I can’t believe I have to say this about the Celtics. Even though the Celtics are far and away one of the best teams in the NBA (if not the best), I really don’t think this team will ever win anything of note.
It’s a really sad thing to say about one’s favorite team, but they just aren’t serious winners.
The Celtics are easily one of the best teams in the NBA and have arguably been THE BEST team in the league over the last 8 years in the regular season, yet they have always come up short when the moment REALLY MATTERED in the postseason. And, to be honest, it looks like the exact same thing is going to happen again this season.
The Boston Celtics are a great regular season team. No one can deny that, and I’m most certainly not going too.
Last year, they were easily the best team in the league for 75% of the season (until they started choking around February and March to allow the Bucks to supplant them as the 1st seed in the East) and had two All-NBA level talents on the roster in Jaylen Brown (2nd Team) and Jayson Tatum (1st Team) as they finished with a 57-25 record and the Atlantic Division title.
And, if you look at the last six full years from now to the 2016-17 season (the year Jaylen Brown was drafted), the Celtics have won no less than 47 games, they’ve made the playoffs each and every season, they’ve won 3 division titles, and they’ve been to the postseason in each one of those years.
In truth, the only “bad” year the Celtics had with Jayson Tatum (who was drafted at the start of the 2017-18 season) and Jaylen Brown was their 2020-21 season in which they went 36-36 and were beaten 4-1 by the Nets in the first round. But, if you compare this “bad” year for the Celtics to a team like the Pistons or the Hornets, that will seem like an unbelievable step in the right direction.
So, everything about this Celtics team has to be put in perspective of the rest of the league, and even more so when you consider the fact that the Celtics haven’t had a losing season in 10 years and will be making their 11th straight postseason appearance this season dating all the way back to that 2014-15 losing season (40-42) I was talking about. Yeah, the Celtics still make the playoffs even when they have a losing record.
Anyways, the reason why I’m mentioning all this is to put a little context around what I’m about to say: this Celtics team are a bunch of losers.
Yeah, I know. How can I say something like that when I just gave you all the great regular season stats and winning seasons these guys have had over the last 8 years? Well, it’s for the simple reason that the Celtics will always be able to beat the poor and middling regular season and early postseason rosters in the NBA; however, when the spotlights are REALLY on them, they crumble and break faster than a brittle gingerbread house.
I mean, just look at the last four years’ worth of Celtics postseason losses if you don’t believe me!
They crumbled against an INFERIOR Miami Heat in the ECF in the 2020 bubble, they completely choked in the 2020-21 season with their 36-36 record and were beat up by KD, Kyrie Irving, and James Hardens’ Brooklyn Nets super team 4-1 in the 1st round, they NARROWLY survived getting eliminated by Jimmy Butler and the Heat for a second straight time in the 2022 ECF (if Butler hits that 3, the Heat are going back to the NBA Finals)…before choking a 2-1 Finals lead to Steph Curry and an old Warriors team.
And then they choked 3 straight games to go down 0-3 to the Heat in this past year’s EFC, fought back to tie the series 3-3, and then got blown out by 19 points on HOME COURT to a MUCH INFERIOR Heat team in Game 7.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention ANY of the playoff meltdowns the Celtics had with Kyrie Irving for a couple of seasons (and that included a ECF loss to LeBron’s last Cleveland Cavaliers team…which got destroyed by the Warriors in the Finals) or how the Celtics have had 3 different coaches during this timeframe with the same results.
“Okay, this is all old news,” you may be thinking to yourself. “The Celtics nowadays are SO MUCH BETTER than they were back with Kyrie or even those early 2020’s playoff chokejobs.” And I would love to agree with you as this is my favorite team being a native Massachusettsan, but I can’t. I can’t for one simple reason: the Celtics play playoff-losing basketball.
This is just my preference for how basketball should be played, and I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, but in order to win in the NBA in my opinion, you need DOMINATE big men. And the Celtics don’t have that.
The Celtics may have great regular season rebounding and blocking stats due to Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Jayson Tatum’s efficiency, but Porzingis (who has been their best defensive player and 2nd best player overall this year) is far too injury prone to rely on in gritty playoff games, Al Horford can’t shoot and really can’t defend the best centers in the league aside from Joel Embiid for some strange reason, and Jayson Tatum always chokes in the playoffs in the most important moments (aka: 2022 Finals vs. GS, 2023 ECF vs. Heat).
The Celtics are FAR TOO RELIANT on 3-point shooting too carry them through games (3-point ranks for the C’s: 1st in attempts, 1st in makes, only 11th in shooting percentage), while the best teams in the league, such as the Bucks, Nuggets, 76ers, Timberwolves, and Thunder all have dominant big men who can easily handle the Celtics starting lineup when they lose their touch.
And, believe me, the Celtics WILL LOSE THEIR SHOOTING TOUCH in the postseason. It’s happened YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR!!!
I’m not saying this is a bad team, but they haven’t proven they can win meaningful postseason games yet. And I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.
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