Sean Grande | Boston Celtics PxP Voice

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That's BetterHelp.com positive. Our friend Sean Grandy was doing his best work just a few hours ago in Sacramento and now we're pleased to welcome him to the show before that cross-country flight back to Boston. Sean, this road trip has featured some highs. It's also featured some lows as Jalen referenced. The loss to Utah after having a 20-point lead. Of course, falling on the road in Houston as well. So, no fourth quarter collapse against the Kings, but after these past few games and really what we've seen in the in the 23 portion of the season, how would you describe the kind of basketball the Celtics are playing?

Well, it's up and down like you just said. You can't be, you can't overreact or be what's the new term everybody used and the kids use prisoner of the moment, right? But you're coming off a game in which I really thought this was teed up for the Celtics to play well. You're catching the Kings on the back-to-back. When the Celtics lose some of these leads and they lost a big lead, they did lose some of them that were really ugly, but when you lose the game in Cleveland, for example, and you lose the one in Milwaukee a couple weeks ago and you lose the one in Utah, that's the second night of a back-to-back on the road playing at altitude at Utah, playing without a lot of your starters.

So those are games that happen in the regular season and for some reason there's a psychological thing that says being up by 15 and losing by one is somehow worse than being down by 15 and then coming back and losing by one when it's all the same thing at the end. Then when you get to the playoffs and you have Al Horford and Jason Tate and all these guys going hard and not playing back-to-back so they are, you're not going to have those in the playoffs. And this team has been there before and had the long run last year and if we step back as much as it feels like it's the reverse of last year where they were dominant late and really struggled early and this is the reverse of that, we've seen teams that have had long playoff runs have really good starts and then it's like, okay, when do the playoffs start? So I think there's an element of that too and I think that the outliers are going to be those leads that they lost in the back-to-back games.

I think Selfish could finish pretty strong here. The interesting thing is there's not enough time, I think, to get back to the one seed. So you're looking at arguably the three best teams in the NBA right now are all in the East. So a really good team is going home in the second round. And the top three have all clinched, right?

The Bucks, the Celtics and the Sixers are all into the playoffs that we know but it's real tight there between the Celtics and the Sixers. If you're saying that that's the case and these are isolated incidents even as dramatic as they were, does that mean nobody around the team is worried about what's happened in the fourth quarter at times? Oh, I think people are absolutely worried about the fourth quarter and that the efficiency drops off and the turnovers go way up in the fourth quarter.

It's a significant problem. The question is when you've been a dominant team, the Celtics for the first third of the season were not just the best team in the league, they were the best team by a wide margin. And I think we have to retrain ourselves, Amy, from looking at the season the way we used to. That the 82-game season would tell us everything we wanted to know and the team with the best scoring differential with the team that was going to go on to win the championship because this is whether we like it or not, the reality is this is the load management era. And so the regular season doesn't offer us as many comfortable predictions as it has in years past.

And let's go all the way back, and I mean all the way back to 2022. Golden State was not good down the stretch last year. They were basically a 500 team. Celtics, for example, went to San Francisco and crushed them late in the regular season last year. And they had a game in which, I've heard a lot of people say, look at some of the games the Celtics lost, and they'll go, oh, championship teams don't lose games like that. Well, I seem to remember Golden State losing by about 80 to Memphis in the playoffs last year. And I know that they won the championship because I was there.

I called it and I saw them win. So I saw a team that lost by 50, whatever in the second round of the game, win the championship on the Celtics floor in June. So we may not like the load management era, but again, we have to be a little more conservative and using examples from the regular season, specific examples saying, oh, teams that do this don't win the championship because all three of the teams at the top of the East at times this year have had some real takers. So that's some real bad games, but here we are.

And again, I don't think you can argue it. They argue it in Denver or in Memphis or maybe even in Sacramento, but the three best teams are all nice. Considering there are just a few games left in the regular season, how healthy should the Celtics be for the playoffs? Cause that's also been a challenge with different guys in and out of the starting lineup.

That's going to be the whole thing. Who's healthy. If the Celtics win, they've had Rob Williams and Al Horf is healthy and there hasn't been a lot. The Celtics have had their, I don't want to call it the starting five or cause you know, Joe Missoula indicated before the game tonight that it might, you know, Rob Williams could be a off the bench.

This might, the thing that happened tonight could be a real thing on the playoffs. Maybe Rob ends up coming off the bench playing 20, 25 minutes, but is he going to be healthy? Because the lesson of last year was the Celtics were the best team by a mile last year when Rob Williams was healthy. And the moment he got hurt to his half-hearted comebacks during the playoffs, the Celtics were good, but they were never that dominant again. And this year when they've had everybody, they've been, they've been really, really good.

So we're talking on whatever day today has been a long day for me going back and forth. I'll be honest with you across the country, but on March 21st, 22nd, whatever it is, tell me on May 15th, is Chris Middleton healthy again? Is Rob Williams healthy? Is Al Horford healthy? Is Giannis? Is Tatum? What is the huge domino? I'm talking about these three teams, but we don't, you know, there's a major wildcard coming our way because there always is.

Something always happens that we can't possibly predict. We're spending a few minutes with Sean Grandy, who now is in Sacramento, but in a few hours will be back in Boston. And he is working in both TV and radio this season doing play-by-play.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. You mentioned Joe Mazzola. It's almost like it's a distant memory now that he took over at the beginning of the season rather abruptly.

What's the biggest difference between him and Emay Udonka? I think the way they handle the team publicly, because Emay, when the team did not perform, and they didn't at the start of last year, he went, he had no problem taking him out to the woodshed in public, going at him that way. And it was an uncomfortable environment. It's so funny when people, fans are going to be fans, and those are critical to Joe Mazzola in the last couple of weeks. Last year in January, February, people not only didn't like Emay because the team wasn't winning, they thought his style was going to backfire. They didn't like him beating up the players because they were concerned that they wouldn't react well to it.

And we all know how that turned out. So I think it's really one of the remarkable stories that the Celtics in August were probably the favorites to win it. They had made the trade for Brogdon. They had signed Gallinari. And then you had these three shots that happened to the team between opening night, when we started training camp, and the middle of August. You had the Gallinari injury costing the season. You have Rob Williams' injury, which cost him the first half of the year, and then completely out of nowhere. You have the coach that led him to game six of the NBA finals, replaced with a coach who had only been a head coach in small level college. And then the Celtics still started like the best team anyway, to 21-5 start, to begin the year.

So it's interesting that you're going to have an index. What if you have Joe Mazzola in his first year against Eric Spoelstra in the first round? And people are going to be looking, but you know what? Eric Spoelstra was a first-year coach, too. What I always say about Joe is this. What if Joe Mazzola is the next Eric Spoelstra? But this happens to be the way his job... What if this happens to be the way his job...

He got the first job. What if Danny Ains chose Joe instead of Will Hardy, and Will had taken over here as the head coach when the Emei Doka thing happened? So it's just people are always... Joe is going to be on that front line until he has postseason success, and that's the way of it.

He knows it, and he's taken a rough 30,000-foot view towards everything. But he's calm, calm seas, and a demeanor that I think carries that players really enjoy. We've talked about the roller coaster that the Celtics have been on as a team, kind of up and down a little bit. Jason Tatum himself has been on that same trajectory. Now, he did have 36 points tonight. He's still a superstar, but again, how would you describe the season that he's had coming off of that NBA Finals trip? I thought he was the MVP for the first third of the year.

Since then, not so much. You know he's had certain games, and tonight the game in Sacramento was certainly one of them that made you think, like, okay, he's snapping out of it. Since the All-Star break has been probably the longest stretch of Jason Tatum not looking like Jason Tatum in a couple of years. And the on-off numbers, he is a plus-minus net rating monster and has been for the first day he walked into the league.

This three-week stretch, it's not a two-game stretch anymore. It's, you know, been 13 games going into tonight since the All-Star break, and the Celtics actually have been better with him off the floor, and that never, ever, ever happens. So he has played a ton of minutes. He leads the league in scoring in terms of total points, which is all people really should be.

I'm on a big campaign to get that, get all of our mindsets changed from averages, particularly in the low-management era. It's never been more important to look at totals. You know, Sabonis leads the league in total rebounds. Jason Tatum leads the league in total points. I'd rather have total points, you know, than someone who plays half the games and averages another point or two a game.

And I know this because I know, Amy, that Aaron Judge did not lead Major League Baseball with 0.41 home runs per game last year. Like, it should be totals, not averages, but the big total for Jason Tatum is minutes. He's played the fourth-most minutes in the NBA, and you keep trying to get him rest and get him rest here, but, you know, he's playing 38, 39 minutes a night with all these games being close, and that'll wear on you too. So it's difficult to sustain a year he has had. It's difficult to sustain a 21-5 start. The same way it's difficult to sustain when you jump out to a big lead, particularly in this NBA. When you go up by 20, the next progression, everybody watches these games. You don't go up by 30. The league gets cut to 12.

That's how it happens. So, again, for the Celtics, like everybody else competing for a championship, is this group healthy from the playoff start? And as difficult as this stretch of the schedule has been, everybody forgets that you get to April. The schedule is light anyway. Celtics mostly have home games, and then what nobody has factored in yet in the new NBA is that the top 12 teams in the playoffs are getting a week off because of the play-in tournament. So you're getting an extra, you know, week. Not to mention there's no back-to-backs. You have a first round stretched out to 16 days and a week off beforehand. The Celtics last year swept Brooklyn in the first round.

They played, I think, four games over 16, 17 days. Sean Grandy's with us from Sacramento where he's getting set to go cross-country back to Boston after calling the Celtics game on TV between the Kings and the C's. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The West is fascinating. What's your impression of the West, especially that thick midsection of the Western Conference? What I said tonight on the telecast, which is the West is either the most fascinating conference I've ever seen or it's a dumpster fire.

I can't tell which one it is. Nobody can. I think the most interesting thing that is developing here that's clear cut is that you're going to have the experienced teams that people really like. Golden State, Phoenix. The teams that have been there before have Kevin Durant, whatever. And Phoenix, obviously, has been there and got to the finals two years ago. Now they have Durant. Golden State with all the championships. And they are going to be the underdog, the lower seed, against the Memphis's and the Sacramento's.

And that's really interesting. We're going to find out if these teams are for real. I think Sacramento is for real.

Although, obviously, teams that don't defend, they don't defend at a high level. I still like their roster composition. And people think of Sacramento as a young team. Aaron Fox is 25 years old. He's six years in the lakes. The bonus has been a pro since he was 17. They're not a super young team. Memphis, obviously, could use an adult in the room.

That's pretty clear. But they're super talented. It's fun to watch. Denver, what happens when Denver gets into the playoffs? They've had meltdowns before this NBA Jokic matchup. Saturday night is going to be fascinating to watch. So I think it's wide open.

And it's going to be interesting to watch. And again, who's healthy? Is Kyrie healthy? Is Durant healthy?

That's going to determine a lot in the West. Before I let you go, you had the chance to do spring training games for the New York Mets on SNY. And that smile on your face on your Twitter says it all. But when the dust settles a little bit, maybe you have a chance to breathe post basketball, what will you remember the most about that experience? I think a kid who grew up a few blocks from where you're sitting right now, you know, I mean, in Greenwich Village, who took the seven train to Shea Stadium to watch the Mets growing up in the 80s and all of a sudden out of nowhere in between Selva games. A couple of days of standing between Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez. And I was doing Mets games on television when I grew up watching Mets games on television. So it was not the easiest thing in the world to squeeze into my schedule.

But if I can impart one life lesson to anybody about doing it, it's that what's the point of having a bucket list if you're going to say no when they give you a chance to do something like that. So it was, you know, the Mets booth is the best with Ron and Keith and Gary Cohen. That's the best booth major league baseball. And it was, you know, an honor at every level to just sit in there and call games and get to the World Baseball Classic game because one of the games was against Venezuela. Two home runs and two pitches he saw.

And, you know, we all have our childhood dreams. Obviously, I thought when I was super young, I thought it'd be the second baseman to the Mets. Then when I got older and I realized that wasn't going to happen, I thought that people play by play after the Mets. Life takes you in funny directions, but to have a chance to do that and to hang out with those guys with that crew and to be able to share a couple of days in the Florida Sun with Mets fans calling baseball.

And, you know, at this time, when we're just, even during the game tonight, calling the game, I'm trying to keep an eye on, like, I'm seeing out of the corner of my eye, it's O'Connor and Mike Trout in the final World Baseball Classic. And it's, you can't, if you love, like, I understand why people, younger people don't like baseball. You don't have to like baseball. I'm not going to be the baseball.

I'm not going to be the one who tries to convert you, but if it's in your DNA and it's in your soul and it's just a part of your life, it's always going to be part of your life. So it was a play-by-play announcer's dream, no doubt. I have a giant grin on my face just hearing you talk about it, but I have to know, did you actually say to Keith Hernandez, I'm Sean Grandy, I've done game sevens? I didn't do the Seinfeld line. That was my, I did the longer one on Facebook, which is the longer line from the Keith episode, which is, you know, so I meet this guy, great guy, best guy I ever met in my whole life, baseball player. He doesn't call, but it was, you know, those guys are just, you know, they're not just sort of like, you know, childhood icons or whatever. They're also just really, really good at their job. Ron Darling is, you know, one of the elite baseball analysts, which I guess anyone could have probably predicted at the time he was a player, but, you know, it's so funny, Keith is, to a Mets fan, to a Cardinals fan, or a Mets fan of a certain age, right, he's a baseball icon, but if you're of a certain age, that's the first thing you think of.

You think of Keith Hernandez, he's got this amazing borderline Hall of Fame baseball career and an MVP award in 79 and the World Series in 86. You're thinking of the Seinfeld episode is the first thing you think of. Crazy. Yes, well, I'm so happy for you. That's awesome. We're glad to catch a couple of minutes. You can find Sean on Twitter at Sean Grandy, PBP doing TV and radio this season for the Boston Celtics, so I miss you when you're not on radio, but it's great to hear your voice again. Shave travels and thank you.

All right, my friend, good to catch up. It's March and that can mean only one thing. The madness is here. Not in front of a TV on game day? Listen to every round of NCAA March Madness live from Westwood One, free in the Odyssey app. Catch all the biggest moments of the tournament, no matter where you are. From Cinderella's, to buzzer beaters, to champions. Search for NCAA March Madness right here in the Odyssey app to get started.