Boston Celtics 2024-25

I mean, Boston took 56 threes and only shot 25%.  When you shoot the volume of long range shots and are basically one dimensional offensively that off shooting night will happen from time to time.

What should concern Boston is they got killed on the glass late in the game, and lost handily despite making almost 20 FTs.  I also don’t think they played good defense, which is interesting, because they have this built in narrative that they are a great defensive team.

I’ll give Boston their flowers but anyone that thinks this squad is the mid to late 90s Bulls is flat out wrong.   The way to beat that team is to keep it close and pull it out at the end.  Other than Brown there isn’t a single person on that roster that plays with a killer instinct.   Their flaws usually get hidden by gaudy shooting performances.

The other problem that may develop in Boston is that Jrue Holiday looks like he's really regressing on the offensive end. He gets a lot of open looks as their 4th or 5th option and he's still only shooting 43.8% from the floor and 32.3% from three this year. His defense is still outstanding, but we all know how he got lit up by Jimmy Butler in his last playoff series as a Buck, and his defense has dropped from an all-time great level to merely elite.

That's the problem the Bucks faced when they traded Jrue for Dame. Holiday was maybe going to be an offensive plus for another year or two. 105 million for the next three years for Jrue is going to be an albatross of a contract. He still makes sense for Boston because he's the 5th option, but he would have been a disaster for the Bucks as the 3rd option (or the second when Middleton sits).

Boston still is a clear favorite in the East, but Jrue will be 35 by the time the Finals come around and Horford will be 38. Porzingis has only played over 60 games once in the last 8 years. Winning fixes a lot of things, but the relationship between Brown and Tatum has always been rumored to be a bit dicey.

You can only beat who you play, but they may have had the easiest path to the finals in NBA history last year due to injuries on other teams. They got to play the Heat without Jimmy Butler, the Cavaliers without Donavan Mitchell, and the Pacers without Haliburton. The Knicks lost Brunson in their series with the Pacers and Bucks lost Giannis and Dame in their series with the Pacers.

Then, in the Finals they got to play a Mavs team that was a perfect matchup for them. The Mavs had two wing scorers and almost nothing else and Jrue, White, Brown, and Tatum are all good wing defenders.

They never had to go more than 5 games in any series, and they never had to see how Horford would have held up over a 7 game series against an elite big guy - Giannis, Embiid, Jokic, AD, even KAT.