The Boston Celtics are cruising along relatively nicely as they seek to defend last season's NBA championship. Joe Mazzulla's team is 31–14, good for second in the Eastern Conference—though it will take something pretty dramatic to close the six-game lead the Cleveland Cavaliers have opened up. The Celtics are currently 10–9 in their last 19 contests, which caused Get Up's Mike Greenberg to ask Tim Legler whether Boston is still a prohibitive favorite to win the East.
"There's no doubt they're vulnerable," Legler said. "They're vulnerable for a variety of reasons. One, it's how good Cleveland is, like they're legitimately a team that is going to give Boston fits if they play eventually in the conference finals, which I think they're absolutely headed there on a collision course to do that. But they're also vulnerable because of the way they let you guard them some nights with their propensity to take early, quick threes and not make you guard them through the shot clock."
.@LegsESPN breaks down what may stand in the way of the Celtics repeating as NBA champions 👀 pic.twitter.com/IZgsSsJD3F
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) January 24, 2025
Legler was alluding to Boston's love of the three-pointer. On the season they are averaging 48.9 triple tries per game, more than six more per 48 minutes than anyone else in the league. This creates some variance as some nights that becomes an incredible weapon and on others it stands in the way of winning. Currently the Celtics are fourth in scoring so they clearly have a robust offensive attack. They also have Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown for when playoff games get tight down the stretch. So it's probably not worth panicking. Yet.
"There's a vulnerability there but I also think it's the regular season for a defending champ that finally broke through," Legler added. "The regular season doesn't mean quite as much. You can't manufacture desperation the way that they felt it a year ago."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tim Legler Identifies Biggest Obstacles to Boston Celtics Repeating as NBA Champions.
