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In September, the Celtics kicked off training camp as defending champions who were borderline lecturing their fan base not to expect 2025 to have the same smooth road to success as 2024.
There were going to be road blocks, ones they could not possibly avoid, and they were going to have to devise ways to become a different team than that title club because that would be necessary. The Celtics would be played differently by opponents, who spent months conceiving strategies to counter Boston’s 3-point arsenal.
The Celtics began the season winning 16 of their first 19 games. Threes were falling. The ball was moving. Payton Pritchard was a Sixth Man of the Year lock. Jayson Tatum’s new shooting release was as smooth as Sinatra’s voice in ’53. The defending champions looked as if they would cruise back to the Finals.
Since Dec. 1, the Celtics are 12-8 and have slipped to a distant second behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference. After Friday’s game with the Orlando Magic, the Celtics will be halfway through their season, enough of a sample size to determine that this team has issues to address.
Sunday’s 1-point win over the New Orleans Pelicans was another example of how difficult the remaining regular season can be. Nothing can be taken for granted, not even a home game against an 8-31 team. The Pelicans were as healthy as they had been all season — yet still missing Brandon Ingram — and played a sparkling game, especially offensively.
And the Celtics are understanding that opposing teams are just playing better against the defending champions than other clubs. Dejounte Murray, a 26.1 percent 3-point shooter, canned five treys in the first period. Trey Murphy III was unstoppable in the second half.
“We have to expect everybody’s best shot,” Tatum said. “I kind of remember my rookie year. We [weren’t] 8-30 or whatever but I remember when we played the Warriors, it was a big deal. They won the championship [the year before], this is a big matchup. This is a big game. Just understanding that’s where we’re at, our place in this league. I think it’s just going to make us better, that regardless of who we’re playing we’ve got to expect the best from them.”
There are other issues, such as the change in the Celtics’ defensive approach that has played more double big (two centers) to protect the rim. Boston was getting gashed by opponents in the paint during their December slump and Joe Mazzulla decided it was a priority to make scoring inside more difficult.
What that adjustment has done is open up 3-point opportunities. So players such as Murray, Russell Westbrook, Nikola Vucevic, Ja Morant, Caleb Martin, Keegan Murray, and Tristan da Silva have burned them from beyond the arc. Since Dec. 1, opposing teams are outshooting the Celtics from the 3-point line, 37.3 percent to 34.1.
That doesn’t sound all that significant, but it is because the Celtics lead the league in 3-point attempts, and they need to win those percentage margins to maximize their success.
“It’s been a challenging month,” Mazzulla said. “And when you’re in a challenging month, you need situations like this to be able to work through. As I told the guys, it’s a great space to be in. Whatever the heck our record is, the standard is high and the expectation is high. We’re in a challenging spot and it’s a great place to be.”
Mazzulla fully realizes there are issues and there are some he publicly chooses not to reveal. Shooting inconsistency is one of them. Shots that went down last year aren’t this season, despite the Celtics working feverishly to create open looks.
The good news is there’s plenty of time to return to form. The Celtics are still within striking distance of the Cavaliers with two more head-to-head matchups, and have the second-most road wins in the NBA to Oklahoma City.
And they have managed this with Kristaps Porzingis, Jaylen Brown, and Jrue Holiday all shooting below their career averages from the 3-point line.
“We have to have the mental toughness to continue to work through [our offensive struggles] and find ways to win without it,“ Mazzulla said. “I would say the ultimate compliment is we’re 28-11 and this is the types of conversations that we’re having. It’s a beautiful place to be in. I’m serious. I think it’s great. It’s a great standard and expectation to have and we have to deliver. We all know that and there’s a process toward it. What are we? The third team in the league right now and it sounds like a morgue [in the press conference room]. That’s how it should be because of where we’re trying to get to. It’s the ultimate compliment and we just continue to work through it.”
The schedule will eventually become challenging. There is a four-game West Coast trip on the horizon and before that difficult home games with the Magic and Atlanta Hawks. There is still plenty of time for the Celtics to become the team they strive to be as the playoffs approach.
“We’re just not playing our best basketball,” Mazzulla said. “When you’re 7-6 over 13 [games], it’s not just one thing. There’s two great teams in the league that are having historic seasons and they
“Just because we were this last year you can’t take for granted the details, habits, execution, togetherness, trust, all that has to be rebuilt. I think sometimes when you have the same team, we have this expectation that we’re just going to pick up there and it’s different.”
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