This is good writing and insightful basketball by Howard Bryant of ESPN:
The old days, however, are exactly that -- yesterday's news. Boston hasn't won a championship in 15 years, and the 2008 team is the only one to hoist a banner over the past 37 years.
...
...for an obvious juggernaut that was picked to win the NBA title since before Thanksgiving, nobody seems to be particularly happy in Boston. The star, Jayson Tatum, dismisses criticism of the Celtics as proof of an impatient society only happy when it's mad. Whether the subject is Boston's 3-point volume, its toughness or his time-out usage. Joe Mazzulla, the Celtics' overly defensive second-year head coach, wears the annoyed countenance of a man offended that he dared be asked any questions at all.
...
No championship-level Celtics team in the 78-year history of the franchise has ever taken so long to win a title.
Jaylen Brown will play in his sixth Eastern Conference final. In four of those series, the Celtics had home-court advantage -- and lost them all. The one year they didn't have home court -- 2022 -- they reached the Finals.
Bill Russell's Celtics won their first title in his rookie year. Bird's Celtics won in his second. The Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen Celtics won in their first year together.
...
The Tatum-Brown Celtics have been defined by losing from ahead.
...
The core of Tatum, Brown and Horford has been together since 2018.
Much of the cast is different, but Tatum and Brown are the duo, Al Horford has been the backbone. Still, these Celtics have so often been the better team and have been unable to close. This is what this group carries. It is what the fans are carrying. There's no mystery here.
During last year's Miami series, exasperated not only by their underachieving but also the way the Celtics seemed to possess a certain, bizarre aloofness as if they were above the basic, primal competition that is NBA playoff basketball, four-time champion Shaquille O'Neal said on national television, "The Celtics are too cool for me."
The message was clear: Boston might be more talented. It might have better shooters. It might have home court. But at some point, it will give opponents hope, and Boston will be the one who blinks, because so far, it has been.
It's true, it's all true.
The Celtics represent the analytic wing of NBA thinkers, and Mazzulla might be one of the game's most hardened ideologues. Mazzulla has consistently called the 3-point attempt the most important statistic in basketball.
…
And we've been here before. The Celtics and the basketball analytics culture exudes an arrogance similar to the data revolution in baseball over the past 20 years when a new generation of executives incorporated new tactics and strategies into the game -- along with a heavy dose of condescension toward the Old Ways.
…
There's a difference between being soft and lacking toughness. The Boston Celtics are not soft. Winning playoff games on the road is not the mark of a weak team, but just as there is a difference between a great player and a Hall of Famer, there is a difference between great teams and champions. There are, as Tatum knows, levels to the quest.
…
So, what is toughness and how is it to be defined? Toughness is protecting home court the way all champions do.
…
Toughness is making the transition that, unlike the regular season, postseason possessions are more important than volume -- no matter what the analytics say. The game is officiated differently. The bodies are tired. The teams are better. The scouting is better. The energy is heightened.
There's an extra level of concentration required of Brown, Tatum and the Celtics' offense to constantly attack defenses…
Toughness is also not deflecting the obvious with bravado or insecurity. Everyone is aware of the stakes -- no one more than the Celtics themselves, for it's their peers in the opposite uniforms who believe this team will always leave the door open -- because so far, they have. These are the facts, and no level of postgame defensiveness can change them.
Toughness is arriving instead of acting like it.
…Toughness is realizing the expectations that come with the Boston Celtics is a compliment. It is their talent and accomplishment combined with the pedigree of the uniform that has created the outsized expectations. Instead of treating the moment with condescension as Mazzulla often does, the stage belongs to Brown and Tatum, the coaches and the rest, to acknowledge the totality of the moment: The Celtic challenge is not a media creation, nor is it unfair. It's the bar they've created for themselves.
FUCK!
You find me a better sports article than that! I want to be like Howard Bryant when I grow up.
