#i want him to win his third championship so bad *continues to manifest like i have since the beginning of the season*

[checo-max]

PLAYOFFS MEDIA DAY 📷 🏁

okay, but reading that it's his 10th time being in the playoffs hit me like a train,,, it's been so long since his first cup chase, and even longer since his rookie year 🥹🩷

[sbknews]

Lewis, De Keyrel Crowned On Day One At NJMP

Jake Lewis And Kaleb De Keyrel Win MotoAmerica Championships Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis wrapped up the 2021 MotoAmerica Stock 1000 title with a relatively stress-free victory while Robem Engineering’s Kaleb De Keyrel finished second later on a sunny Saturday to earn the 2021 MotoAmerica Twins Cup Championship at New Jersey Motorsports Park. M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly, meanwhile, took a giant step toward capturing the 2021 Supersport title with a .001 of a second victory over his championship rival Richie Escalante. SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup Championship leader Tyler Scott also scored a victory on Saturday to turn his nine-point lead over Benjamin Gloddy into a 21-point lead going into Sunday’s race two. Stock 1000: Lewis Crowned Ask any motorcycle road racer, and pretty much all of them will say that the best way to wrap up a championship is to win the race when you clinch. And that’s exactly what happened for Altus Motorsports Suzuki rider Jake Lewis in the weekend’s only Stock 1000 race. Lewis had the best day of his MotoAmerica career with the win and the championship, but his closest rival Corey Alexander unfortunately had one of his worst days. Aboard his “Engine 23” HONOS HVMC Racing Kawasaki - which featured special fire engine-inspired livery in remembrance of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 - had a technical issue with his bike on the grid and was unable to start the race. Second place went to Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates, who led a large portion of the 15-lap race until Lewis ultimately passed him and went on to the get the win. Meanwhile, the surprise of the day was third-place finisher Mike Selpe, who put his Markbilt Racing Yamaha on the podium in his first-ever MotoAmerica race. “I wanted to get it done at this round and go out with a win, but, unfortunately, I didn’t get to race with (Corey Alexander),” Lewis said. “Hats off to Ashton (Yates). I honestly wasn’t expecting that at all. I think he had some problems with his bike overheating yesterday and this morning he was fast, but I didn’t know what his pace was going to be like. I just let him do the lead. It’s tough to lead around here. It was kind of a longer race. I wanted to see how he managed his tires. He actually had a pretty good little gap there midway. I made a mistake going into turn seven and ran a little bit wide, but then after that I was like, ‘I’m not going to let him win.’ I wanted to go out and get the championship up on top of the step, so that’s what we did. Hats off to the whole Altus Motorsports team for giving me the opportunity this year. Like I said on the podium, I was sitting on the couch last year, was over 200 pounds, and kind of hit a tough spot. Thought about quitting racing. They gave me the opportunity and I worked my ass off to get back in shape. I went out and got my butt kicked at the first round. I was off the podium both races. I was like, ‘It’s time to get going now,’ and I’ve been on the podium ever since. Like you said, five wins and three in a row. So, in a good spot right now. It feels good to get the championship this weekend.” Supersport: Kelly On The Verge Of Title In Supersport race one, the expected battle between points leader Sean Dylan Kelly aboard his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki and defending champion Richie Escalante aboard his HONOS HVMC Racing Kawasaki manifested itself in a big way during the 19-lap event. But, before that, it was Kelly’s teammate Sam Lochoff who had the best race of his MotoAmerica career so far. The South African led the race multiple times and mixed it up with both Kelly and Escalante. On the final lap, Kelly and Escalante established themselves at the front, and the battle was on. The season-long rivals swapped the lead at least four times on the final go-around, and Kelly ultimately prevailed by a scant .001 of a second to notch his 11th win of the season thus far and move even closer to clinching the season championship. “It’s been a special weekend,” said Kelly. “Coming in with the chance to win the championship without even having to win a race, it goes through your mind. A lot of people have been talking to me about the weekend and what I have to do, what I don’t have to do. At the end of the day, I’ve done I think the right thing all season long, so why change it? I focused on not overthinking, coming here, and doing the same job as every other weekend. I’m really happy with today’s job. It was honestly on the harder side of those races, really tough. It was awesome to see Sam (Lochoff) up there. He’s really competitive and a new rider to fight with throughout the race. I tried to play it a little smart, not get too crazy with him and do unnecessary moves. I had to do some thinking in the middle of the race and just leave it for the end and it played out well. I knew Richie (Escalante) was going to be there towards the end as well. It worked out well. Fought until the end. I think I made a little dumb mistake. I actually thought it was the last lap with two to go, so I celebrated for a second until I realized that it wasn’t the last lap. So, that was a first. I had to gather myself up in about five seconds once Richie went by me again. I’m really glad that I was able to do some close moves. Richie was definitely closing the door in some places, but I still did it. The door was still big enough. It was a close one, but happy with the job and just focus on tomorrow.” SportbikeTrackGear.Com Junior Cup: Scott In Control In SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup race one, Scott Powersports KTM rider Tyler Scott and Landers Racing Kawasaki’s Ben Gloddy were expected to continue their season-long fight for the championship, but a fractured wrist suffered by Gloddy a couple of weeks ago prevented Gloddy from finishing higher than fourth, and he was more than eight-and-a-half seconds behind race-winner Scott when the 13-lap event concluded. While Scott tallied his eighth win of the season, the rest of the podium was a battle between Rodio Racing Kawasaki’s Gus Rodio and Bauce Racing/Cybersafe Solutions/JL62 Racing Kawasaki’s Joe LiMandri Jr. At the finish line, Rodio prevailed in second place by just .024 of a second over third-place finisher LiMandri Jr. “I tried to break away early thinking there was going to be a pack of riders, definitely these two,” Scott said. “I thought Ben (Gloddy) was going to be there. I broke away and I saw on my pit board two seconds, so I just tried to keep it at two seconds because I was really pushing the limit the first couple laps. I got kind of close to the track record. I just stayed at the pace I was going and did what I needed to do to win.” Twins Cup: It’s Title Time For De Keyrel The Twins Cup class has seen an influx of new riders all season long, and for round eight of the championship, Aprilia test rider Tommaso Marcon raced for Robem Engineering, while Cory Ventura, who podiumed twice in Supersport at Laguna Seca in his only other appearance this season, competed for Veloce Racing. It was a case of bad news/good news for the pair of Aprilia RS 660 riders as Marcon crashed out of the 14-lap event, while Ventura won the race. And while Ventura celebrated on the top step of the podium, second-place finisher Kaleb De Keyrel celebrated the class championship that he clinched aboard his Robem Engineering Aprilia. Also celebrating was De Keyrel’s teammate Max Toth, who got his first Twins Cup podium finish in only his second race in the class. After his race win, Ventura said, “All weekend long I’ve been facing issues with my shifter. I’m not good when it comes to downshifting. I’ve had years in the past where it’s been a huge struggle of mine, and once I got on (a Kawasaki in Supersport), I didn’t have that issue anymore. Here we are again. It kind of caught me by surprise. As soon as I go to focus on racing and what’s in front of me, I forget about making positive shifts. So, tomorrow I need to make sure I get that dialed in and figured out. But to be honest, I don't think I was riding too well. I think there was a lot of time out of the racetrack and so a lot of battles to be had. Tomorrow we’ve got to come back swinging because there’s no way what I did today is going to win tomorrow’s race.” “Half of me wanted to win and half of me wanted to play it safe,” said championship winner De Keyrel. “I was definitely going for the win. Cory was riding awesome. Max got by me, and he was riding really good. Definitely stepped it up from last weekend, so that was cool to see. All three Robem Engineering bikes were up front, so that was really good for us. There were definitely some points in the race where I was like, I really want to win, but we’re pushing really hard here. Then Tommaso threw it away. Something happened to Mazziotto, I think. I was like, okay, there’s a lot on the line here, so I was kind of trying to plan my move where I could. I really did want to win. Like I said, the whole race, half of me wanted to win, half of me wanted to just play it safe, but I gave it everything I had out there. Cory was riding awesome, so congrats to him. We’ll hopefully work on the setup a little bit and come out swinging for tomorrow.” For more info checkout our dedicated MotoAmerica Support Series News page motoamerica-support-series-latest-news/ Or visit the official MotoAmerica website motoamerica.com/ Follow us on social media: Instagram: @superbikenews Twitter: @sbknews Facebook: @superbikenews

Kaleb De Keyrel's second-place finish was good enough to earn him the Twins Cup title. Photo by Brian J. Nelson SBN Directory - add your motorcycle related business here

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[junker-town]

This is who the Celtics always were

The regular season told us everything we needed to know.

BOSTON — In the week off following a four-game sweep of the Indiana Pacers, a common refrain heard around the Celtics practice facility was that we’d finally find out how good they really are. That it would take 91 games to come to a definitive conclusion about this team spoke to a feeling that was both hopefully revisionist and dismissively sarcastic.

They had convincingly shown us over the course of the regular season that these Celtics were a team that played together when it felt like it and didn’t deal well with adversity. They were booed off the court numerous times for their effort as much as their execution, and the collective response to these challenges was to question each other and point fingers.

It was a baffling turn of events for a team that had reached Game 7 of the conference finals last season without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. How could a team that thrived on being mentally tougher than their opponents continue to crumble under pressure?

The four-game sweep over the Pacers suggested that maybe it had all been a ruse and the regular-season issues were behind them. Their team defense finally locked into place consistently, and everyone seemed to thrive in their roles. It was a nice thought while it lasted, but like so many other false premises this season, it was merely an aberration.

The Pacers, as gritty as they were, simply didn’t have enough offensive talent to really force the issue. The 60-win Bucks with the league’s presumptive Most Valuable Player in Giannis Antetokounmpo would provide a far greater test for the Celtics. And they failed miserably.

After taking Game 1 in surprising fashion, the Celtics melted down in a Game 2 blowout that saw the Bucks get whatever they wanted. It got worse at home in Game 3 when they drifted away from their team concept and reverted back to a season’s worth of bad habits. Surely, it couldn’t have been them, though. Must have been the officials.

Facing a do-or-die Game 4 on their home floor, the Celtics were gifted a golden opportunity to even the series. The calls went their way this time, so much so that Anteokounmpo had to check out early in the third quarter with foul trouble in a tie game. When Khris Middleton joined him a few minutes later, the moment was there. The Celtics responded with all the urgency of mid-January contest.

By the end of the frame, the Bucks had an eight-point lead behind stellar performances from bench players like George Hill and Pat Connaughton. The Celtics went down the way the way they have all season, in a flurry of quick shots and poor transition defense.

“It’s tough,” Al Horford said after that game. “That was a moment there where we could have capitalized more and we didn’t, for some reason. I have to look at the film, but I didn’t feel like we really exploited or played the way we wanted to play. We did it at times but we didn’t do it enough in stretches.”

It somehow managed to get even worse in a Game 5 wipeout that ended with Irving on the bench for the final eight minutes following a 6-for-21 disaster. A gross ending to a miserable campaign.

This is who the 2019 Celtics are and we should have known it all along. As tempting as it was to pretend that the regular season didn’t matter, it told us everything we needed to know about this team. They have performed in this series like an overmatched 4-seed, which is exactly what they are.

***

To be sure, there have been a handful of squads throughout history who have kicked into a higher gear once the postseason rolled around. Those teams were blessed with both great talent and an inherent togetherness born from successful histories together. The Celtics had neither.

It turns out that the talent part of the equation was overstated.

Some of that was simple misfortune. Gordon Hayward was supposed to be the secondary playmaking option next to Kyrie Irving, but his return from a gruesome leg injury has been slow and arduous. Aron Baynes was in and out of the lineup with a variety of big man ailments. Marcus Smart was injured at exactly the wrong time in a meaningless regular-season game, which pretty much summed up the regular season.

Some of that was age. Horford, who remains as invaluable a player as there is in the league, hasn’t been able to match the lofty heights of his postseason play from a year ago when he outplayed Giannis and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid.

On the flip side of the generational divide, Jayson Tatum’s progress stagnated in a never-ending series of long twos and passive fallaways. Terry Rozier never quite figured out what was needed of him.

Credit where credit is due. Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris were both solid throughout the postseason and for most of the regular season, as well. More than any of the young players, Brown ultimately accepted his role and found ways to contribute. As he’s done throughout his time in Boston, Morris has performed in every role. The dude is just a gamer.

While the Celtics clearly have “talent,” what they didn’t have was cohesion. Some of that must fall on coach Brad Stevens, who was so masterful at putting players in position to succeed during last year’s run. Beyond X’s and O’s, a coach’s first responsibility is getting buy-in from their players and that didn’t happen consistently.

That manifested itself in a lack of on-court trust and left Irving doing way too much. The Bucks and coach Mike Budenholzer wisely used that against him, loading up their defense to limit his flights of one-on-one fancy. Irving saw waves of double teams and shot just 25-for-83 after Game 1.

“Who cares?” Irving said after Game 4. “I’m a basketball player. Prepare the right way. Like I said, it’s a little different when your rhythm is challenged every play down. You’re being picked up full-court. They’re doing things to test you. The expectations on me are going to be sky high. I try to utilize their aggression against them and still put my teammates in great position, while still being aggressive. I’m trying to do it all. For me, the 22 shots, I should have shot 30. I’m that great of a shooter.”

Like so many Kyrie quotes, it was part inflammatory and part revealing. Who cares may wind up being his Boston epitaph, but buried within the woe-is-me bravado is the tension that defined this Celtics’ season.

What Kyrie is, and what the Celtics achieved without him last spring, has been a constant source of creative friction. The idea/hope was that he and they would form a dynamic machine that could beat you in a number of ways. The reality has been far less than the sum of those experiences.

It was a tempting belief to buy into, given Irving’s unique talent and the Celtics’ tough-minded approach without him and Hayward. Yet, it hasn’t clicked and while there are dozens of reasons why the C’s underachieved, it keeps coming back to that disconnect between what they were and who they’ve become.

***

Before the playoffs began, a Person Who Knows Things whispered in my ear that Kyrie was gone. I asked him if he was telling me or trying to convince me. A little bit of both, he responded.

As everyone knows, Irving can opt out of his contract this summer and become a free agent. This has long been part of the plan because once he does, Danny Ainge will be able to go after Anthony Davis in a trade setting up a partnership that would launch the next Boston era of contention. It’s a weird twist on an unusual set of circumstances.

Irving’s situation is a first for the Celtics. Never before have they had to convince a player to commit to staying after they got to Boston. Throughout their long and storied history players from other teams — some just as eccentric as Kyrie — arrived in town with battle scars from other franchises. Once they became indoctrinated in the Celtic mystique, they never wanted to leave.

Rather than embrace that lineage, Irving has chafed at the expectation at times. He noted on a handful of occasions that people expect perfection, which isn’t exactly true. What they want is effort and commitment, and they’re savvy enough to understand the difference. The result is that this Celtics’ season suffered from an identity crisis.

The working idea was they would go all out to win a championship with their current group. At the same time, they would convince Kyrie to sign on for the long haul and continue laying the groundwork for a potential dynasty that wouldn’t include many of the players on the roster who were asked to sacrifice for the greater good.

How this manifests itself in the offseason remains to be seen. Throughout the season, the Celtics maintained confidence that Kyrie will be back and that a trade for AD can be consummated. The two moves are essentially intertwined. After this disastrous season, how can anyone be truly sure of Kyrie’s intentions?

There are many other considerations. Horford and Baynes can also opt out of their contracts. Morris is a free agent and Rozier will be a restricted free agent. Would an AD deal include Tatum or Brown? Would they have to give up Smart, who has become a beloved figure within the organization and the city?

It’s dangerous to assume anyone has any idea what will happen between now and July, but then this season has always been based on a series of assumptions. The reality is that in an all-or-nothing campaign, the Celtics repeatedly came up empty. Now there’s nothing left but the fallout.