Having turned 40, I’m aware that I have lots of OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD potential, but the NBA really needs to cool it with the constant uniform switching. Most of the time, whatever, we’ve all accepted that an NBA player’s job expectations in 2021 include modeling various styles of Nike activewear. It’s fine.
But when the Nets are playing the Celtics in Boston, and one team wears white and the other wears black, it should not be Boston in black.
Surely, somebody at league headquarters has a copy of NBA 2K21. Fire it up and preview these uniform matchups before they happen. Mostly, so long as they don’t involve Golden State’s “OAKLAND” jerseys, they’ll be fine. But those Oakland duds, burn them.
The Celtics, for their part, might be keen to bring back the black uniforms for Game 4 after their 125-119 victory, cutting the Nets’ series lead to 2-1. Jayson Tatum had the Celtics’ first 50-point playoff game since Isaiah Thomas dropped 53 on the Wizards in 2017. You might remember that performance, but you probably couldn’t guess that the last pair of teammates to each score 40 in a playoff game were Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday for the 2018 Pelicans — a distinction they still hold because Kevin Durant scored “only” 39 to go with James Harden’s 41 for Brooklyn.
These were great performances, and it would have been a lot more fun to watch if it had been more watchable, because, really, every time flipping channels back to it, it took a few seconds to register again that the road team was in white on the parquet floor of Boston.
So as not just to complain, a request: if the Celtics do wear black — usually a Nets color, not a Celtics color — then the Nets need to wear their sky blues. It should be readily apparent to anyone turning on a game which team is which. That’d do it.