Celtics Playoff Manifesto (Volume 1): suspending civil liberties

We’re going full authoritarian mode.

Usually, I’m a big fan of nuance and discussion. This is basketball, not the Geneva Conventions of 1949. As much as it may feel like it, life and death isn’t actually at stake in the 2024 NBA Playoffs. No matter the outcomes, we will all be okay.

Okay now that the disclaimer is out of the way, screw that! The Celtics playoff run can and will dictate the stability of my mental state for at least the next five months, so we don’t have time for emotional intelligence or rational calculus. Instead, it’s time for a coup d’état.

In this manifesto, I am taking over Celtics discourse for at least the next 900 words. I will not be advocating for level headedness, nor will I be remotely calm or composed this whole time. I am telling you, your best friend, your bartender Mark and your dog Guido how to feel.

The Celtics kicked off their unprecedented run of eleven totally-completely-literally meaningless games by blowing a 30-point lead to the Hawks despite big minutes from Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis. Obviously that quite literally doesn’t matter, but we are staring down the barrel of three full weeks of not knowing where to direct our playoff anxiety. Many will want to overreact to this loss or subsequent losses, so in the face of crisis, I am taking control.

The state has assumed direct control of all relevant services and business. Habeas corpus has been suspended. Children, please open your Celtics Playoff Manifesto to page 1 and begin reading on the count of four.

1. The next 10 games DO NOT matter. Citizens are not permitted to overreact.

1st Offense: three slaps on the wrist from that professional Ukrainian slapper guy (look it up)

2nd Offense: prison

Usually, I am the world’s leading practitioner of regular season propaganda. I love watching and overreacting to regular season basketball, even when the “consequences” of games are nebulous or minimal.

But I am drawing the line at literal meaninglessness. The Celtics could have lost that game by 12. They could have only dressed Payton Pritchard and been forced to forfeit. They could have even started intentionally scoring on their own basket for all I care. These games mean nothing.

But here at Authoritarian NBA Takes LLC, we don’t rest on our laurels with surface level analysis. I have pointed out the emotional and narrative impacts of games in the past, so why don’t they matter this time around? Surely blowing a 30-point lead will have some effect on the conversation, collective psyche, or confidence in and around the team, right?

Wrong. Do you have any idea how hard it must be to motivate oneself when winning a basketball game is the second most important thing about a game? After eviscerating the Hawks in the first half, Tatum, Brown, and Porzingis all stepped into the second half realizing that they needed to all escape this game unscathed. Their minds were not on closing the deal, but rather on preserving their own health.

The Hawks were playing NBA basketball in the second half, and the Celtics didn’t keep their head in the game. It’s embarrassing, sure, but I’d wager most of us would do the same. The demands of the fan base are so crushing that any misstep in this meaningless stretch would be quintuply bad.

Everybody, chill out. Thus ends the first chapter.

Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

2. The Celtics’ first round opponent DOES NOT matter. Citizens are not permitted to scoreboard watch.

1st Offense: must recite “The Miami Heat aren’t real, they can’t hurt you” in a mirror 230 times

2nd Offense: forced to scroll through the entire basketball reference page of Joel Embiid vs. Boston in the playoffs

3rd Offense: prison

Let’s paint a picture. The Heat and the 76ers square off in the 7 seed vs. 8 seed Play-In game to determine who plays the second-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and who will have to beat either the Hawks or Bulls for the honor of playing the Celtics.

Last year, my friends and I giddily watched the Hawks manhandle the Heat in the 7-8 game, ensuring that the Celtics would dodge the terrifying unkillable Frankenstein Miami team in favor of the much chiller Atlanta squad.

There’s a take aging poorly, and then there’s whatever ended up happening last year. Not only was Atlanta much more complicated than most of us expected, Miami came around and handed the Celtics possibly the most disappointing individual series since Season 6 of Lost on ABC.

I promise—no, I guarantee—there will be a segment on ESPN before the Play-In games with this headline: “are the 76ers or Heat a bigger threat to the Celtics?” During that segment, someone will mention how the Celtics have had problems containing Joel Embiid in the past, while another analyst with retort by saying that Jimmy Butler is tougher than the Celtics’ whole starting five.

But we’re taking the high road this time around. Should the Celtics actually lose in the first round, we will have bigger problems than wondering if they would have fared better against the other option. Trying to figure out the path of least resistance is a fool’s errand.

Bring on the path of greatest resistance! We shall usher in this glorious dawn together. Thus ends the second chapter.

Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

3. Jersey and living-room-position superstitions DO matter. Citizens may not deviate from successful superstitious tactics.

1st Offense: forcible correction to proper superstitious state

2nd Offense: expulsion from the living room

3rd Offense: removal from the superstitious community

4th Offense: prison

We have one law—and one law only—when it comes to superstitions in sports. I call it “The Butler Rule.”

The Butler Rule: “Superstitions are real when your team wins, but aren’t real when they lose”

For my 13th birthday party on February 2nd, 2015, I invited all my friends over to watch the Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl. Most people remember Malcolm Butler’s goal line interception as the critical play of the game, but it was my mom that made the true game-deciding move.

We were losing in the fourth quarter, when my mom noticed I wasn’t sitting in my lucky chair. I had ceded this primo seat at the beginning of the party to my friend Josh, and didn’t want to be rude by asking him to move.

But my mom didn’t care about politeness. She walked into the room to check if anyone wanted more salt and vinegar chips and was flabbergasted that I wasn’t in the chair. She ordered a total living-room reorganization, complete with me in the chair of destiny, Josh on the couch and my friends Henry and Rich moving to the gymnastics pads on the floor. My other friend Ryan was sitting on top of a pile of blankets in the corner, but was unable to move for superstitious purposes as well.

To this day, my mom claims full credit for that Patriots victory. Malcolm Butler could have never jumped that route if she hadn’t reorganized the living room. And you know what: she’s right.

But unbeknownst to 13-year-old me was the coming of a second Butler—one Jimmy Butler—eight years later. In the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals, I was shown the limits of superstitious commitment, though my faith was only strengthened in the end.

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Down 3-0 and questioning my very understanding of the universe, I donned my 2016 Avery Bradley jersey in a last ditch effort to show the Celtics that I still believed. I hadn’t worn jerseys seriously since I was in middle school, but if there was ever a time for this kind of black magic, it was now.

And then the Celtics ripped off three straight wins that saw me wear that very same jersey for six whole days in a row. So long as I had it on, I could still believe. It protected me from the fear of elimination and propelled Derrick White to the glass to win Game 6. But that must have been the last of its powers, since the Celtics were unable to close the deal in Game 7.

Suddenly, the jersey had nothing to do with it. It was only a piece of cloth that I had purchased seven years ago, nothing magical. I threw it in the laundry bin and called it a season.

That’s a lot of reminiscing to explain an incredibly simple point. If something is working, keep doing it! If suddenly it stops working—which it probably will—don’t sweat it! Superstitions aren’t real unless you want them to be. Thus ends the third chapter.