It Was Pretty Eye Opening To Watch Other Star Players Take Accountability For Their Playoff Losses

I think one of the things we want from the best players on our favorite team is that no matter what, they are accountable. When things go their way there is no hesitation to reap the benefits, but when things don’t, maybe they lose a tough playoff series or come up short when it matters, they are accountable. They don’t run from those moments, and instead put everything on their own shoulders because they’re the best players or as some might say the leaders of the team. We got two great examples of that yesterday, and I can’t lie I’m pretty jealous.

The first came from Nikola Jokic. A man that just completed one of the best playoff debuts in NBA history. If there was one person you could not put blame on for the Nuggets coming up short in the second round it’s that man. But after the game he had this to say

One part really stood out to me

“They look at me as a leader. They look at me as their best player,” Jokic said postgame. “So yeah, I missed those free throws near the end, and in the Portland game we went to four overtimes, I missed a lot of other shots, and I’m supposed to make some of those.”

That’s a guy showing real leadership right there. Everyone with a brain knows Jokic is the furthest from someone who actually deserves blame, but he’s putting it on himself as the team’s best player. Hard not to respect that.

Then we had Joel Embiid. Personally, I love that he was crying after the game. Give me a franchise player that actually gives a damn 10 times out of 10. Few teams were a hyped up as this Sixers group and with good reason, they have a ton of talent. When they are firing on all cylinders they are tough to beat and this series against the Raptors showed us that. Well after the game we had a similar message from Embiid

You can hate Embiid for a lot of things, but he tells the truth. He doesn’t run when things get tough, he calls it like he sees it. When they get their ass kicked, he says that. When it comes time for someone to step up and take responsibility for another 2nd round exit, he does it. That’s what a leader does in my opinion.

So watching both of these guys, two players that had pretty great postseasons talk like this and show this level of hurt after a rough playoff loss, all my brain can do is think back to how our own franchise player reacted to a similar ending. I don’t think it’s possible to have more opposite reactions than what we saw from these two and Kyrie Irving. If you remember, this was Kyrie’s postgame press conference after the Celts were eliminated

He talked about how this wasn’t a time to be disappointed and how he was excited to watch the Bucks play and all this other bullshit. No accountability or anything like that despite him having the worst 4 game playoff stretch of his career. I dunno maybe it’s just me, but watching these other #1 options go about their losses how they did, showing real emotion and accountability and then seeing what we as Celtics fans dealt with I couldn’t help but be jealous. All we want as fans is for the best players to care as much as we do. It’s silly and probably an unrealistic expectation but that’s the reality.