Forsberg: How a wild 2022 shaped the Celtics for whatever comes next originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
It’s easy to forget just how far the Boston Celtics have come in calendar year 2022. The past 365 days have featured so many twists and turns that they should change the name of the arena to TD Gardenhose.
But in case you need a quick refresher, just pull up the box score from Boston’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Christmas Day 2021. Battling COVID woes, the Celtics leaned on an eight-man rotation that featured Romeo Langford as a starter, and Juancho Hernangomez and Jabari Parker off the bench. The Bucks ran away late in that game, dropping the Celtics a game below .500 and to the No. 9 in the Eastern Conference.
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Things were going to get worse before they got better. But more on that later.
Best highlights and soundbites from the Celtics in 2022
The Celtics, trying to pry themselves out of a two-week funk, submitted an application Sunday to reclaim the title of best team in basketball while producing a Christmas Day thumping of the visiting Bucks. Jayson Tatum dominated another game featuring a fellow MVP candidate and Boston’s offense looked more like the group that was on a historic pace through the first quarter of the season.
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“It did feel good to kind of get back to playing the way we know how to play,” said Tatum, who produced a loud poster slam over Giannis Antetokounmpo as part of his 41-point outing. "We have the emotional understanding of it’s a long season, and there’s going to be great stretches and there’s going to be some bad ones. It’s just kind of not letting the bad ones snowball effect, and get back on track sooner rather than later.”
Yes, the past year taught the Celtics a whole lot about what a roller coaster ride any NBA season can be. Which brings us back to last Christmas. The suggestion of Boston as a championship contender seemed utterly preposterous in that moment.
In the aftermath of that Christmas loss, the Celtics (deep breath) …
- Limped into early January 2022 at 18-21 overall while sitting 11th in the Eastern Conference
- Shook up their roster at the February trade deadline highlighted by the big-splash addition of Derrick White
- Posted a sizzling 33-10 record over the final 43 games of the 2021-22 regular season to surge to the No. 2 spot in the East
- Watched Tatum elevate to a whole new stratosphere as part of a white hot finish that saw him place sixth in MVP balloting
- Swept the Nets, outlasted the Bucks, and toppled the Heat in a Game 7 on the road to advance to the NBA Finals
- Stumbled with a chance to take a 3-1 lead against the Warriors in Game 4 of the Finals and ultimately succumbed to Golden State in 6 games
- Shored up an inconsistent bench over the summer by completing another big-splash move to acquire Malcolm Brogdon from the Pacers
- Suspended head coach Ime Udoka for the 2022-23 season due to an improper relationship
- Installed behind-the-bench assistant Joe Mazzulla as the interim head coach
- Started the new season 21-5 before returning to Earth’s orbit with a December slump
And that’s just the Spark Notes version of calendar year 2022. Drama and suspense were never far from this team.
But here’s how 2022 ought to be truly remembered: As the year that Tatum and Jaylen Brown cemented themselves as the pillars of this storied franchise and pushed Boston to be a legitimate title threat.
While an improbable playoff run saw Banner 18 slip through Boston's fingers in June, the team is well positioned, despite all the bumps along the way, to contend deep into the future. The Jays are blossoming together and they now have a deep supporting cast to aid them.
The Celtics will play a tidy 82 regular-season games during calendar year 2022 and their success is really accentuated when you zoom in on that totality of the year. Boston went 34-12 to close out the 2021-22 season and owned an NBA-best mark of 24-10 with two games remaining in December.
At 58-22, Boston’s .725 winning percentage for calendar year 2022 would be the team's best since the title year of 2008, when Boston posted a .790 mark over 86 games. This could be the first 60-win calendar year since 2017 (63-25).
Brad Stevens’ relentless tinkering with the roster has delivered a versatile group that, at full health, doesn’t have an obvious weakness. Much of the core is locked up deep into the future and everybody on the roster is pulling in the same direction with a singular goal of winning a title.
There’s an obvious chemistry with this year’s group, too, maybe more so than any of the other talented teams that Stevens coached or built over the past decade.
“We haven’t hung one of those banners but we’ve had a lot of close teams and a lot of good teams. This one has as much camaraderie and togetherness as any I’ve been around, certainly at the professional level,” said Stevens. "I think they really like each other, I think it’s a really good character group. I see a lot of -- when guys have a tough game, guys have a tough day, there’s just a lot of support within this building for them, and I like that …
"I think that our best players do a really good job of making sure everybody feels that way, and feels appreciated, and that’s a good thing.”
The core pieces of this team, Tatum, Brown, and Smart, have been together for a half decade now. They’ve all experienced individual honors (All-NBA, All-Star, Defensive Player of the Year), team success (four Eastern Conference finals visits, one Finals trek), the lows of falling short of their ultimate goal, and an array of emotions based on the nonstop calamity around them.
Now Tatum is making a case for MVP. Brown will be in the conversation for All-NBA, which could open the door for a long-term, big-money extension with the Celtics. Smart is the best quarterback in New England. And they’ve got a dynamic supporting cast around them.
The pain this team experienced in 2022 has toughened it for the title quest of 2023 (and beyond). The core learned a lot about itself in the last calendar year. And the past 365 days might ultimately be remembered even more fondly based on where the story goes from here.
