Let me see if I can properly capture how Celtics fans are feeling after their 7-7 start to the season.
It has been a bit of a ringer for Celtics fans who, thanks to social media and online outlets like this one with robust comments sections, can really live and die with every twist and turn of a season.
As fun as that might be, getting in so deep does cause us to lose a little bit of perspective when it comes to the bigger picture. We are quick to make determinations about players and coaches without allowing for the full picture to develop.
The Celtics have completed 17% of their season, and while most of us didn’t expect the team to be 7-7 at this point, there is still room to make a move.
Let’s just zoom out for a moment to realize they’re still only 3.5 games out of first place. The sixth-place New York Knicks are 8-6, tied with Philly. Charlotte, currently sitting in eighth, are 8-7. So Boston beating Atlanta on Wednesday, along with a loss from a couple of teams, suddenly puts the Celtics into the top six of the Eastern Conference.
In fact, the Celtics actually have a chance to make an early move in the standings. After the Atlanta game, they come home for a Friday/Saturday back to back against the LA Lakers and OKC Thunder. It’s part of a four-game homestand that includes the Houston Rockets on Monday, November 22 and Brooklyn the day before Thanksgiving. They close the month at San Antonio on Friday the 26th and Toronto on Saturday the 28th.
It’s not unrealistic to say that all but maybe the Nets game look winnable right now. The Hawks have finally won a couple in a row but they’re still a below .500 team at the moment. The Lakers have been scuffling a bit and have some bad losses on their resume. The Thunder are trying to lose (though they’re actually not losing as much as we thought). Houston is rebuilding. The Spurs are currently 4-9. And we know all about the Raptors by now.
I’m certainly not saying they WILL win all those games. I’m not going to look at the first 14 Celtics games and feel any confidence in the team to go on a run like that and wind five of these next seven games.
BUT...
Jaylen Brown is coming back soon and if Robert Williams is OK and Jayson Tatum can break out of his slump and at least play normal basketball, they have a chance to come out of November in the middle of the Eastern Conference pack.
If they beat the bad teams (OKC, Houston, San Antonio), beat Toronto again knowing what they know about them, and grab one of the Atlanta/Los Angeles/Brooklyn games, that’s 5-2 and a 12-9 record heading into December.
That could put them somewhere around fifth in the conference, even after everything they’ve been through. It would be a roundabout way of getting there, but that’s where most people thought they’d be this season.
Whether they do or don’t make a run isn’t even the issue right now. We can argue all day tomorrow whether they will or won’t but that’s not even the point.
The fact is that we’re sitting here with a 7-7 team that's very clearly still in the messy, early stages of learning each other and, despite all that, they still have a chance to be right where they should be heading into December.
That’s why people say “it’s early.” It’s because the swings between good and bad are just way too wild in early November.
The Celtics came out of the Chicago debacle with the league’s 25th-ranked defense; fifth from the bottom and giving up 110.3 points per 100 possessions.
Since then, the Celtics are 5-2, and owners of the best defense in the NBA. Since that loss to the Bulls, the Celtics are giving up 97 points per 100 possessions, which is ridiculously good.
They haven’t had Jaylen Brown for five of those games.
Again, this isn’t some big set up to declare Boston is poised for some big turnaround. There are probably just as many reasons to believe as there are to not. They could get trounced by Atlanta and the mood will shift again. Or, they could roll through the Hawks and we can start selling tickets to the bandwagon.
Neither result would surprise me. It’s hard to figure out who this team is.
And that's because they’re still figuring it out themselves. They have a rookie coach, some big egos, and some stubborn dudes. This flight is still going to have plenty of turbulence.
But, through it all, the Celtics have managed to stay afloat. It hasn’t been great, but they’ve given themselves a chance to make a move. There’s some resilience in that. There’s something to hang your hat on in that. For all the hand-wringing about everything that’s gone wrong, there’s something positive in that.