Well, that one was a kick in the gut. Last night the Toronto Raptors faced off against the Boston Celtics in what could have been their last game in the bubble. Boston was up 3-2 going into game 6. At the start of the game, it looked like there was a solid chance for the Celtics to come away with the win. Although it was a good entertaining game, the officiating was the main focal point of the game which makes for bad basketball for everyone.
Tony Brothers, er, I mean Nick Nurse had other plans. The Toronto Raptors were able to shake off a bad first half and come away with the win to force a game 7. Toronto started the game off shooting 22% from the field making 7 out of 23 shots. The Celtics have shown that they are able to take off at the start when teams don’t jump out of the gates against them the reason why they didn’t was that they themselves shot 30% from the field making only 8 out of 26 shots.
Running through the six with some woes
The Celtics lost that game. Marcus Smart had a triple-double with a stat-line of 23-10-11 he was lights out for the Celtics hitting four straight three pointers in the second quarter. Jaylen Brown lead all Celtics scorers with 31 points and added 16 rebounds. Jayson Tatum started the game a little cold but was able to heat up for 29 points adding 14 rebounds and 9 assists. Kemba Walker had another slow game. Shooting 2-11 on the night and only contributing 5 points.
Nick Nurse. In the corner. For 3! pic.twitter.com/DdizU9i6X2
— DJMC25 (@DJMC25) September 10, 2020
Game six was all over the place. Between long scoreless runs from both sides, sloppy all-around play, and poor officiating. It had all the makings of a horrible game. The heat from OT saved it. A notable moment is when Nick Nurse is standing on the sideline while the Celtics are taking the ball up the court. Daniel Theis is filling in his lane in the corner closest to the raptors bench. Theis had some space between him and his defender. Enough to garner a pass from Tatum who threw it out of bounds in the direction of Nick Nurse who should have been assessed a technical foul for violating the coach’s box rule. The calls worked both ways with the officiating being all-around horrible.
On to Game Seven
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Game six was a great game if you take out all the poor officiating calls. Bucket for bucket in OT. It was a wild game to watch in real-time. I had to take the night off to calm down. The most frustrating part was the fact that the referees stole the spotlight. Playoff basketball is hard and rugged keep it that way. Stop trying to make the game softer. Swallow the whistles or call it consistently. I’m not saying that the Celtics lost the game because of Tony Brothers. However, in playoff games where Tony Brothers is officiating the Celtics are 3-13 while the Raptors have a 14-2 record.
The Celtics are 23-9 in game sevens. Toronto is one of three teams to force a game seven with a multi-OT win. Those other two teams went on to lost to the Celtics. It is also worth noting that even though there is no homecourt advantage, the “Hometeam” has lost every game this series.
If you want to take a look at what’s going on around the NBA here is an article from the Miami series that just wrapped up. Follow me on Twitter at @joepalencia13 for if you want to keep in touch. If you like what you read there are a lot of other great writers on the team be sure to check them out!
