The Boston Celtics’ first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs begins in about a minute. They must contend with their playoff rival, the Miami Heat, who defeated them last year in the Eastern Conference Finals and forced them to trade away the heart of their team, Marcus Smart, to make a major upgrade in their interior.
This season’s Celtics team is among the best the franchise has ever had. They won 71.8% of their games, putting them fifth overall in the franchise’s storied history. Only one of those teams, the ’72-’73 team (which has the highest winning percentage in the team’s history, by the way), did not win a championship (they lost in the ECF to the Knicks, who went on to defeat the Lakers in five games).
This season’s Celtics also have the best record in the NBA, ensuring home-court advantage all the way through the Finals (should they make it).
To say expectations are high in Boston would be an understatement.
But there are also doubts. While it’s true the Celtics only lost 18 games this season (two of those losses came after they clinched the #1 seed and took their foot off the pedal), they lost to teams they may face in the playoffs:
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- Denver Nuggets (0-2)
- Milwaukee Bucks (2-2)
- Indiana Pacers (3-2)
- Oklahoma City Thunder (1-1)
- Los Angeles Lakers (1-1)
- Los Angeles Clippers (1-1)
- Minnesota Timberwolves (1-1)
- Cleveland Cavaliers (2-1)
- New York Knicks (3-1)
- Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers (3-1)
Of course, many of those teams are facing each other in the first round, so the only team the Celtics have to worry about right now is the Miami Heat, whom the Celts defeated all three times they met this season.
Additionally, they’ll be without their superstar (and Celtics nemesis) Jimmy Butler, who will be out for several weeks with an MCL injury. They’ll also be without former Celtic “Scary” Tery Rozier, who is “week to week” with a neck injury and will miss at least Game 1.
But if there’s one thing I learned from watching Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown play basketball together these past several years, it’s that they both know how to play flat when it counts.
Here’s a reminder. Game 7 of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat in Boston, when Brown committed eight turnovers and went 1-9 from 3PT range:
Thankfully, Brown has improved his handles this season, especially with his left hand (which got uber-exposed last season). He decreased his turnovers from 197 last season to 168 this season, reducing his average per 36 minutes to 2.55 turnovers (for comparison’s sake, Lebron James averaged 3.52 turnovers per 36 minutes).
Unfortunately, the trend is going the other way when it comes to Jayson Tatum in clutch time. According to ClutchPoints.com, Tatum is ranked “dead last among 25 players with a minimum of 45 field goal attempts in clutch situations.”
Over the past three seasons, in fact, his clutch shooting has gotten downright abysmal. He’s gone from shooting 75% in his rookie season to shooting 26.9% when the shot is crucial to the outcome (the clutch squared stat below, which measures shooting percentage when the shot is the top 1% in potential win probability impact):
Hopefully, clutch shooting won’t matter in the first round when all signs point to a Celtics sweep (based on the current odds of Game 1, if a person bets $10 on the Celtics to win, they’ll only net 83¢ in winnings). But we’re gonna need some clutch shooting if we face Denver, Oklahoma City, the Pacers, or the Knicks.
And then there’s our coach.
While head coach Joe Mazzulla won two Coach of the Month awards this season and one last season (becoming only the seventh head coach in NBA history to earn at least three Coach of the Month awards in their first two seasons with a team) and was a finalist for the Coach of the Year last season, his youth, relative inexperience, and apparent arrogance (e.g., he sticks with his game plan even when it’s not working) make him perhaps the weakest link in the entire organization.
He has demonstrated time and again that he can’t compete with high-quality coaches. The Celtics outgun the Heat at every position and all down the bench, but if these games somehow come down to the wire, I have zero faith in Brown’s ball handling, Tatum’s clutch shooting, or Mazzulla’s ability to outcoach Miami’s tried and tested multi-championship winning coach, Erik Spoelstra.
Then again, the Celtics are the winningest team in the NBA. They’ve locked down home-court advantage and only lost four games at home all season.
With all my doubts, the reality is that if the Celtics are going to win their 18th banner anytime soon, they’re going to win it this season.
Go Celtics!