CelticsWeek #8: Unstoppable – CelticsBlog

The Boston Celtics are the first team in the NBA to break the 20-win threshold for the season, and that accomplishment caps off an impressive week of undefeated basketball. We have oodles of things to talk about this time around, so lets go ahead and dive right in.

Boston Celtics, Week 8: 4-0 record, +50 differential

W vs Cleveland, 120-113

W vs Cleveland, 116-107

W vs Orlando, 128-111

W vs Orlando, 114-97

What’s trending: Defending the home floor — in style

How’s that for a homestand? Dating back to last week, it was five up and five down on the home floor in Boston, all of which came against teams likely to factor into the Eastern Conference playoff race.

For my money, this was the most impressive week of the Celtics’ season thus far. This wasn’t a star-studded slate full of conference heavyweights, but short of that, it was about as challenging of a week as an NBA team can have. Beating any team twice in a row is difficult — doing it to two different playoff teams, with a back-to-back in the middle? That’s impressive stuff.

None of these games were complete blowouts. Each was competitive into the second half. Given the unique circumstances though, that’s almost for the better. This week was like a trial run of an early playoff series, playing multiple games against strong teams in close proximity, with all the adjustments and counters that naturally follow. The Celtics took the best shot of two good teams, beat them both, and then did it again just a few nights later for good measure.

The Cavaliers may be in disarray at the moment, but they’re still a talented roster who earned home court advantage in last year’s playoffs. Their 14-12 record as of this writing stands as a disappointment; regardless of how you feel about their chances at true contention, they clearly have a stronger core than the results to this point would suggest.

They gave the Celtics a fight in each contest, but each time, they weren’t able to hang around in the end. The first game had the makings of a classic, as the two teams remained mostly knotted up deep into the fourth quarter, but the Celtics opened the floodgates in crunch time — and locked down Donovan Mitchell — to pull away late. Their second meeting looked much the same, with the Cavs challenging in the second half but fading down the stretch. It’s like poetry, you know, they rhyme.

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

The Orlando games were a chance for some revenge. Boston’s worst loss of the season remains their In-Season Tournament defeat to the Magic in Orlando, a 17-point thumping that saw the Celtics held below 100 points (96) for what remains the only time this year. As a result, both games felt somewhat personal — particularly a second act that saw some chippiness with perpetual-agitator Moritz Wagner.

The first of the two games was arguably the more impressive. Playing on the second half of a back-to-back, absent their entire usual backcourt with Kristaps Porziņģis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet all sidelined, the Celtics would have been forgiven for taking a schedule loss. Instead, they popped Lamar Stevens into the starting lineup — his first outing with double-digit minutes played, let alone his first start — and found a way to triumph over a jumbo-sized Orlando team anyways.

The Celtics are 14-0 at the TD Garden, and have their eyes set on the franchise record of 17 straight home wins to start a season, set all the way back in the 1957-58 season. You’re probably doing something right when you’re putting yourself in the conversation with a Bill Russell-led Celtics team.

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

Player of the Week: Derrick White

4 GP, 32 MPG, 15 PPG (49% FG, 42% 3PT), 4.5 REB, 4.7 AST, 2.2 STL, 1.5 BLK, +23

Reader, let’s get this out of the way first: this was the hardest Player of the Week to award to this point in the season. The Celtics saw so many positive contributions from so many players that you could make a case for a handful of guys and get no argument from me. Let’s make a quick list of our honorable mentions, why don’t we?

• Jaylen Brown was a rock this week, efficient and aggressive. He put 31 points on Orlando’s heads to cap off the homestand. In a week where Tatum’s efficiency faded in and out, the luxury afforded by having a player like Brown as a second option was extremely evident.
• Sam Hauser refuses to miss. He drilled three triples in each of the Celtics’ first three games this week, continuing to shoot as if he wishes to cause physical harm to the net. He’s up to nearly 46% from three-point range, and it feels fully sustainable.
• Jrue Holiday continues to personally victimize opposing guards defensively, and he provided a consistent, reliable offensive presence to boot. The Celtics shut the water off on Donovan Mitchell in the fourth quarter of each of the Cleveland games, allowing him just six points total, and (along with our winner) Holiday was instrumental to that effort.
• Lamar Stevens, starting center! Oshae Brissett, bane of the Magic! The two journeyman wings showed up in a big way for the shorthanded Celtics in the first Orlando game. I don’t know that either would be deserving of an actual win, but a shout-out here was certainly deserved.

Lots of varied and interesting contributions, highly worthy of recognition. And yet, like Yoda at 2:12 am, we’re going back for more Derrick White.

Regular readers will know that White is something of a darling in this space. He was named our Player of the Year for his regular season contributions last year, and this already marks his second win of the 2023-24 season. It feels as though he’s in the running every week at this point. His game is essentially tailor-made for it, virtually slump-proof and easily scaled up when the team needs it to be.

That versatility is exactly what we saw from White this week. He left no stat column untouched, scoring in double digits in each game while contributing on the boards, facilitating on offense and making impact plays defensively. He hit five threes in the first Cleveland game, scoring 19 points and dished eight assists in the first Orlando game, and recorded at least three stocks every time out. Get you a man who can do… everything?

It goes without saying that NBA defense is more than just counting stats. Taking a glance at White’s, though, can tell you a lot about how destructive he is on that end of the floor. He blocks a comical amount of shots for a 6-foot-4 guard, and no passing lane or lazy dribble in his vicinity is ever completely safe. White doesn’t put his body on the line with the panache of Marcus Smart, nor does he smother opposing guards with the singular brilliance of Jrue Holiday, but he might be the best blend of those two elite defenders in basketball. Boston’s defense shone this week, and as always, White was right in the thick of it.

The Parquet Play: Never meet your idols

As fellow Duke ballers who play the same general position, it’s not altogether surprising that Paolo Banchero has often cited Jayson Tatum as one of his NBA inspirations. Tatum, for his part, has been a fan and supporter of Banchero as he begins his NBA journey. On Sunday afternoon, though, the two met as foes, and that worked out rather unfortunately for Banchero in the end.

Tatum never quite seems to get enough credit for his defensive value, at least from a national perspective. He’s long and strong and savvy, and able to fill so many holes for this Boston defense. I don’t know if this is the year he finally earns an All-Defense berth, but it once again feels as though he’s deserving.

Around the League: Too-early MVP talk, and will the Pistons ever win again?

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The calendar year is drawing to a close, and in typical NBA fashion, we’re starting to hear early murmurings about the landscape of this season’s MVP race. With the obvious caveat that there’s a lot of basketball yet to be played, and that the early season favorites seldom carry that momentum all season long, we at least have enough of a sample to begin to mull some candidates. Is it too soon to talk about? Of course. Is it fun to consider anyways? Yes, yes it is.

From where we sit now, the top five establishes itself pretty quickly: Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokić, Luka Dončić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. All five are helming teams near the top of their respective conferences, and all besides Jokić fill out the NBA’s top four in scoring. Simplistic as it may sound, those are pretty quick checkmarks when trimming down your list of MVP candidates in the MVP.

We can prune more from there. Fair or not, you can likely rule out Embiid fairly quickly. He’s having a brilliant season, but he’s likely lost the necessary popular support after yet another postseason flame-out. Jokić feels like a long shot at the moment as well, with a few uncharacteristic duds to his name in recent weeks. It’s odd to feel as though a player averaging 27-12-9.5 is having a down season, but such are the standards Jokić has set for himself.

That leaves Dončić, Antetokounmpo and Gilgeous-Alexander. While Gilgeous-Alexander is on his second consecutive season proving to us all that he’s a stone-cold killer and Antetokounmpo is fresh off of a 64-point performance, I look at this group and increasingly wonder if it’s finally Dončić’s time. He’s scoring at a career-best rate in terms of both volume (32.7 PPG) and efficiency (61.6% true shooting), and he quietly has the Mavericks sitting at third in the Western Conference as of this writing, despite a supporting cast that most would agree is fairly lackluster. Derrick Jones Jr. is Dallas’ fourth-leading scorer. If the Slovenian phenom can keep this up — perhaps unlikely! — he might eventually become undeniable.

You may be wondering about Jayson Tatum. To tell the truth, I consider him on the fringes at this point in time, lurking a tier below alongside the likes of Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. His individual numbers have taken a step back from last season — in which he was still a longshot candidate — and while the Celtics are the league’s best team, the star power of the roster will inevitably inspire the all-to-familiar “he has too much help” argument. He just doesn’t feel like a feasible candidate right now, but he also may be a red-hot Player of the Month-type stretch away from putting his hat in the ring.

Elsewhere, we’ve ragged on the Pistons enough in this space, so I won’t belabor the point here. I simply have to ask: when will they win a game again? Their next 12 games feature just three teams that sit firmly outside of the playoff picture as of this writing: Utah on December 21 and January 3, and San Antonio on January 10. If they don’t find a way to beat the Jazz on Thursday… is Philadelphia’s record 28-game losing streak in jeopardy here?

Next Up: Westward bound

With the five-game homestand in the books, it’s time to hit the road — and as far away as possible, at that. It’s all California, all the time for next week’s games; a three-game slate sees the Celtics play a back-to-back at Golden State and Sacramento on Tuesday and Wednesday, before traveling to Los Angeles for a Saturday afternoon matchup with the Clippers. It’s the first time the Celtics will have seen any of these teams this year, which means we’ll have some fresh subject matter to discuss this time next week.