The Boston Celtics are going to be just fine

Everything is going to be fine.*

*While I firmly believe the above statement, I admit that the word “fine” is doing a double shift of work here.

Forgive an old writer for waxing poetic and attempting to share some “King Solomon in Ecclesiastes” type wisdom. When you’ve covered a team for a couple of decades, you pick up on some macro trends. We deal with a lot of the daily minutiae here on the blog and I’m just as frustrated as the next guy with the recent rollercoaster ride. However, it is always healthy to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Let’s start here: I firmly believe that the Celtics could have won any of the last 3 Championships if a few things went their way. 3 years ago they got a front row seat for Steph Curry’s legacy showcase. But if a butterfly flapped its wings leading to chain of events that pushed a few Jordan Poole shots an inch or two to the left, maybe we’re having a whole different discussion. The next year you could replace Poole’s name with Caleb Martin and the statement would be just as true.

We talk a lot about what lessons the team learned along the way that made them Champions last year. There’s certainly some merit to that. However, I would submit that sometimes things just fall your way, and sometimes they don’t.

I’m not saying that the Celtics were just “lucky” last year, though every Champion in history has had some amount of luck on their side. It goes back to the philosophy that Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzulla live by. Develop good habits, execute the gameplan, and put yourself in position to succeed. It won’t always work, but you learn from the mistakes and keep refining the process to give yourself a better chance the next time.

Or said another way, if you are making the right cuts, moving the ball to the next logical option, and shooting the shots that open up, then you are taking the right shot. The best shooters in the world fail 60% of the time, but that’s still 5% better than most. Maybe the Warriors Finals was a good shot that just didn’t go in. Maybe the Heat loss the next year was a missed read that led to a slightly rushed shot. Last year was just a full year of the ball whipping around the court and draining an open 3. Make or miss league, right?

Going back to my original point. Everything’s going to be fine. You can take any individual loss from this season and explain it away with some kind of excuse or explanation. Players in and out of the lineup. First game back from a road trip. Back to back game after a hard fought battle the day before. Overlooked opponent due to their record or Ewing Theory. Or just basic long-season boredom. (“This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind”)

Stacked all together, they go from raising eyebrows to raising alarms. The danger is that they are developing bad habits that could show up in the playoffs. Smart coaches are taking dutiful notes about what works and doesn’t work against this team and they’ll be throwing everything they have at them to encourage those bad habits to surface again.

The good news is that there’s still over 30 games left in the season. We have an All Star break coming up. The Celtics have the 4th easiest strength of schedule remaining. There will be a number of nights against tanking teams where the Celtics can practice the right muscle memory exercises and then let the bench mop up with a Gino soundtrack playing in the background.

Kristaps Porzingis appears to be hitting his stride. Jayson Tatum is quietly having his best season. Derrick White has been a bit up and down, but has been much better as of late. Jaylen Brown has been a bit up and down but I trust him to get things together in time for the playoffs.

It kind of boils down to faith. This team built up a lot of faith equity with me, not just this year, but over the past 3. The bumps in the road are troubling and need to be addressed, but I think they will be.

So yeah, I think that this team is going to win a lot of games for the rest of the year. They’ll put themselves in position to defend (attack?) their title. They’ll make the right reads, move the ball around, and shoot the open shot. That doesn’t guarantee anything. Maybe the shot will go in, or maybe it will bounce the wrong way and the Cavs or Thunder will get to hoist their own trophy.

The 2008 title was magical. The following few years were exciting but ultimately frustrating because they didn’t repeat, but that doesn’t diminish the 2008 title. Win or lose this year, nothing can take away the banner #18 hanging in the rafters right now. But it sure would be sweet if we could add another one next to it.