The new era of the Boston Celtics took a big step forward last season, when they took advantage of a watered-down Eastern Conference, came together at the end of the regular season and made the playoffs with a 40-42 record. Now, the question for third-year coach Brad Stevens is whether the progress can continue. Boston […]
The Boston Celtics play the New York Knicks tonight (8 PM ET, TNT) at a time when the Celtics are reeling. They’ve lost four in a row, and while they’ve got a three-game margin to make the playoffs, Boston is in eighth place and 2 ½ games back of Milwaukee of even getting to the seventh seed and avoiding Miami. When the Celtics tried to construct their team to beat the Heat in the playoffs, I don’t think they had the first round in mind as the meeting point. It’s hard to believe that Boston beat New York in Madison Square Garden just ten days ago and seemed to be getting it together. Let’s take a closer look at the Celts and see if there’s any hope for revival as the second half of their season begins at home tonight.
The Boston Celtics have been a little slow out of the gate in the NBA season, losing their first two games and barely escaping with a win in the third. We can excuse the opening loss since it was on the road in Miami, although losing at home to Milwaukee and then a narrow escape at Washington suggest this Celtics’ team is a work in progress. Of course there’s plenty of time to do the work and today TheSportsNotebook takes a closer look at the raw material head coach Doc Rivers has in Boston and what some coming checkpoint games will be.
On January 20, the Boston Celtics hit their low point. They lost at home to a bad Phoenix team and fell to 5-9 on the season. General manager Danny Ainge was talking openly about trading any of the team’s Big Three—Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen—who’d won one championship together in 2008 and been to the Finals together in 2010. It seemed as though the only question left was whether the Celtics could even make the playoffs, as they were in a four-team joust with Cleveland, Milwaukee and New York for the final two spots in the eight-team Eastern Conference bracket. Then things changed. Since January 20, Boston has won nine of their last ten. The SportsNotebook takes a look at how they’ve done it and what the odds are of sustainability.