The Boston Celtics are headed back to the NBA Finals — and considering the road that it took to get there, it feels a little anticlimactic, doesn’t it? I’m here to tell you that it shouldn’t. The Celtics earned this championship berth, and when looking back on this run years down the road, nobody is going to talk about their so-called “easy path”. They’re going to talk about just how utterly dominant this Celtics team actually was.
Yes, Boston received a string of lucky breaks throughout their drubbing of Eastern Conference competition. Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier were unavailable for the normally formidable Miami Heat in Round 1; superstar guard Donovan Mitchell was forced out of action for the Cavs in Round 2; and breakthrough all-star Tyrese Haliburton missed the final two-plus games for Indiana in the Conference Finals after suffering a hamstring injury. Did those untimely injuries play a role in Boston’s success? Sure.
But the Celtics can only control what they can control — and that’s executing at a high level every night regardless of the circumstances, taking care of the opponent at hand, and remaining steadfast on their ultimate goal of raising an unprecedented 18th championship banner to the TD Garden rafters. Boston not only did that — without a key piece themselves in Kristaps Porzingis, mind you — but they did so in presiding fashion and showed tremendous growth and maturity along the way. Against Miami, Boston firmly established themsel.