Green With Envy: Deep diving the Hawks series w/ special guests

Today’s the day. The Boston Celtics finally get their postseason underway, with their opening game against the Atlanta Hawks in the first round. Go anywhere on social media, anywhere, and one thing quickly becomes evident: nobody is giving the Hawks a prayer.

While being overly confident is always risky, it’s not the fans who will be gracing the hardwood though. So, as long as the Celtics come into the contest with their game face on and begin their journey with a championship-level performance, there shouldn’t be much concern in regard to their ability to progress into the deeper rounds.

Still, things get tricky when you’ve got to face the same opponent for a minimum of four games. Coaches scheme against your schemes and look to minimize the impact of your role players by adjusting their substitution patterns and game management. Plays and actions become repetitive tropes that have each defense rolling its eyes.

However, there’s nothing more exciting than the dawn of a new playoff series, where everything is still fresh and there are far more questions than answers — and that’s especially true for the Celtics and Hawks, as most assumed Boston would be combating the Miami Heat in the first round.

As such, the Green With Envy podcast decided to draft in some specialists to ensure their audience is as thoroughly prepared for the postseason as possible, welcoming Howard Beck and Chris Forsberg onto their show for two separate deep dive episodes.

In the first episode, featuring Beck, the guys dive into some of the broader questions surrounding the Celtics and Hawks, from Jaylen Brown’s recent hand injury to Joe Mazzulla’s improvements in game management and adjusting on the fly, to the pressure the Philadelphia 76ers will find themselves under and how that could limit their chances of success in a potential second-round matchup.

“The Sixers have a lot at stake, because there’s always the James Harden factor, not only his ability to step up into postseason and support Joel Embiid’s efforts, which they very much need. But this weird, persistent won’t go away rumours of maybe Harden going back to Houston, which still makes no sense to me whatsoever, not for him, not for the Rockets, not for the universe at large,” Beck said.

Then, in the second dive into the series, Forsberg joined the show to peel back some layers and dive into the X’s and O’s discussions, from ways to limit Clint Capela’s impact on the offensive glass, to why it’s not the best idea to continually hunt mismatches with Trae Young on the perimeter — we’ve seen what happens to team’s when they try it with Sam Hauser, after all.

There are now less than 12 hours to go until the Celtics get their playoff push underway, and the time for previews is now behind us. However, with such a wealth of knowledge passing through the podcast over the last 24 hours, I would highly recommend tuning into at least one of these shows.