On Monday evening, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics broke through to their second NBA Finals appearance in three years with a narrow road win over the Indiana Pacers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics didn't necessarily play dominant basketball in their series vs the Pacers, but Tatum had a nice bounce back after a rough showing vs the Cleveland Cavaliers in the previous round, and Boston is now 12-2 in this postseason, with a perfect 6-0 record on the road.
The Celtics of course have been the best team in basketball all year long and earned the number one seed in the NBA by a country mile as a result, but they still haven't been without their skeptics, most of whom can't seem to shake images of past Celtics postseason failures out of their mind when judging this current iteration of the team.
One person, however, who does believe that the Celtics will break through and hoist trophy number 18 this year is none other than ESPN sports media personality Stephen A. Smith, who recently took to First Take to relay his thoughts.
“I had Boston winning the championship from day one,” said Smith, via First Take on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “I had them winning the championship coming into the playoffs and then as I watched them in the playoffs, where my mind was altered was the synergy that I witnessed, first with Minnesota and how their defensive prowess was in that Game 2 against Denver, and then obviously again in Game 7. And then I looked at Dallas and their cohesion, and I'm like, ‘Luka and Kyrie can't be stopped.' So to me, I think no matter what direction you go in, it's going to be a pick 'em series in the NBA Finals. If I had to pick right now, I would tell you Boston, but I'm not sold. I think it's that tight.”
Is this the year?
Whether the Celtics match up with the Minnesota Timberwolves, who staved off elimination of Tuesday but are still down 3-1 in their series, or the Dallas Mavericks, Boston will have five of the best seven players in the matchup, and two of the top three.
It's likely that if this was any other team in the same position as Boston, and who had shown the same dominance that the Celtics have so far this postseason, that there would be zero doubt as to who the favorites in the NBA Finals are. However, the Celtics' underwhelming performance in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals, combined with Tatum's flameout vs the Golden State Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals, have given the Celtics a somewhat unfair reputation as a choking team, despite their relative youth (if Tatum wins this championship, he would be younger than Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were when they won their first).
In any case, the Celtics' only real path to silencing the doubt is to come through and win the championship, and they will begin that quest with Game 1 on Thursday, June 6 from Boston.
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