The Boston Celtics received the 2024 NBA championship on the again of a team-first mentality. Sacrifice was a buzzword in nearly each information convention or interview. The staff constantly hunted one of the best shot obtainable, no matter who could be taking the shot.
That model of the Celtics was unstoppable. The method maximized the elite expertise throughout the rotation. It unlocked the function gamers and empowered everybody to carry their “A-Sport” on each side of the ground.
Issues have not been as rosy this season. Throughout their championship run, the Celtics have been fourth within the NBA in isolation possessions per recreation, with 9.9. This time round, they’re second with 11.4. Not even the heliocentric Dallas Mavericks have that many isolations per recreation.
Being so depending on one-on-one basketball is the antithesis of what made the Celtics so dominant en path to a championship. Payton Pritchard has grown in confidence and now steadily calls his personal quantity. Jayson Tatum is not distributing the ball as a lot. And Jaylen Brown has become increasingly ball-dominant over the previous two months.
In accordance with Invoice Simmons, talking on a latest episode of “The Invoice Simmons Podcast,” the Celtics lack the togetherness we noticed from them final season.
“The camaraderie/reference to the fellows doesn’t appear the identical proper now,” Simmons stated. “It’d simply be like ‘Oh they’re an older married couple, they’ve completed this, they’ve been collectively, they don’t have to do it.’ However there’s a number of performs the place there’s simply 5 guys on the court docket who simply seem to be they’re not linked in any manner…Yr after 12 months, at the least one contender fell brief for causes that had little or nothing to do with basketball. And 12 months after 12 months, the championship staff prevailed as a result of it bought alongside and everybody dedicated themselves to their roles.”
