Horniness Killed The Celtics Dynasty and The Draymond Green Agenda™

Welcome to Free Throws, Deadseriousness’s weekly NBA column, getting some shots up and tossing around some basketball takes. This week, we have a breakdown on why the Boston Celtics are down 0-2 in the second round, a whistleblower on the Draymond Green Agenda™ and some quick Tyrese Haliburton slander, as a treat.

The variance.

I hate when new vocabulary enters the sports media membrane and we all download new nomenclature—regurgitating it nonstop, against our will—until the file is 100%, stored next to that time we all started calling NFL skill positions “weapons“.

The Boston Celtics have missed 75 3-pointers in 2 games.

They took 100 3-pointers.

They missed 75 of them.

If you went to your local high school’s JV basketball try-outs and missed 75 out of 100 3-pointers, you would never be able to un-hear the sounds of 9th graders laughing at you.

You might go viral. In the not-fun way. Like you can’t pull a Hawk Tuah heist.

The Celtics are the defending champions, playing like the hoop is a moving target.

But I don’t think the Monstars are running it back with the Looney Tunes Squad right now.

Boston doesn’t suddenly suck.

They just beat the Orlando Magic in 5 games, with the one loss, in Game 3, by just 2 points. (It was a sweep, ya know?)

But now they’re running into a New York Knicks team with a clean injury sheet and a Mount Olympus-sized chip on their shoulder after going 0-for-4 against Boston in the regular season—getting mercy-ruled 3 out of the 4 games—including the very first game of the entire NBA calendar when the Celtics broke the record for the most 3’s in a game.

While Jayson Tatum nurses a wrist injury—and Jaylen Brown is suffering from a bone bruise—and Jrue Holiday is coming back from smashing his finger like Tom getting caught in one of Jerry’s mousetraps—and Kristaps Porzingis sleeping with a bedpan after contracting hay fever on the Oregon Trail, forcing 38 year old Al Horford to carry a heavier minutes burden—and the Knicks look healthy as shit.

This is why you cannot launch ONE HUNDRED THREE POINTERS IN TWO GAMES.

The variance.

The scientific theory that shooting more 3’s increases your chances of scoring more points is correct—but it’s elementary in that it excludes any variables.

What if Jayson Tatum lost his confidence?

Jayson Tatum ended his regular season in an igloo.

Let me run through a few of my favorite end-of-the-year Tatum performances:

March 29th @ San Antonio: 10-for-22 from the field (45%) and 2-for-9 from 3 (22%)
March 31st @ Memphis: 10-for-24 from the field (41%) and 2-for-11 from 3 (18%)
April 2nd vs. Miami: 4-for-17 from the field (23%) and 2-for-9 from 3 (22%)
April 4th vs. Phoenix: 9-for-18 from the field (Wow, 50% against a team that surrendered. Sick) and 1-for-8 from 3 (12%, ah, there he is.)

Jayson Tatum’s jump shot disappeared in the NBA Finals.

Jaylen Brown won Finals MVP and Tatum was sort of a super-talented role player next to him.

Then he went to Paris for the Olympics and his jumper looked more damaged than in the Finals.

This season, his shooting numbers were below his career averages and he ended the season closing his eyes, praying his shot went in.

So Tatum is playing strange.

And those strange vibes get in the air. The rest of the team starts pressing and launching jumpers with soo much time left on the shot clock. They’ve been programmed to believe a 3-point shot is the optimal conclusion to a possession.

The variance.

Now they have to lock in on defense for the first time in a looong time as Jaylen has a weak knee and Tatum’s wrist hurts and Kristaps has malaria. And Al Horford was drafted in 2007.

And they’re tired and it’s the 4th quarter and Thibs hung the Knicks upside down in the meat locker, beating them with clubs, physically and mentally preparing them for war.

And the Celtics look like they’re playing in slippers.

This is 100000% on Joe Mazzula.

You know your team is struggling.

Run a fucking play.

And I don’t mean get into your base offense and run the typical playbook stuff.

I mean call a timeout, get the whiteboard, design a play to attack a weakness you’ve identified in real time. Expose a flaw you are actively witnessing within the Knicks defense and sharpie up a play to exploit it for an easy bucket because you need an easy bucket.

Thibs was about to be fired and he’s outcoaching Joe Mazzula—defending NBA champion.

Why are you so willing to sacrifice putting your team in the bonus to intentionally foul Mitchell Robinson—forcing your already fatigued defense to now avoid accidentally sending the Knicks to the free throw line?

I know Joe Mazzula is so smart and quirky and says silly things in interviews and pretends to be a savant but this is still only his 3rd year as an NBA coach. He’s younger than Al Horford. Thibs has been an assistant coach since 1989. Joe Mazzula was 1 years old.

I actually take back what I said earlier. This isn’t Joe Mazzula’s fault.

This is 100000000000000000% on Ime Udoka being too horny.

RIP to the Boston Celtics. Death by horny.

The Knicks shall rise through the ashes of Nia Long’s marriage.

The Draymond Green Agenda™

I shouldn’t be saying this. I know the consequences of what I’m about to reveal but what’s the point of having this platform, if not to use it to expose the truths in this world?

I am one of the members of the Anti-Draymond Agenda. There. It’s out there.

Sometimes you’re young and impressionable and you find yourselves in the deep corners of the internet ready to be recruited and used by these secret, off-the-grid organizations but it’s true. I have attended the meetings, been CC’ed in all of the email correspondence, I bring mac and cheese to all the potluck dinners.

Unfortunately, Draymond Green found us out and has alerted the press to our mission statement.

Here’s what Draymond said after the Warriors Game 2 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves:

“The agenda to try to keep making me look like an angry black man is crazy. I’m sick of it. It’s ridiculous.”

Draymond Green shared a postgame statement after the Golden State Warriors game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

🎥 @anthonyVslater pic.twitter.com/Odi099LppY

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) May 9, 2025

“I’m not an angry Black man, I’m a very successful, educated Black man with a great family. and I’m great at basketball, I’m great at what I do. The agenda trying to make me look like an angry Black man is crazy. I’m sick of it. It’s ridiculous.”

We’ve been made.

Every Tuesday we sat at a TGI Fridays to order Two-Fers and fried food.

But we struggled. Our efforts were futile.

We just could not figure out a way to bring down this successful, educated black man.

Until one night, I had a eureka moment.

I stood up from our shadowy round table, removed my cloak and said, “What if we simply criticize the way he plays basketball?”

The room was skeptical. ~~Adam Silver~~, shit, I mean [redacted], responded “that’s never going to work”.

So I painted the picture, “what if people just called him out for all the punching, kicking, screaming, shouting, stomping, strangling, biting, spitting, fighting. Like, if we just talk about it. I think we can convince the world that Draymond is an angry black man if we highlight the fact that he’s an angry black man.”

I’ll never forget the slow clap Stephen A. Smith started in that room.

This is honestly all a sigh of relief. Now that Draymond Green has discovered our plot and revealed it to the national media, I am free of this burden.

I’d like to personally apologize to Mr. Green—who is so smart and successful and *squints* has a family—ok—I am so sorry for participating in the Draymond Green agenda.

It was totally unfair of me to be like “Wow, Draymond sure commits a ton of flagrant fouls” after you committed a ton of flagrant fouls.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Log Off, Tyrese

This article was supposed to come out Friday, but I didn’t get it done in time, so I hadn’t intended to criticize Tyrese Haliburton.

The Milwaukee Bucks took his hat, he snatched it back and knocked their front teeth out.

His dad collected those teeth in his pocket after the game.

Then he flew into Ohio and robbed the Cavs pockets, twice.

Cleveland was the best team in the NBA—1st in points per game and offensive rating.

The Athletic wrote a story on Tyrese Haliburton’s feelings about being voted “Most Overrated” by his peers, which just sucks. Imagine everyone you work with all voted, behind your back, that they think you’re overrated? “I know the principal thinks she’s some great teacher but she’s overrated. Her kids leave dumber than they came.”

Haliburton “joked” about being terminally online before vomiting up generic, right-things-to-say about only caring about winning and his teammates and blah blah.

The Indiana Pacers returned home, up 2-0 against the Cavs, and got eject-o seat-o, cuz-ed out of their own crib.

Cleveland beat Indiana 126-104. Tyrese Haliburton scored 4 points.

Fucking disappeared.

He only took 8 shot attempts, and two of those were off a clumsy, end-of-the-quarter, rushed shotput.

Tyrese Haliburton isn’t overrated.

He’s Ben Simmons. He’s afraid to be made fun of.

Tyrese saw Evan Mobley and Darius Garland warm up at shootarounds and said to himself “shit, they’re going to say we only won those first two games because they were hurt” and self-fulling prophecy self-fufilled.

Haliburton didn’t even try. He played hot potato whenever the ball grazed his fingers. He was playing like he Freaky Friday-ed with a family member and whoever was inside of Tyrese was shocked to be there.

Tyrese has the ability to be the best player on the floor on any given night but that means folks are gonna yap about ya and I think Tyrese would rather be Mike Conley. And there’s nothing wrong with being Mike Conley. Grit N Grind til I die.

But Indiana isn’t a position to acquire a guy willing to shoulder that burden. They’re too good to tank. Their assets aren’t particularly interesting.

It has to be Tyrese.

Cavs in 6.

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