How do the 2024-25 Boston Celtics compare to their championship predecessors at this time last year?

The NBA’s All-Star break has come and gone, and because the mud settles on one other weird and idiosyncratic weekend of festivities, the Boston Celtics return to the courtroom tonight. They’ll kick off their stretch run on TNT towards the Philadelphia 76ers, and as we put together for the final two-ish months of standard season basketball, it seems like a great alternative to look again to final season’s staff on the similar benchmark. How do these Celtics evaluate to their championship selves from final yr?

Let’s get the only truth out of the way in which first: the Celtics return to play with a document of 39-16, a mark that falls wanting the 43-12 they posted heading into the break final season. The four-game distinction within the win column doesn’t absolutely illustrate the distinction in how this staff feels to many, relative to final yr. We’ve seen them wrestle for a notable chunk of the yr, which is one thing that simply didn’t occur final season.

Late December into January is clearly the place the separation level takes form. The Celtics misplaced three out of 4 video games beginning on December 19 towards Chicago — together with their first consecutive losses of the season — and suffered seven extra losses from that time by the tip of January. Inside that span of time, their longest win streak was simply three video games. They only couldn’t develop any consistency, successful 30+ level blowouts one evening and dropping disappointing losses the following.

That is the type of stretch that final season’s championship staff merely by no means had. Consistency was the superpower of the 2023-24 Celtics. They didn’t lose consecutive video games for the primary time final season till March 7, a outstanding feat that helped them carry the highest spot within the Jap Convention wire-to-wire to such an extent that it was by no means in any severe doubt. That is maybe the most important purpose why this yr’s staff is perceived as being a step or two behind. They made all of it look impossibly simple.

Curiously sufficient, the championship staff’s largest “stoop,” comparatively talking, came about in the identical time span as this staff’s. After opening the season a daft 26-6 by the tip of 2023, the Celtics matched that loss complete over the following 23 video games, going 17-6 heading into All-Star Weekend. It’s a joke to counsel a win share of practically 74% qualifies as a stoop, but it surely’s not rather more of 1 than what the Celtics really did to the Jap Convention final yr.

Peripheral numbers related counsel a slight step again for this yr’s model of the roster, however not a lot of 1. They’ve recorded a web ranking of +9.2 per NBA Stats, which is a decline from final yr’s +10.3. As a lot as they’ve sank again, although, the remainder of the NBA has extra considerably surged forward. That +9.2 mark would have nonetheless comfortably led basketball final season; the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder have been a distant second place at +7.3. This yr, it ranks third — the Thunder lead the pack with a ridiculous +12.8, and the Cleveland Cavaliers maintain second place at +10.4. The Celtics’ competitors has risen to their championship stage greater than they themselves have lagged behind it.

One notable shift has been the Celtics’ elevated reliance on the three-pointer. Already the league’s most prolific staff from deep, Joe Mazzulla has them letting it fly much more regularly this season. Three-pointers accounted for 47% of Boston’s photographs as of the All-Star break final season; this yr, that’s risen to 53%. This can be a comically excessive share of threes, even for a staff as expert behind the arc as this. Three-pointers are basically inconsistent; the very sweetest shooters nonetheless solely put the ball within the web a bit greater than 40% of the time.

One potential issue would appear to contribute to this: the Kristaps Porzingis damage. Boston’s premiere paint risk, the engine behind their hyper-efficient publish assault final yr, Porzingis didn’t take the courtroom till November 25 as he recovered from offseason surgical procedure. One would naturally assume that their unicorn heart’s month-plus absence would have a notable impact on the dynamics of the Celtics’ offense.

The one downside is that assumption doesn’t bear out within the stats. Narrowing the pattern to Porzingis’ debut onward, the Celtics’ share of three-point photographs drops only one p.c, to 52%. They’re nonetheless taking on half their photographs from behind the arc with Porzingis on the courtroom, and their offense ranks simply sixth within the NBA in offensive ranking since he returned, in keeping with NBA Stats.

The Celtics don’t must basically restructure their offense. As at the moment constructed, once they’re clicking from deep, they completely demolish their opponents. They’re simply not clicking fairly as typically as final yr. A few of that is sheer variance that might appropriate itself — does anyone actually anticipate Jaylen Brown to proceed to shoot 3% worse from vary than he did final season? However they’re additionally giving themselves fewer various choices when the photographs aren’t falling than ever earlier than. Reemphasizing the paint assault looks like an apparent button for Mazzulla to press within the second half, and will assist lend some scoring consistency.

Maybe essentially the most hanging distinction between the 2 season is the Celtics’ efficiency on their house courtroom. This season’s staff has posted only a 17-10 document at TD Backyard, a precipitous fall from the staff’s biggest power one yr prior. Final yr’s Celtics have been nigh-unstoppable on the parquet ground, beginning out the season with 20 consecutive house wins — the perfect house begin in staff historical past — and hitting the break at 26-3.

Curiously, these Celtics have virtually solely flipped the script. This yr, they’ve been highway warriors. They’re 22-6 outdoors of Boston, contrasting a 17-9 document on the highway at this level final yr. After their January struggles, robust performances on the highway have helped proper the ship. They’ve scored high quality highway wins over the Los Angeles Clippers, Dallas Mavericks, Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks amidst a 10-3 stretch heading into All-Star Weekend.

Taking part in on the highway naturally has the next diploma of problem than enjoying on your property courtroom, and you must go all the way in which again to 1972 to discover a season the place they completed with a greater highway win share (80.5%) than this yr’s 78.6%. That’s not the type of tempo you possibly can plan on sustaining, particularly within the trendy NBA.

Of all of the discrepancies between these two iterations of the staff, although, this feels just like the probably to type itself out. The Celtics have all the time loved a powerful house courtroom benefit at TD Backyard. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, Gerald Wallace was carrying Celtics inexperienced the final time they recorded house win fee worse than this season’s 63%. It feels protected to guess that this staff will discover some higher outcomes at TD Backyard throughout the rest of the season, which ought to counterbalance any type of regression of their efficiency on the highway.

In all, I feel it’s truthful to say this staff’s expertise remains to be evident, but it surely’s not being maximized to such an extent as final yr. There’s clearly nonetheless fruit on the tree to be picked. So the place will we go from right here? For the champs, the remaining 2.5 months of basketball after the break have been, ahem, fruitful. They went 22-6 the remainder of the way in which, by no means taking their ft off the gasoline regardless of an enormous lead within the convention down the stretch. Everyone knows what occurred after that.

Will this yr’s Celtics staff observe swimsuit? This season’s outcomes haven’t been as constant, and the competitors within the Jap Convention has notably tightened — there was no person nearly as good as this yr’s Cleveland Cavaliers in final season’s area. They don’t have the chance to coast to the highest seed once more; overcoming Cleveland’s present 5.5-game benefit can be its personal problem. The margin of error goes to be a lot decrease, and the stakes a lot larger — although a staff with this a lot postseason expertise shouldn’t discover themselves uncomfortable with that state of affairs.

Nonetheless, regardless of the vibes being typically extra unsure after January, there are many indicators to counsel that this Boston Celtics staff is at or close to the very prime of the championship contender hierarchy. They continue to be stacked with expertise, they’ve the peripherals you wish to see from a staff with championship hopes, and, maybe most significantly (knock on wooden), they’re wholesome. I feel we will anticipate this staff to shut the season robust, and a return journey to the NBA Finals ought to proceed to be the expectation as long as the established order stays the identical.