The Year Of The Celtics
Wire to wire, Boston just finished off an NBA championship season that ranks among history's most dominant.
Sometimes, an NBA season just belongs to a particular team.
Nearly a decade ago, that team was the Golden State Warriors, who showed up as favorites in our preseason numbers at FiveThirtyEight and ended up dominating all year en route to the NBA title — prompting me to write this piece about The Year of the Warriors.
Similarly, 2023-24 in the NBA was The Year of the Celtics. With apologies to the defending champion Denver Nuggets, Boston went into the season as favorites according to my predictions — and they ranked as the most likely team to win the title in my composite forecast every single day (!) of the season. Wire to wire, this season belonged to these Celtics.
During the regular season, Boston had the co-third-best net rating of any team since the 1976 ABA merger — and therefore was also tied for the third-best regular season net rating of any eventual champion in that span:1
Along the way, the Celtics sort of broke our brains around how championship basketball should be played.
Their unmatched depth — especially in the playoffs, with the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday) — overcame typical notions about what happens to the team without the best player in a series, or even the two best players in a series. They also upended our ideas about whether a team’s top player must be its “closer”: Though he had a 30+ point near-triple double in the clincher over Dallas, Tatum wasn’t always Boston’s most impactful performer in the clutch… and that didn’t matter.
And then there were the 3s. SO many 3s. These Celtics launched more 3-pointers than any champion, attempting 47.1 percent of their regular season field goals from downtown — breaking a record set by the 2021-22 Warriors team that topped Boston in the Finals. Then they upped that rate to 48 percent in the playoffs.
In part because of their record-challenging blowout loss in Game 4 of the Finals, Boston’s overall playoff performance wasn’t quite as dominant relative to other champions as they were during the regular season — they finished ninth in playoff net rating among champs:
People can (and surely will) also quibble over whether Boston faced an “easy” path to the Finals, though a 5-game Finals victory over Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving will probably silence some of those comments.
Given how close these Celtics had come so many times before without a title to show for it, Boston will take this championship and let others debate things like their legacy and place in history. But when those debates are had, this Celtics squad will have a case as at least one of the NBA’s top modern champs.
Seldom is a team the title favorite from start to finish; Boston just did that, and they did it with some of the most dominant metrics we’ve seen. In the annals of the game, that’s going to be worth something, regardless of whether they look or play like what we’re used to seeing from a champion.
Filed under: NBA
Since the teams above or tied with them all won the title.
Sometimes the numbers reveal insights that you are not aware of. Other times, less so. They can often just confirm what your senses are telling you, which is valuable as well. To your point regarding the consistency of your predictive metrics and the Celtics dominance throughout the year, the metrics this season seemed to be of the latter category - merely confirming what should have also been obvious to a casual observer.
Unfortunately, that would apparently exclude most of the sports media who tonight still believe Luka will win it in 8. The dominance of Boston and the flaws of Dallas and their ball dominant star were right in front of us for all to see. Yet, as was said in the 90s, "all the lights that light the way are blinding." Never truer than tonight.
The TV pregame show was a disaster for me. It felt like 80% of airtime was spent on Luka Doncic and how the Mavs now have clear momentum instead of the team up 3-1. I lost count how many bad takes I had to endure.
One "insider" instructed me that Dallas would attack and tire the deeper and more talented Celtics. Another tried to convince me that Dallas had figured out Boston in Game 4 and therefore was more than a one game winner - having also won the fourth quarter of Game 3. This, they asserted, was a definite trend in favor of the Mavs that outweighed their three losses. One proffered that Boston "can't win without Porzingas," despite having done so throughout the Playoffs. Then, one highly touted front office person on the desk noted that Boston hasn't scored a lot in the series...while completely ignoring that Dallas had never broken 100. Point differential kinda matters, doesn't it?
How did they get it so wrong for so long? It's a legitimate question that merits some analysis.
In the end as the confetti fell, Doris Burke dutifully and gently noted the foolishness of those who bought into the "best player on the floor," silliness that you highlight as well. I hoped that she might also point out how poorly the Western Conference performed relative to expectations after hearing for so long from the same band of experts that the illegitimate Celtics had such an easy path to the title. I remain convinced that it was Dallas who had the easier path as I have pointed out before in comments. Alas, Doris stopped at one solid criticism.
The only argument that could be made I suppose, was that Boston dodged a bullet when Minnesota upset Denver. But everyone was too busy worshiping at the altar of Anthony Edwards to see it. The Nuggets style would have pushed the series deeper for sure.
The open rooting for teams by the media seemed to reach a sad crescendo this year with even alum Dan Patrick saying he was embarrassed by ESPN's overt fandom for the Knicks. Then came the Mavs and, well, rinse, repeat. Even the Stanley Cup has not been immune with one color commentator in Round One sheepishly defending an over-the-top reaction by saying "we're not allowed to root for teams, but we can root for people."
Really? When did that show up on the menu? Her candor does explain I suppose the continued rooting for Connor McDavid I suppose.
In the end, good numbers - like those here - can bring clarity to thoughts and viewpoints and banish the dumb ideas and cognitive bias demons from our heads when speaking about these things. Here's hoping that more in the sports media industrial complex will read your outstanding objective work and embrace it even if all the roads that lead them here are winding.