The regular season is over, and the Celtics did that thing they’ve been doing for years: stacking wins, figuring things out on the fly, and somehow ending up right back in the mix heading into the playoffs. It wasn’t always clean, and it definitely wasn’t always predictable, but here they are — two months away from Banner 19 with a real path to get there in front of them.
So before things get weird (because they always do), we wanted to start with the big question: what does a championship run actually
look like for this team? And just as important, what’s the version of this postseason where it all falls apart? We asked the CelticsBlog crew how they see both sides playing out.
If the Celtics win the title, how do they do it? If they don’t, what went wrong?
Jeff Clark: The Celtics win the title by doing what they’ve been doing all season. Completely buying in, playing team basketball, and trusting each other. In a weird way, the Tatum injury created opportunities for everyone to step up, which means Tatum doesn’t have to put everything on his shoulders.
Now, if they lose, I would have to imagine that another team just reached another level. There would be no shame in losing to the Thunder, Spurs, or Nuggets in the Finals. I could see the Pistons overwhelming the team with physicality and getting hot from 3. It could happen, but I like our chances against anyone.
Bill Sy: We saw a lot of experimenting towards the end of the regular season, whether that was the dynamic between the Jays when they were both on the court, Brown becoming more of a pure scorer and challenging the officials with his physical play, and Tatum flexing his all-around game. However, like it has the last couple of years, it may come down to the three-point shooting. The Celtics were 7-11 when they hit less than 30% from behind the arc. Last year, they were 1-3 in the postseason. During the championship run, they were 2-1 — an indication just how special that banner year was.
Rich Jensen: If the Celtics win the title, it will be due to Jayson Tatum being far enough along in his recovery to make such an outcome possible. Is this a tautology? Yes it pretty much is. But winning the Finals is all about Tatum’s health. Without Tatum, the Celtics are just a very good basketball team—to be sure, a team that most other teams would like to be, but not, in my opinion, championship caliber.
With Tatum recovering, they are a very good team indeed, but I’m still not convinced that they are championship caliber. Tatum is clearly not all the way back, but the nice thing is that it’s all downhill from here. He should continue to improve as the playoffs wear on. The only question is how good he will be by the time he needs to be good enough to make the difference between winning it all and coming up short. If Tatum’s progress isn’t as quick as it needs to be, the C’s are going to stall out somewhere along the line.
Ian Inangelo: If the Celtics win the title, it will be on the back of the defense locking down their opponents with the offense from guys outside of Brown and Tatum stepping up in timely moments. If they don’t I would assume it would end up in a loss to a team who takes advantage of the Celtics inexperience and depth, and are just able to out shoot them from three.
Mark Aboyoun: If Boston wins Banner 19, it’s because the role players continue to produce. Boston can’t afford guys like Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser or even Baylor Scheierman to have off nights. Now that we’re in the postseason, those three in particular need to maintain their current level and make sure they knock down open shots or, in Pritchard’s case, continue to be aggressive, especially when one of Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum is on the bench.
If they don’t win the championship, it’s because Joe Mazzulla couldn’t figure out the big-man rotation. Neemias Queta has proved to be an above-average center this season and is the team’s only true defensive center. If he gets in foul trouble, Luka Garza and Nikola Vučević are more offensive players and, at times, struggle defensively.
Nirav Barman: The Celtics certainly have the experience and the coaching to win it all this year. Even though we lost several big pieces from the 2024 run, the Championship DNA is still strong with this team. Winning or losing really just comes down to the execution this year. Boston’s depth is what’s kept them atop the East, different guys being ready on different nights. The margin for error is much slimmer in the playoffs, so it’ll come down to if Joe can find the right combos for any given night.
Mike Dynon: To win the title, it’s a given that the Celtics will first need everything Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum can give them. JB just finished a regular season that should put him on first-team All-NBA, and JT basically looked like his old self with 10 double-doubles and one triple-double in 16 games. If the Jays deliver as expected, winning will come.
Another key will be if Derrick White can get on a heater. We know DWhite provides defense, basketball IQ and leadership at elite levels. This season, though, he made a career-low 39.5% of his overall field goal attempts, and at the arc his percentage was down nearly six points from the year before. The Celts are accustomed to White nailing clutch threes with regularity, and they will certainly need that now.
Finally, can the supporting cast overcome their postseason inexperience? This is the 15th season for Nikola Vucevic, but he’s played in just 16 playoff games. Other than the rookies, add up all the expected contributors – Vooch, Queta, Scheierman, Garza, Walsh and Banton – and they’ve appeared in 51 total postseason games. For context: Al Horford has 197 playoff appearances.
If these things don’t go Boston’s way, their season will end too early. But if they do, get ready for a parade.
Ryan Paice: If the Celtics win, it will be because the Jays are the best duo in today’s league and the team’s crew of role players hit their shots. I have faith the defense will remain elite, as this group has consistently performed at a high level under Mazzulla and features an impressive toolbox of solid defensive options. But for this team to win, Brown and Tatum are going to have to keep the offense churning and executing at all times — especially down the stretch.
The Jays are the engine of the Celtics offense, and when they struggle the team can get desperate and jack up shots to its own detriment. I wouldn’t put it past Pritchard, Hauser, Queta, and the Stay Ready crew to win a couple of the games the Jays struggle in, but they have to perform at their highest levels if the C’s are going to go all the way.
If they don’t, it will be because an opponent successfully slowed down the dual-engine heart of the offense and it sputtered out when it mattered most.
Gio Rivera: If Boston finds itself back in the NBA Finals, it’ll be because of two defining factors: the team’s depth and its core principles. Throughout the regular season, regardless of circumstance, the Celtics rarely missed a beat. Outside of their season-opening 0-3 start — the beginning of a new-look team adjusting to life without Jayson Tatum — they seldom found themselves in a prolonged skid, as they didn’t lose more than twice straight for the remaining 79 games of the regular season.
Anfernee Simons was terrific across his 49 games in Boston. Josh Minott flashed his potential in spurts. Then, of course, the remaining newcomers — Luka Garza, Hugo González, and Ron Harper Jr. — all delivered in their moments under the spotlight too.
Garza emerged as an offensive-rebounding maestro while shooting a career-best 43.3 percent from three and knocking down a career-high 55 triples throughout the regular season. González made notable defensive strides and delivered a clutch game-tying three in Brooklyn. Harper provided 22 points in San Antonio after Jaylen Brown’s ejection.
Together, they proved Boston doesn’t just have depth — the team is comprised of role players capable of shining as bright as any starter on the roster. Their collective impact became a vital fixture of the Celtics’ identity and success. If that remains intact, Boston will be very difficult to match. If it doesn’t, the team will face a repeat fate of Round 2 last season, collapsing in utter underachievement.
Grant Burfeind: If the Celtics win the title, it’ll be because they stick to what they’ve been doing all season. The ball moves, the threes fall at a normal (not even nuclear) rate, and the defense travels every single night. This team already has a crystal clear identity, and when they lean into it, they’re incredibly hard to disrupt. This version of Boston that doesn’t beat itself, doesn’t panic when a game gets weird, and just keeps stacking good possessions until the other team breaks first is oh-so fun to watch and oh-so hard to beat.
If things go sideways, it’s probably going to look familiar. A couple games where the offense stalls into isolation-heavy possessions, a lid materializes over the rim, and suddenly everything feels harder than it should. Add in a cold stretch from one of the Jays or a series where the opponent dictates pace and turns it into a grind, and now you’re playing in that uncomfortable space where variance actually matters. This team has answered a lot of those questions already, but the playoffs have a way of dragging old concerns back into the light.
