The Shamrock Charade
A history of the Tatum-Brown Celtics
Every year, East Coast talking heads gush about the historical greatness of a team whose greatest attribute for the last decade has been to pad their stats against bad Eastern Conference teams.
I’ve written about Boston media myths almost every season since Jayson Tatum was drafted.
But last year, the Celtics had a historically great season based on the only statistic people care about — winning.
They won 64 games in the regular season and went 16–3 in the playoffs to win a record-setting 18th title.
Does it matter that they won against the worst competition since maybe the 1978 44-win Baltimore Bullets? Hey, a title is a title.
What matters is how the team ranks historically and whether the Tatum-Brown tandem can win another ring.
After starting the season 19–4, the defending champion Celtics have gone 13–10 while suffering embarrassing losses to Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, Atlanta, and an Orlando squad missing their two best players. Those Leastern Conference teams are a combined 91–130.
On Wednesday night, Boston rested three of their top six players against the Clippers.
Why?
Because they had to prepare for the only game that matters among NBA rivalries — the Los Angeles Lakers.
It doesn’t matter that the Lakers are considered a perennial play-in team led by a 40-year-old LeBron James and oft-injured Anthony Davis. It doesn’t matter that the rest of the roster looked like the island of misfit toys, complete with defenders who can’t shoot, offensive players who can’t defend, guys who can’t get healthy, and shooting specialists who can’t shoot.
Boston homer Bill Simmons revels in proposing ridiculous trades, sending Anthony Davis — who may be the most disrespected MVP-level player in league history — for a pupu platter of role players and washed stars. According to him, the Lakers have no chance at the title because they are terrible on defense.
And that was true for the first 25 games of the season, when they surrounded the #RealDPOY, Davis, with a 40-year-old conserving energy and three guys who can barely defend or rebound.
A funny thing happened since then. The Lakers started Max Christie, a 6'6" 3-and-D wing with long arms who can defend, shoot 3-pointers, and rebound. They followed that by finally trading D’Angelo Russell, a gifted offensive player who disappears when the playoffs begin and who can’t even be bothered to try on defense. In exchange, they got Dorian Finney-Smith, another true 3-and-D wing.
This may come as a surprise to no one outside of the Lakers front office, but surround LeBron and Davis with guys who can defend, the Lakers suddenly become a top-10 defense. They have gone 11–1 (including the win over the Warriors two days later) in games when holding opponents to 110 points or less.
To be fair, when LeBron isn’t highly motivated, they can still have bad defensive games which included embarrassing meltdowns against San Antonio and Dallas. But a 13–7 winning percentage translates to a 50-win team.
And if those 3-and-D guys can make wide-open, spot-up 3-point shots, you get a national TV game on Thursday where the Lakers ran Boston out of the gym.
The Lakers dominated on the boards and in the paint, exposing Celtics’ weaknesses that haven’t been corrected the entire time Tatum and Brown have been together.
But let’s not overreact.
This game was a pleasant dream for L.A. fans. It’s silly to believe the Lakers have a shot at winning an NBA title unless someone else beats Denver in the playoffs.
On the other hand, it’s also silly to say the Lakers should be broken up when only the Nuggets have beaten L.A. at full strength in the playoffs since the Lakers won their last championship in 2020.
What I do look at is their process, and the Celtics have not looked good for the past two months.
The real question is, “Can the Celtics contend for a title going forward?”
Here are the positive reasons.
#1. GM Brad Stevens has become the new Danny Ainge, fleecing teams left and right.
He turned Boston’s flawed, injury-prone, and divisive role players into one of the most talented six-man lineups in NBA history. That is a story by itself that I’ll save for another time.
Last year’s Celtics roster had six players (Tatum, Brown, Holiday, Horford, White, and Porzingis) who have one or more of the following accolades: All-Star, All-NBA, All-Defense, or received votes for Defensive Player of the Year.
Their “best” player, Tatum, basically rode the bench in the Olympics while teammates Holiday and White played a critical role as defenders. And the guy who was really snubbed, Jaylen Brown, was the NBA Finals MVP.
Since their play fell off, Celtics fans are frantically calling for GM Brad Stevens to save the team by bringing in new talent.
Maybe he can do it.
There are still plenty of suckers occupying the GM office around the league.
#2. They still play in the Leastern Conference.
That should be good for 50+ wins and at least a top 3 playoff seeding. They can afford to rest their players during the last month of the season, while Tom Thibodeau plays his Knicks starters 40 minutes per night for no reason. Milwaukee doesn’t have the defensive wings to guard Boston’s superstars. And Orlando has the size and defense, but no offense.
Only the Cleveland Cavaliers pose a threat to the Celtics, while the West will be full of land mines to avoid in every round of the playoffs.
#3. Jayson Tatum gets treatment from the refs that LeBron James wishes he had.
I’ve never seen a player whose only move to get open is a stiff arm. According to the rules, it is an offensive foul when a player straightens his arm as he pushes away a defender.
But Tatum gets away with this move as often as Draymond Green sets illegal screens.
And when he drives to the rim, he simply rams into a defender and then cries the few times his foul grifting isn’t rewarded. Tatum is #8 at 6.6 free throws attempted per game this season, despite jacking up mostly step-back 3-pointers.
By contrast, LeBron James shoots 2.4 fewer free throws per game, even though he scores 47.2% of his points in the paint. (Only 34.2% of Tatum’s points come in the paint.)
Which factors work against the Celtics winning another title?
Winning a title is hard; repeating is even harder.
Teams can get complacent, thinking they can flip a switch when the playoffs start. Role players start thinking about getting theirs. The champs have a target on their back in almost every regular season game.
But there are far deeper problems facing the Celtics.
#1. Jayson Tatum is not a transcendent, transformational player.
Even a Boston homer like Bill Simmons admits that Tatum can’t dominate a game like Jokic, Giannis, Luka, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Tatum needed to be surrounded by extraordinary talent to win a title and he wasn’t even the best player on his team — Jaylen Brown was the guy who won ECF and NBA Finals MVP.
Wednesday night’s game against the Lakers showed this once again. LeBron James at 40 years old is still a better player than Tatum, one who can take over a game. The same thing applies to Anthony Davis.
The only way Tatum can change the outcome of a game is to get hot on step-back 3-pointers, or not get called for fouls he commits against players about to hit a game-winning layup.
What Simmons also can’t admit is that Tatum is the most overrated superstar in recent NBA history. Boston’s recent playoff runs are more remembered for outstanding outlier performances by role players.
#2. Their two superstars are not complimentary players.
Look at every NBA Champion since the end of the Bulls dynasty. The winners have a dominant big and shot-creating wing.
Tim Duncan was complimented by guards Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
Shaq had Kobe.
Dirk Nowitzki had Jason Kidd.
LeBron had Dwyane Wade in Miami, Kyrie Irving in Cleveland, and Davis in L.A.
Even the Warriors had a DPOY-level post defender in Draymond Green to go along with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
Giannis could attack the rim because the threat of Brook Lopez from beyond the arc pulled centers out of the paint. And in case of emergency, Khris Middleton was deadly with his mid-range jump shot.
Most recently, the Jokic-Murray two-man game was unstoppable in every close game.
And then you have the Celtics, with Tatum and Brown taking turns to run the offense.
Without any synergy, Boston’s offense will often degenerate into hero ball in crunch time, leaving them to depend on bad, contested step-back 3-pointers.
#3. When a team lives and dies with the jump shot, regression to the mean is a fickle mistress.
Since 2018, The Cs have averaged 36.8% on 3-pointers. Last year, they had an outlier season, hitting 38.3% from deep. Only the Warriors and Spurs have shot above 38% for multiple seasons.
This year, the team regressed to 36.3%, a rate that won’t allow them to cover up their flaws by jacking up 50 3s per game.
Historically, the Celtics are a bottom-10 team with points in the paint. They were #27 last year and won a title by opponent injuries, avoiding Denver, and because of great shooting. This year, they are #30.
Boston has always tried to be the Warriors of the East, but they don’t have Stephen Curry, and they don’t get to the rim the way Golden State did.
Boston is below average to the bottom of the barrel in points off turnovers, second chance, and fastbreak points.
#4. Their two most important defenders are showing their age.
Al Horford, now 38, has been the secret MVP of the Celtics every year he has been in Boston. He was the one guy who could guard Giannis and Embiid and then pull them away from the basket with his 3-point shot. He hit 48% of his 3-pointers in the 2022 playoffs, saving the Celtics in a critical Game 4 against Milwaukee, and upsetting the Warriors in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Jrue Holiday, 34, has been an all-world defender his entire career. Boston stole him for two injury-prone players — Malcolm Brogrdan and Robert “Time Lord” Williams — who have missed 171 of the 248 games played since the trade. He shot at Curry-like levels last year after five straight playoff seasons when he couldn’t shoot above 32%. His defense was better than the guy he replaced, Marcus Smart — who also happened to win the DPOY award in 2022.
Both guys have slowed down and Boston’s switching scheme on defense exposes that weakness. They had no chance to guard LeBron and Davis, and I expect the current crop of MVP-level players to do the same.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that some of Boston’s worst performances the last two years have come on the second night of a back-to-back. We think of Boston as being young because Tatum and Brown are in their 20s. But the reality is that three of the top six players are 30 or over, and the fourth is a physically fragile big who hasn’t played more than 65 games in a season since 2017.
#5. Boston doesn’t have a dominant guy in the post.
Speaking of Kristaps Porzingis, he may block some shots, but he has no chance to defend big physical centers. He looked like a stalk of wheat blowing in the wind on the play when LeBron had a running start to throw down a monster dunk. In their title year, they got swept by Denver and split two overtime games with Minnesota. And they lost two out of the three games they played against Milwaukee when Giannis was available.
#6. The Celtics’ bench has no two-way players.
According to hoopsstats.com, Boston is #17 in point differential at +0.6 on the strength of their 3-point shooting. But the playoffs are a different animal.
Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, and Luke Kornet are one-way players whose only strength is shooting 3-pointers. Against the best teams, they will be played off the floor, putting a much heavier burden on their top six. If they played in the West, Boston would never survive three straight series against the Lakers, Minnesota, and Denver.
#7. The East looks stronger — for now.
Cleveland leads the East with their two dominant big men. Giannis and the Bucks are 22–8 after a disastrous start and always a danger.
New York built their team with the sole goal of beating Boston, with elite wing defenders who can guard Tatum and Brown, a stretch big who can match Porzingis from beyond the arc but also bully him in the post, and a guard unaffected by Holiday’s and White’s defensive pressure.
Detroit and Orlando are big, young, athletic teams that might not beat the Celtics in a playoff series but would wear down Boston’s 6-man roster.
Unless Boston gets the same ridiculous injury luck they did last year, they may not make it out of the East. If they do, they will not have the massive rest advantage they had in the Finals.
#8. The West is still stronger.
In the 26 years since Michael Jordan retired from the Bulls, the NBA champions have broken down as follows:
- The West — 17
- LeBron James — 3
- Shaquille O’Neal — 1
- Kevin Garnett — 1
- Eastern underdogs — 2
- The Celtics — 1
In nine of those Finals, the West swept or won the series in 5 games.
In three of those Finals, the East won because they acquired a dominant player from the West (Rasheed Wallace to the ’04 Pistons, Shaq to the ’06 Heat, Garnett to the ’08 Celtics).
In three of those Finals, key injuries to the Western teams cost them the title.
