It took 16 weeks, but we’re ready to accept the variable-speed Celtics.
The team's four games last week confirmed what we’ve long known but were reluctant to embrace: The 2024-25 Boston Celtics can crank it up whenever they want. They look like a championship-level squad when it matters, and there’s nothing more dangerous than how quickly this team can mentally downshift when it doesn’t.
For 16 weeks, we stomped our feet and shouted about how the really great teams don’t operate this way. How the best teams in league history would find some sliver of motivation regardless of opponent. We fretted how these Celtics might be fumbling a chance to assert themselves as one of the truly elite teams in NBA history by not playing at the dominant level we saw the majority of last season.
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That’s just not how this season is going to play out.
We understood before the season started that motivation wouldn’t be easy when these Celtics can’t accomplish their only true goal until June. The dog days of January and February were always going to be a slog. But instead of fighting it, we’re going to espouse it.
In the span of seven days, the Celtics...
- Downshifted against a Joel Embiid/Paul George-less Sixers team, then got sick of watching Guerschon Yabusele flex all over them and rallied from a 26-point deficit for a win that delivered the team’s first three-game winning streak in a month.
- Strutted into Cleveland and let fourth-quarter Derrick White steer them to a statement win against the team at the top of the Eastern Conference standings. That message: The East still goes through Boston.
- Returned home from a 3-0 road trip and, as they are wont to do, put their brains on airplane mode. The Celtics’ starters brought zero energy against the now Luka-less Mavericks and were content to let Klay Thompson turn back the clock while handing the Celtics their 10th home loss of the season.
- Locked right back in on the road against the Knicks and forcefully stiff-armed a team that had crept alarmingly close in the East standings. Jayson Tatum was the Broadway star, stacking up 40 points that included a loud opening scene where he posterized Precious Achiuwa and set the tone for the game.
Those four games are the Celtics’ season in a nutshell: good when they need to be; maddening at times when they don’t. We've got a gut feeling about how Monday’s visit to Miami is going to play out -- although if the Celtics elect to give some of their stars a night of South Beach rest, it might enable the stay-ready crew to inject some needed energy.
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Flipping the switch is a dangerous strategy. We still have PTSD from 2019, when Kyrie Irving repeatedly swore the Celtics would crank things up in the postseason. That Celtics team crashed and burned, with Irving applying some postseason lighter fluid before bolting for Brooklyn and leaving Boston brass to clean up the mess.
We’d love to see a little more consistency in Boston’s play over the final 27 games coming out of the All-Star break this season. But the way the Celtics played against the Cavaliers and Knicks, it’s simply hard to imagine any team beating them four times in seven games when the matches really matter.
The numbers confirm what the eyes tell us: Boston is 11-5 (.688 winning percentage) against the teams with the top 10 net ratings in the league. That’s the second-best winning percentage in the NBA behind only Oklahoma City (14-6). What’s more, Boston has the second-best offense (123.1 offensive rating) and sixth-best defense (115.5 defensive rating) in games against those teams, per Cleaning the Glass data.
Boston’s record against the best teams could be even better. The Celtics played arguably their best offensive half of the season in Oklahoma City, then turned in a complete second-half dud. If Boston didn't have multiple defensive lapses in the final seconds during a visit from the Rockets, the C's might have swept that season series.
The full breakdown of Boston’s record versus the teams in the top 10 in net rating: 0-1 vs. the Thunder and Grizzlies; 2-0 vs. the Knicks, Clippers, and Timberwolves; 2-1 vs. the Cavaliers, 1-0 vs. the Nuggets, 1-1 vs. the Mavericks and Rockets.
Boston’s record is just 11-8 against the middle 10 teams in net rating. In fact, based on the team’s point differential in those games, the Celtics have produced three fewer wins than expected, per CTG tracking. Why? Because when they are focused in those matchups, they put up lopsided wins. And when they don’t, they suffer narrow losses to inferior opponents.
Even the Celtics’ home/road splits accentuate the difference between being engaged in a hostile environment and being a little too comfortable on your home turf. Among the teams with the nine best records in the NBA, only two have lost double-digit games at home this season: The Celtics and Knicks. Boston has the worst home record overall among all teams in that group. But its 21-6 road mark is the best in the NBA.
Boston’s defense is 3.5 points per 100 possessions better on the road, and the team’s net rating this season is a point higher on the road (+9.4) than at home (+8.5). And that's with the home numbers being juiced by a 54-point win over Toronto, as well as 30-plus-point wins over the Pacers and Clippers).
This is just the way it’s going to be. Last season, the Celtics were engaged every night while still hunting the ultimate prize. This season, there are simply going to be nights where they prefer to wait until May or June to show it.
That’s not to absolve them from some of the missteps along the way. Even if you’re sleepwalking at times, you can’t have the late-game miscues that plagued the Celtics during their roller-coaster ride through December and January.
But that loss to the Mavericks was the first time in a long time that we’ve been willing to immediately shrug off an ugly effort. In hindsight, the Celtics should have rested some starters that night. They made up for it in New York.
We might not like that these Celtics operate with different levels of focus. We wish they’d be better at finding ways to prod them. Joe Mazzulla’s challenge is to keep finding carrots in the second half of the season. That shouldn’t be an issue when the playoffs start.
Like it or not, we just have to accept this is the way it’s going to be.