What does a successful season look like for the Boston Celtics in 2022-23? Banners or bust? Or could the Celtics come away with less and still feel okay with how they did? For one prominent NBA analyst, it is very squarely the former. According to The Athletic’s Zach Harper, it ought to be “championship or bust for this Celtics team.”
“Jayson Tatum has reached another level,” relates Harper. “Jaylen Brown has reached another level. The Celtics have played their best basketball since the 2008 season. This is an extremely deep rotation, a group of guards you can’t take a single break against, and one of the most explosive offenses in the NBA.”
“This team took last year’s finals loss and got better,” added the Athletic analyst. “Maybe it’s not fair to put a championship-or-bust label on a rookie coach in Joe Mazzulla, but that’s how good this team is.”
Decades ago, in the Louisiana native’s prime with Boston in the 1960s, Russell decided to endorse a shoe made right here in New England. https://t.co/sc4EDy4TfE
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) April 4, 2023
If it were not fair game, the Celtics should have turned elsewhere for someone to helm the team, but given what we have seen from Mazzulla so far, we believe that Boston can win it all.
That said, another defeat on the biggest stage of the league would by no means be shameful, and a competitive earlier exit complicated by injury might also land as acceptable given unforeseeable elements.
But Harper is right that Banner 18 should be the goal until such things make that outcome impossible.
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