The Celtics are cruising to the NBA’s best record – and toward a postseason of questions،
ALL STEPHEN CURRY all I could do was shrug my shoulders.
It was Sunday in the locker room at TD Garden, and the NBA-leading Boston Celtics had just handed the Golden State Warriors their worst loss ever with the two-time MVP in the lineup. The 140-88 drubbing included 10 3-pointers in the first quarter and a 61-17 run over an 18-minute span that sealed the Warriors' fate at halftime.
“That's what we did with teams,” Curry, the maestro of similar scores during Golden State's march to four championships in eight seasons, said from his locker after the game.
“It’s a little demoralizing.”
Boston's victory on Sunday gave it three victories of at least 50 points this season, already the record in NBA history more than a month before the end of the regular season. Meanwhile, the Celtics' point differential of plus-243 during their 11-game winning streak also set a league record.
Boston leads the league in offensive efficiency, is second in the league in defense and boasts historic point differentials.
But Boston enters Thursday's road matchup with the Denver Nuggets — a showdown between top title favorites — having played arguably its worst quarter of the season, especially highlighted by the team's late-game struggles. superstar forward Jayson Tatum.
On Wednesday, just two days after that 52-point win over Curry's Warriors, the Celtics blew a 22-point lead in the final nine minutes against the short-handed Cleveland Cavaliers, a collapse capped by Tatum's miss. in the last second.
“It’s just a weird way to end the game,” Tatum said of the 105-104 loss. “But they always say the game is neither won nor lost on the last play.”
Boston's status as a heavyweight is undeniable. Since 2016-17, Jaylen Brown's rookie season, the Celtics have had the best regular-season winning percentage in the NBA, and only the Warriors have won more playoff games.
But until this team wins that elusive 18th banner, this group of Celtics players will be judged on how they finish things — whether it's protecting a fourth-quarter lead in March or closing with successful playoff series in May and June.
“Your habits are everything,” Brown said of the task facing the Celtics as they prepare for the playoffs. “Your mentality is everything. And in every game you can't lose possessions, you can't lose time on the field.”
THE NBA DOES NOT seen many regular season runs like the Celtics 2023-24.
Despite Tuesday's loss, the Celtics' points differential per game this season (11.2) is the fifth-largest in league history behind a quartet of iconic championship teams: the 1971 Los Angeles Lakers -72 (12.3), the Milwaukee Bucks in 1970-71. (12.3), the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (12.2) and the 2016-17 Warriors (11.6).
The Celtics, on pace to reach 66 wins, would become the 18th team in league history to reach that mark. Of the previous 17 teams with 66 wins, 12 won the championship that season. Bottom line: This was a dominant performance through the first three quarters of the regular season.
For Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis, who joined a roster this summer that also added former champion guard Jrue Holiday, the group's ceiling was immediately visible.
“We have to give a lot of credit to our front office for putting together this type of team,” Porzingis said Feb. 24 after a win over the New York Knicks. “When the opportunity [to join Boston] was presented, for me at least, I said it would work 100 percent.”
And in today's NBA, the most versatile and malleable lineups are often the ones that are most successful. No team embodies that better than these Celtics.
Boston's top eight rotation players — Tatum, Brown, Holiday, White, Porzingis, Al Horford, Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard — each attempt at least five 3-pointers per 36 minutes, and all but Brown (35.4 %) pull. 37% or better in depth.
Unsurprisingly, the Celtics lead the league in 3-pointers made (16.3) and attempts (42.3) per game, while sitting fourth in the league by making 38.6 percent of their in-depth looks. And having so many shooting threats at all levels means teams will pay the price for trying to focus their attention on Boston's two main offensive engines, Tatum and Brown.
Or, they'll have to try something like Golden State did on Sunday, essentially deciding it was worth daring Brown to shoot and live with the results — only for him to immediately bury five 3s to put the game away out of reach.
“If you want to challenge me to shoot, we can do that,” Brown said after Sunday’s victory.
The group's defensive versatility also gave opposing teams headaches.
Consider Tuesday's game in Cleveland. Boston stuck Holiday on Cavaliers forward Isaac Okoro, a defensive end, for long stretches, allowing Holiday to move around and play defense. That was because Boston could put Brown or White on Darius Garland, Cleveland's elite perimeter ball handler.
With Holiday and White, two of the league's best individual defenders, in the starting backcourt, Boston can attack teams in a way few others can defensively. Overall, the Celtics have run just 47 ball screens this season, according to Second Spectrum tracking data (1.1 percent of the time, the second-lowest total in the league). When the starting five is there, they only screen the ball five times. all season (0.66%).
“The level of confidence that they play with and the way that every player on their team has bought into their role,” Cavaliers coach JB Bickerstaff said before Tuesday's game of what has made him impressed with the Celtics.
“They know who they are. They know how talented they are, but they allow each other to succeed in their own space.”
THE END-GAME SEQUENCE Wednesday showed similarities to another one-possession game Boston failed to get six weeks ago. At home against the Nuggets on Jan. 19, Boston missed eight of its final nine shots, but — as against Cleveland — still had a chance to tie or win the game with 4.9 seconds remaining.
As in Cleveland, the ball was in Tatum's hands as Boston settled for a spotty possession — a fallacious jumper that he later admitted was rushed.
“Deep down, I wasn’t sure they were going to foul,” Tatum said then. “They had to make a mistake. But I had more time than I gave myself, so I should have taken a little more.
“But I can't go back. Something I can learn from.”
Tatum's clutch time stats aren't pretty. This season, he shot 15 of 46 (32.6%) in clutch time this season, including 0 of 2 on Tuesday. Among the 25 players who have made at least 45 decisive shots this season, Tatum ranks last in field goal percentage.
And Tatum's clutch time issues aren't isolated to this season. His field goal percentage over the past three seasons ranks in the bottom 10 among more than 70 players with at least 100 attempts.
The Celtics will still potentially have to face superstars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler to get back to the Finals. And Boston's depth could be strained, particularly at center if Porzingis misses any time.
Still, the Celtics remain in an enviable position, 7.5 games ahead of the second-place Bucks, with home-court advantage essentially assured as they head into the playoffs — where, finally, they hope to win the 18th franchise championship. banner in June.
That's why the message from this group hasn't wavered despite the highs of winning streaks and 50-point blowouts and the lows of late-game collapses like Tuesday in Cleveland: All that matters, after years of regular season success followed by playoff heartbreak is how the Celtics finish.
“Pretty confident in our group all year,” White told ESPN after Tuesday's loss, when asked if the team's recent winning streak had changed his opinion of his ceiling.
“We're just playing good basketball. We just want to keep going and try to play our best basketball by the end of the year.”
Kendra Andrews and ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this report.
