Ugly 8 consecutive wins, the first in the league of water injection! Specializing in soft persimmons, you really don't have a champion

This season's NBA regular season, more than half of the game, the situation in the east and west showed different trends. The Western stratification is more serious, the top four Timberwolves, Thunder, Clippers and Nuggets are entangled together, into a chaotic situation, from the fifth Pelicans, all the way to the tenth Warriors, there are only 4 wins before and after, in fact, there are various possibilities, the Lakers and Warriors also have a chance to continue to sprint, while the Jazz and the Rockets are unknowingly thrown away. Entering the sprint stage, the Lakers' strength came from Lao Zhan, and the Warriors' strength came from the team finally finding the right way to run in, and newcomers such as Kuminga, Pojie, and Davis took the position, and the veteran gave up his position. In contrast, the situation in the East is more complicated, from the second Cavaliers to the eighth place Heat, there is a gap of less than 6 wins before and after, and there are various possibilities.

However, the Celtics have completely distanced themselves from the team behind them. In the first 57 games of this season, the Celtics have a record of 45 wins and 12 losses, and the gap between them and the second-place Cavaliers is 8 wins, which is larger than the gap between the first Timberwolves in the West and the eighth Sun! According to the analysis of the American media, the probability that the Celtics will lock the first place in the East has been greater than 98 percent, which is almost a certainty! In addition, the probability of the Celtics winning the championship is also unbeatable, leading the Thunder, Bucks, Clippers, Nuggets and other teams by a large margin. The offseason sent away Smart, Gwee, Lowe, Brogdon and others, ushered in Porzingis and Holiday Player, the original roster framework was built for the playoffs, but they dominated the regular season, are they already invincible this season?

Since the beginning of February, the Celtics have gone through an eight-game winning streak, and interestingly, just before the eight-game winning streak, their last loss was against the Lakers, who lacked the James, and they were beaten in the final moments of the fourth quarter! And since then, the double-kill Nets (one of which won by 50 points), beat the Grizzlies (win by 40 points), swept the Knicks, beat the Bulls, etc., the strongest opponent is still the lack of Butler's Heat, the Celtics won by 4 points, overall, the Celtics face these fish belly teams, they basically can't make mistakes, even if one of the two Tanhua is sluggish, including Holiday , White, Boshen can also make up for it! And the Celtics start five this season: Holiday + White + Boshen + Tatum +Brown, who averaged 98 points per game, started the game with a team record of 23 wins and 5 losses!

It's really strong! But the more you fight like this, the less you have a championship! I'll give you two very simple examples. For example, during the 8-game winning streak, the Celtics narrowly beat the Wizards by 4 points, and the game was very difficult, because the three-point shooting rate was 11 of 34 in the whole game, while the Wizards made 20 of 47 three-pointers! Three-point shooting is the lifeblood of the entire Celtics magic ball system, averaging 42.6 three-pointers per game this season, hitting 16.3 three-pointers per game, both of which are the first in the league, and the three-point shooting rate is 38.3%, fourth in the league. Boshen's efficient finishing, coupled with Holiday swooping, including the contributions of these two on the defensive end, did raise the floor of the entire Celtics, but these two are not the upper limit deciders. To put it simply, once the Celtics don't have three points accurate, it will be difficult to play any team, but fortunately, the overall pressure in the regular season is not so great, even opponents such as the Heat and the Bucks will not be real.

The second example is that before this wave of 8 consecutive wins, the Celtics won 8 out of 11 games, and lost three games at home, losing to the Nuggets by 2 points and the Clippers by 19 points, including being beaten by the Lakers! The Celtics have a 26-3 home record this season, and they lost these three games. Playing the Nuggets, Tatum scored 22 points on 9-of-24 shooting, with a true shooting rate of less than 50%, and Brown only scored 13 points on 9-of-19, which was even worse! Facing the Clippers, Tatum scored 21 points on 8-of-18 and Brown scored 3-of-13, repeatedly challenging Leonard, and finally scored 8 points. Including the Lakers, Tatum scored 23 points in 8 of 21, and Brown scored 8 points in 4 of 12.

To put it bluntly, whether it is Tatum or Brown, they have no other means of scoring except three-point shooting and breaking through with the ball. Because of the depth of the team's roster, they can dominate the East, including in the first two rounds of the playoffs. But at the level of the Eastern Conference finals, Brown's inefficient ball handling and Tatum's lack of offensive ability are very obvious. The key is that, like Embiid, they have been living in their comfort zone in the past few years in the regular season: shooting three-pointers, making a few fouls, and teammates around them take turns to stand up and easily win, will this help them improve? Embiid will dodge and play in the regular season, and can play dominant in the playoffs? White's efficiency, Boshen's finishing methods, and Holiday tandem including defense actually cover up the shortcomings of the double tanhua, which is definitely not a good thing.

In my opinion, although the Celtics have been moving forward in the regular season this season, it is precisely because of the lack of frustration and trial and error opportunities that the ceiling is getting lower and lower, just like the Bucks last year. And at critical moments, Tatum averaged 2.6 points per game + 34.1% shooting, and Brown averaged 2.0 points per game, which is not too convincing. As in the past few years, pinching soft persimmons and guaranteeing the level of the East Finals looks like the biggest favorites to win the championship, and such a team is actually vulnerable. The Celtics really don't have a championship look, and Tatum and Brown are more suitable to be second-in-command.