The Celtics are having a championship hangover. They’re also still elite.
The 2023-24 Celtics were a methodical buzz saw; the 2024-25 version might be a buzz saw or a rusty pair of scissors, depending on the night.
LOS ANGELES — The faithful green masses, including a young boy in a full leprechaun getup, roared their approval Wednesday when Jayson Tatum rushed back in transition to swat a dunk attempt into the stands. Three thousand miles from TD Garden, the Boston Celtics looked poised to close out the Los Angeles Clippers and seal another win in what has been, on balance, an impressive title defense.
Seconds later, the groans came when Clippers guard Terance Mann slipped free on the inbounds play for an uncontested layup. Tatum’s extra effort play was immediately undone by a collective attention lapse. The ensuing endgame was a rocky ride: Jaylen Brown committed a crucial turnover to help the Clippers tie the score, and then the Celtics couldn’t get a clean shot at the buzzer. Tatum and Brown drilled three-pointers in overtime to save the victory, but the relief proved short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, the Los Angeles Lakers dismantled the Celtics, 117-96, on Thursday to deliver the defending NBA champions’ worst loss of the season.
Boston’s rickety two-step through Los Angeles continued a pattern of inconsistency that has festered for six weeks. Since launching with a 19-4 start, the Celtics are 12-10 since Dec. 7. The swings in their quality of play are getting more dramatic and more puzzling. During their past seven games, the Celtics barely survived the lowly New Orleans Pelicans, suffered an inexplicable loss to the Toronto Raptors, blew out the Orlando Magic, lost to the middling Atlanta Hawks, torched Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors by 40 points and squeaked past the Clippers before being embarrassed by the Lakers, their chief rivals, on national television.
The 2023-24 Celtics were a methodical buzz saw; the 2024-25 version might be a buzz saw or a rusty pair of scissors, depending on the night. Welcome to the dreaded championship hangover.
“After winning a championship, [the attention] is a bit heightened,” Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis said Thursday. “Every little misstep is exaggerated even more. Of course, we haven’t played our best. But I think we’re going to figure it out.”
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Only six of the past 25 NBA champions improved their winning percentage the year after they won it all; true to that form, the Celtics are on track for 56 wins — well shy of last season’s 64. The 2023-24 Celtics claimed the East’s No. 1 seed on Nov. 14, 2023, and never relinquished the spot. This time around, Boston, which returned all of its key rotation pieces, has trailed the Cleveland Cavaliers in the standings since the first week of the season.
Boston ranked first in offense and second in defense during its title run but has slipped to third and fifth, respectively. While the Celtics continue to lead the NBA in three-point makes and attempts, their three-point percentage has dropped from second last season to 14th. That regression stings given Boston’s record-setting commitment to the three-point shot: The Celtics are 21-5 when they make 18 or more three-pointers and 10-9 when they don’t.
Unfortunately, some of Boston’s most reliable backup plans on offense have fallen on harder times: Brown and Porzingis, in particular, have been much less efficient inside the arc this season compared with last season. Missed shots can lead to stagnation and inattentiveness, and Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla has been forced to dig deeper into his bench to find spark plugs.
“It’s a mental challenge and a physical one, too,” Brown said Wednesday, noting that he turned his ankle against the Clippers. “I’m pushing through. I think this is definitely the rougher part physically during the season. I’ve had some injuries. I try to make myself available every night. I’m a little beat up.”
The Celtics’ rebounding and blocked shot rankings have also declined this season, and much of Boston’s recent instability can be traced to big men Al Horford and Porzingis being in and out of the lineup. Remarkably, the Celtics’ default starting five for the title run — Tatum, Brown, Horford, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday — played together in more games during the 2024 playoffs (19) than they have so far this season (17).
What’s more, Boston’s most commonly used lineup from 2023-24, which featured Porzingis in place of Horford alongside the other four starters, has played in just 12 games together this season. Despite that group’s all-star talent and defensive chops, it has barely outscored its opponents. The Celtics can’t hope to recapture the chemistry that made them so overwhelming a year ago unless their best players are on the court together more often.
“We’ve got to clean some things up,” Tatum acknowledged after the late-game misadventures against the Clippers.
Porzingis’s fragility and the 38-year-old Horford’s age loom as real concerns: Porzingis has appeared in just 84 of Boston’s 146 regular season and playoff games since arriving via a 2023 trade, and Horford is the NBA’s oldest big man. Mazzulla has plugged his frontcourt holes with Luke Kornet and Neemias Queta, but both would be weak links if called into major duty during the playoffs.
As the Celtics juggle this growing list of questions, they can take comfort knowing they are still putting together one of the most dominant title defenses in recent memory.
Boston’s plus-8.9 net rating is on track to be the best by a defending champion since the 2015-16 Warriors (plus-10.6), who won an NBA-record 73 games in the regular season before losing in seven games in the NBA Finals. Boston’s mark is also better than 19 of the past 25 champions in their title-winning seasons, including the past three teams who won back-to-back championships: The 2017-18 Warriors (plus-5.9), the 2012-13 Miami Heat (plus-8.2) and the 2009-10 Lakers (plus-4.9). Perhaps that helps explain why oddsmakers still view the Celtics as the 2025 title favorites; Boston hasn’t been as good as last season, but it has outpaced plenty of recent teams who won it all.
The toughest challenges surely lie ahead. Boston breezed through the 2024 playoffs with a 16-3 record, facing just one 50-win team while taking advantage of injured opposing stars in series wins over the Heat, Cavaliers and Indiana Pacers.
This year’s path will almost certainly be less favorable, especially if Cleveland claims the No. 1 seed. The Celtics’ 2025 title path could include three opponents — the Cavaliers, the New York Knicks and the Western Conference champions — who are all more complete teams than anyone they faced last year. As it stands, a whopping seven West teams — including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Oklahoma City Thunder and Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets — have better net ratings than the 2023-24 Dallas Mavericks (plus-2.1), who made a surprise run to the Finals.
Boston can expect added pressure on another front: The Celtics face significant luxury tax penalties with the league’s third-highest payroll, and ownership put the franchise up for sale last summer. Title windows open and close faster than ever in this era of NBA parity, which has produced six different champions in the past six seasons.
For now, the hyperintense Mazzulla will be tasked with shaking awake a talented and experienced team that must improve its focus and energy if it wants to repeat.
“Praise and criticism are the same,” Mazzulla said Wednesday. “Nothing really matters except for the approach we take on a daily basis.”
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