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Will The Celtics Turn Over Their Chance To Win The Finals?

Throughout these NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors offense has been fairly consistent. The Dubs have scored between 100 and 108 points in all five games, and their offensive rating has held steady between 108.1 and 115 in each contest. By contrast, the Boston Celtics have fluctuated wildly between blistering efficiency and devastating ineptitude. Boston […]

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We Didn’t See This NBA Finals Matchup Coming

sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): Eight grueling months after we started this NBA season, we’re finally down to our final two: the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors, just like everyone predicted back in October. We have to acknowledge that FiveThirtyEight’s model absolutely did not see this coming: We gave the Celtics just a […]

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Marcus Smart Is More Than Just His Defense

During Boston’s conference final-opening loss to Miami on Tuesday night, Marcus Smart stood on the sideline in resortwear, nursing a foot injury and politicking with officials. He did what he could; cameras caught him during a timeout harping on rotations and assignments. But Derrick White, starting in his stead, mustered just 3 points on four […]

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The Celtics Have Finally Found Their Identity: Suffocating Defense

The worst type of basketball team to be, other than an abjectly horrible, last-in-the-league-type club, is probably an aimless one. And for the first couple months of this season — indeed, for the last few years — that is exactly what the Boston Celtics were. Built around the one-two punch of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen […]

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Not Even LeBron Could Overcome The Celtics’ Home-Court Magic

With their 96-83 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night, the Boston Celtics just got that much closer to becoming the first Eastern Conference team to eliminate a LeBron James-led squad in eight years. (Incidentally, the last team to do it also wore Celtics green.) And once again, it was all about the Celtics’ […]

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