Celtics: Impressive

Thursday 6/13/24

Impressive win by the Celtics last night. Saw all of it. They're a team. In years past they were guys. I don't know how long it will last. The Celtics don't have a transcendent, MVP-type player. They don't have "the guy" and players sometimes need to be viewed as the guy so they do things consciously and otherwise to try and bring that about.

Tatum and Brown work best when they're playing team basketball and complementing each other. For now, for this season, for this run, they seem to have accepted that. They're most likely going to win the championship (I don't like saying something is over with sports--or with most things--before it is) and it's not because of superstar play. The team will be associated with the win, not a player or two. Usually it's a player or two.

Derrick White and Jrue Holiday matter just as much as Tatum and Brown. The biggest difference this year--physically, anyway--has been what Holiday brings and does. (The contrast in play quality and value--and as a good teammate--between Holiday and Marcus smart is sizable and telling.)

He's an excellent ballplayer. A winning ballplayer. Can do whatever needs to be done in order to win. That play last night where he made up his mind to drive hard to the basket on the baseline and then threw that bullet pass--with his left hand--to White who knocked down a three was one of the plays of the postseason. (I understand why Team USA wants him on their Olympic roster.) Holiday made that play with such authority. Brown and Tatum, yes--and Tatum is still missing a lot--but White and Holiday are right there importance-wise.

This is a really good team. It's not a mega-star driven thing. Okay, you can say the bench isn't that deep. But the main guys and their games fit with each other well. People will gripe about the competition and how the road to a championship opened up for the Celtics, but they're 15-2 in the playoffs and 15-2 is 15-2.

Do the Mavs get Game 4? Maybe. But they made their big push last night and I don't think they went up by more than 13 there in the first quarter and by the end of that quarter the Celtics were down only by 1 and I thought that must have been pretty dispiriting for the Mavs.

But mostly I see a team with the right mix. The pieces have come together. And it's a team now with a better attitude and understanding than it had in the past. The Mavs came back last night to get within 1 in the fourth. The crowd was amped, but you still felt that the Celtics would make the plays they needed to make, get stops, and do what needed to be done, which is what happened. In previous times, you probably wouldn't have thought that way.

An impressive win from an impressive team.