With chemistry and confidence, Boston Celtics just keep getting better
By Charlotte Wilder
FOX Sports Columnist
On Sunday, the Boston Celtics beat the reigning NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks 109-81 in a blowout Game 7. And — no offense to the Heat or Mavericks or Warriors — we probably should have just cut our losses and called that series the NBA Finals because I’m not sure we’ll see more competitive basketball in the remainder of the playoffs.
Before fans of Luka Dončić and Jalen Brunson and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler (etc.) yell at me: Yes, I’m sure I’ll be eating my words after we watch them all dazzle us in the Eastern and Western Conference finals.
But please allow me this recency bias because Boston and Milwaukee battled back and forth in mostly thrilling nail-biters that blessed both fan bases with some of the most devastating losses and satisfying wins maybe, well, ever.
Besides the questionable officiating, the matchup was a master class in unrelenting physicality and absurd stats. Let’s pay Giannis Antetokounmpo his well-deserved respect before I tell you why this Celtics team has brought me such profound joy. The Greek Freak played even more Greek-freakily than NBA fans are used to, putting up 237 points, 103 rebounds and 50 assists over the course of the series.
No other player in NBA history has ever recorded more than 200 points, 100 rebounds and 50 assists in a playoff series.
The rest of the Bucks backed him up through five games. Jrue Holiday hit a game-tying 3 with under a minute left in Game 5 and then stuffed Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart on the last two plays to send the Celtics back to Milwaukee facing elimination.
But without Khris Middleton, the Bucks couldn’t overcome a Celtics squad that played as a true team even while its players had stand-out games in their own right.
It’s difficult to list everyone’s accomplishments without turning this into a novel, but the highlights included Boston’s homegrown star, Jayson Tatum, putting on the performance of his lifetime so far with his back against the wall in Game 6. He scored 46 points, including 16 in the fourth quarter. It was his true "I’ve arrived" moment, and for the rest of the offseason, I don’t want to hear pundits debate the current greatest NBA players without mentioning his name.
But it wasn’t just Tatum and DPOY Smart and Jaylen Brown — who put up 26 points in Game 2 and 30 in Game 5 — who carried the team. The team carried itself.
Four years ago, on May 15, 2018, the Boston Celtics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals for the second game in a row. At the time, I wrote, "Even without its two biggest stars, Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, the young, scrappy group of guys in green is putting on an incredible show."
You all know that after that, LeBron put all of Cleveland on his back, and the Cavs went on to beat Boston. And even though they’ve been to four of the past six Eastern Conference finals, the Celtics haven’t been to the final Finals since 2010.
But this iteration of the team has the best chance in years of winning it all because it leans into what it stumbled into four years ago: the lack of guys such as Kyrie and Hayward, who were plucked from other places and given monster contracts.
We saw how well that worked out (it didn’t), which is why it’s so rewarding to watch the success of homegrown players.
It’s also fun to watch guys who haven’t historically put up huge numbers.
Take Grant Williams. In Game 7, with starting power forward Robert Williams III out due to a sore knee, Williams played himself into Boston-legend status as he led the Celtics in scoring with 27 points and seven 3s. Grant Williams! The same guy who missed the first 25 3-point attempts of his NBA career!
Or take longtime Celtics Guy Al Horford. In Game 4, at the age of 35, he put up his first 30-point performance in 132 career playoff games.
Even when Tatum had a bad Game 3, scoring only 10 points, the Celtics held their own. They lost 103-101 at the buzzer, somewhat due to terrible officiating (tell me you’re a Boston fan without telling me you’re a Boston fan).
This is the same team that, on Jan. 21, was 10th in the East. The same team that blew a 25-point lead to the Knicks (the Knicks!) in what some dubbed the "Evan Fournier Revenge Game" on Jan. 6.
But under the leadership of rookie head coach Ime Udoka, Boston got it together. The team stopped blowing leads and, heading into the postseason, had the best defense in the league.
Do you realize how rare that is? For a group of people to recognize that something isn’t working, figure out what that is and then work together to make sure they don’t keep making the same mistakes? And actually succeed?
And the Celtics did so fearlessly. While the Bucks elected to play bench players against the Cavs and lose their final regular-season game, the Celtics played hard against the Grizzlies to win. Boston ended up with the No. 2 seed and, while gaining potential home-court advantage if there were to be a Game 7 in round two of the playoffs, had to face what many saw as the buzz saw of the 7-seed Brooklyn Nets in the first round.
Perhaps the Bucks simply wanted to rest their stars. But it’s difficult not to think they were hoping to avoid Brooklyn and win a championship from the same seed that brought them victory in 2021.
"One thing we talked about is we're a basketball team. We're not a track team," Udoka said at the time. "We're not running from people."
Well, they were right not to. The Celtics swept the Nets (sorry, Kyrie), and home-court advantage ended up counting for a lot in the second round.
Boston was electric during Sunday’s win — I could feel the energy pulsing out of my TV. And while it’s easy to track statistics, less tangible factors are tougher to quantify. Yet it’s obvious that the delight factor is off the charts with this team. I’ve talked to a lot of other Celtics fans who find themselves even more obsessed with this particular group than they normally are (a scary thought for non-Boston fans, I know).
Perhaps the Celtics have reached a more confident form of what I wrote about four years ago, when Jayson Tatum was merely 20: "It’s the spirit with which guys like Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, Terry Rozier, Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown play that makes them so damn fun. It’s hard not to smile as Tatum sinks 3 after 3, or as Smart throws his body around the court, or as Horford dunks the Cavs back to The Land Before LeBron Traded Everyone Away."
Not much has changed in performance or team makeup since then. Except for Rozier, every player mentioned above is still on the roster. And the future is still blindingly bright. Tatum is 24. Brown is 25. Smart is 28, despite the fact that he plays with strong "dad who tries really hard in a rec league" energy.
In a world in which so many things seem to only be getting worse, the Celtics keep getting better. And they appear to be having fun with one another while they do it.
What’s more joyful than that?
Charlotte Wilder is a general columnist and cohost of "The People's Sports Podcast" for FOX Sports. She's honored to represent the constantly neglected Boston area in sports media, loves talking to sports fans about their feelings and is happiest eating a hotdog in a ballpark or nachos in a stadium. Follow her on Twitter @TheWilderThings.
