By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – They were up three-games-to-one against a Philadelphia 76ers team that hadn’t beaten the Boston Celtics in a NBA Playoff series since Billy Cunningham coached a 1982 team, and they blew it. The hometown team– once invincible in Game 7s – has left the TD Garden dark. The Sixers moved on to meet the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals and were mowed down by a superior team. The Knicks will face Cleveland for the right to play in the NBA Finals.
The Celtics “Owe Us One.”
But, it gets worse.
The TD Garden was witness to a suspect Boston Bruins team losing to the once-lowly Buffalo Sabres a night before the Celtics were sent to see St. Peter. The Sabres hadn’t won a Stanley Cup playoff series in 19 years, while the Sixers hadn’t beaten the Celtics in the playoffs since 1982, a mere 44 years. The Sabres lost to Montreal who are now playing Carolina for right to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
It’s understandable how the Bs lost, but how could the Celtics collapse in such epic fashion?
Let us count the ways:
o Live by chucking 3s, die by chucking 3s. In their four losses to Philadelphia, the Boston Celtics shot 49-for-191, or 25.7%.
- Game 5 (April 28): Shot 28.2% (11-of-39) from three in a 113-97 home loss.
- Game 6 (April 30): Shot 29.3% (12-of-41) from three in a 106-93 loss in Philadelphia.
- Game 7 (May 2): Shot 26.5% (13-of-49) from three in a 109-100 series-clinching loss at home.
o Nick Nurse, the head coach of the Sixers and a champ when he coached at every level, including an NBA Finals title with the Toronto Raptors, can flat-out coach. Yes, he was graced with a resurgence from one-time NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid, but Nurse guided the Sixers masterfully. NBA Coach of the Year, Joe Mazulla of the Celtics, was out-coached.
o Face facts: A starting five of: Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Ron Harper Jr., Luka Garza, and Baylor Scheierman could not cut it in a decisive NBA Playoff game. That group will never be compared to Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. The team of Celtics so many NBA pundits expected for 2025-26 finally showed up. The absence of true “bigs” caught up with the team of green. Remember Al Horford? He was pretty good.
Two Boston pro teams were whooped on their home turf. They’re gone by May 2 and only Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band can bring life to the backstreets of the West End (May 24th), because on Saturday night, it seemed you could hear the whole damn city crying. Springsteen might say, “Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down.”
The truth was the fact the Celtics could not endure a full season without their best player, Jayson Tatum.
While Tatum orchestrated a miraculous (and quick) return from the devastating right Achilles’ injury he suffered in the 2025 NBA Playoffs, and performed quite well from his March 6 return to active duty right on through to an incredible Game 3 shooting performance against the Sixers in Philadelphia, a sore left knee and discomfort that forced him to leave Game 6, also ruled him out just hours before Game 7.
Nine years into his NBA career, the 28-year-old Tatum is feeling the effects of 729 NBA regular season and playoff games.
Boston’s wonderkid GM, Brad Stevens, cannot be blamed for inactivity.
Stevens was faced with a choice of trading one of his “Big Two” of Tatum or Jaylen Brown, and possibly dismantling the 2024 NBA championship team somewhere short of a total rebuild. Instead, being faced with an aging Celtics team and a double secret probation by far exceeding the NBA’s agreed upon maximum team salary zones – the Cs – via Stevens’ surgical strike on salaries – dipped under both the First and Second Aprons of the NBA’s salary cap structure by reducing the team payroll for the 2025-26 season to a mere $187,885,254.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors are all over $200 million and face limitations in their wheeling and dealing. Stevens and the Celtics do not.
The cost (saving) came when the Celtics jettisoned veteran bigs Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis. Both players contributed mightily in the 2024 NBA Finals with Porzingis’ astonishing Game 1 performance which won the most important game of the series at Boston. If you remember, with Porzingis coming off the bench for just the second time in his career and playing in his first game (June 6) since he had sustained a calf injury in late April, Porzingis scored 20 points, including 18 in the first half, and added six rebounds and three blocks as the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 107-89 to send a statement to the Texans.
Horford provided even more. The veteran center was an influential presence in the locker room, an intangible for NBA teams destined for good things to come, for chemistry, for facing and conquering adversity, and for winning championships. Horford was the whole package, plus, he hit three-pointer after three-pointer, drawing opposing centers away from the basket and allowing Tatum and Brown to operate inside.
Horford was traded to the Golden State Warriors in September 2025, signing a multi-year deal, and continuing into his 19th NBA season.
Boston’s other cost-saving move was to send multi-talented guard Jrue Holiday and his $32.4 million contract to the NBA outskirts of Portland, Oregon (not Maine). Holiday was another veteran, positive influence and key contributor to the 2024 championship, especially on the defensive end of the basketball court.
All of those moves put together allowed the Celtics to avoid the NBA’s punitive luxury taxes. The more stable payroll paved the way for new ownership as the franchise was sold by the longtime ownership group headed by Wyc Grousbeck for a then-record $6.1 billion. The new group, led by Bill Chisholm, paid an amazing amount of cash considering Grousbeck bought the team for $360 million in 2002.
A look over to the Fens, just past the Longwood Medical Center, and the prognosis isn’t much better. The Red Sox are floundering in the AL East basement. The offense is anemic and the middle relievers count runs against, ERA and Whip as though they were all MIT graduates. The brown paper bags are making a fashion statement and Jason Veritek’s wife is pouring on the sarcastic quips aimed at Sox GM, head of baseball Craig Breslow. Veritek “is being re-assigned” within the organization after Breslow leveled the coaching staff, including manager Alex Cora. There’s no AC and no DC in the Sox bats. No static at all.
But, there’s one thing worse than a dark June at the TD Boston Garden, and that was a dark May. Only Bruce Springsteen’s rock show on May 24th will bring some “glory days” back to Boston.
The memories of 2018 and a club record of 108 wins is long gone. as those were, indeed, the glory days.
And, one thing’s sure of the glory days.
They’ll pass you by.