BOSTON — Jrue Holiday, who rarely gives referees an earful, couldn’t believe the shot clock violation against the Boston Celtics. As he and Joe Mazzulla animatedly informed the officiating crew that Holiday’s shot actually hit the rim, referee Tony Brothers called a technical foul on the Boston bench. Instead of receiving an extra possession, because Holiday would have grabbed his own offensive rebound, the Celtics lost the ball and watched as the Bucks used their technical free throw to take a one-point lead.
A lesser team might have unraveled. The Celtics responded immediately with an 18-2 run.
“Just chaos,” Mazzulla said after the Celtics moved to 4-0, completing a 119-108 win. “Yeah. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what we needed.”
Some might say the Celtics showed championship poise during that game-changing stretch. Though it would be impossible to prove exactly how a title impacts a team in the seasons to come, Doc Rivers believes the Celtics unlocked a better version of themselves by winning the Larry O’Brien trophy. Calling them “a made basketball team now,” Rivers said their transformation is evident on the court. He believes they play “without any obstacles now” in the aftermath of the current core’s first ring.
“Winning that title, it’s taken them to another level,” Rivers said. “And you can feel it when they play.”
Has capturing a championship actually lifted the Celtics? Al Horford and Derrick White said they agree with Rivers’ claim.
“For sure,” Horford told The Athletic. “Winning definitely put our confidence at a different level. I feel like we’re still approaching things the same way. We’re working hard, we’re getting after it but I just think that the confidence — I see it in the approach. We’re understanding that we’ve already been able to do those things that we fought for. And now, it doesn’t matter the situation that you’re in, you still feel optimistic as a team.”
Echoed White, “I think we were pretty confident before, but I think when you accomplish something like that, with basically the same group, just that bond, that connection that we have — I think the other teams are kind of like searching for that. We basically just did it. We have that connection, we have that bond that when things are going well or things are going bad, we have a lot of trust in one another.”
It’s not like the Celtics had many holes last season. They posted one of the best net ratings ever during a 64-18 regular season then capped off the campaign with a 16-3 march through the playoffs. Crunch-time performance, occasionally a major problem for them in the past, became one of their many strengths. They handled adversity so well that they were almost able to escape it entirely. They were consistent enough to avoid any three-game losing streaks throughout the season. They never trailed in any of their four playoff series. Even missing Kristaps Porziņģis for most of the postseason couldn’t dim their invincibility.
The injured Porziņģis hasn’t appeared yet this season, but the Celtics have decimated opponents from behind the 3-point arc. Over four games, they have made 86 3-pointers compared to 40 for their opponents. Boston’s offensive rating so far (126.1) is nearly four points per 100 possessions better than it was last season. And last season, the Celtics set a new record for offensive efficiency. In this era of scoring, no other team has been able to keep pace with them. With nearly their entire roster back, the Celtics appear to know just who they are and what they want to do.
“I just think making the right read,” White said. “Trusting one another. Someone’s got it going, we find them. Everybody’s involved, so it’s a fun team to play for, a fun team to compete every night with. And we’re just hungry to keep getting better and learn. So I think that’s the cool part.”
Boston hasn’t always played well during this young season but has executed with precision whenever most necessary. After deteriorating for about half of the game Saturday while losing a 23-point lead against the Pistons, the Celtics were still able to perform under duress once crunch time hit. Trailing by six with four minutes left, they set up Holiday to tie the game with back-to-back 3-pointers on two beautiful sequences of ball movement. Detroit, able to score consistently during a big comeback, found no more success once the Celtics clamped down late. When winning time arrived, Mazzulla’s team found another gear.
Horford said he has seen a long list of teams operate with additional poise after winning a championship. In one example, he said the Nuggets handled themselves differently after capturing the 2023 title. In two close losses to Denver last season, Horford said he noticed the team’s composure during the most important moments of those games.
“Last year, they came in here, we made runs, they made runs and they kept their cool,” Horford said. “When it was time for them to turn it up and get a stop or go score or just do something, they had that ability.”
White said the Nuggets were never rattled. He feels a similar steadiness now in the Celtics.
“You kind of see that in other champions around the league,” White said. “Like, when things are going well, when things are going bad, they just kind of stay consistent. They’ve seen every outcome, they’ve been in every type of game, and just having that belief and that consistency. Nothing surprises them. And I think we’re the same way. We’ve literally seen every type of game. Up 20. Down 20. Hitting threes, not hitting threes. We have a lot of different ways to win.”
In what Mazzulla called chaos, the Celtics kept their cool against Milwaukee. After Damian Lillard’s technical free throw, Jayson Tatum forced a Bobby Portis travel in the post. Tatum missed the next Boston shot, but Payton Pritchard fought to tip the offensive rebound to Xavier Tillman and White capitalized with a go-ahead 3-pointer seconds later.
In the ensuing run, Jordan Walsh piled up hustle plays, White and Pritchard took turns drilling long jump shots and Jaylen Brown controlled the early part of the fourth quarter. Even one of Boston’s mistakes during the stretch, a Tatum foul while in the bonus deep in the third quarter, turned into a positive because it gave the Celtics one last possession in the period. Pritchard took advantage with a trademark end-of-the-clock bucket, much to Rivers’ chagrin.
PAYTON PRITCHARD DOES IT AGAIN 😱 pic.twitter.com/FgIO7vCZ67
— NBA TV (@NBATV) October 29, 2024
Rivers said he looked so pained not just because Pritchard hit the shot, but because the Bucks failed to properly defend a situation they had strategized for earlier.
“We had to channel him to the middle and we talked about it this morning,” Rivers said. “End of the quarter, he always tries to break off right. We went over that. And so it wasn’t that Pritchard reaction. It was more my reaction that this is something we covered and we were there and we let him go right. Right when he went right, I didn’t know it was going to go in. I just didn’t think good things were about to happen and they didn’t.”
Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers talks with Damian Lillard during Monday’s game. “Winning that title, it’s taken them to another level,” the former Celtics coach said. “And you can feel it when they play.” (Paul Rutherford / Imagn Images)
The Celtics could have melted down. Instead, they needed less than five minutes of game time to turn a one-point deficit into a 97-82 lead.
Even before being on the wrong end of that run, Rivers detailed why he believes the championship has transformed the Celtics.
“They have complete trust in the pass,” Rivers said. “They trust each other. They play together. And there’s nobody in the league that does it better than them right now. And they’re showing it every night.”
(Top photo of Jrue Holiday after scoring a 3-pointer against the Bucks: Matt Stone / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald via Getty Images)
