Celtics’ Isaiah Thomas Wants to Talk to Tom Brady
The Boston Celtics are on fire right before the NBA playoffs, and Isaiah Thomas wants to get some advice from the New England Patriots quarterback.
“Tom Brady, Certified B.A.M.F. Consultant” has a nice ring to it. And at least one player on the Boston Celtics is interested in coming in for a session.
The Celtics are balls deep, pun intended, in a race to the top seed in the Eastern Conference. They probably won’t catch Lebron James and the Cavs, who are sitting pretty at 44-18 despite having more internal drama than Mean Girls, but they might be able to grab the second seed in the East. The C’s are only five games behind the Toronto Raptors as of today – Boston is 38-26, and Toronto is 42-20. The Miami Heat, somehow, are nipping at the Celtics’ heels at 37-26.
Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas, who will surely go down as one of GM Danny Ainge’s most devious trades in history, was super stoked to finally get a taste of the playoffs last year, and this year, he’s got bigger fish to fry. The Celtics aren’t just an 8-seed warm-up series for the Cavs this year – they’ve taken Golden State to double overtime, beaten solid Western Conference teams like the Clippers, Blazers, and Thunder, and should be eyeballing nothing less than a date at the Eastern Conference finals with Lebron and the rest of the Mean Girls.
Which, to circle back to our original point, is precisely why Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics’ best player and fresh off his first All-Star game appearance, wants to talk to the greatest New England Patriot of all time:
What makes this tweet so great is that the 2015-2016 Celtics have a lot in common with the 2001-2002 Patriots that took down the Greatest Show on Turf Rams in the Super Bowl.
The ’01-’02 Patriots had a bunch of players that most of the league thought of as decent, but not superstars – remember defensive end Willie McGinest, shutdown corner Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy holding it down at safety, and overachievers like guard Joe Andruzzi and wideout Troy Brown?
That Pats team also had a player that went from a capable backup – Tom Brady – and went on to be the team’s biggest star, just like Isaiah Thomas has for the Celtics after riding the bench in Phoenix.
The ’01-’02 Patriots made the NFL playoffs as a number two seed, with the Pittsburgh Steelers as the number one seed and presumed favorite, while the Oakland Raiders that New England famously beat in the Tuck Rule game were the three-seed. Right now, the Celtics have a razor-thin margin for error as they hold on to their third seed for dear life and try to battle up to claim the second seed from the Raptors.
If the Celtics, by some miracle, make it to the NBA Finals, they’ll surely face the Golden State Warriors, who boast a record-setting offense and gnarly defense – just like the St. Louis Rams did with quarterback Kurt Warner, receivers Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and Az-Zahir Hakim, and of course, beastly running back and professed Patriots conspiracy theorist Marshall Faulk.
Betting afficionados will remember that the spread on that Super Bowl was 14 points, which is basically Vegas saying “This game is going to be a bloodbath”. Finally, the Patriots upset the Rams by playing nasty, borderline illegally rough defense against Kurt Warner’s precision-passing offense, and anyone who’s watched the Celtics play this season knows that when Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, and Marcus Smart are on the floor (just to name a few), the Celtics are going to get in your face and mess up your offensive rhythm. It’s what they do best. No easy buckets.
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So, TB12, if you have a few minutes in between skiing, housetraining your new puppy, and congratulating Peyton Manning on his retirement, Isaiah Thomas would love to hear from you.
In the meantime, Brady’s pre-game speech from the 2014 Super Bowl should be enough to get the Celtics – and Boston – fired up.