The Boston Celtics are third in the East.
That's not a sentence that anyone thought would be written about this team. Of course, we all know that doesn’t matter much. Orlando and Memphis were your third seeds last December 7, and that didn't really work out well for them in the long run. There are no delusions of grandeur here.
“Doesn't mean anything. Doesn't show you anything,” Joe Mazzulla told reporters after beating the Toronto Raptors to jump them in the standings. “There's ebbs and flows along the way in the league.”
I agree with most of what he said, but I will disagree a smidge on the “doesn’t show you anything,” line. I’m sure Mazzulla is saying that for his team’s consumption, but for the rest of us, it shows us quite a bit.
This eight-game gauntlet, especially the five games in eight nights they just finished, was supposed to be a little more humbling than it was. They went 7-1, beating teams currently first, second, third, fourth, sixth, and eighth in their conferences (and also the Wizards). They have the fifth-best point differential and net rating in the league. Their offense is the NBA’s second-best.
None of this makes sense. This is not where they were supposed to be right now. But this win over Toronto is a great example of how they're exceeding their expectations.
They were supposed to be sloppy in their fourth game in six nights, but they came out on fire. The first half of this game was played nearly perfectly. They swarmed on defense, blocking shot after shot. Jordan Walsh looked like a different guy named Jordan for five minutes, which is not something I say lightly. They were running and creating great looks, and then they were rebounding the shots they missed to give themselves more chances.
Watching them, I had to remind myself to make notes and analyze what was happening because I was staring at the TV slack-jawed, wondering how the hell they were doing what they were doing.
And then in the third quarter, I thought they might have just hit a wall and this game would be a reminder of how precisely they need to play to win these games, and that there is no margin to allow for extended lapses. But then they just started hitting shots again, and they won another clutch game that they were losing earlier this season.
How is this possible?
We can start with Mazzulla, who has a roster full of guys with reasons to play selfishly, and he’s getting them on the same page. They are playing together and for each other, which in and of itself is a great coaching accomplishment.
Beyond that, he has them tapping into their collective strengths to thrive in this situation. Walsh is a defensive menace who finds himself at the center of massive runs, mostly because his defense is the reason those runs are happening. Josh Minott finds himself at center, period, because Boston stumbled onto a small-ball lineup that works and Mazzulla is riding it as an incredible change of pace while teaching Minott the ropes on the fly.
And if someone isn’t playing to their standards, he sits down. He’s done it to everyone on the roster at least once. Even Jaylen Brown.
Brown, by the way, isn’t just having a great season. He’s having an All-NBA season. And the way some things are breaking around the league, it’s looking like he can be a lock first-teamer if he keeps this up.
Brown isn’t just scoring points, he’s seventh in the league in points per game, fifth in total points, and second in field goals made (two off the leader, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander). He is working hard for his offense, and he’s getting all of it without a sidekick.
For all of Jayson Tatum’s greatness, he’s had Brown next to him every season of his career. Brown has Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, which is nice, but neither of them is making an All-NBA team.
Beyond the points, Brown has leaned into giving the ball up when he needs to, sharing the wealth so his team can benefit. And it’s all working beautifully right now. This five-game win streak is the culmination of everything coming together to work at its best.
At the same time, Mazzulla is dead on when he talks about ebbs and flows. Again, seeds mean jack at this time of year. If you’re still raking leaves, then you can toss the standings into the bonfire with them.
The Celtics have had incredible injury luck so far. There have been no extended absences outside of Tatum. There have only been a few single missed games so far this season, which is bound to change at some point. Every team goes through it, so it’s a matter of time before it hits the Celtics.
They've also seen some guys have insane starts to the season. Walsh and Minott are shooting in the mid-40% range from 3 so far this season. That's simply unsustainable. At some point, that's going to level off. Brown will probably cool off a little from mid-range.
What happens then?
“At the end of the day, I'd say we have a clear identity of who we are,” Mazzulla said. “The season presents opportunities and challenges and tests to how long you can stay the best version of yourself, and when you don't, how quickly can you get back?”
The beauty of where the Celtics sit is that they’ve stacked up a nice pad of wins for when things do go awry. At 15-9, they can hit a lull and still be an above .500 team. They are on a pace for 51-52 wins, which may be a bit unrealistic. But they can hit a rough patch and still be on pace for 45. They've built a nice cushion for themselves for a soft landing, even if they hit some turbulence.
The question, really, is when they hit it. Right now, things are looking pretty good. They have one game scheduled over the next seven days, and that's in Milwaukee against a team without Giannis Antetokounmpo. They’ll have another tough test against the Pistons, and Miami will test Boston’s defense (which is currently ranked 17th), but then they have the Raptors again, the Pacers twice, the Blazers, Jazz, Kings, and Clippers. It’s a long road trip, but it’s not the toughest trip in the world.
Of course, they just cruised through the toughest part of the schedule. Maybe we’ve been transported to opposite land and they’ll struggle with the easier schedule.
Honestly, I don’t know anymore with these guys. They're doing so much that no one saw coming that it’s not worth expecting anything anymore. All I know is that they're fun and they work hard. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s next.
“We got a big practice coming up on Wednesday, and that's the next big test,” Mazzulla said. “It’s how, how we approach that day, so it's the only thing that matters.”