It’s Time for the Rubber to Meet the Road on Causeway Street

A year after the Celtics and Bruins both collapsed in the playoffs, both teams find themselves in striking distance once again, except this time, the stakes are sky high.

Duck Boats. A euphoric sight. The streets of Boston are flooded with millions of rapturous fans as their heroes spend the morning atop duck boats with their world championship trophies. It’s happened twelve times this century: six have occurred in February for the Patriots, four in November for the Red Sox, but just two in June. It’s somewhat astounding. For all the brilliance displayed by the Celtics and Bruins over the last fifteen years, they don’t really have a ton to show for it. That’s relative, of course; they’ve each won a title, but for their consistent excellence, it feels like a let-down. Boston fans will be called spoiled; hopeless New York, Philly, and Chicago sports fans will attempt to discount that feeling, explaining that we’ve had it so great over the years, but really, the great triumphs we’ve enjoyed have also brought their fair share of pure heartbreak. It’s an idea that became particularly relevant to me this fall, as the Patriots put together one of the most pathetic seasons of football known to man. By the end of it, fans were numb to the losses. It didn’t matter, and some (not me) even rooted for them to lose to improve their draft choice. The point is, when your team sucks, the emotional connection to their success is continually eroded throughout the season. The Celtics offer the best example of the opposite of this phenomenon. They’ve been on the doorstep for practically eight seasons. They’ve made the conference finals five times in the last seven seasons. They’ve made the finals once. And all we’ve been gifted with this “great” success is heartbreaking loss after heartbreaking loss, no banner in the rafters to celebrate, and no duck boats. It’s torture. And really, the same can be applied to their roommates at TD Garden, the Bruins. Their failures have mostly come earlier in the playoffs, but have still had their fair share of gut-wrenching defeats, with a 2019 loss in the Stanley Cup Final, and their Game 7 disaster just last year after the greatest regular season in the history of the sport. All signs point to the same thing: this is the final straw. This spring, it’s do or die, and everything is on the line. 

We’ll start with the Celtics, because their story in 2024 feels pretty simple. Jayson Tatum, somehow, is about to turn 26. He’s in the prime of his career. He’s played with about every type of superstar you can imagine, from Kyrie Irving to Kemba Walker to Gordon Hayward to Marcus Smart, and now, Kristaps Porzingus. He’s been surrounded by incredible people. And the job hasn’t gotten done. I’m a big believer in the arc of a player's career. It’s pretty easy to argue that no player in the modern NBA has seen such great success and failure in the early stages of their career, and that means something. He has the experience to understand what it takes in the big game. I thought last year was the year that we reap the rewards, particularly after his Game 7 masterclass in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. But that was not to be. And Brad Stevens, the Celtics President of Basketball Operations, took that loss on the chin. He made the difficult move that no one wanted to make, but he knew he had to make, and traded Marcus Smart for Porzingis. The C’s have a wrinkle that no team has really figured out how to stop, with Porzingis at the end of games, that seems to be the remedy for the crunch time struggles that have plagued them over the last five years. To speak optimistically, Porzingis seems to be the Kevin Garnet to Tatum’s Paul Pierce that finally got the Celtics over the hump in 2008. I believe in the coach- Joe Mazulla has an identity, and the players are bought in. But this year is the year: the chips are pushed into the table. Tatum’s been given opportunity after opportunity with really every personnel group imaginable. No team can compete with them when they’re at their best. And if the job doesn’t get done, it’s time to reevaluate Tatum’s standing in Boston, and tear it all down. It’s that simple because that’s how good this team is, and that’s where the expectations must be. 

The Bruins are a somewhat different case. They weren’t supposed to be here, not this year. And in any other circumstance, with a team that opened the season with endless questions and concerns, their position atop the NHL standings would be cause for jubilant optimism. But instead, the feeling more resembles one of fragile, hesitant hope. Their season this year, unfortunately, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Scars from a decade of playoff success are still fresh, but really, it's the magnificent collapse that occurred in last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs that casts a shadow over their season. It’s a team, this year, that must prove they won’t be defined by their Game 7 performance last year. And they have to do so without their leader in Patrice Bergeron, who they lost to retirement, and with a team that GM DOn Sweeny was forced to hobble together due to salary cap constraints. It’s working so far- Morgan Geekie has emerged, and the goaltending continues to carry the team. Their success will be dependent on Jim Montgomery’s ability to learn from his miscues in last year’s playoffs: he got away from their identity (the goaltending), and he can’t afford to do so again. The B’s success is being discounted; the pundits are calling for yet another breakdown in the spring, but this team has a certain edge this year. As great as the team was last year, all their great success meant that they didn’t face many challenges until the Florida series. This year, they’ve faced adversity- they endured a 1-5 stretch in December- and responded with a four game winning streak. 

For both teams on Causeway Street, it feels as though we’ve endured enough failure. Both teams are made of grizzled veterans, who’ve seen let-down, and are due for success. And this time, this spring, any failure will have catastrophic consequences. 

George Leness