How Celtics compare to last six defending NBA champs through 20 games

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How Celtics compare to last six defending NBA champs through 20 games originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Celtics just wrapped up their 20th game Sunday — a 115-111 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on the road without Jaylen Brown or Derrick White.

The Celtics are 16-4 through the first 20 games of their title defense season, which is pretty impressive. They could realistically be 20-0 because they had a lead with under four minutes remaining in all four losses.

Now that we’re about a quarter of the way through the 2024-25 campaign, it’s time to analyze how the Celtics compare to recent defending champions after 20 games.

The short answer is the C’s compare pretty well. They have the best record through 20 games of the last seven defending champs (including themselves). They also own the best offensive rating and net rating of these seven teams.

It’s not quite the 18-2 start that the 2008-09 Celtics had through 20 games as defending champs, but still pretty good.

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The most impressive team in this group through 20 games, at least from a statistical perspective, is the 2020-21 Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers are the only defending champ in this group that ranked top 10 in all five stats above through 20 games.

Injuries ultimately played a huge factor in the Lakers being unable to sustain that pace for the full season. Superstar center Anthony Davis ended up missing 36 games (half of the 72-game season), including a stretch of zero appearances from Feb. 15 through April 21. LeBron James also played in just 45 of 72 games. The banged-up Lakers lost to the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns in a six-game first-round series.

None of the last five defending champs even made it past the second round. The Denver Nuggets had the best chance last season, but they blew a 20-point lead in Game 7 at home to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the conference semifinals.

The @Timberwolves’ trio STEPPED UP…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-compare-last-six-defending-171755708.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2024-12-02 17:25:00

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