The Boston Celtics are the NBA’s best team. What does that mean?
The Celtics are officially the NBA’s best team and with a record that hasn’t been this good since the last time they won a title, more than a decade ago.
With a 135-100 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night, the Boston Celtics secured the best record in the NBA with almost two weeks left in the regular season, a feat that brings the team’s record to a staggering 60-16.
Boston Celtics are the best in the NBA
Whether you’re a Celtics fan or not, it’s hard to deny the manner in which the team has played this season, which is to say spectacularly. To be clear, this is the first time since 2008 - the last time the Celtics won a championship - that the team has accomplished this feat, clinching a net rating of +12.0 which is second only to the legendary Chicago Bulls of 1995-96 which posted a +13.4 net rating on the way to winning a championship.
“It’s very hard to do. We may never be in this position again,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “We talked about it as a team. We talked about it before the game, to try to treat this game as the clincher. To kind of put that on ourselves to be able to do that. I think it was important for us to simulate that. ...We should enjoy it tonight, and when wake up tomorrow, nobody cares.” Where specifics of Wednesday’s game are concerned, it should be said that the Thunder were playing without the help of both Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, significant losses to be sure. Yet, one has to believe it was always going to end in a Celtics win, with the team leading by double digits for the majority of the game.
As mentioned above the win marked the Celtics’ 60th of the season making this the 14th campaign in which the team has hit that mark. The Los Angeles Lakers are second on that list with 11 60-win campaigns and are actually the only other team to have double digits in that category. Indeed, as we take a closer look at what the men in green have accomplished, it becomes even clearer that the Celtics aren’t playing around. Some 39 of the Cltics wins this season have come by double digits, including 18 of at least 20 points, and nine by 30 points or more. Heck there are even three that were won by 50 or more which makes them the only team in league history to have three such games in a single season. Ultimately, the only question that remains now is whether the Celtics can turn their regular season dominance into a postseason run that brings to an end a 16-year title drought. That’s something that Jaylen Brown isn’t taking for granted. “We’re not skipping any steps,” Brown said. “Sixty wins. I think we’re on track. When the playoffs start, it’s back to square one.”