The Boston Celtics are favored to win the 2024 NBA Finals. Which of them has the most to prove in these playoffs?

HIGHLIGHTS

 Boston Celtics are favored for a championship with a 78% win rate and +11.7 net rating this season.
 Jayson Tatum is nearing his prime at 27, and seeks to prove his ability to lead a team to the title in the playoffs.
 Jaylen Brown excels this season and aims to demonstrate his worth as a 1B option to Tatum in the playoffs.

Throughout the Jayson Tatum era, the Boston Celtics have waited patiently to be dubbed the next great powerhouse in the NBA. With the former third-overall pick out of Duke, the Celtics have fielded competitive rosters every season of his career thus far. In his still young career, Tatum has shared the floor with some incredible talents already, including Kyrie Irving, Isaiah Thomas, and, now, Kristaps Porziņģis.

Boston has also been a premier organization on the business side of NBA team building, with Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens, and Ime Udoka, among others, having led the franchise in recent years. And yet, the Celtics have failed to reach the pinnacle despite their well-balanced rosters, young superstars, and enviable front-office performance.

This season, the Celtics have dominated, winning a league-leading 78 percent of their games. The second-highest win rate in the NBA belongs to the Denver Nuggets at 70 percent. Not only has Boston won the most games so far this year, they’ve done it in truly convincing fashion, owning the NBA’s best net rating of +11.7. Due to the spectacular regular season campaign they’ve had, the Boston Celtics are currently favored to win the championship, with +200 odds on FanDuel.

Seemingly overnight — after they went down 0-3 to the Miami Heat last year and then came up just short of pulling off a reverse sweep — this iteration of Boston has gone from a group of promising wunderkinders to a core whose ability to win it all is constantly questioned. The Celtics might technically still be a young team — with Tatum, Porzingis, and Jaylen Brown all under 29 — but this squad is highly experienced in the postseason. They won’t get the benefit of the doubt that’s given to green playoff performers anymore. These Boston Celtics will have the most to prove in the upcoming NBA playoffs.

1Jayson Tatum

2023-24 stats: 27.3 PPG, 4.9 APG, 8.2 RPG, 47.3% FG, 37.9% 3FG

The “he’s only 19” joke died a couple of years ago, but Tatum’s label as an ascending young star should rightfully fall off this season. Having just turned 27, he’s likely entered his prime, and it’s a fantastic one. Since getting drafted third overall out of Duke, Tatum has outgrown every expectation laid upon him.

He’s remained one of the better perimeter defenders in the game while growing into an unstoppable force on offense. He can score from all three levels, create his own shot with efficiency, and can be trusted to make difficult attempts when needed. He’s also grown as a playmaker in recent years, becoming a truly complete weapon.

Jayson Tatum regular season vs playoffs (2017-2023)

Stat
Regular Season
Playoffs

PPG
22.5
23.8

RPG
7.0
7.6

APG
3.3
4.6

FG%
45.8%
44.3%

3FG%
37.5%
35.9%

Games Played
439
94

So far, though, he’s failed to take the final step into NBA superstardom. Through no fault of his own, Tatum’s been surrounded by elite talent his entire career, making it impossible for him to carry teams the way other stars have. For him to earn that respect as a singular tour de force, he’ll have to raise his game in the postseason in a way that the world hasn’t seen from him yet and lift his Celtics to a title as their undisputed best player.

The NBA fandom can be a cruel one, and they’ve been waiting to crucify Tatum. His fans are ready to anoint him as the next face of the league, while his fiercest dissenters prepare to label him a second option on a title team. No one on the Celtics has more to prove this year than Jayson Tatum.

2Joe Mazzulla

Joe Mazzulla career NBA regular season head coaching record: 114-40, playoff head coaching record: 11-9

Fun fact: Celtics Head Coach Joe Mazzulla is 758 days younger than Al Horford. He’s also only 712 days older than Jrue Holiday. Another detail about Mazzulla that might be even more surprising is that he is the NBA’s all-time leader in coaching win percentage at .735, with Phil Jackson coming in at a distant second at .704.

Many would think that leading a team to a Conference Finals appearance and coming one win away from a Finals trip in one’s first year as a head coach would be exceeding expectations, but that was not the case for Joe Mazzulla. To be fair, though, it’s difficult to be overly impressed when one inherits a roster that just made the Finals the year before.

NBA All-Time Coaching Win Percentage Leaders (with at least 10 games coached)

Coach
Win %
Games Coached

Joe Mazzulla
73.5
155

Phil Jackson
70.4
1640

Billy Cunningham
69.8
650

Adrian Griffin
69.8
43

Larry Bird
68.7
214

David Blatt
67.5
123

K.C. Jones
67.4
774

Red Auerbach
66.1
1419

Steve Kerr
65.3
783

Ed Macauley
65.0
137

via Statmuse

So when Mazzulla and his Celtics lost to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, people called it a choke job, even though Boston nearly pulled off the first 0-3 comeback in league history. Mazzulla will likely still be the all-time leader in coaching win percentage after this season, but he could wind up being more like Adrian Griffin and David Blatt than Phil Jackson.

3Jaylen Brown

2023-24 stats: 23.3 PPG, 3.6 APG, 5.5 RPG, 50.4% FG, 35.4% 3FG

Fresh off of inking a five-year, $286 million extension, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see Jaylen Brown take a step back this season after locking down his long-term financial security. The Celtics also turned Marcus Smart and Robert Williams into Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday, so Brown taking a backseat on offense wouldn’t have been shocking to see.

Jaylen Brown vs Jayson Tatum March 2024

Stat
Jaylen Brown
Jayson Tatum

PPG
27.8
28.8

RPG
5.4
7.0

APG
3.1
5.2

FG%
52.0%
46.2%

3FG%
38.3%
45.6%

FGA
21.2
20.3

Rather than settling into complacency, though, Brown has arguably elevated his game further, stringing together one of the best campaigns of his career. While Tatum has to prove that he’s capable of leading a championship team, Brown this postseason must show that he’s a worthy Robin to Tatum’s Batman. Or he could even take it a step further and establish himself as a 1B option.

4Kristaps Porziņģis

2023-24 stats: 20.3 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 1.9 APG, 1.8 BPG, 51.1% FG, 36.9% 3FG

Kristaps Porziņģis has had a unique career trajectory. He went from a rising star with the New York Knicks to a talented but flawed and injury-prone wildcard. Then, when the Dallas Mavericks traded for him, he was pegged as Luka Dončić’s sidekick, before ultimately falling out of favor with the Mavericks and earning a reputation as a bit of a softie and a shrinker in big moments.

Kristaps Porziņģis stats by team

Stat
New York Knicks
Dallas Mavericks
Washington Wizards
Boston Celtics

PPG
17.8
20.0
22.9
20.3

APG
1.3
1.8
2.7
1.9

RPG
7.1
6.8
8.5
6.9

BPG
2.0
1.7
1.5
1.8

FG%
43.7%
44.8%
49.3%
51.1%

3FG%
36.1%
34.5%
38.2%
36.9%

Games Played
186
134
82
50

After getting traded to the Washington Wizards for pennies on the dollar, Porziņģis successfully recuperated some of his stock while playing for a rebuilding team. Now, with the Celtics, he’s completely recovered his star power, but a bad playoff series will tank his reputation again quickly. A lot of fans already have a bit of resentment simply because fan-favorite Marcus Smart was traded away for him.

5Jrue Holiday

2023-24 stats: 12.8 PPG, 4.9 APG, 5.4 RPG, 48.5% FG, 44.6% 3FG

Celtics fans understandably had mixed reactions to the Marcus Smart trade. On the one hand, they added a two-way force in Porziņģis that would likely raise their ceiling as a team. On the other hand, though, they had to deal away one of the fanbase’s favorite players, one that just won Defensive Player of the Year and was widely considered to be the heart and soul of the Celtics’ core.

Jrue Holiday vs Marcus Smarts for the Celtics

Stat
Jrue Holiday 2023-24
Marcus Smart 2022-23

PPG
12.8
11.5

APG
4.9
4.3

RPG
5.4
2.7

SPG
0.9
1.5

FG%
48.5%
41.5%

3FG%
44.6%
33.6%

The hole that Smart left in Boston’s roster was quickly filled, though, both in terms of on-court production and likability as a player. After acquiring Porziņģis, the Celtics went all-in by dealing away Robert Williams in a package to land Jrue Holiday from the Milwaukee Bucks. As a former champion and one of the most respected defenders in the league, Holiday doesn’t have much left to prove as a player.

But, when factoring in his sense of betrayal from the Bucks, who traded him without warning after he expressed his desire to retire as a member of their team, Holiday has plenty to prove to the franchise that scorned him in favor of Damian Lillard, the man whom he infamously locked down in the playoffs.