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All apologies to our early voters in this week’s poll. The Celtics weren’t eliminated in the first round in two straight years; they were eliminated by the Knicks in Round 2 in 2025 and lost to the 76ers in seven games back in May.
That’s our bad, but it sure felt like two straight too-early exits.
Obviously, there’s context to both playoff losses. New York seemed to have Boston’s number two years ago when they came back from 20 points in Games 1 and 2 at TD Garden and the Celtics lost Jayson Tatum to his Achilles’ tear in Game 4. And after going up 3-1 in Tatum’s return to the playoffs, Philly got hot and JT sat out the series finale.
The Celtics will now head into head coach Joe Mazzulla’s fifth season without Jaylen Brown. They’ll lean into the same identity that unexpectedly won them 56 games last year and if you buy into CelticsBlog’s Trevor Haas theory, they should be even better:
1) Jaylen Brown had a terrific season last year and took his game to the next level as the clear-cut No. 1 option.
2) Jaylen Brown is an excellent basketball player, but Jayson Tatum is an even better all-around basketball player.
3) Jayson Tatum looked sharp in his return and is poised to have a monster season as the clear-cut No. 1 option.
4) While Paul George has his limitations, a healthy Jayson Tatum and a healthy Paul George pairing is more dangerous than just Jaylen Brown by himself.
Mazzulla won Coach of the Year for last year’s overachievement and if they’re better on paper heading into 2026-2027, the expectations are even higher now. That’s just the price of constantly raising the bar on yourself.
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But what if Boston falls short again? Mazzulla’s job seems safe, right? Banner 18 buys him time and beers with the fans. Nobody expected much after all the injuries and roster turnover. Now, after the Eastern Conference has beefed up in Philadelphia and Cleveland and the defending champion Knicks still in their way, this could be the biggest test of Mazzullaball since he took the helm in 2022.
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