Boston Celtics, Sixteen Years and the NBA Finals: One More for the Cs…
June 17, 2008.
Celtics 131, Lakers 92 (Celtics win 4-2)
I was 28 and emerging from my chaotic and often depressed 20s. Finally graduated. Earned a high school teaching credential. Attempting to start a teaching career during our country’s economic collapse. The Bush years were finally coming to an end. Obama was campaigning on hope and possibilities.
July, 2007. After the Garnett trade, a flurry of emails and then a Celtics season of shared season tickets. Attending two games in December. A game in Oakland. End up winning 66.
Playoffs arrive. Seven games in the first round with Atlanta. Withstand the Cavs and LeBron in 7. Grind it out with Pistons and advace in 6. Eventually its June. Celtics-Lakers Finals. Perfect.
Fly back to Boston. Game 1 with Ben in the electric Garden. We scream with twenty thousand. Starts well. Pierce goes down. Crowd goes silent Pierce returns. Celtics triumph. Celtics go up 3–1.
Game 5, Natasha and I get balcony seats online. Drive all day to get down there. We sit among the Lakers fans with Pierce and KG jerseys. Celtics lose a tough one. “You should burn those jerseys,” as we walk down the steps and out of the arena. Ok…still up 3–2. We drive north back to the Bay Area, through the night, pondering the 97–91 loss. Game 6 they’re back at the Garden. It happens. After five tight battles, the cork pops and the Celtics destroy the Lakers in Game 6. 131–92. KG, as the confetti fell, and the celebration ensued on the parquet… “Anything’s possible!”
Back then…I felt a deep sense of catharsis. For me, fandom was never simple or easy. It was often an escape into the existential realm. Shrinking the universe down into one quarter of playoff basketball at a time. Anticipation building before each game. Then…the ups and downs of a seven-game playoff series. The climactic arc of a two-month playoff run, ending in one moment of pure exhilaration.
I was too young to remember much of 1984 or 1987. The names Bird, McHale and Parish were all familiar. I can remember parts of games, watching on a tiny television. But with Bird, some of the most vivid memories I have of watching him, through the very small television, were in 1991 and 1992. By then he would often lay on his stomach while resting on the sideline, stretching out his aching back.
June, 2008: Finally the Celtics won a title for our generation. Those of us who were teenagers in the awful 1990s, when everything went wrong, and making the playoffs at all was a minor miracle.
June, 2008 — Hard to believe it was sixteen years ago.
2010
After Garnett’s knee injury in February of 2009, the hopes of a repeat were dashed. Orlando, behind Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis, fell to the Lakers in 5 games. The following June, the Celtics returned to the Finals, meeting the Lakers again. They came very close, but injuries ate them up at the end, they were overmatched inside against the Lakers.
The Playoffs of 2012 were a fun ride, benefitting from the Derrick Rose injury, the Sixers took out Chicago and the Celtics took out the Sixers, advancing to the East Finals to face LeBron yet again, this time in Miami. Rajon Rondo led that group, posting ridiculous triple-doubles, with the aging Garnett and slow-motion version of Paul Pierce urging him on. In the end it was not quite enough despite Rondo’s rise.
2013–2016
Those were some tough years, gradually building back with Stevens. Win totals: 41, 25, 40, 48
2017
The electrifying rise of IT, the other Isaiah Thomas and the improbable Jae Crowder. The 2017 playoff run was as unexpected as it was enthralling, but it would lead to a deflating series loss in the East Finals, at the hands of LeBron and the Cavs. This was the first of six Eastern Conference Finals appearances for Boston over the next eight years.
The next several years…so many almosts and would-haves and could-haves. Jayson and Jaylen still growing into themselves. The burden of impossible expectations in a town that demands titles.
2021–22
Eventually…the Celtics make the Finals again in 2022. They build a 2–1 lead against the Warriors. Steph Curry’s Game 4 (43 points on 14 of 26 shots). It was an otherwordly performance. On the flipside, Tatum finished 8 of 23 and Marcus Smart (cult hero) was forced to take 18 shots (making 7). The Warriors evened the series at 2, then took the next two to clinch it. Boston fell apart towards the end of the series, losing by 10 in Game 5 and 13 in Game 6.
2022–23
Then last year’s bitter pill against Miami. Falling down 3–0 in the East Finals. They clawed their way back, gnashing and smashing their way against the physicality of the Heat, to even the series. Game 7 Tatum turns his ankle, another season’s end, a page in the chapter of “Close but no victory cigars..”
2023-24
Now this run….
Fifteen down and one more to go. The balance of this year’s Celtics has been on display throughout these two months. Fifteen wins and two losses, but their path was cleared by injuries in the East, giving talking heads ammunition to doubt. The talking heads keep talking, while these Celtics keep winning. Yet it’s true…Denver was the real threat most Celtics fans were worried about, but Minnesota took them out, and then Dallas took advantage of the Wolves’ exhaustion to win the West.
Every night these Celtics pass the torch back and forth. Winning is all that matters. That’s the phrase most superstars spout…but the fact is most teams win without relying equally on all five. Not this group. It helps that everyone has been paid and of the top six in the lineup, all but Porzingis have been here before. Now they’re playing without KP again, but 38 year-old Al Horford is holding up okay.
Derrick White chase‐down blocks. Jaylen doing a Kawhi Leonard impersonation, punishing defenders with penetration, then spinning on a dime and swishing turn-around jumpers. Jaylen’s vicious drives, attacking the rim, including a nasty dunk between two Dallas defenders in Game 1.
Tatum reading the defense and finding Jrue open underneath. Jrue beating everyone to the spot, shape-shifting to become whatever is needed in the moment. Kristaps, returning from a month off with a blistering 7 minutes to end the first quarter of Game 1. Threes, blocks and elbow isolations that have no defense. Tatum and Brown finding Jrue Holiday on subtle late-shot-clock cuts into the paint in Game 2. Holiday finishes 9 of 9 in the paint and 11 of 14 overall.
The depth that many NBA pundits wondered about in October has been on display in key moments of these three Finals games. Payton Pritchard knocking down a 35-footer before the 3rd quarter buzzer in Game 2. In Game 3, three-point assassin Sam Hauser removes the lid from the rim and drops in 3 threes, while coming up with a huge offensive rebound and playing passable defense. Xavier Tillman’s five minutes of defense in Game 3. Tillman even dropped in a corner 3. This is a team in every sense.
Observing it from the sideline is coach Joe Mazzulla, who will turn 36 at the end of June. Thrown to the fire after the sudden departure of Ime Udoka last September, Mazzulla was named an “interim” coach after Udoka’s dismissal due to questionable personal conduct among team personnel. In February of 2023, the interim tag was dropped and Mazzulla was given the organization’s collective stamp of approval. Mazzulla is methodical, steady and cerebral. Brad Stevens was only 36 when Danny Ainge chose him as Doc Rivers’ successor in 2013, granting him a six-year deal, despite no NBA coaching experience. Now the President of Basketball Operations, I have no doubt Stevens and “special assistant” Jeff Van Gundy are adding tidbits of wisdom and information throughout this run. Mazzulla deserves credit for the steady in-game approach and his unwavering trust in shooting wide-open threes. Some coaches would be tempted to control the tempo in key moments, but Mazzulla has understood this team’s late-game execution is dependent on fluidity, rapid reads and ball-movement. Unlike Celtics teams of the past, Tatum and Brown are now well-rounded playmakers and have shown a willingness to drive and kick, taking what the defense gives them. Jrue Holiday makes it easy when he slides into open spaces at just the right moment. Derrick White makes it easy when he knocks down the open three on the swing pass. Trust and ball movement are synonymous in hoops. Trust enables defensive cohesion in switching and rotating defenses. Mazzulla’s trust in the players is obvious and it seems clear they trust him in return.
Fifteen down. One to go.
