Here's some fitting season-opening thoughts, 19 of them, on your NBA champion Celtics
The reigning champions are four games and four wins into the NBA season.
Four games and four wins into the new season, I bring you 19 thoughts on the defending NBA champion Celtics.
Why 19? You know why …
1. As you may recall, Jayson Tatum shot 26.3 percent from 3-point range in the Finals, didn’t shoot higher than 30.6 percent from that territory in any of the four playoff series, and apparently left his jumper stateside during his complicated Olympics experience in Paris.
So what did he do about it? He simply went back to the gym and fixed the thing, ditching that unnecessary sweeping hitch and simplifying his release.
Tatum is averaging 4.5 made threes at 41.9 percent so far, and such sharpshooting looks sustainable with a simpler and way more aesthetically pleasing shot.
2. This stands as one more reminder that Tatum — and Jaylen Brown too — hasn’t received enough credit over the years for how hard he works to polish his game.
Part of Larry Bird’s legend is how he always worked to add to his repertoire. When Tatum is done here a decade from now, that dedication to improvement should be part of his legacy. Already should be, actually.
3. Brown’s handle still gets so loose on occasion that it’s fair to wonder whether he was Adam Brody’s personal basketball consultant for “Nobody Wants This.” But you know what? That’s fine.
4. Occasional forays into over-dribbling aside, Brown has become a close-to-unstoppable offensive force, one who can blow by bigger players and overpower smaller ones at will. Wouldn’t surprise me if he averaged more points per game than Tatum this season.
5. Payton Pritchard has to be the first player in NBA history whose prowess at long-distance buzzer-beaters is so well-established that half-court shots count as a go-to move.
6. Pritchard is a career 39.8 percent shooter from 3-point land in his five-year career. The only players in his draft class with a better percentage who shoot threes regularly are Desmond Bane (41.5 percent, No. 30 overall pick by the Celtics, immediately traded to the Grizzlies) and Patrick Williams (40.7 percent, No. 4 pick by the Bulls).
7. Prediction: Derrick White will make the All-Star team this year. Better, people will stop calling him underrated, and properly rate him as one of the best all-around guards in the league.
8. The three main elements to White’s shot-blocking prowess: He has ridiculously quick feet that rarely leave him out of position. He’s a quick leaper. And his reach apparently expands to 11 feet whenever he enters the paint.
9. White and Joe Mazzulla are the perfect match of player and coach. White is playing with so much confidence now — confidence Mazzulla helped bring out by empowering him to be aggressive and unafraid of mistakes — that it’s easy to forget how hesitant he was when he arrived from the Spurs during the 2022 season.
10. I’ve often said, during his first stint here and now during his second, that Al Horford is the quintessential Celtic, in the sense that you can see exactly how and where he would fit in on every great team in franchise history.
11. Well, I would like to amend that, because Horford has company in the He Would Fit On Any Celtics Champion club. White and Jrue Holiday also deserve that designation.
12. The Celtics had plenty of necessary luck on their way to Banner 18, which has been mentioned ad nauseum regarding their playoff run. But their most fortuitous break happened before the season — the Bucks trading Holiday to the Blazers.
13. There’s no way Brad Stevens could have anticipated that Holiday would become available … is there? I sometimes wonder what the full picture of the Celtics backcourt would have looked like had that deal not presented itself.
14. Celtics players aren’t supposed to be looking back, of course, with the new season upon them. But we can, and should. As I tell my kids, you should never stop savoring a championship. You’ll always, always have that, no matter how everything plays out in the following years.
15. So, a question: What was your favorite single in-game moment from the championship run? I suspect Pritchard’s halfcourt bomb in Game 5 of the Finals — a shot that basically declared, “Yeah, we’re winning it all tonight” — would be the first choice for the majority.
16. For me, it’s Holiday’s steal to save Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers. It was just such a Dennis Johnson thing to do, and DJ was my favorite Celtic growing up, Non-Larry Legend Division.
17. One thing I know about Kristaps Porzingis’s return, whether it comes in December or perhaps sooner: It needs to happen at home. Porzingis treasures the atmosphere in this Garden in a way similar to how Bill Walton felt about the old place when he got here in ‘86.
18. Nice to see Jordan Walsh getting — actually, make that earning — some real minutes. I’m not sure he’s going to shoot more than 30 percent from three, but he’s a live wire who can be a better version of 2023 Oshae Brissett.
19. Wish there had been a way to keep Lonnie Walker IV around. Wish he’d decided to go to Maine. But I understand why neither happened. He was too costly in tax penalties to keep. And he’s way too good for the G League.
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