The NBA All-Star Game might have been an interminable slog with very limited amounts of actual basketball, but the All-Star break is zipping by. The Boston Celtics will be back on the floor Thursday night in Philadelphia ready to rip through 27 games in 53 nights to finish up the 2024-25 regular season.
Here are the six biggest questions we’ll be seeking answers to in the "second half" of the season:
1. Will Celtics elevate their play at home against elite opponents?
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You know the numbers by now. The Celtics are a league-best 22-6 on the road but somehow just 17-10 at home.
Those TD Garden missteps ultimately may cost the Celtics a chance at the top spot in the Eastern Conference -- more on that later -- but the good news is that a slew of top-tier opponents should increase Boston’s focus level on its home turf.
Starting Sunday, the Celtics host the:
- Knicks (February 23), with a chance to create some distance between the East's No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.
- Cavaliers (February 28), in the last head-to-head meeting of East leaders.
- Nuggets (March 2), who were missing Nikola Jokic in the teams' first meeting out west.
That Cavs game kick-starts a seven-game home stand that also includes a visit from Robert Williams III and the Blazers (the most important game of the season for some of us), Kevin Durant and the Suns, and Luka Doncic and the Lakers, all before a potential Finals preview against the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 12.
There are a bunch of five-star matchups in there, which has typically brought out the best in Boston. The final 27 games won’t lack for intrigue.
2. Will a bit of midseason rest jump-start Jrue Holiday?
It’s been a pretty crazy 16 months for Jrue Holiday. There was the eve-of-training-camp deal that delivered him to Boston in October 2023, a championship season with the Celtics, a multi-continent gold-medal trip with Team USA, and now this new 2024-25 campaign.
Holiday hasn’t quite been himself this season. He will turn 35 one day before a potential Game 7 of the NBA Finals. It’s fair to wonder if his shooting woes are a result of age, injury or veteran pacing -- or some combination of all three.
After shooting 42.9 percent on 3-pointers last season and leading the NBA in corner 3-point percentage, Holiday is at 34.2 percent this season, and he ranks in the 6th percentile among all combo guards while shooting 26.9 percent in the corner, per Cleaning the Glass tracking.
Holiday really figured out his role late last season and was a key cog in Boston’s postseason success, particularly with his defense, which basically changed the outcome of multiple games against Indiana in the East Finals. Maybe he’s simply keeping the tank full for the bigger moments.
Or maybe that shoulder has bothered him more than we know this season. Will a couple of weeks of rest be enough to jump-start him? Holiday hasn’t played since February 4 in Cleveland, so he’ll have had a couple weeks off his feet upon the restart.
As the Celtics start to find their collective mojo, it feels important for Holiday to find his own. The luxury for the Celtics: Payton Pritchard has played so well that they’ve been able to lean more heavily on him to help limit the overall wear-and-tear on Holiday, whose minutes per game (30.2) are the lowest since his rookie season.
3. Will the Celtics push for the No. 1 seed?
The Celtics are 5.5 games back of the Cavs. That’s a lot of games to make up in less than a third of the season. The final head-to-head meeting could entice Boston to ponder a charge, but the better question here might be, is it worth it?
Is it worth it for the Celtics to expend all the energy necessary to chase the Cavs when the only true benefit could be home court to start the East Finals? And is that even a benefit given Boston’s home/road splits this season?
The top seed in the East also could end up with a sneaky tricky playoff path. The Sixers, if they ever get on track, would be in the mix for the eighth spot in the East via the play-in tournament. Round 2 could feature either the feisty Pacers, fresh off their East Finals visit last season, or Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.
Boston’s path as the potential No. 2 seed would look more like Magic-Knicks-Cavs, if top seeds won out based on current standings.
We suspect the Celtics will identify spots to pace veteran players and be content to let the chips fall where they may based on how the team performs over the final 27 games. If Cleveland is anywhere near as consistent as they’ve been all year, they won’t be catchable.
Ultimately, some of Boston's home-court missteps in December and January will complicate the path to landing back atop the conference.
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4. Will a new owner have an agreement before the postseason?
Nine months after the Grousbeck family announced its intention to sell its stake in the Celtics, and nearing a month since the team started receiving first-round bids, it feels like ownership news could hover over the team at some point in this final push.
The bigger question: Will it matter?
The core players of this team ought to to be focused on the hunt for another title and it might not even faze them. But it will be a storyline that could grab more headlines than the play on the court.
Celtics brass must do their best to ensure it doesn’t become a distraction given the lofty goals for this year’s team. All the hard talks about the future can wait until the summer.
5. Will any Celtics make a second-half push for awards consideration?
Pritchard remains the favorite to win Sixth Man of the Year. Tatum seems to making a push for his best finish in MVP voting. Jaylen Brown felt like he got snubbed for All-NBA and All-Defense consideration last season.
The Celtics are clearly more focused on team goals than individual honors, but it will be interesting to see how much the team is rewarded for another strong season. Last year, Brad Stevens earned Executive of the Year and the Stock Exchange backcourt of Holiday and Derrick White landed All-Defense nods. The Celtics were otherwise unaccounted for in awards.
It feels like it could be pretty similar this year, with Pritchard one of the few who could actually get hardware.
6. Will the Celtics figure out how to thrive with their top nine healthy?
The Celtics have rarely had their entire top nine available this season, but when they have, it hasn’t always translated into their best basketball. The preferred starters, after a painfully sluggish start together, are slowly finding some footing -- and yet they still hold a minus-3.8 net rating in 277 minutes together.
The Celtics started finding some of their collective mojo by winning seven of eight games to close out the first half. But they still need to figure out the distribution of touches and shots when at full health. Maybe that’s game-plan dependent, but with so many intriguing matchups the next month, it’s a chance for Boston to really show it knows how to thrive in multiple ways against elite competition.
How do the Celtics ensure Tatum carries his momentum from that last batch of games? Will Brown find his shooting touch a bit more in the final stretch? How and when do the Celtics maximize Kristaps Porzingis' presence?
The bottom line is, Boston needs to figure out what it looks like when this team is firing on all cylinders. These Celtics have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know how to thrive when shorthanded -- the success the past two seasons prove it.
But now Boston just needs to remind itself how its best version looks at full health.