It’s appropriate that after a win in a building that so many people still call the Rose Garden, the Boston Celtics stopped to smell a flower or two on their way out of town.
“I’m super-grateful,” Jaylen Brown said. “Around this time of year, I say the same thing, how much of an honor it is to be on the team … I'm grateful to be on a team that's winning, on a team that's been playing the right way, that has another opportunity to do something special. That's a blessing.”
The Celtics left Portland with their 50th win of the season, five more than any other team in the NBA and eight more than their closest competition in the East. The win over the Blazers ended up being a fairly easy one, and their .781 winning percentage suggests a 14-4 finish to the season. If they can get there, they’d finish with 64 wins, the fourth-most in Celtics history.
Two of the top three teams won championships (67 wins in 1986 and 66 wins in 2008). The other, the 68-win 1973 Celtics coached by Tommy Heinsohn, could have won if John Havlicek hadn’t dislocated his shoulder in the conference finals.
Those two paragraphs highlight a lot for the Celtics. First, this team is quite good. Second, they haven't won the one thing everyone wants yet.
“We want to win a championship. That's the ultimate goal,” Jayson Tatum said. “But it's important to acknowledge the small wins, essentially, through the process of winning 50 games, making the playoffs, and getting the top seed … It’s alright to pat yourself on the back sometimes as a team knowing that we got more things to accomplish, but we're doing a pretty good job so far.”
The little wins along the way are the fuel to keep going. The little accomplishments are the crumbs to follow on the path to winning the whole thing. This journey started five-and-a-half months ago. There has to be something to celebrate along the way.
It’s like someone trying to reach a weight loss goal. If I wanted to drop from 300 pounds to 250, you’d better believe I’m happy as hell the day the scale reads 280. I know there's a long way to go, but for that one day, I’m taking a moment for myself.
“It’s important for us not to take these things for granted. We’ve been fortunate enough to be on great teams for seven years and eight years now,” Tatum said. “It’s not like that on every team around the league.”
You don’t have to look far to see how different things are for other teams. The Blazers have just one 60-plus win season (63-19 in 1991), and they only have one championship and three Finals appearances since joining the league in 1971. They’ve had one run to the conference finals in 20 years.
I get that there's much harrumphing around here when words like these are written. This feeling that none of this matters if the team doesn’t win it all is a pretty strong one in this part of town. That's the goal and anything short of it will be a disappointment.
At the same time, this is a team with 50 in the win column by March 12. Phil Jackson famously said that teams need to reach 40 wins before they get to 20 losses to be considered true contenders. Boston has gotten to 50. They might get to 60. They might not lose 20 at all.
The ghosts of the past, and recent losses that are hauntingly similar to the team’s previous failures, make it tough for a fan to fully buy in at this moment. This is, after all, a team that just lost two crushing games to start this road trip. They need to win Tuesday night in Utah to prevent a losing road trip, so no one is throwing a premature parade.
We get it. They haven't won squat yet.
But these little pick-me-up moments are all important. The flight to Utah feels much better than it would have had this game gone differently. And these guys all understand the assignment.
Picking a rose on their way out of Portland, holding it up to their noses, and acknowledging that while this season has had a few downs, it’s also had a hell of a lot more ups so far, and that's something they can be proud of.
“We just try to get better, individually and as a group, every single day,” Tatum said. “We're not perfect, but we strive towards that, and at this point in the season to have 50 wins, we're doing something right. And the scary part is we can get better.”