Buckle up, Celtics Nation—watching Boston ball this season requires a height requirement just to handle the thrills. Through 14 games, it’s been a non-stop rollercoaster of highs, lows, twists, and turns, leaving the C’s sitting at a dead-even 7-7.
Sure, .500 ball usually doesn’t get the ink, but these Celtics are flipping the script on preseason predictions like it’s nothing. Remember The Athletic’s NBA Preseason Power Rankings? Boston got slapped into “Tier 5: The Basement Floor.”
Law Murray didn’t mince words in his take: “If the Celtics can’t create advantages offensively or get stops defensively, then what are they? A sneaky candidate for one of the worst teams in the league, especially if [Jaylen] Brown doesn’t hold up.”
Hey, credit where it’s due—that wasn’t some hot take outlier. Heading into the year, Boston’s frontcourt looked paper-thin, and outside of Brown, the offense was a giant question mark. Half the fans were screaming “tank!” while the other half wanted to roll the dice and see what this squad could cook up.
Those gamblers? They’re living their best hoops life right now.
This ain’t no premature parade—who spikes the football after just 14 games? Nah, what’s got everyone buzzing is how Boston’s not just scraping by with those preseason doubts hanging over them; they’re straight-up balling out and probably deserved a few more W’s in the bag. They’re locked in at eighth in offensive and net rating, 11th on D—all while scraping the bottom eight in three-point shooting and the bottom four in defensive rebounding.
The eye test screams it: This ain’t your garden-variety .500 crew. They’re dead last in “win differential”—that’s actual wins versus what the numbers say they should’ve racked up based on performance.
Bottom line? These guys should’ve stacked more than seven dubs by mid-November.
Joe Mazzulla and his crew are straight-up engineering wins
Joe Mazzulla and his coaching staff deserve a standing O for scheming up ways to keep the Celtics in every single scrap, no matter the odds.
It boils down to this: They’re mastering the art of out-chancing the opponent—more shots for Boston, fewer for the bad guys.
In 14 games, the C’s boast the league’s lowest turnover percentage at 11.4%, force the 11th-most turnovers at 15.6 a pop, and cough up the fewest giveaways with just 11 per game. That translates to Boston firing off the second-most shots league-wide at 94.2, while clamping down to allow the fewest opponent attempts at 83.9. Oh, and they’re crashing the offensive glass like beasts, snagging the seventh-most boards at 13.7.
Take Sunday’s dub over the Clippers: Boston outshot ’em by a whopping 22 attempts. Even if you ballpark LA’s 30 freebies as 15 extra “shots” (one for every pair) and skip the math on Boston’s 17, the C’s still owned the volume game.
It ain’t flawless—Boston surrenders the sixth-most free-throw tries while taking the fewest themselves, which tweaks the shot math. But damn, it’s buying them breathing room despite lacking the star power of yesteryear’s squads.
Funny enough, Mazzulla’s preaching the same gospel from his first three years on the throne: Dominate the margins.
“It’s because we don’t turn the ball over on the offensive end and we force turnovers on the other end,” Mazzulla broke it down to Hardwood Houdini last week. “We’re winning the shot margin on an expected basis.”
Translation? The Celtics are dictating these battles, win or lose.
Yeah, you could gripe that they should’ve closed more games and pin it on Mazzulla. But that’s straight bogus. The man and his staff have molded this group into a top-eight net-rating powerhouse, even with Payton Pritchard and Derrick White ice-cold out the gate.
That’s a huge chunk of your expected firepower on the fritz, and they’re still humming along just fine.
Plenty of hoops left to hoop, but if Boston starts cashing in on the wins their net rating demands, those Mazzulla doubters better line up with hats in hand and drop that massive apology. The verdict’s in—this masterplan is for real.