While there was undoubtedly a lot of disappointment for the way things ended, 2021-22 definitely was a great season for the Boston Celtics. For a long time, their detractors had said that the team, as constructed, didn’t have what it takes to be successful in the playoffs and they proved all of them wrong by making it all the way to the Finals.
The Celtics were the best team in the league in 2022 when you take into account both the regular season as well as the postseason, but it’s easy to forget just how improbable that would have sounded to anyone when the year began. They had a terrible end to 2021 and things didn’t seem to be getting a lot better in the new year either when RJ Barrett hit a game-winner over Jayson Tatum to complete a wild 25-point comeback. Looking back at the season during an interview with Taylor Rooks, Tatum called it the lowest point of the campaign.
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“I say this all the time, the lowest point of the season was, we were up 25 in New York and RJ Barrett hit a three over me to win the game.”
They did seem dead and buried after that loss on the 6th of January, which dropped their record to a lowly 18-21. What followed, though, was one of the greatest turnarounds we have seen in quite some time in the NBA. The Celtics would lose just 10 more games the rest of the regular season as they finished with a 51-31 record. They then swept the Nets in the first round, eliminated the Bucks and Heat in 7 games in the Conference Semifinals and Finals respectively, before finally getting stopped by Golden State.
Tatum during this interview also revealed that he was playing through somewhat of a fractured wrist during the playoffs, which might explain some of his struggles in the Finals. He will almost certainly get a chance to redeem himself on the biggest stage at some point in the future and he’d be hoping to get that opportunity in 2023 itself.
