everydayer club link in the show notes. Now in the Lockdown Celtics Podcast, is this still next season's pre-seasons, Jalen Brown's sacrifice and records that could be set against the Washington Wizards? Lockdown Celtics Podcast, home of the winners, baby. They're welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics Podcast, right here in the Lockdown Podcast. The record is your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics, and I talk about them every Monday through Friday, bonus podcast throughout the week, plus on the weekends. They play the Wizards on Saturday, so Saturday night, I will give you a podcast, bonus podcast. Make sure you're subscribed, wherever you get your podcast, watch a show on YouTube, get into the comments section, and share your thoughts with me there. I'm John Corralis, beat writer, covering the Celtics for Sports Illustrated Celtics on S.I. I've been covering a team for 20 years doing this podcast for 10, and today I'm opening

2:03them up, opening up the mail bag, which I'm overdue for, you can get your questions in at johncorralis.com slash mailbag johncorralis.com slash mailbag to submit your questions. I will answer them here. Sometimes I will answer them on s i dot com again, that Celtics on s i I will let you know here when I've done that there, so you can get I just want to answer as many questions as possible. And every once in a while, I'll do a bonus podcast that answers questions, so I can get to as many of these as possible. So let's just dive into the mailbag later on, we'll get into the fun question about records the Celtics could set against the wizards, which is a thing that's happening right now, why the Celtics didn't adjust against Victor Wemba Nyama, Jason, Jalen Brown sacrifice now that JT is back, but let's start with a a theme of mine from Andy who said you've

3:06said that this year was written off in your mind, even if Tatum comes back that the rest of the year is next year's preseason is that still the case after seeing Tatum since he's come back, it's a it's a yes and no answer because I still don't think the Celtics win a championship unless Tatum can be a somewhat full version of himself. So he's still not that yet, however, he's not as far behind any of this that then I thought he would be like you have to understand this is not normal, Jason has accomplished something here that is beyond normal. Getting back at 10 months is incredible and that's not the surprise, the surprise is

4:11that he's back on the floor playing in the basketball at 10 months and that he looks as good as he does and that he's playing 27 minutes on a regular basis and that he probably could play more if he wanted to, I don't know how that would impact his recovery and he has said he said after that game against San Antonio, I could have played more, but this is part of the plan and so it's part of the plan for a reason, but my anticipation was that, and I've said it, that Tatum would come back and play a couple of seven, eight minute stints off the bench and it would be a process of getting winded very quickly and looking like 60% of himself and then working himself up, he's probably three or four weeks ahead

5:19of what I anticipated and listen, my job here is not to be green team or ultimate fan, you can be that, that's fine, my job here as I see it is to be real with you, I'm not going to be positive if I don't think the situation is positive, I'm not going to be negative if the situation is not negative, I am going to treat things as I see them, as I expect them and every time I have a take, it's generally with rare exception, well reasoned, at least in my mind, there's a reason for me coming to a conclusion, it's not just pulled out of thin air, I promise you, I'm not just taking a side to get attention or clicks, if I wanted

6:23to get attention and clicks, trust me, I could, this show does well and it could, if I wanted to be Steven A Smith or Skip Bayless, I could be, I'm not, so I promise you, the takes that I have, even if they're wrong in my mind, there's a reason for me getting to where I am and I don't mind being wrong, as long as me getting to that place is, I think, well reason. So why I said this is going to be next year's preseason, it's because I expected Tatum to be, I'm almost a month behind of where he is, and it's March, and so March and April are, where he is now in March is like where I expected him to be is probably where he was in April,

7:23you follow me like that, I just expected him to be less than this, so I know that the Celtics need Tatum and Brown to be their absolute peak to win a championship, so why I said this was the preseason because I pinned championship hopes on next season, this season was gravy, and even now, no matter what happens, there's no reason to be negative about this season, even if they lose in the first round, which I don't expect, but even if they do, let's just say that they do, so what, this has been such a great positive season that if something happens and it just, it doesn't work, they lose in the first or second round, so what, this has been so great, this has been such a fun positive season that I just don't, I just don't see any of it as a negative,

8:27but I did anticipate Tatum to be further behind what he is, and that's why I thought this was going to be next year's preseason, it's not, it's not anymore, he's more advanced, he's probably a few weeks away from 30 plus minutes of game, Jalen is still great, before he got kicked out of the Spurs game, I thought Jalen was playing, honestly, one of the best games of his life, I saw him playing, making reads, anticipating things, I was just like, wow, this is another level, another level for Jalen, so it's surpassed my expectations, so it's not really, it is still next year's preseason, in that we're getting Jason ramped up for a championship run next year, but hey, by the way, he's very capable of being part of a championship run, this

9:37year, they can get out of the east, they can, they can get to the NBA finals, once you're at the NBA finals, who knows what can happen, so I, I still say that you need Tatum to get to a certain level to be a championship team next year, it's just that he can get there this year, and maybe, maybe, I can't say no, I think it's, I think they are among the favorites, probably the favorite in the east at this point, at the very worst, they're at the Detroit level, so, congratulations man, congratulations to Tatum, congratulations to Joma Zula, to Jalen Brown, to all of these guys, reporting themselves so far ahead of expectations, it's been, it's been

10:40amazing. Related, here's a question from Adam before we get into the next segment, what metrics could we use to track Tatum's recovery in return to, return to form, is there tracking data like how fast he's moving on the court or types of shots that he's taking, what number will best show us that he's back, and honestly, Adam, I don't think there's a number, if there's one number that maybe you could look at considering where he's been, it's a simple like effective field goal percentage, because his efficiency has been low, so, him just shooting better will get you a little bit more of a sense of where he is in his recovery, it's not an advanced metric, I don't think he's moving slowly, right, again, going back

11:41to the previous question, if he was what I thought he was going to be, then I would say yes, tracking data, speed, distance traveled, those would be perfect, kind of numbers to track, but that might increase some, but I don't think he looks slow, necessarily out there, maybe his drives, which I haven't checked, but maybe his drives picking up, that would be a good place if we're looking at tracking data, and increase in his drives would be a good indicator of where he is, because he's probably not driving as much as he will normally, he's probably a 10, 11, 12 drive a per game guy, and I'm sure he's not at that point yet, and that's more wind than it is apprehension about the Achilles, so that could be something, but I just don't think that's

12:49the end all, be all kind of number, it's, I just think his efficiency, once he becomes a more efficient scorer, then that means his legs are back, and he's just getting more into a rhythm of the game, so that's the simplest thing that I can tell you, and again, that's a testament to how far along he is, because if he was where I thought he would be, there would be a number of statistics that I would easily pull out and say, yes, track all of these things, because he's here and he needs to get to here, and no, he's already further along, so shout out to Tatum, Nick sang, the trainers, the surgeons, everybody, it's been, it's been an amazing recovery, it's a blueprint for how to handle this, honestly, the number one thing that

13:59should come out of Jason Tatum's injury is that teams and players should get, once it's diagnosed, get the surgery done, A-S-A-P, that's the lesson for everybody. All right, we're going to come back, we're going to talk about Jalen Brown's sacrifice in just a moment. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash, listen, it's, the playoffs are here, it's the season where there are parties being thrown, and DoorDash has a way to keep fans in their bag, the whole way through, whether you're watching highlights, tunnel fits, your favorite player, DoorDash has everybody's in their bag in the NBA, and you're on your bag too, with DoorDash, they keep your snacks stocked, your gear, fresh, and your watch party vibes. On point, there are nights where your team stresses you out, so you can get that post game therapy, a dessert, a snack, delivered to your

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17:13style finish. It's all available at fivehourenergy.com, the number five, ourenergy.com, or on Amazon. Thanks for making lockdowns, Celtics. You're first-listened every day. Check out the lockdown. Every day or club, you're with me every day, Monday through Friday. You're in every day or joining the M bonus podcast. Join the every day or club for five dollars a month. 50 bucks for the year. You get access to ad-free audio. You get access to our Discord server. And listen, if you join now, use the code March. You get your first month free. If you do it before the NCAA tournament tips off, you can get into the every day or club bracket pool on Discord. You get a chance to win lockdown merch. The URL is lockdownseltics.supercast.com. I will drop that link in the show notes. Let's get back to the mailbag. Again, John Corales.com. Slash mailbag to ask your questions. They will be answered here. They will also be answered

18:14on Si.com. The Celtics on Si page. So, check it out there as well. Check it out. Bookmark Celtics on Si. Because all of my Celtics coverage is there. It's free. So, check that out there. Adam says, asks, is Tatum a four now? Is Jalen the three? Does it matter? The answer is simply, no, it doesn't matter. It does, distinctions like three or four are done. The distinctions on positions are ball handlers, wings, and biggs. Those are the three positions in the NBA. I know we talk about one, two, three, four, five point guard shooting guard, small forward, power forward center. And in the Celtics typical starting lineup, it's Derek White, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Namiish Kada, and Sam Houser. So, white is the point guard. The one

19:19Houser is the two. Jalen Brown is the three, the small forward. Jason Tatum is the four, power forward, and Namiish Kada is the five, the center. In traditional senses, that's what the numbers are, how they correlate. But in reality, the ball handlers, the ball handler is, Derek White, the wings are Houser, Tatum, Brown, and the big is Kada. That's the real distinction how NBA teams look at it. And that's how we should look at things because that makes the most sense. Jalen, Jason, are both ball handlers to some degree. I cannot put Jason Tatum as a four. In the same category as Kevin McCale, you just can't do that. Kevin McCale was a traditional power forward. And all that meant was he was a center who was two inches shorter than the

20:24other guy, right? That's all a power forward was somebody who was, your center was seven feet, your power forward was somewhere between six nine and six eleven, your small forward was somewhere between six six and six nine, your shooting guard was supposed to be somewhere between six three and six six, and your point guard was six three or less. That's the general kind of perception of positions. That doesn't mean a damn thing anymore. That's not how the game is played. And so we shouldn't look at it that way. Ball handlers, wings, bigs. That's it. Those are the distinctions. So just it's so much easier when we look at it that way. All right, let's get back to Joel now. He says it seems like Jalen has already taken a step back since Tatum's return playing more off ball, no aggressive drives. What happens to his MVP chances now? So this is part of, you know,

21:26Jalen said post game a couple games ago. What was that Cleveland where he said, look, it looks great now, but there's a lot of work to do. I'm not going to overreact to Jalen doing a little bit more standing in the corner right now. There's a process of working through all of this. Jalen will figure it out. Jason will figure it out. You need to Jalen needs to defer a little bit more to Jason right now to get Jason up the speed. Eventually, Jason will need to defer a little bit more to Jalen because Jalen has demonstrated a very strong ability to handle ball handling duties, to handle shot creation duties. And so Jalen's ball handling shot creation should be higher than

22:27it's been in years past, which means Jason's will be a little bit lower than it has been in years past, which allows Jason to be a little bit more of an off wall guy. It's not a negative. It's not saying, and I know this is how people think and how people will react on Twitter. They'll say, oh, wow, Jason's the best player. Why is he going to defer? It's not deferring. It's adjusting. It's making things fit. Things are different now. There's nothing wrong with playing Jason off the ball a little bit more. We should be happy that Jason is playing off the ball a little bit more. He doesn't have to be the guy with the ball in his hands, constantly drawing two and passing. Let Jalen be the guy that draws two and passes. So it can be pass swing and Jason gets the ball. If you're a Jason Tatum fan, this should make you not be not sad. If you're a Jason Tatum fan,

23:29getting Jason off the ball should make you feel like great. That means when the ball swings two times, Jason is going to be that guy catching it. And he's going to be able to make a play. And it's not wasting Jason Tatum's balance by saying you go draw two and let everybody else play four on three and and hope that the Celeste can score. Give Jalen some of that responsibility to draw two and and create and and start the ball rolling that way. So that's I think where this this discussion gets off the rails so much. Both of these guys can do that now. Jalen might have been able to do that more in the past. We haven't seen it because he hasn't been putting that situation. Now he has. We've seen it. And so let's use it. Let's utilize it. Let's use Jason to draw two and get Jalen some opportunities. And let's flip it. Let's get Jalen

24:31out there drawing two and get Jason some opportunities and Derek some opportunities. There's there's just this isn't this is a chance for the Celtics to maximize everybody. It's just an adjustment. So Jalen, what does this do for his MVP chances? Let's be honest, he was never going to get MVP this year. Unless guys fall out of like if Shay and Yochitch and Wembee all fall below the 65 game threshold, then Jalen would probably be in that next conversation. But he's Jalen, Kate Cunningham, those guys, they're not getting MVP. They're in the discussion and it's good that they're getting into these these I think very rational kind of discussions about where they stand in the league. But I just don't think Jalen was ever going to get an MVP this year. It's always

25:37going to be Shay. It was always going to be Yochitch. It's always going to be Wembee. Those three. Now if those three guys all fall below 65 games, then then we have a legitimate conversation with everybody else. But I'm not going to say that Jason coming back costs Jalen, his spot or anything like that. All right, we're going to come back. We're going to have some fun. We'll talk about the the records the Celtics could set against the Wizards when we come back. Today's show. Today's show is brought to you by TurboTax. Tax season is here. It's chaotic. But we know that the old way of doing taxes is a lot. Trying to book an appointment that's not the most convenient. It's sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers. Who wants to do that? E-mailing back and forth and wondering if they really get your situation. This year though, you're getting a major upgrade into it. TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide.

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28:49Lockdown NBA daily during the week, Monday through Friday, the bait show style covering all the big stories. So check that out as well. Let's get back to the mailbag. John Corralis.com. Flash mailbag to get those questions in. The question from Alan who says, when Benyama, this is from the Spurs game, made at least four of his eight threes. Why didn't the, why didn't Joe Missoula make any adjustments to prevent? Basically, the question is, sorry, Alan's asking the question, why didn't the Celtics adjust to when Benyama making a bunch of threes? And now I was prepared for this question. And then it's a pride. It's a pride. I knew it. Alan is asking the question from Mexico. It's my fault, Alan, because I had it ordered right. And then I, I botched, I botched

29:54the execution. That's my fault. Why didn't the Celtics adjust to when Benyama shooting threes? Because the game plan was to allow when Benyama to shoot the open three pointer, which he struggles with, that you have to live with something with when B. And you're not going to, you're not going to let him get to the rim. He shoots, I think it's all the number 32, 33% on wide open three point attempts, which that's something you want to, you sure, 32%. Now he shot like 50%. The question becomes, when do you ditch your game plan and adjust because a guy is actually doing something that's aberration? In the regular season, I can see you letting that go

31:00because it's not, it's not the time to throw out every adjustment that you have in the book. Jalen was out because he got thrown out. Derek hurt his knee. Jason's on the minutes restriction. You're not going to, you're not going to throw every answer that you might have at the spurs because there's a chance that you could be in the NBA finals against this team and you don't want to give them the film that they could use to say, oh wow, this is how they guarded Wembee. We have this evidence of them making this particular adjustment and now we're prepared for it. You throw that out in game one. If it steals you a game against the spurs in a game one of the NBA finals, then it gives you an advantage. That's the theory. So you don't throw everything at

32:04a team in the regular season. You do what you do. You play your game and you hope your execution is going to be enough to win you games and you just live with it. So they lived with Wembee taking the shots. He hit them. Congratulations. Are you going to be able to do that in four out of seven games in a series? If you are congratulations, you're Caleb Martin and you're the Miami Heat against the Celtics from a few years ago and you deal with it. But more likely that that's a one game thing and that's a strategy that will kind of serve you well over a series. So I can understand why the Celtics don't make that adjustment. A question from Ben. What is the biggest difference from the last championship team

33:04and what's the Celtics biggest challenge for winning again? So the biggest difference Ben from the last championship team is how much of veteran help there was because you had Al Horford. You had obviously Christophe Persingus through holiday. And now you're relying on younger guys and prove it guys and try hard guys. And so the last championship team had a bunch of guys that understood, hey, we're okay if we lose this game, not a big deal. We're not going to overextend ourselves in these games to win regular season games when it's going to put us at a physical disadvantage.

34:04Al Horford is a great example here where Al makes business decisions all regular season long. There are games where he's just like, I'm not giving it 100% effort. Al Horford has plenty of regular season games over the past few years where it's just like, okay, I'm not going all out. But important games, playoff games, he does. He understands. He's a pro. He gets it. He knows where he is. He knows where his body is. Holiday is the same way. Persingus, when he's healthy and kind of managing his own body, these guys understand. This is what we're capable of. This is what I need to do right now to make sure I'm healthy. And this is what I'm going to do. This year's team, Baylor, Jordan, Hugo, all of these guys, they're just flat out energy guys.

35:09Nimi, Luca, all of these guys are try hard. They are going to put forth 100% effort all the time to win as many games as possible because they're all fighting for their roles, their basketball lives, their future contracts, even though they're all under contract for next year, it's still something that they're all fighting for. And that's a big difference in the dynamic from this year's team. So the biggest obstacle to winning a championship, again, at this point is the inexperience, the mentality, because Horford, Holiday, and those guys, they understand they've been there. They know what it takes to win holiday, especially a guy like Baylor. Do you trust

36:11where his head is going to be in a clutch moment in the conference finals? Do you trust where Ugo Gonzalez is going to be? Do you trust where Nimi is going to be? Do you trust where Luca is going to be in these clutch moments? There is a, there's incredible value to the calmness of, hey man, we're down four with 30 seconds to go. That's still so much time. So don't overreact. We got plenty of time. And if you've got two time outs with 30 seconds to go, not a big deal. Like, obviously, you're up against it. But in that moment, true holiday, Al Horford, they're like, it's cool, my babies, we got this. Whereas Baylor and Nimi and Jordan, they haven't been in that position in a playoff game. What are they going to be like? Are they going to be like,

37:11oh my god, four points. We got 30 seconds. We have to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That manic kind of position is where you might get into some problems. So that's the biggest obstacle. It's the mentality. All right, one last question here. It comes from Andrew. What records will the Celtics break when they play the Wizards on Saturday? All of them? No. So this is obviously a BAM at a bio-related question. I'm sure that that was a one game kind of thing. And look, congratulations, the BAM. 83 points is 83 points. And honestly, I can't comment too much. I didn't see the game. Celtics were playing. I didn't go back and watch what BAM did. I've heard that there was absurdity. And I trust the people who I've heard that from. I'm sure there was plenty of absurdity.

38:12But also 83 points is 83 points. So congrats to BAM. Guys in the NBA, when they have an opportunity to do something crazy special, they'll do it. So I'm not going to, I think both sides have a point when it comes to BAM. Was there some unethical basketball being played? Yeah, sure. The dude took 46 free throws. That is an insane number. There's some unethical stuff going on there. At the same time, there's a so what? Like so what? Stop him. Stop him. Right? The Wizards, the Wizards are still NBA players. Stop him. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to lose my mind about it. I'm not going to lose my mind about Kobe or I'm not going to get all uppity about, you know, it's unethical and whatever. And he shouldn't be whatever. He scored 83 points.

39:15You score 83 points in NBA game. No one gets to say that they do that except for BAM out of bio. If it was me, I could not, I can't say here and be like, well, I would have done blah, blah, blah. No, when you're in a position to score 83 points, you go score 83 points. You go do it. Because in 10 years, people are going to be like, oh, my God, BAM scored 83 points. That's amazing. They're not even going to think about all this other stuff. So yeah, go do it. What records will the Celtics set? I mean, any number of records are possible. But shout out to the Wizards for being there and being part of history. Thanks for the questions. Again, they come in at John Corales dot com slash mailbag. They'll be answered here in the podcast. I went long. So, but they will be answered here. I'll do bonus podcast where I answer

40:19a couple of questions as well. They'll be answered on SI dot com Celtics on SI bookmark that. You can see my links on Twitter on blue sky. So all of that stuff is available everywhere. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Thank you for getting into the comment section on the YouTube page. Thank you for sharing the podcast and telling everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast here in the Lockdown podcast. Then we'll get to your team every day.