Celtics under most pressure to win it all this year
I know I may sound like a broken record here, but this is a championship or bust season for the Boston Celtics.
This is something that everyone in the sports media world has been saying for the past few seasons, but in my opinion, this is the best opportunity for Boston to take it all this season. If not, there are going to be a lot of questions going into the off-season for the C’s.
The Celtics have made it to the eastern conference finals 3 seasons in a row, and have made it 6 of the last 8 seasons. These runs date back all the way to the 2016-2017 season, when they still had Isaiah Thomas on the team. That playoff run by Isaiah was one of the best I’ve seen live…nobody saw his career ending up the way it did after that. I don’t get sidetracked, that can be a conversation for another day.
The 2023-2024 Boston Celtics finished with a 64-18 regular season record, 14 games clear of the 2-seed. This is the best regular season record the Celtics have finished with since the 2007-2008 season, and it is the 5th best overall regular season record in team history.
This is the 7th season with the Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown led duo, which add pressure for this team on its own. On top of that, the Celtics went out to get Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. These were signings that simply made NBA fans wonder how that’s even possible..how is that even fair??
If you look at the rest of the teams left in the playoffs, none of them have expectations like Boston.
The Timberwolves, Mavericks, and Pacers are the other 4 teams left in the playoffs. If I had to pick another team that would be the most under pressure to win after the Celtics, it would be the Mavs. In my opinion, however, it isn’t close. Yes, Luka Doncic has a lot of expectations, but this Mavericks team was never expected to win this season. In fact, all of the teams expected to win a championship or had serious championship aspirations, aside from Boston, are out. Those teams include Denver, Milwaukee, Los Angeles (Clippers), and even a team in Philadelphia to a lesser extent.
A majority of those teams were knocked out mainly due to injury, it happens. With that being said, things fell quite nicely for Boston. Matching up with a Miami Heat team without Jimmy Butler, as well as a Cleveland Cavaliers team that was without Donovan Mitchell for 2 games definitely helps. They are now matched up with the Pacers team that no one thought would be in that spot. Again, injuries to teams like the Bucks and Knicks helped Indiana get in that position, which favors Boston greatly.
Looking at the Celtics as a whole, their path to the finals isn’t the only reason they are under this type of pressure. Jayson Tatum has been in the conversation for being one of the NBA’s top super stars, and his performances in the league have been top notch. He is eligible for a new 5-year, $315 million contract extension this summer. This comes after Jaylen Brown signed a massive 5-year, $304 million contract this past off-season, making him, at the time, the highest paid NBA player ever. Obviously Tatum is the star player on the team, so he will get his money.
Once the season ends and summer comes, the Celtics will be spending well over $600 million on their two star players in Tatum and Brown. That also means that in order to win, they will need to build around those two, making it more difficult to sign more star caliber players that demand a lot of money.
We will see what happens. The time is now for Boston to capitalize.