Experience: the Boston Celtics’ trump card

There was a time when I questioned the notion that significant playoff experience was necessary to win an NBA title.

This take may or may not have coincided with rookie Jayson Tatum and second-year Jaylen Brown leading the Boston Celtics to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Lebron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers, and me trying to convince myself that experience was overrated. Why couldn’t 19-year-old Jayson Tatum out-duel one of the greatest players in the league’s history in a Game 7?

Six years, another trip to the ECF, and a Finals loss later, this current era of Boston Celtics basketball is another reminder that to win the NBA title, significant playoff experience is a prerequisite.

The 2024-2025 Boston Celtics have the most talented roster in the NBA. They are also the most experienced team in the NBA. I compiled the playoff experience of the projected top-7 rotation players for each of the league’s contenders. Admittedly, I was pretty fast and loose with the word “contender.” For example, the Lakers are on this list. However, I wanted to include any teams that, even if you squint or close your eyes completely, you could see winning the NBA title, so that we have a more exhaustive list to consider:

Here’s a breakdown of the Celtics top-7 rotation players’ career playoff games:

If you would like the breakdown of how many playoff games each player within each team’s rotation has played, the data can be found here.

The Celtics did not squeak out the number one spot on the playoff experience ranking. They are far and away the most experienced playoff team in the league by 129 games. That’s almost the totality of Jaylen Brown’s entire postseason career with Jayson Tatum checking in at 114. Al Horford and, to a lesser extent, Jrue Holiday are doing some heavy lifting for the Celtics playoff experience, as veteran leaders often do.

League stalwarts are carrying the next two teams: LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green. These are iconic players. Unfortunately for them, they are likely not impacting the outcome of the 2024-2025 NBA championship.

If we just look at the Jays’ playoff WINS, Jaylen has 74, and Tatum has 68. Eight NBA franchises have yet to surpass 66 playoff wins in their entire existence. The two Celtic superstars have amassed an absurd playoff resume in the first halves of their careers.

As it pertains to the veteran experience and leadership of Horford and Holiday. Brad Stevens believes that the expertise and selflessness of those two players might be the Celtics’ most significant advantage. Stevens rarely shows much emotion; one of his favourite phrases is “don’t get too high and don’t get too low”, but he lit up when discussing this team’s elderstatesmen.

“If you truly want to talk about the best vet leadership in the league, there’s no way anybody’s got us beat there. However many teams are good and everything, there’s no one that’s got us beat in veteran leadership.”

In the lead-up to the NBA Finals, there was concern from the national media that the Celtics had not been “battle-tested” before their matchup with the Dallas Mavericks. However, this Celtics team had already been through their battles all the years prior — arguably too many battles if you ask some Celtics fans (me). The excruciating Game 7 loss to the Miami Heat in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals. The agonizing Finals defeat to the Golden State Warriors after going up 2-1 in the series and being up 94-90 in Game 4 with 4:56 left. The frustrating Eastern Conference drubbing to the Miami Heat in the bubble. At least the pain of the Game 7 defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017-2018 Eastern Conference Finals was somewhat alleviated by exceeding expectations. Apologies if any readers are now experiencing some form of PTSD.

No team in the history of the NBA played more seven-game series in a two-postseason span than the Boston Celtics across the 2022 and 2023 playoffs. Thankfully, those brutal experiences can now be viewed as stepping stones on the way to one of the most dominant NBA seasons in basketball history.

Playoff experience and roster continuity are critical ingredients when chasing the goal of winning an NBA championship. It is rare for a team to win a title without collecting a few playoff scars first. This is true of some of the greatest teams in NBA history: the Heatles lost to the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. The Heat would go on to win back-to-back championships after that. Kobe and Shaq lost in the second round or conference finals of the playoffs three years in a row before rattling off a three-peat. Did I choose two examples that involved both teams winning back-to-back championships after accruing their playoff scars? Of course. However, this iteration of the Boston Celtics shares a few things in common with those teams – the most talent, continuity and a wealth of experience.

There is very little that this Celtics team has not been through, despite their two best players being in the early stages of their primes. Their combined experience, along with their abundance of talent, will be a weapon that no other team in the league can rely upon in the same way.