Havlicek Stole the Pod NBA Basketball Podcast

What are the long-term implications of the Boston Celtics trading Jaylen Brown to the Philadelphia 76ers? By now, most fans of the team have an answer for why they elected to move on from the 2024 NBA FInals MVP. But what it will mean for the team in future seasons when it comes to contending for NBA titles? For that matter, what can we expect to see from Brown with the Sixers in the long term --...

How might the Jaylen Brown trade impact not just the Boston Celtics but the `Sixers Philadelphia 76ers and the NBA's Eastern Conference next season? One of the bigger rocks in our collective sandals about this trade has been dealing Brown to not just a rival but the team that sent the Celtics fishing in the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs. But the Georgia native's impact could change how both...

Like most fans of the Boston Celtics, we started our most recent episode of "Havlicek Stole the Pod" knowing there was a very good chance that star Celtics forward Jaylen Brown might be traded soon. We brought on Third Apron NBA salary cap analyst Yossi Gozlan to help talk us through how the league's current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) helped put Boston in such a position to begin with,...

What is the future of Jaylen Brown with the Boston Celtics, and how have the media played a role in the mess the Celtics find themselves in now? In the failed pursuit of Milwaukee Bucks star big man Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Celtics moved fast, and the media broke stuff. Some of the current situation Boston President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens has to sort out came from his and his staf...

Where do the Boston Celtics go from here? After a failed pursuit of Milwaukee Bucks star big man Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Celtics now find themselves in damage control mode as Boston President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens pivots to repairing his relationship with dangled star Jaylen Brown while also reportedly fielding calls from rival ball clubs in case a trade is needed. The Celtics a...

What we know (and what we do not know) about the Boston Celtics trade interest in Giannis Antetokounmpo is not at all clear at first glance, with contradictory reports (sometimes from the same sources) muddying the waters for Celtics fans and analysts at the height of silly season. For those of us unfamiliar with that latter term, after the end of the playoffs and before the start of the next seas...

Under the current NBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA), what a contender looks like has started to change – and how contenders play in the postseason as well. As the Boston Celtics begin the process of shifting their team from a contender under the former regime to the present one, fans of the team might be expecting moves that may never come to pass. To be clearer, the days of spending deep...

New England is the home of basketball excellence, whether we are talking at the NBA level with the Boston Celtics, or at the college level with the University of Connecticut. And Huskies beat writer Dave Borges just wrote a book tracing the history of the latter, including several key junctures where UConn and the Celtics share history. Focused on the rise and continued success of the Huskies in "...

With the Boston Celtics out of the 2026 NBA postseason, attention turns to building the roster of the future for fans and executives of the team alike. So with that in mind, the hosts of "Havlicek Stole the Pod" sat down with Motor City Hoops and Game Theory analyst Bryce Simon to talk through what prospects the Celtics ought to be working out. With the Nos. 27 and 40 picks in the 2026 NBA Draft,...

With the Boston Celtics now in their offseason after losing to the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs, retooling the roster is a given. But in the meantime, the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs are locked in a battle for the ages that is giving 28 other front offices pause when it comes to building a competitive contender. And we can and sh...

What might the Boston Celtics offseason moves look like? The Celtics are all but assured to make some significant changes to the roster they used in the 2025-26 NBA regular season. After Boston President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens effectively said as much in his end-of-season press conference in the wake of an unceremonious first-round exit at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers, and th...

What tools do the Boston Celtics have to reshape their roster this offseason? After an unceremonious exist in the first round of the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs, it soon became apparent that the feel-good season of Boston overachieving ahead of the playoffs was not as solid as it perhaps looked. But that also does not mean that the team is a disaster far from true contention either, both...

The Boston Celtics run in the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs came to a grinding halt with a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the first round series they led 3-1 four tilts into the round. With the loss, their pursuit of Banner 19 comes to an end until the start of next season, but also provides a window into what that version of the team will need. How do we feel about what was su...

The Boston Celtics have somehow found a way to squander a 3-1 series lead to the Philadelphia 76ers in their 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs first round series after dropping Game 6 in all-too-familiar fashion. Now the Celtics find themselves in their last chance to close out the series before watching an otherwise magical campaign come to a screeching halt as old bad habits resurface at the...

The Boston Celtics won Game 4 of their 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs first round series with the Philadelphia 76ers 128-96 behind a monster game off the bench from Payton Pritchard (32 points, 5 assists), with string play from Jayson Tatum (30 points, 7 boards, 11 assists), and Jaylen Brown (20 points, 7 rebounds). The Celtics bench added 57 points overall, nearly more than Joel Embiid (26...

The Boston Celtics won Game 1 of their first-round series of the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs vs. the Philadelphia 76ers in decisive fashion, blowing out the Philadelphia 76ers 123-91 at TD Garden on Sunday (April 19) night. Plenty went right for the Celtics, and little Philadelphia, so we can expect Game 2 to have a different contour than we saw in these two ball clubs' first meeting of t...

Now that the Boston Celtics are set to take on the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs, what do we need to know about the series? It has become something of a ritual to face the Sixers early in the postseason for Boston in recent years, and up until now, it has typically gone the Celtics way even in series where the games were close. Now, Philly is in...

There are just a few games left in the 2025-26 NBA regular season. What do the Boston Celtics need to do before they start the 2026 NBA Playoffs? The hosts of "Havlicek Stole the Pod" sat down with Forbes beat writer Bobby Krivitsky to talk through what Boston has in terms of unfinished business before the start of the postseason, how the playoff picture has changed since our last pod, and where D...

The 2025-26 NBA regular season is more than 90% over, with the Boston Celtics having just six games left to play. But after that of course comes the 2026 NBA Playoffs, and the Celtics are poised to make some serious noise in the Eastern Conference postseason scrum thanks to an MVP-caliber campaign from star Boston forward Jaylen Brown, big steps forward from several rotation players, and a surpris...

As we approach the end of the 2025-26 regular season, the NCAA tournament is heating up. There, we will get our best glimpse yet of most of the incoming cohort of 2026 NBA Draft, and who the next members of the Celtics organization might be. The league is also elevating their assault on the tendency of teams to make their play worse to get said players after a recent Board of Governors meeting lai...

The Boston Celtics are currently well past the three-fourths mark of the 2025-26 NBA regular season. And with that point in time having been arrived at, we are seeing an uptick in talk about the full-season awards that various Execs, coaches, and players from around the league are in the running for. There are a handful of awards that a member of the Celtics organization have a shot at, from Jayle...

Derrick White has carved out a critical role with the Boston Celtics on the court since being dealt to the team in 2022. And he has also become an integral part of the greater Celtics community off the court, from his Curbside Care charity events to his beloved Sam Adams commercials for their Derrick White Ale. And the Colorado native has also had a privileged view on the rehab and return of his s...

With a certain St. Louis native having his injury report status changed from "out" to "questionable," the world of Boston Celtics (and NBA) fandom just kicked into overdrive. How will he change the Celtics season to date, where will he fit into this version of the team, and how should our expectations change are just a few of the relevant questions in need of some answers. But we can also turn bac...

Jayson Tatum is playing 5-on-5 basketball again with the Boston Celtics, and fans of the team can almost feel his return to the court this season. But such a return is still, even now, not certain – nor is what will happen to the Celtics when he does. The surprise success of Boston in his absence (and that of Al Horford, Luke Kornet, Jrue Holiday, and Kristaps Porzingis, while we're at it) might b...

All-Star Week is now behind us, and the Boston Celtics and the wider NBA turn their attention to the stretch run and the postseason beyond. Which Eastern Conference ball clubs are contenders, pretenders, or somewhere further down the hierarchy of the East? Taking into account the moves made by these teams and their general health (and predilection for accumulating lottery odds while we're at it),...