Playoff hopes blossom in the spring at TD Garden — particularly for the Celtics
As the playoffs dawn, it feels as if the Celtics are both overdue and right on time.
Every April, the calendar delivers a smorgasbord of much-anticipated sporting events for Boston fans. This year is no different. The suspense comes in finding out just how fulfilling it all will be.
A brief rundown of our sports feast:
The Bruins, an enigmatic second seed in the Atlantic Division, commence their Stanley Cup playoff journey Saturday with Game 1 against the always talented, perennially underachieving Maple Leafs.
The following afternoon, the top-seeded Celtics begin their quest for the elusive 18th championship against an opponent that will not be determined until the NBA play-in round is completed Friday night.
The Boston Marathon finish line is just behind us. The NFL Draft, with the Patriots possessing the No. 3 pick and a chance to select a potential franchise quarterback, is less than a week away. And the Red Sox, a few weeks beyond Opening Day, have … uh, not been mathematically eliminated just yet, so there’s that.
It seems fitting to borrow a phrase from retiring Bruins play-by-play voice Jack Edwards: “Who’s got it better than us?”
Of course, the fun and anticipation that the NBA and NHL playoffs bring is always accompanied by tension, particularly when it comes to the Celtics and their massive expectations this spring.
By analytic measures, the 2023-24 Celtics just completed one of the most dominating regular seasons in professional basketball history.
Their net rating — simply put, their point-differential-per-100 possessions — was 11.6, tied with the 2016-17 Warriors of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant for third-best in league history.
The two teams ahead of them? A pair of Michael Jordan’s Bulls squads, the 72-win, force-of-nature 1995-96 team (13.4 net rating ) and its successor the following season (12.0).
But the Celtics’ statistical place among those legendary teams matters roughly as much as, oh, Greg Kite’s career free throw percentage. Those Warriors and Bulls won championships, and this Celtics season will be unfulfilled if they do not achieve the same.
As the playoffs dawn, it feels as if the Celtics are both overdue and right on time.
They’ve reached the Eastern Conference finals five times since 2016-17, advancing once to the NBA Finals, where they lost to the Warriors in six games two years ago. Last season, they lost the first three games to an underdog Heat team in the conference finals, stayed resolute and won the next three, then lost Game 7 after Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle on the first play. They have had opportunities that were unexpected, and they have had opportunities that were wasted.
This year, their role has changed. This feels like their time. They are the heavy favorite in their conference, having won 64 games (fourth-most in franchise history) and finished 14 games ahead of the second-seeded Knicks. They may be the heavy favorite in the entire league, depending on how seriously one takes the defending champion Nuggets’ late stumble to the second seed in the West.
Jaylen Brown is 27 years old. Tatum is 26. They are experienced in big moments — Brown has been on the winning side in 58 playoff games, Tatum in 52 — which is something that tends to get dismissed, understandably and yet unfairly, when a season doesn’t end with a parade.
The two prime-of-career, homegrown stars are surrounded by an ideal cast, including selfless all-around guards Derrick White and Jrue Holiday, and impossibly proficient big man Kristaps Porzingis, whose giddiness about being a Celtic is reminiscent of Bill Walton’s for the 1986 champions.
The Celtics have a well-rounded bench led by Al Horford, and the path through the East should not be as daunting to navigate as it was in recent years.
This is not to suggest a total absence of flaws; the Celtics’ late-game execution, which often devolves into a Tatum isolation play when the team’s superpower is the trustworthy skill of its entire starting five, must become sharper, or they’ll lose a game or two they ought to win.
Boxing out once in while on a defensive rebound also would be swell, but apparently that ancient basketball fan’s plea has fallen on deaf ears since 2004 or so. Even with the occasional hiccups and disregard of fundamentals, this is an exceptional team, the Celtics’ best since both of Kevin Garnett’s knees were healthy.
They should be able to carry their own weight of expectations and history. In an odd way, they also have to do so for their TD Garden cohabitants.
Last year, the Bruins submitted, by measures of wins and points, the greatest regular season in NHL history. They won a league-record 65 games, racked up 135 points — another record — and entered the postseason with a golden chance to win their first Stanley Cup since 2011.
Their postseason stay lasted all of one series. The gritty Panthers knocked them out in overtime of the seventh game. The nightmare of a regular-season powerhouse proved real in the light of the playoffs. The championship quest ended all too soon, and their failing has hovered as a warning to these Celtics.
Circumstances and expectations are different this year for the Bruins. They are certainly a good team, better — perhaps much better — than many expected after Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired and a shift’s worth of other reliable veterans moved elsewhere.
This time around the rink, the Bruins won 47 games, totaled 109 points, and looked as if they would seize the top seed again until dropping their final two games. It’s difficult to gauge exactly what their playoff expectations should be, because this is a less-talented team than a year ago, but possibly a more resilient one.
Centers Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle, elevated after the Bergeron/Krejci departures, actually combined for more points this year (119) than their retired counterparts did a year ago (114). But David Pastrnak accumulated 43 more points than anyone else on the roster, coach Jim Montgomery has not tipped his hand on how he will deploy the goalie tandem of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, and the Maple Leafs, despite a history of heartache reminiscent of the pre-2004 Red Sox, should not be underestimated so long as 69-goal scorer Auston Matthews shows up for work.
For the Bruins, escaping the first round this time would count as minimum progress. For the Celtics, expectations are so much greater.
April is a sports delight on the Boston sports calendar. But if the Celtics fulfill everything they can be, the most satisfying joy will find us in June.
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