Where Does Boston Rank Right Now Among All-Time Celtics Teams?
The 2023-24 Boston Celtics, led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are a juggernaut.
Entering Thursday’s matchup with the Denver Nuggets, they’re outscoring opponents by an average of 11.2 points per game. And that’s after a gut-wrenching loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday.
That point differential may sound like a lot (and it is), but you can’t fully appreciate it without a little context.
Those are all-time great teams. Those are teams led by Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan.
And there are these Celtics. Right in the middle. Among the all-timers and cruising toward, potentially, a sixth Eastern Conference Finals appearance for Brown, a fifth conference finals appearance for Tatum and a second NBA Finals appearance for both.
And of course, they hope they’re on the way to the first title for Boston since 2008 (and the 18th in franchise history).
That point differential and the fact that they’re first in points scored per 100 possessions and third in points allowed per 100 possessions suggest they can get there, but we’ve seen the foundation of this team buckle in the past.
Of course, none of those previous five conference finals appearances preceded a championship. Just last year, they lost that series to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat. Since the start of the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals (Brown’s first), the Celtics are minus-43 in Brown’s conference finals minutes.
Because of the organization’s history, Boston’s campaigns are almost always of the title-or-bust variety. The recent history of Tatum and Brown, along with the way the arrivals of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis have supercharged the team, ratchets up the pressure on this group.
Ultimately, they’ll be judged on what they do in April, May and, potentially, June.
But if we’re just looking at regular-season performance, there’s an argument that even the great Celtics teams of the past have never seen anything quite like this.
You’ll notice that Boston is only listed in that top 10 above one time. It’s for this season (the 2007-08 squad that won the title is 11th). Obviously, that means the Celtics are on pace for the best point differential in franchise history.
The current squad is also the franchise leader in players posting a two-plus box plus/minus (BPM is “a basketball box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when that player is on the court,” according to Basketball Reference).
Right now, six players (Tatum, Porziņģis, Derrick White, Al Horford, Luke Kornet and Jrue Holiday) are over 2.0 (a mark around that of a “good starter”). Tatum (5.4) and Porziņģis (5.2) are within striking distance of All-NBA range, according to Basketball Reference’s scale.
he 2023-24 squad, thanks to Tatum, Brown and Porziņģis, is also on track to be the third in team history with three players averaging 20-plus points per game, joining the the 1966-67 (John Havlicek, Bailey Howell and Sam Jones) and 2019-20 (Brown, Tatum and Kemba Walker) groups.
Of course, some of those numbers, including the individual points per game, are influenced by the offensively turbo-boosted era the NBA’s in. Each of the top five and 11 of the top 14 marks in league history for points scored per 100 possessions come from 2023-24 (including Boston at
But even in terms of that number when compared to the league average (relative offensive rating), the 2023-24 Celtics are currently second in franchise history (behind the 1987-88 team that lost in the conference finals).
By most conceivable measures, this team has, at the very least, an argument to be the best regular-season squad Boston has ever had.
And the play behind all of the numbers above has been riveting.
More old-school fans may not like the Celtics’ commitment to getting up three-point attempts, but there’s no doubt it’s effective. And it’s not like a ton of them are coming after seven or eight isolation dribbles.
Boston is a “ball is popping” offense that features plenty of possessions in which all five players get a touch. Sometimes, the ball has to fly around the floor and through the entire lineup more than once before that ideal look opens up. And on just about any given possession, all five guys are capable of converting those threes.
That’s helped the Celtics get to fourth in the league in secondary assists per game. It also makes this the league’s most dynamic attack and probably the most difficult to game-plan against.
Just before Sunday’s 52-point drubbing of the Golden State Warriors, Draymond Green tried to get creative by sagging off Jaylen Brown, but he torched them with 25 first-half points.
In hindsight, the strategy seems ludicrous (and it probably was), but the Celtics have been so good that they’re forcing typically smart teams to get gimmicky against them.
Defenses that get overly aggressive at the three-point line aren’t having much success either. Hard closeouts on the perimeter are keeping the middle of the floor open for drives from Holiday, White, Tatum and Brown. And Porziņģis’ seemingly increased confidence as a high- and low-post scorer has helped too. Boston is third in the league in two-point percentage this season.
The dominance extends beyond offense too.
According to Dunks and Threes’ defensive estimated plus-minus (one of the most trusted catch-all metrics in NBA front offices), White, Brown, Porziņģis, Holiday, Tatum and Horford are all pluses on that end of the floor (and Sam Hauser is barely a negative).
White ranks in the 94th percentile, while Holiday, Porziņģis and Brown are all in the 84th percentile or above.
In most of Boston’s lineups, there’s very real switchability through all five positions (or at least four). The rotations are almost always crisp. And all five guys typically seem like they’re on a string, moving in concert and toward the same goal, like a round of Tow the Line on Mario Party.
When you combine the way this team plays on both ends of the floor, it gets pretty difficult to imagine anyone beating it four out of seven times.
But again, there are some playoff demons here, including recent ones. And this team certainly isn’t invincible.
If we think back to that box plus/minus scale from Basketball Reference, it suggests no one on the roster is playing quite at the level of an MVP. At least one superstar has almost always been a prerequisite for an NBA championship. And while Tatum is probably worthy of that distinction, it’s at least fair to question whether his individual ceiling is as high as that of players like Nikola Jokić or Giannis Antetokounmpo.
They’re also susceptible to being outrebounded by big and/or physical teams like the Denver Nuggets or a healthy Philadelphia 76ers squad (though Tatum and Brown have plenty of postseason wins over the latter).
And of course, Jimmy Butler is still lurking. Since he joined the Heat, he has a winning record against Boston in the playoffs.
But sports are often about exorcising such demons. Tatum and Brown have experienced plenty of heartache together. Now, it looks like they have the best supporting cast they’ve ever played with.
And if that all adds up to a championship, this specific Celtics team will have a legitimate argument to be considered the best single-season team in the history of a franchise that already has 17 titles.
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