Do the Celtics wish to be higher than this?

What do these Boston Celtics, this particular group of gamers, wish to be remembered as?

The “Most Profitable Celtics Crew Since 2007-2011?” The “Crew that Received the 2024 Championship Amidst 4 Golden State Warriors Rings and 5 Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder Rings?” The “Quick-lived Superteam with an Spectacular Wikipedia Web page?”

I doubt that’s what they need. However losses like Friday night time’s in opposition to the Sacramento Kings — with out De’Aaron Fox, at residence, with a totally wholesome staff, after two days off — actually make me query what they need. Since December 21, the Celtics are a pedestrian 6-6, inspiring concern in completely no person and exhibiting zero aggressive intuition past what their innate expertise forces out of them.

Shoddy outdoors taking pictures actually contributed to the loss, however don’t let that trick you into pondering Boston is simply getting unfortunate. I used to be within the constructing for the primary time all season, and so they have been simply standing round, both watching Malik Monk take embarrassingly wide-open threes or Domantas Sabonis seize considered one of his 28 rebounds. To be tied heading into the fourth quarter and lose by seventeen isn’t about taking pictures; it’s about attempting arduous sufficient.

Maybe this staff is attempting to determine what the stakes are of this season, unable to position it between “holy crap, we’re all going to get buried alive beneath the load of historic failure if we don’t win,” which outlined the final three seasons, and easily reaping the rewards of their one-time success — new contracts, endorsements and possibly even new groups, which is now threatening to outline the subsequent three.

So, permit me to assist clear issues up: this staff goes to be torn aside by the NBA’s extraordinarily-restrictive collective bargaining settlement in roughly two years, at which period the Celtics will seemingly be unable to re-sign Kristaps Porzingis and possibly even be compelled to commerce one other starter. None of it’s clear sufficient to prognosticate, however I don’t know who’s going to be on this staff in two years. Neither do you, and truthfully, neither do the Celtics.

That makes the stakes of this season and the subsequent abundantly clear: if these Boston Celtics wish to be something greater than a inexperienced flash on the “Listing of NBA Champions” Wikipedia web page, they’re going to must lock in and scent the existentially-threatening roses. Was this all only a fling? Was the seven-year journey from Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Kemba Walker to the Jays taking up, to finishing the Infinity Gauntlet with Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis and at last Jrue Vacation nearly one superior season? Is that really it?

Whether it is, it’s actually not the worst-case state of affairs. One championship is superior. It’s greater than most groups get. And we are going to all get to recollect this Celtics staff fondly both means. However there must be extra, proper? This staff — this historically-great staff — certainly needs extra, proper?

In the end, the Celtics are going to must determine. The extent of competitors this yr is stifling. It makes final yr seem like a leisure stroll by way of Candyland. It might appear not possible, impolite and downright imply to ask a staff that gave every thing they needed to win all of it final yr to stage up even additional, however that’s the deal. That’s what it’s going to take in the event that they wish to be greater than they at the moment are. It’s a horrible, unfair, completely ruthless world, but it surely’s the one which NBA historical past begrudgingly lives in. Final night time, and these final three weeks, make me marvel if the Celtics nonetheless wish to be there.