NEW YORK — By the end of Game 6, as the Celtics walked off the court and congratulated the Knicks, it was clear this was it. The C’s weren’t good enough. They were blown out by the Knicks 119-81 in a largely uncompetitive game, falling 4-2 in the East semifinals Friday at Madison Square Garden.
The Celtics became the latest victim to a recent peculiar trend in the NBA’s era of parity. The past six NBA champions — a group that now includes the Celtics — all failed to make it past the second round. There are individual reasons for why each team has fallen short of the conference finals, but the end result remains the same.
“That’s what we’ll spend the summer looking through is the differences with that,” C’s coach Joe Mazzulla said after the loss. “But that’s obviously a psychological hurdle over the last (six) years now. So we spent time studying that this offseason. Just wasn’t able to get through that hurdle.”
The last reigning champion to make it past the second round was the 2018-19 Warriors, who lost to the Raptors in the NBA Finals. But since then, every single champion failed to make it to the final four teams remaining, much less have a chance at repeating. The Raptors (2019), Bucks (2021), Warriors (2022), Nuggets (2023) and now Celtics (2024) all faltered in the second round the following year. The Lakers (2020, bubble) were the lone team to lose in the first round during their title-defense season.
The Celtics were doomed when they blew 20-point leads in both Games 1 and 2. Then Jayson Tatum’s ruptured right Achilles tendon put a damper on the series. While the Celtics got one last positive in a blowout Game 5 victory, the road ended for them as the Knicks made their first East Finals appearance in 25 years.
“Obviously, going back-to-back is tough, but winning a championship is hard,” Derrick White said. “Every year, a lot of teams set out to do that, and next year is gonna be the same difficult challenge of winning the championship. So obviously, we didn’t go back-to-back, but it’s hard to win in this league, and you gotta learn and grow.”
Each reigning champion went through changes the following season. The Celtics were actually in a relatively positive spot considering they brought back virtually their same roster that won the championship. But every single NBA title requires luck; the C’s didn’t get that this year. Tatum’s injury effectively ended their chances to go back-to-back, though it’s a wide-open field this year in the playoffs.
So, the Celtics became just the latest data point in this unique trend. They’ll undoubtedly have a different roster next season as they enter a crucial offseason. The team needs to shed salary as luxury tax penalties soar, meaning some key guys will likely be moved. But the Celtics aren’t thinking about that quite yet as they still process the end of another season.
“I thought we had a great year,” Jaylen Brown said. “I thought we had a great year. Joe prepared us as best he could. We had a great mindset, a great mentality. Just some unfortunate events, some injuries and things like that. No excuses, but it just wasn’t our year.”
