"They junked up Kevin Durant's mind... Every time he turned around there was another Celtic in his grill" - Skip Bayless unimpressed with Boston Celtics' run to Finals, praises their defense
Skip Bayless had a surprising opinion regarding the Boston Celtics' remarkable run to the NBA Finals. The Fox Sports analyst said he wasn't impressed with it but lauded Boston's defensive prowess. Here's what Bayless mentioned on Monday's 'Skip and Shannon: Undisputed' show:
"I was not impressed with what your Celtics just did in their path to the Finals. The Nets were a wreck, a psychological, internal wreck, cause' Kyrie Irving would not get vaccinated, and they never recovered from that because James Harden right away quite his way out of town over that, Ben Simmons came to replace James Harden, and I don't know what happened, guess he had a bad back and needed surgery."
Bayless continued:
"The tall guy [Kevin Durant] got tripled team from Game 1 on, and I'm gonna give your Celtics this, this is the best defensive team in basketball... they junked up Kevin Durant's mind because every time he turned around there was another Celtic up in his grill."
The Boston Celtics put up a defensive clinic against Brooklyn Nets' star duo Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in round one. They held KD to only 39.4% shooting from the floor, which swung the tie in the C's favor significantly.
I was not that impressed with the Celtics path to the Finals. I saw young superstars gag, choke and disappear in big crucial closeout games against both Milwaukee and Miami at home. More @Undisputed, now on FS1 twitter.com/undisputed/sta…
Skip Bayless unimpressed with Boston Celtics' duo Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown
Skip Bayless has slammed Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for not being able to close out games on their homecourt. He reckons the two young superstars' inexperience shows up in games of that stature at home when the pressure mounts on them to deliver the results in front of their fans.
Here's what Bayless said regarding this:
"I saw still a couple of young superstars in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, who gag and choke and disappeared in big games, closeout games, in crucial games against both Milwaukee and Miami in Boston. That crowd is so loud, so emotional, it just spills all over the court, the expectations go literally through the roof and they choked under those expectations."
The Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat were both legitimate title contenders. It was always going to be a tough proposition for the Boston Celtics to dominate those matchups throughout the series. This contributed to some of their losses across the two series that were played across seven games apiece.
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It will be interesting to see how the Boston Celtics cope with a new challenge against an experienced Golden State Warriors team that has arguably been the best in the 2022 NBA Playoffs.