Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics have enjoyed a strong start to the 2023-24 NBA season. The Celtics currently sit in first place in the Eastern Conference after a big road win over the Philadelphia 76ers, and Tatum has mostly looked the part of the MVP candidate that many expected him to be coming into this season.

Still, not everyone is so convinced that the Celtics' domination will translate come postseason time. One of those skeptics is former Celtics big man Kendrick Perkins, who now works as an NBA analyst for ESPN.

“Are they the best team in the Eastern Conference? Absolutely,” said Perkins on NBA Today. “But we were saying this last year… at the start of the season, when they had Malcolm Brogdon, and we talked about their depth with Derrick White and Marcus Smart and Robert Williams and Al Horford. We said the same exact words last year… at the end of the day, we're not judging the Boston Celtics on the regular season anymore. It comes down to, when it matters the most, the meat and potatoes in the postseason, can they get over the hump?”

The Celtics have indeed had no issues compiling regular season wins over the last two years; however, although the team has enjoyed deep playoff runs in each of the last two seasons, horrific late game execution and turnover concerns have kept them short of the championship ceiling that many have projected on them. The reality is that no amount of regular season success will quiet the legitimate concerns about Boston's ability to perform when it really counts.