The Boston Celtics had a pleasant bounce again victory over the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night time to maintain a big streak alive: the no-losing streak streak. The Celtics are but to lose back-to-back video games within the 2024-2025 NBA season. Positive, the Celtics are nice at successful basketball video games, however they’re even higher at not shedding basketball video games, a genius technique a workforce just like the Lakers ought to take into account implementing.
The delivery of the Bounce Again Celtics harkens again to the 2022 playoff run. The Celtics didn’t lose back-to-back video games till they misplaced three straight to the Golden State Warriors within the NBA Finals. Ache, sure, I’m sorry. And the identical was true within the 2023 playoffs till the Miami Warmth utilized the final of their satan magic to hex Caleb Martin with the talents of Ray Allen for a complete playoff collection, which, whereas it led to a few straight Celtics losses in humiliating vogue, that satan magic Finals berth is the origin of the crumbling Miami Warmth franchise we see in 2024. Whereas that have inflicted extreme PTSD on Celtics followers, all’s nicely that ends nicely.
That brings us to the 2023-2024 NBA champion Boston Celtics. The Celtics went 64-18 within the common season and 16-3 within the playoffs. I’m positive you do not forget that, but it surely’s all the time good to be reminded. The ‘23-24 Celtics introduced the Bounce Again Celtics into the common season. The Celtics had 4 separate two-game shedding streaks. However zero three-game shedding streaks. This goes again to their technique of not shedding basketball video games.
A 64-win workforce usually has a signature successful streak of 15 or extra wins. Just like the 66-win Heatles, who put collectively a file 27-game successful streak. Or the 2000 Lakers, who had a 19-game successful streak. However the 23-24 Celtics’ longest successful streak was solely 11 straight victories. That is sarcastically fairly much like the 2008 Celtics, whose longest successful streak was 10 video games.
At this time’s model of the Celtics construct their win totals from smaller four-seven-game successful streaks. I feel this has change into the calling card of this Celtics nucleus. They’re extremely resilient and don’t let losses or dangerous habits pile up. They imagine in Mazzulla Ball. The Celtics imagine that in the event that they execute their offensive and defensive ideas, the losses shall be unable to pile up. The Celtics’ refusal to let losses string collectively displays the analytical nature of the workforce. Simply win 4 out of each 5 video games and that places you at 65 wins. Easy.
I discussed the Celtics had 4 separate two-game shedding streaks final season. A kind of streaks got here in direction of the tip of the season when the Celtics had the general one seed nicely and really wrapped up. So, it was actually three. Can they enhance on that this season? I care deeply about no-losing streak streak, and I shall be monitoring it all through the season, because it speaks to the resolve of this workforce. In the event you can’t beat these Celtics twice in a row, you possible can’t win a playoff collection in opposition to them. I’d love for them to have the ability to make it by means of your entire season with out a single two-game shedding streak; it’s unlikely; even the 72-10 Chicago Bulls had a single blemish on their file. However hey, why not us?
It’s a surprise why groups just like the Lakers, Sixers, and Warmth don’t make use of this technique of not shedding video games. It most likely has one thing to do with them not having Jayson Tatum on their workforce. Alas, I count on the Celtics to proceed implementing their technique of not shedding video games on their solution to one other championship.
