Celtics on pace to join elite club
No team in NBA history has more wins than the Celtics. No franchise has more championships than the Celtics, who are tied with the Lakers with 17 apiece. They built the dynasty of NBA dynasties with eight consecutive championship seasons spanning parts of the 1950s and 1960s; no other team has a streak even half that long.
They are synonymous with greatness.
Now consider this: This season’s Celtics are on pace to do something the franchise hasn’t done before. Even after blowing a 30-point lead and losing to the Hawks on Monday night in Atlanta, this team could finish the season as the most dominant, in terms of average victory margin, in Celtics history.
They are outscoring opponents by 11.5 points per game, on pace to be the fifth-largest margin by any team in NBA history and more than a point better than any other Celtics squad has ever managed. Think about that: Bill Russell wasn’t on a Celtics team that won games by this many points night-in and night-out, nor was Larry Bird, nor was John Havlicek, nor was Bob Cousy, nor was Kevin Garnett ... and on and on and on.
“We’re not looking past anybody,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said a few weeks back. “We respect every opponent, regardless of national TV game, League Pass, their best player’s out ... we approach every game the same way and we’re not looking past anybody.”
Thing is, they can, at least for the next few weeks.
The Celtics have wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Every other seed in the playoffs — on both sides of the league — remains still up for grabs, and only a complete sputtering down the stretch will cost the Celtics the No. 1 overall seed and home-court advantage for the entirety of the playoffs.
Wasting a 30-point lead on Monday stings, sure, but it also happened in a game where the Celtics were without primary ballhandlers Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. It’s not a sign of trouble. It’s not a sign of anything. It just happened.
Clinching the No. 1 seed was not cause of celebration for the Celtics. One, it’s been obvious for weeks that the Celtics would be atop this year’s East bracket and two, it wasn’t their goal. There’s only one goal for them and that’s to win it all, get banner No. 18, break the tie with the Lakers and move past some memories like losing a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals at home to the Heat last year, watching the Warriors celebrate a championship in Boston in 2022 or losing another East finals to the Heat in the bubble in 2020.
Every other team in NBA history that finished a season with a scoring differential of at least 11.5 points per game won a championship: the 1971-72 Lakers (12.3-point differential per game), the 197071 Bucks (12.3), the 1995-96 Bulls (12.2) and the 2016-17 Warriors (11.6).
They were dominant champions. These Celtics have a chance to join their ranks.