Game One Is Why the Celtics Still Don't Get Respect
The Celtics — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — have won the most playoff games in the league by a wide margin over the past decade. The success Tatum and Brown have had from the moment they entered the league is nearly unprecedented.
They broke through and got their championship last year. Tatum now looks like a perennial MVP candidate. Jaylen Brown is an All-NBA player. Yet still, the question remains: why don’t the Celtics get the credit they deserve?
It’s because they lay down when pushed by lesser competition.
This happened to them against Jimmy Butler’s Heat in two playoff series’ the Celtics should have won. It happened again in the 2022 NBA Finals versus the Warriors.
And during last year’s run to the championship, there wasn’t a single opponent that physically challenged or pushed the Celtics. And wouldn’t you know it? The front-running pussies dominated that championship run.
However, the "blue print" is still in effect. We saw it in the Magic series — a less talented team mucking things up with physicality, frustrating the Celtics’ offensive rhythm, getting in their shorts, playing bully ball, playground-style, nonsense defense.
Now, I thought we had turned the corner with that Magic series, watching the Celtics respond with just as much physicality and a different brand of basketball on their way to a gentleman's sweep. But in Game One against the Knicks, we saw flashbacks of the 2021–2022 Celtics — settling for three-pointers time and time again.
This is 100% more about the Celtics than it is about the Knicks. Jayson Tatum led the charge, settling for threes while the 20-point lead shrank — instead of stopping the bleeding by getting into the lane, drawing fouls, and getting the Knicks’ stars in foul trouble like they did in the first half when they built that big lead.
The Celtics have learned and adapted from those earlier years. I fully expect them to rebound in Game Two and move forward with the same physical, aggressive style we saw against Orlando. Obviously, missing 45 three-pointers — an NBA record — is unlikely to happen again. If just two or three of those fall in the fourth quarter, the Celtics probably win comfortably.
But that’s beside the point.
We all know the Celtics are better than the Knicks. But when they play like they aren’t, it only deepens the doubt about their championship mettle.