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BOSTON – On Sunday night, the Celtics were on top of the world, holding a 3-1 series lead over their rival Philadelphia 76ers, equipped with a fully healthy roster and on the heels of a spectacular 56-win regular season.
Fresh off a 32-point offensive masterpiece, Payton Pritchard sat at the podium and reflected on the biggest game of his playoff career.
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Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown had just finished their 119th playoff game as teammates.
Jordan Walsh was emerging as one of the best defensive stoppers of the playoffs.
In the locker room after the game, Brown randomly dubbed Baylor Scheierman “Big Shot Bob” with a smile.
The vibes, as the kids say, were high. And, the Celtics seemed to be at the beginning of what felt like an inevitably long playoff journey.
Instead, they never won another game. Six days later, the season is over.
At the Celtics locker room at TD Garden, Brown stares straight ahead. The players are silent. Tatum is in street clothes. Derrick White is fighting tears.
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How did it all go to flames in the blink of an eye?
The big-picture, non-technical answer is: that’s just sports. The unpredictability of basketball is what makes it great. It’s what keeps us watching. It’s also what makes the heartbreak so sudden, so painful.
The same Orlando Magic team that lost to the Celtics’ bench unit came out and assumed a 3-1 series lead over the Detroit Pistons a few weeks later.
And, just a few days after that, that same Magic team scored a stunning 19 points in the entire second half of their Game 6. How can one make sense of that?
The Celtics were, and are, aware of the ridiculous unpredictability of this sport.
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After they took a 1-0 lead in the Philly series, Joe Mazzulla’s media availability was filled with questions about how great a job he’d done this season, about his incoming Coach of the Year award.
He, as he’s done all year, deflected the praise.
“This could all change 24 hours from now, to where we’re having different conversations,” Mazzulla said. “So it’s part of just the perspective of being rooted in something, regardless of the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/celtics-were-top-world-then-065648960.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-03 06:56:00
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