Current:Home > MarketsAnalysis: This NBA Finals will show if the Celtics are ready for pressure-LoTradeCoin
Analysis: This NBA Finals will show if the Celtics are ready for pressure
View Date:2024-12-23 20:09:46
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown said all the right things after the Boston Celtics fell in the NBA Finals two years ago. They said losing that series to the Golden State Warriors was going to be part of their journey. A learning experience. Fuel for the future.
They won’t be able to say those things if they don’t win the title this time around.
The pressure in the 2022 finals was on Golden State — the team that had been there many times before, and not on a Celtics team that largely was on that stage for the first time. But now, Boston is the favorite. A sizable one at that over the Dallas Mavericks, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, which means the Celtics will feel a level of pressure that wasn’t on the shoulders of Brown and Tatum two years ago.
“I give a lot of credit to that team, the Warriors. I think we understood what it took to get there. They understood what it took to get over the hump,” Tatum said Wednesday. “That was really a special team that didn’t make many mistakes, obviously well-coached. They’ve just been there before. In some of those tough moments, when I go back and look, you can tell that they had been there before. It was a lesson to be learned.”
Clearly, Boston did some learning.
From the start of the 2022-23 season until now, including playoffs, the Celtics are a league-best 144-54. No player in the league has scored more points in that span than Tatum. There are seven teams that lost more games this season than the Celtics have lost in the last two seasons combined. And in a league where a 1-2 punch of great players is now basically a prerequisite to winning, Brown and Tatum might be the top duo.
“They learned something,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “You could see they’re playing at a high level right now, winning 64 games, the best team in the NBA. To be penciled in at the beginning of the season, that puts a little pressure or stress because you’re supposed to be here. They fulfilled that.
“But that tandem, they’re playing at an extremely high level and we got our work cut out. But they’ve been here. Some of us for the Mavs have been here, some of us haven’t. We’re going to embrace that and find a way to hopefully win a series.”
Kidd lost in his first two trips to the finals as a player, he and the then-New Jersey Nets getting swept by the Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant-led Los Angeles Lakers in 2002 and then falling in six games to the San Antonio Spurs a year later. He was with Dallas for its 2011 finals win over Miami, a series where the Heat simply didn’t handle the pressure that came with having LeBron James playing for a title in his first season there.
“We just didn’t have enough talent to beat Kobe and Shaq. It could be that simple,” Kidd said. “But nerves sometimes play a part, too. Just the human side of things.”
The NBA likes to send young, rising players to the finals as reporters for a day or two. Houston’s Jabari Smith Jr. was at media day in Boston on Wednesday and used his moment with the microphone at a news conference with Tatum to ask a question that virtually nobody else in the room could ask.
“What would you say to somebody going into their third year who hasn’t lived up to the expectation that has been set on him?” Smith asked, referring to himself.
Tatum knew exactly where he was coming from.
“We come into the league at such a young age, and they want us to be perfect right away. It’s just part of growing up. You’re still growing up. I’m still growing up,” Tatum said. “It’s a process, right? Nothing was accomplished overnight. I think you’ll find a value in tough times, the ups and downs of just what life brings you. I sound like a real old person right now.”
Tatum and the Celtics went through those tough times in 2022. Went through them again last year when they lost a Game 7, at home, to Miami in the Eastern Conference finals. How the Celtics fare in this series against the Mavs will show how much value they’ve found in that process. It’ll show if they are ready for the pressure this time.
___
Tim Reynolds is a basketball writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at treynolds(at)ap.org
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
veryGood! (26623)
Related
- Beyoncé has released lots of new products. Here's a Beyhive gift guide for the holidays
- A blizzard warning in Hawaii but no snow yet in Denver, in unusual December weather
- Today Is the Last Day to Score Target's Stylish Spring Dress Deals for as Low as $10
- Rising sea levels threaten the lives and livelihood of those on a fragile U.S. coast
- Tennis Channel suspends reporter after comments on Barbora Krejcikova's appearance
- Khloe Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and More Stars Who Gave Their Kids Unique Names
- Mark Zuckerberg's first tweet in over a decade is playful jab at Elon Musk's Twitter
- At COP26, nations strike a climate deal with coal compromise
- 'The Penguin' spoilers! Colin Farrell spills on that 'dark' finale episode
- These researchers are trying to stop misinformation from derailing climate progress
Ranking
- NFL Week 11 picks straight up and against spread: Will Bills hand Chiefs first loss of season?
- Intense monsoon rains lash Pakistan, with flooding and landslides blamed for at least 50 deaths
- See Shemar Moore’s Adorable Twinning Moment With Daughter Frankie
- The U.K. considers its 1st new coal mine in decades even as it calls to phase out coal
- 'Joker 2' actor pans DC sequel as the 'worst film' ever: 'It has no plot'
- Taliban orders Afghanistan's beauty salons to close in latest crackdown on women's rights
- Bodies of 4 men and 2 women found with their hands tied near Monterrey, Mexico
- Fire kills 6 at Italian retirement home in Milan
Recommendation
-
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani wins reelection to Arizona US House seat
-
The 2021 Hurricane Season Wrapped
-
You Know You Want to Check Out Our Ranking of the OG Gossip Girl Couples, XOXO
-
Car ads in France will soon have to encourage more environmentally friendly travel
-
Jax Taylor Breaks Silence on Brittany Cartwright Dating His Friend Amid Their Divorce
-
Check Out the Most Surprising Celeb Transformations of the Week
-
How Love Is Blind's Chelsea Reacted to Watching Micah and Kwame’s Pool Scene on TV
-
Drought is forcing farmers in Colorado to make tough choices