If you’re not having fun watching the Celtics this season, it might be time to turn in your fan card. Night in and night out, this team continues to impress, not just on the final scoreboard (which has been plenty good), but with a brand of basketball the NBA should hold up as an example for all to follow.
They are the anti-tankers. And we love them for it.
In the midst of an important and busy week — four games (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) along with talk of the imminent return of a certain injured All-Star — the Celtics are at the top of the national basketball conversation. They are legitimate title contenders, led by one bona fide MVP candidate and another Coach of the Year nominee.
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This was not the conversation when the season began, when a major roster overhaul — both by design and by chance — had them pointed more toward the draft lottery than a high playoff seed.
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But if there were any conversations about taking a gap year to rebuild, or altering lineups to lose games the way other NBA teams have done (Pacers, Jazz, Nets anyone?), they weren’t happening at TD Garden or the Auerbach Center. The Celtics’ franchise ethos is built on playing to win. From the greatest champion of all time, Bill Russell, to the greatest competitor of them all, Larry Bird, the generational baton has been passed. Brad Stevens, Joe Mazzulla, and Jaylen Brown are running it forward.
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Let’s start with Mazzulla. It’s hard to overstate how much his brand of intensity has rubbed off on this team, and how much it plays in his image. Could you imagine being the one to try to tell him he had to sit star players rather than play them late in close games, or tell him that the possibility of adding a potential future star was more important than working with the stars already on the roster? That person would be wise to stay out of punching distance. Mazzulla’s eyes might actually pop out of his head.
Related: How have the Celtics changed without Jayson Tatum in the lineup this season?
No one is less surprised about that than Stevens, the man who stunned the NBA when he elevated the little-known Mazzulla after the untimely end of Ime Udoka’s tenure. Three playoff appearances and one NBA title later Mazzulla, 37 and still the league’s youngest head coach, has proven himself quite the fascinating character. Yet for all of his quirkiness, the one thing that never changes is his competitiveness.
As Stevens recently told my colleague Dan Shaughnessy, “Joe was my assistant for my last two years as a coach. … He’s always been probably more ready than everybody realized. On top of that, you add his competitiveness, his intelligence, his willingness to work, and his willingness to really create meaningful relationships.”
So here the Celtics sit, holding onto the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, getting contributions from every corner of the roster. They play hard on defense, move the ball well, hustle after loose balls, and stick together. And that’s before the bonus of Jayson Tatum’s pending return. Of course it was Tatum’s fate that started the tanking conversation. When he collapsed to the floor with a ruptured Achilles in the playoff series against the Knicks, the franchise was forced to pivot.
Q: "What do you look at when you shoot?"
JT: "THE NET!"
On his 28th birthday, get to know Jayson Tatum through his signature arrival Q&As 🎂pic.twitter.com/npEXcD4zNd
— NBA (@NBA) March 3, 2026
Salary-cap constraints forced the departures of championship friends Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet. But with holdovers such as Olympic champ Derrick White and shooting ace Payton Pritchard, with increased contributions from Sam Hauser, Baylor Scheierman, and Neemias Queta, with additions from newcomers such as rookie Hugo Gonzalez or trade acquisition Nikola Vusevic, they’ve more than held their own in Tatum’s absence.
Thanks to Brown. His solo act has been nothing short of MVP-worthy, But he’s carried so much of the load that there is no way a Tatum return won’t help keep him fresh and ready for the playoffs. The Jays are better together, and they both know it.
Related: Former Celtics center Al Horford sums up move to Warriors for 19th NBA season as ‘big learning experience’
Mazzulla will make sure they know it. It was only weeks ago that Patriots first-year coach Mike Vrabel was named the NFL’s Coach of the Year, recognition of turning a four-win team into 14-win squad that fell one win short of a championship, but also for his ability to do more with less. That’s where it feels similar with Mazzulla who, like Vrabel, doesn’t worry about what he doesn’t have, but focuses on working with what he does have.
In a recent opinion piece on the website HoopsHype, NBA agent Bernie Lee put voice to what most of the NBA world thought after Tatum went down. “There isn’t a person among us who didn’t watch them lose earlier in the playoffs than expected last year, see their best player go down to a catastrophic injury, who didn’t expect them to purposely take a step back.”
With a widely regarded transformational draft approaching (one topped by local star AJ Dybantsa), Lee saw the Celtics aiming for the draft skies. He met with them about a client looking for a restart, a meeting about which he said, “I have participated in countless free agent meetings for players of all levels, and I can honestly tell you I have never in my entire career been more impressed with a coach than I was with Joe Mazzulla. … If I or anyone else thought for a second that he was a person who didn’t look at what the Celtics were facing this year as an opportunity versus an impossibility, then it probably explained why I watch for a living and he’s the man in the arena.”
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After rehabbing with the Maine Celtics, Jayson Tatum looks to return to the NBA. Conor Ryan and Ben Volin debate when we could see the star’s comeback.