Next weekend, the New England Patriots will play in the Super Bowl for the ninth time in eighteen years, competing for their sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy in just as many years.
During that same time period, the Boston Red Sox won four Commissioner’s Trophies, the Boston Bruins won one Stanley Cup, and the Boston Celtics won one Larry O’Brian Championship Trophy. It’s been a fantastic run for the region, and no one wants it to be over.
Which is why, this year, many hope the Celtics can raise one more championship banner over the legendary parquet floor.
When Lebron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for a team in the Western Conference during the offseason, Boston’s path to the Eastern Conference Championship seemed clear. Winning wouldn’t be easy, thanks to highly competitive teams coming out of Milwaukee, Toronto, and Philadelphia, but the strength of the Celtics’ lineup seemed to outweigh their competitors’, and fans felt justifiably confident going into the start of the season.
It’s now 48 games later; the season is slightly more than half over. With 30 wins and 18 losses, the Celtics rank as the fifth-best/tenth-worst team in the conference, and fans feel justifiably concerned going into the back half of the season.
No one quite knows why the Celtics have underwhelmed. Among the many possibilities are the leadership skills (or possibly the lack thereof) of Kyrie Irving, who is unquestionably the team’s most dominant player. The team has also been bedeviled by the slower-than-hoped-for recovery of Gordon Hayward, who missed the entire 2017-2018 season due to a gruesome leg injury, and an injury to Al Horford, who sat for 10 games and is only now returning to full strength. The team’s two younger stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, have seen their values drop as well, with neither of them living up to expectations set by their performances last year.
No one quite knows why Coach Brad Stevens can’t get his players to perform at the highest possible level of their potential, but he hasn’t and they aren’t, so the team is fifth in their conference.
The lineup still gives Celtics fans confidence, however. Kyrie Irving has proven that he can score almost at will. Marcus Smart, always among the strongest defenders on the court, has become a more consistent offensive threat, and Marcus Morris, Jr., has grown into a downright deadly three-point shooter who deserves a spot in the Three-Point Contest during the All-Star Weekend. Despite not doing it as often as fans had expected, Hayward, Tatum, and Brown are still capable of scoring 20+ points on any given night, and Terry Rozier, one of last year’s breakout players, given enough freedom and minutes, can still explode for an eye-popping series of plays, both offensively and defensively, and that explosion can take place at almost any particular moment. Despite injuries, Aaron Baynes is still having his best season on the court, and rookie bench riders such as Brad Wannamaker, Robert Williams, and Semi Ojeleye usually bring more to the court than they take off.
Because of the strength of their lineup, there’s still no rational reason to doubt the ability of the Boston Celtics to defeat their Eastern Conference competitors in the playoffs.
Of course, the Eastern Conference is drastically weaker than the Western Conference, and few fans suggest the current lineup will raise the Celtics’ seventeenth championship banner at the end of this season. But that doesn’t prevent this highly qualified team of basketball players from stepping onto the court and giving it a shot.
The Red Sox won their ninth championship in October. The Patriots might win their sixth championship next weekend. Half of the Celtics’ season might be over, but there’s still time for the team to get it together and bring home their seventeenth trophy.
But first, they’ll have to become better than the tenth worst team in the league’s weakest conference.