The Celtics may have lost to the Nuggets, but their late push was an encouraging sign of what’s to come

The Boston Celtics may not blow many 22-point fourth-quarter leads, but Tuesday’s collapse against the Cleveland Cavaliers felt uncomfortably familiar. The Celtics have developed a bit of a reputation as frontrunners over the past few years. They’re regular-season world-beaters who can run anyone out of the gym when the shots are falling, but when they get punched in the mouth or have to execute late in games, they look distressingly mortal.

Is that reputation entirely fair? No, not necessarily. Even after Tuesday’s disaster in Cleveland, the Celtics had an 18-9 clutch record with a +20 net rating in such situations. They made the Finals two years ago. 

Objectively, Boston is quite good in big games. The eye-test has never quite matched those numbers. The Celtics never really look comfortable late in big games. There are still too many Jaylen Brown decision-making mishaps. Jayson Tatum still settles for too many contested jumpers.

The result of Thursday’s possible Finals preview against the Denver Nuggets isn’t going to dissuade anyone. Denver won, and did so in the most narratively-frustrating fashion Boston could have asked for. The story coming out of this Nuggets victory is going to be the undeniable late-game brilliance of Nikola Jokic. That’s valid, but that doesn’t exactly mean Boston should suffer by contrast. The Celtics trailed by double-digits with 4:43 remaining. Tatum had a shot to take the lead less than four minutes later.

What went right for Boston down the stretch largely boiled down to moves Boston made with these exact situations in mind. Brad Stevens traded for Kristaps Porzingis to serve as an outlet in the sort of messy, late-game possessions in which Boston so often struggled. There’s no consistent defense against a 7-foot-2 shooter. Sure enough, his shooting proved essential to Boston’s fourth-quarter offense.

Jrue Holiday was a more opportunistic addition, but one with obvious appeal. The back-to-back 3’s he hit with less than two minutes remaining speak to his big-game experience, but two of his subtler points were more indicative of what he really brings to the Celtics on offense. 

With a bit less than four minutes remaining, a quick fake from behind the 3-point line shifted Jokic out of position slightly on defense. Holiday took advantage by driving to the rim and using his strength and low center of gravity to not only maintain his advantageous lane but also to deter Jokic from seriously contesting him. When he does ultimately go up for the layup, he gets two of his easiest points of the night. “Easy” and “points” aren’t words Boston frequently gets to use in these situations.

The shot Tatum missed with 45 seconds remaining could be described as “easy.” Transition chaos granted him a wide-open corner 3-pointer. Tatum has made 46.2% of his wide-open 3-pointers this season, effectively a coin flip. With a bit more luck, that shot falls and the narrative surrounding this game changes entirely. Instead, Brown’s 41 points will largely go forgotten.

But if Boston is going to get dinged for the aesthetics of their late-game struggles, they deserve credit when things look better even in losses. The Celtics that exist in the darker corners of “NBA Twitter” probably aren’t coming one shot away from sinking the defending champions four minutes after trailing by 11. That sort of fight may not have gotten them a victory on Thursday, but it was perhaps the most encouraging signal Celtics fans could have asked for in what may have been a preview of the 2024 Finals. The Celtics could have folded against the best clutch team in the NBA. Instead they pushed the defending champs to the brink. Their new players provided proof of concept in the process. 

If Tuesday’s disappointment in Cleveland was evidence that these are the same old Celtics, Thursday’s near-miss in Denver was something closer to the norm. The Celtics have been a great clutch team all season. For once, on Thursday, the eye-test managed to back that up, and if the Celtics do meet the Nuggets again in June, they can enter that series knowing that they’ve held their own against the league’s resident crunch-time king.