These Celtics have everything to prove
Picked up pieces while waiting for the playoffs . . .
■ NBA teams have been playing an 82-game schedule since the 1967-68 season. In that time, the Celtics have won 66 or more games three times.
With Dave Cowens as league MVP, the Green won 68 in 197273, but failed to win the NBA championship because John Havlicek hurt his shoulder during the conference finals and Boston lost Game 7 at home to the hated Knicks.
In 1985-86, with a four-man-rotation frontcourt of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and Bill Walton (plus Hall of Famer Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge at guard), the Celtics won 67 regular-season games, went 50-1 at home (including Hartford games and playoffs), and won the NBA championship. In my opinion, that was the greatest NBA team of all time. Certainly the most fun to watch.
In 2007-08, the Ubuntu Celtics — led by Kevin
Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen — won 66 games and crushed the Lakers in a six-game championship final. It is the only championship the vaunted franchise has won in the last 38 years.
All of which brings us to 2024 and the Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown Celtics who are . . . thus far . . . the greatest Boston team that has yet to win a championship.
Together, the Jays have been in the conference finals in four of the last six springs and made it to the NBA Finals two years ago, when they held a 2-1 lead, but were beaten by the Warriors in six.
After an offseason in which Brad Stevens added Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, the Celtics won 63 of their first 81 games and go into Sunday’s regular-season finale with a chance to become the fourth-winningest team in franchise history (too bad the Celts made little effort to compete against the Knicks Thursday night at home). But they know that in the eyes of most fans, the season hasn’t even started yet.
Brown (eight years in the NBA) and Tatum (seven) have the fame, money, and accolades that NBA stars covet. They are two of the greatest play
ers in the history of the league’s most-storied franchise. But until they win a championship, they are not whole Celtics. They don’t go up on the ceiling with Cowens, Russell, Cooz, Satch, Sam, KC, Larry, and Max until they put a banner up there like all of the above. Without a championship, they might as well be a couple of Antoine Walkers.
The Celtics were clearly the best team in the NBA this season. Offense. Defense. Bench. Homecourt advantage. They were the only team in the league to win 60 or more games.
Waiting for the play-in bakeoff, the Celtics won’t play their first playoff game until next weekend. If all goes well, that will kick off nine weeks of NBA playoffs in Boston. The Celtics will have home court all the way, which would potentially put them on the parquet in the Finals on June 6, 9, 17, and 23.
Spoiled in this century, we haven’t seen a championship parade since February 2019 when Tom Brady — remember him? — and Co. hoisted their sixth Lombardi Trophy.
Forgive me, Bruins fans. I know the B’s had another strong season, and certainly have more than a puncher’s chance to win a Stanley Cup. But after last spring, we can all agree that the Bruins are not the team in our region facing maximum expectation and pressure.
It is the Celtics. It is the Jays.
This is their time.
■ Quiz: Southern Cal quarterback Caleb Williams will almost certainly be the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. Since 1969, the Trojans have had four No. 1 overall picks. Name them (answer below).
■ Larry Lucchino’s 1960’s Princeton basketball teammates made a strong showing Thursday at his funeral mass at St. Cecilia Parish in the Back Bay. Senator Bill Bradley was among those paying his respects. One of the pallbearers was Janet Marie Smith, who should someday be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with Lucchino. Their Ballpark at Camden Yards forever changed professional baseball and enhanced downtown life in dozens of cities across America.
■ MassLive scored a couple of takeaway quotes in the wake of Curt Schilling’s wise decision to stay away from the Fenway opener. Derek Lowe said, “I just feel that [Schilling’s absence] is the consensus. This isn’t the venue to have maybe somebody say something to him, which I think probably someone would have, especially in the evening — if you know what I mean.”
Translation: Schilling’s teammates are furious with Schill’s violation of the privacy of the late Tim and Stacy Wakefield.
Jason Varitek told MassLive, “That’ll be a group conversation later.”
■ June Drama: Will Bill Belichick return for Bob Kraft’s celebration of Tom Brady on June 12? DraftKings should be taking bets on this one.
■ Terry Francona did not stick around for Tuesday’s Opening Day ceremonies. Francona arrived in Boston on Sunday and attended Monday’s luncheon for Theo and Paul Epstein’s Foundation to Be Named Later. The former Red Sox manager flew home Monday night.
When asked if he was sending any message, he answered, “Just a little old and creaky. I have a couple of things going on.”
■ The Red Sox front office’s reluctance to spend to help the 2024 team is amplified when players go down with injuries, as Lucas Giolito, Trevor Story, and Nick Pivetta did. The result is a daily managerial juggling act of wedging players into the wrong positions and asking minor league pitchers to face major league hitters.
The Sox are simply not as smart as they think they are, and “coaching up” players is not going to work at the big league level. Players and fans deserve better.
■ It’s not the pitch clock, people. Young arms are hurting because: 1. Kids try to throw 95 miles per hour when they are in high school; 2. Professional pitchers who can’t touch 100 m.p.h. are trying to gain the approval of nerds and coaches who worship at the altar of spin rate. Take away Spider Tack and you’ve got a generation of arms breaking down in an effort to register metrics invented by people who never played baseball.
■ Can we pump the brakes on the Andrew-Bailey-to-Cooperstown train?
■ John Calipari managed to win one championship and get to four Final Fours in 15 seasons at
Kentucky. As of this moment, the Wildcats haven’t been asked to vacate any of their appearances under Cal. UMass and Memphis were not as fortunate.
Arkansas, Cal’s new home, hasn’t reached a Final Four since 1995.
■ Who knew that Luke Murray, son of veteran comic Bill Murray, was a member of Dan Hurley’s coaching staff at UConn? As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Murray designed the Huskies’ offense and has been with Hurley since 2021 after stints at Wagner, Towson, Rhode Island, Xavier, and Louisville.
■ Anybody else think of Larry Bird against Michigan State while watching Caitlin Clark and Iowa lose the national championship game to South Carolina on Sunday?
■ A Pioneer Valley reader reminds us that Purdue beat UConn in the Basketball Hall of Fame’s 1992 Tip-Off Classic in Springfield. Glenn Robinson led Purdue with 30, and the Huskies featured Donyell Marshall, Scott Burrell, and Kevin Ollie. The coaches were Gene Keady and Jim Calhoun.
■ By any measure, the worst moment of March Madness came when an official took the game away from the players and called an offensive foul on UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards with three seconds left in Iowa’s 71-69 semifinal victory over the Huskies. It was a call that could be made just about any time a screen is being set, and it denied us a chance to see if UConn’s Paige Bueckers could have changed the outcome with a buzzer-beating jumper.
Brutal. Not there. Not then. Let the players decide the game.
■ On his way to the NL Cy Young Award, Chris Sale went 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in his first two starts for the Braves.
■ While the Mets were circling the drain last weekend, J.D. Martinez, who signed a $12 million deal March 23, informed the Amazins that he’d need a few more days to be ready to join the team. Martinez was eligible to return to the majors for their series with the Braves this week, but took a cortisone shot in his lower back Tuesday.
■ Orioles prospect Jackson Holliday, who made his big-league debut at Fenway this past week, is the first Oriole to wear No. 7 since Billy Ripken in 1988. He took it from his father, Cal Ripken Sr. — a former Orioles farmhand and coach with Earl Weaver — when he was fired from a brief managerial stint.
Cal Ripken Jr. wore No. 8. Young Rip was a pitcher and shortstop when the Orioles drafted him out of Aberdeen High School in 1978. The Orioles briefly debated keeping him on the mound, but settled on third base when Ripken reported to the minors. He was still playing third when he came to the big leagues in 1981, and played 71 games there in 1982 before Weaver moved him to short.
The reason? Marty Marion. Weaver grew up in St. Louis and worshipped the 6-foot-2-inch Cardinals shortstop. The 6-4 Ripken was considered too tall for short, but Weaver remembered the long strides of Marion and took a chance. The rest is history.
Marion wore No. 4 in his 13 seasons with the Cardinals, the same number Weaver wore when he managed the Orioles.
■ Pick up a copy of Jack McCallum’s latest, “The Real Hoosiers,” the story of Oscar Robertson and Crispus Attucks High School from the mid1950s in Indiana. Crispus Attucks won back-toback Indiana state championships with the Big O, but its loss to Milan High School in the 1954 semifinal inspired the 1986 film, “Hoosiers.” Nobody writes hoop history better than McCallum and his latest is a worthy addition to his outstanding catalogue.
■ The Swampscott High School baseball field will be dedicated to legendary coach Frank DeFelice at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 27. DeFelice won 465 games, a state title, and three North titles in his 35-year career at Swampscott.
■ RIP La Schelle Tarver, former Red Sox outfielder, who died March 20 in California. Tarver was part of the Red Sox-Mets trade in 1985 that sent Bobby Ojeda to New York and brought Calvin Schiraldi to Boston.
■ Quiz answer: O. J. Simpson (Bills, 1969), Ricky Bell (Buccaneers, 1977), Keyshawn Johnson (Jets, 1996), Carson Palmer (Bengals, 2003).