Are the Celtics worse than we thought or are the Bulls better?
After two games, the Celtics are in bad shape. They’ve not only dropped two games in a row to start the series, they have looked really bad doing it. You never want to give up the momentum as the first seed, in this way, to an eighth seed, but you particularly don’t want to do it in a way that seems sustainable. If you lose a game because, say, because Bobby Portis goes ham, you might not feel all that worried. But can Jimmy Butler keep averaging 26-8.5-5.5 for the rest of the series? Sure, why not. Can the Bulls keep switching and playing great defense? Sure, why not.
The first thing that needs to be said is that first seed–eighth seed aside, the competitiveness of this series may not be all that surprising. Not to pile on Celtics fans, but for all the excitement of a young team grabbing that seed we’re not talking about a juggernaut. Those 53 wins, this year, would get you fourth in the West and within two games of fifth, not to mention that — as has seemed to be the case for 20 years now — the West is in general a lot stronger top to bottom. Even given that, the 12-win difference between the first seed in the East and the eighth absolutely pales in comparison to the 26 win difference between the Warriors and the eighth-seeded Blazers.
Digging deeper, there are even more reasons for concern. Point differential isn’t the greatest stat for figuring out a team’s character, but it’s not the worst. The West, for example, is sorted by point differential from the first seed to the seventh, and the only exceptions to further sorting are the -0.5 Blazers having a point on the +0.5 Nuggets, the 26-win Lakers being more than a point worse than the 24-win Suns and somehow — and this really beggars description — the Wolves being 13th despite a having only a -1.1 differential. The Celtics’ +2.7 is third in the East and sixth in the West. Meanwhile, the eighth-seeded Bulls actually were 0.4 points better than their opponents over the course of the season.
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And finally, the Bulls have been playing excellent basketball since at least the middle of March. Since March 15, they’ve gone 9-4, with one OT loss to Toronto. The Celtics, of course, have also been good — 11-4 — but the point is not that the Bulls are clearly better, it’s that the teams may be more evenly matched than we figured. Both, too, are what we might call ensemble cast teams, in the sense of conquering through depth rather than star power, but Butler is a star and a lot better than anybody else in this series — no offense to Isaiah Thomas. And in the playoffs, that often matters.
Of course, there is hope for the Celtics. It’s an obvious point, but if they win the next one they’re one away from tying the series, then it’s just two of the next three to put the Bulls in their rear view mirror. That’s series math: A big lead turns into something nerve-wracking really fast. And I would say, and I’m sure this isn’t very original, that that hope runs directly through Al Horford who is way too good a player to have done so little so far. He only got eight shots in the first game and only 13 in the second game, but he’s a special talent and deserves to have more. And while it’s that special time of year in which Rajon Rondo strings together a few decent games to get somebody to hire him next season, he’s really not this good any more and that may start to matter, too.
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Still, though we’re focused on the 1-8 of it all, the fact of the matter is that these are two talented and flawed teams with a lot of different players who can get hot on a given night. Nothing is decided yet, but the Celtics, of course, had better win the next one.