How the 2021-22 Celtics achieved the impossible and reached the NBA Finals

The Boston Celtics are headed back to the NBA Finals. They’ll face the Golden State Warriors, starting the first two games of the series on the road in the Bay. This is the first time since 2010 that Boston has reached the championship round.

Just a few months ago, this would have seemed an emphatic impossibility, but here and now Boston has a bonafide shot at capturing a coveted eighteenth banner. The turnaround we saw from the 2021-22 Celtics was both miraculous and improbable and underscores the importance of coaching, growth, and patience. The NBA season doesn’t end on Christmas Day, after all.

In the early stretches of the regular season, the Celtics were a bad basketball team, full stop. The current exuberance around the Hub is a product of that pent-up frustration. From the jump, Boston’s defense was good, but not great. The offense was pedestrian and easy to unnerve. The roster was bloated and confusing. Was head coach Ime Udoka the wrong hire? Could Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum coexist? The explosive reactions from fans and media may have been misguided, but they were emotionally honest. The Celtics were plain bad in a confusing and irritating way.

In January, however, things began to change. Boston suddenly went from choking dogs to world-beaters. The Celtics racked up wins and climbed the standings at an impressive clip through the second half of the season. The trade deadline brought about a streamlined, smarter depth chart, and the momentum never waned. The defense was for real. Tatum and Brown were for real. The Celtics were for real.

The postseason has seen that same momentum continue relatively unabated. Yes, the ghosts of the earliest days of the regular season still haunt the team from time to time. But this Celtics club has shown resilience and strength throughout the adversity of the playoffs. Neither Kevin Durant nor Giannis Antetokounmpo nor Pat Riley have been able to slow Boston down.

Now the Celtics are headed to the Finals, a nearly unfathomable outcome given the circumstances. In the coming days, we’ll discuss matchups and tactics, probabilities, and predictions. But first, let’s really unpack this Cinderella story, this fever-dream of Celtics basketball.

Act I: Hold on to Your Butts

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The 2020-21 season was an absolute nightmare for the Celtics. The team was uniquely impacted by COVID, and barely made a ripple in the playoffs. In short order, former president of basketball operations Danny Ainge was out the door, Kemba Walker was off to Oklahoma City, and the future for Boston was decidedly unclear.

As a result, the ’21-22 season opened with a fog of uncertainty. Yes, Brown and Tatum were rising stars. But did the pieces fit around them? There was a lot of talent on paper, but more questions than answers.

The early returns were worryingly familiar. Marcus Smart couldn’t really find a groove alongside Dennis Schroder. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown consistently fell apart late in games. The pieces didn’t fit, and the leaders of the team didn’t really know what to do about it.

Fourth quarters were especially problematic. Through Jan. 1, Boston had the third worst fourth quarter +/- of any team in the NBA. The Celtics shot the fourth lowest field goal percentage and posted the fifth most turnovers in the final period of games. The club choked away games with almost admirable consistency. 

Boston floundered well into January. On Jan. 21, the Celtics lost a Friday night home game against the banged up Portland Trail Blazers, dropping the C’s to 23-24 on the year. With a trade deadline rapidly approaching and the possibility of missing the postseason all together not far behind, the mood was sour in Beantown. The 2021-22 campaign looked like another blown season.

Seemingly out of nowhere, however, something changed. The Celtics won eleven of the next twelve games. The tide had decidedly turned.

Act II: A Shift in Energy

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Wins against Washington and Sacramento. A loss to Atlanta. A win down in New Orleans. The early portions of Boston’s in-season rebound were unassuming. The writing wasn’t yet on the wall, but a seemingly innocuous Monday morning tweet from Boston’s Jaylen Brown proved prophetic.

That night, the Celtics grabbed a loud 122-92 win against the Miami Heat, and the club went on to win the next seven games. Suddenly the C’s were comfortably in the playoff picture, and absolutely demolishing opponents along the way.

There’s no way Brown could have known just how much the energy would indeed shift. From Jan. 30th through the rest of the regular season, the Celtics ranked first in offensive rating, first in defensive rating, and first in net rating.

Boston’s defense was especially potent. Here Robert Williams III and Marcus Smart deserve immense credit, but really the entire roster became something of an offensive juggernaut. Bringing back Daniel Theis and trading for Derrick White at the deadline helped Ime Udoka realize his switchy, lengthy defensive scheme. With no weak spots and seemingly no one to exploit, the Celtics D simply smothered other teams.

Between the Jaylen tweet and the end of the season, Boston allowed the second-fewest points in the paint, the fourth-fewest points of turnovers, and the sixth-fewest fast break points.

On the other side of the ball, the Celtics’ offense came alive. Al Horford’s veteran leadership, Derrick White’s Spurs background, and Marcus Smart’s rise as a true point guard helped Boston establish an offense predicated on passing and making the right read. Having two All-Star wings doesn’t hurt.

Jayson Tatum in particular took off as his Celtics crested new heights. He deservedly earned All-NBA First Team honors as one of the most potent fourth-quarter scorers and one of the most dominant two-way players in the Association. The leap Tatum took in the second half of the ’21-22 season is a massive part of the story here.

On Christmas Day, the Celtics stood ninth in the Eastern Conference standings. They would disappoint for a few more weeks. By April, the energy long since shifted, Boston had climbed to second in the standings. It was on to the postseason.

Act III: Where Amazing Happens

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Boston drew Brooklyn for the first round of the postseason. The Nets had their own season from hell during 2021-22, and even with Kevin Durant at the helm, it seemed unlikely an upset was in order. The Celtics summarily put any doubt firmly to bed.

It was a 4-0 sweep for the Celts. A few self-inflicted hiccups notwithstanding, Boston looked excellent. Horford and Smart were particularly good, but it was Jayson Tatum who swung the series. Taco Jay averaged 29.5 points,  4.5 rebounds, and 7.3 assists against the Nets.

For Brooklyn, disfunction and defensive indifference ruled the day. Boston’s next opponent, the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks, wouldn’t roll over quite so easily.

The second-round series between the Celtics and Bucks was an instant classic, seven full games of a true rock fight. Jayson Tatum’s 46-point Game 6 heroics might be the headline, but top to bottom we saw a Boston team hungry to defend and ready to step-up.

Injuries played a major role in the 2022 postseason. They always do. Here, Boston’s flexibility and depth were critical — even with Horford, Smart, Williams, and White all missing time for various reasons, the Celtics continued unabated. Of course injuries and luck can swing a series, but so can proper roster design, good coaching, and adaptability. All of these were on display as Boston advanced passed Giannis and the Bucks and on to the conference finals.

Against the Heat, the same trend lines held firm, as Boston’s inexperience and old habits were unearthed by Miami’s stoic defense and pugnacious disposition. The turnovers returned, the sluggish quarters. The Celtics may have been the more talented, deeper team, but the Heat proved formidable foes. Jimmy Butler went for 47 points in Game 6, after all.

So of course the conference finals went seven games. It felt almost destined to, that the basketball gods wanted to make sure this Celtics team left no stone unturned before summiting the mountain. And indeed it was no cake walk. Boston came perilously close to choking the game away.

But the horn sounded. The Celtics won. THE CELTICS WON.

Boston had been a laughing stock. A disappointment of their own making. Even as the energy shifted, even as the defensive flowers began to blossom, and the meteoric rise of Jayson Tatum took hold, this outcome seemed too impossible to imagine.

Even the most fervent of optimists must have had their doubts about this team. A rookie head coach leading two incredibly young stars and many unproven support pieces. This was a storybook season, the sort of magic that makes basketball so wonderful. The 2021-22 Boston Celtics achieved the impossible.

Epilogue: The Finals

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Jaylen Brown is 25 years old. Tatum is 24. This is just the fourth time in the past 40 years that a duo so young has reached the NBA Finals. That the Celtics are headed to the championship series is a wild outcome.

Here the narrative gets tricky. On the one hand, champions don’t spend too much time celebrating moral victories. Boston has the right tools to beat the Warriors outright. Their defense is uniquely equipped to shut down Golden State’s action-heavy offense. Their offense is just as balanced and timely. A title is within reach, and the job’s not done.

At the same time, however, a banner might simply be gravy given the circumstances. From a psychology, physiology, and basketball point of view, Tatum and Brown are still a season or two away from their primes. There’s every reason to believe Boston will only improve year over year for the foreseeable future.

By all accounts, the ’21-22 Celtics season marked one of the most astounding turnarounds in sports history. In January Boston was headed nowhere fast. Now they’re four wins away from a championship. The entire organization should feel proud, and the fans are no doubt thankful and awestruck. Regardless of how the Finals ultimately play out, this season was something of a fairytale.

For that reason, maybe these Finals really are an epilogue, a bonus bit of the story, an after-credit scene punctuating a truly miraculous effort that was the 2021-22 Boston Celtics season. Maybe these Finals are the last chapter, the true destiny for Boston and we haven’t yet seen the peak. And maybe these Finals are the first chapter of a longer story that has yet to be written.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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