The Boston Celtics’ quest for back-to-back NBA supremacy reached an unfortunate conclusion.
After winning the NBA title in 2024, the franchise’s 18th, the Boston Celtics looked in good position to repeat, winning 61 regular season games.
It all fell apart in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks, enduring a brutal 38-point beatdown in Game 6 to cap a 4-2 series defeat.
The Celtics’ elimination highlighted the league’s ongoing parity, with a new NBA champion set to be crowned for the seventh consecutive year.
Losing against the Knicks in the second round was a gut-wrenching blow for the Boston Celtics,
From the viewpoint of Cedric Maxwell, there were a handful of reasons for the Celtics’ eventual postseason downfall.
“Inconsistency. Just overall everybody. Things they did really well in the first half of those games, they just stopped,” the Boston legend said on his Cedric Maxwell Podcast.
“Pritchard was Sixth Man of the Year, couldn’t hit any shots. Bench play was poor, Sam Hauser didn’t play. Porzingis, whatever Porzingis had, he was essentially a shell of himself.
“It’s not one thing, it’s a whole lot of things that allowed the Celtics to lose. They couldn’t rebound, they got killed on the glass. Mitchell Robinson destroyed them on the glass essentially by himself. They just collapsed.
“I wouldn’t say choked, I just think they collapsed.”
The Celtics certainly encountered personal hardships in this series against the Knicks. Kristaps Porzingis’ health condition alone was certainly a big factor.
Jaylen Brown also had to deal with a partially torn meniscus in his right knee, which was later revealed, which may ultimately require offseason surgery.
But there was no bigger factor for Boston’s collapse against New York than Jayson Tatum’s crushing injury.
Tatum sustained an Achilles injury in Game 4 and was subsequently announced unavailable for the remainder of the playoffs.
His continued play could have given the Celtics a stronger fighting chance to push the series to seven games
With Tatum out until next year, what awaits the Celtics right now is an uncertain path of returning to the NBA’s summit. But for now, they can only process everything that went wrong in their painful postseason exit at the hands of the Knicks.
