Are the Celtics enjoying the easiest path ever to an NBA Finals?

Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton is unlikely to play in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, raising more concerns about the value of the Boston Celtics’ path to the NBA Finals .

If Haliburton’s left hamstring, which kept him sidelined for a time in January, costs him the rest of the series, the Celtics could face a third straight opponent without their best player. Jimmy Butler missed the entirety of the Miami Heat’s five-game loss to Boston in the first round. Donovan Mitchell missed the Cleveland Cavaliers’ last two Eastern Conference semifinal losses in five games.

Even if Haliburton is hampered, would this be the easiest path to an NBA Finals?

Not statistically speaking, at least. Boston’s opponents — the Heat (46-36), Cavaliers (48-34) and Pacers (47-35) — have won an average of 47 games. Since the league expanded to its current 16-team format for the 1984 playoffs, 18 NBA finalists have faced sub-average (or its equivalent) over the course of three rounds:

18. 2020 Los Angeles Lakers (46.9)

T15. 2016 Golden State Warriors (46.7), 2001 Philadelphia 76ers (46.7), 1985 Boston Celtics (46.7)

14. Detroit Pistons 1989 (46)

13. 1986 Boston Celtics (45.7)

12. 2003 New Jersey Nets (45.3)

T10. 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers (45), 2002 New Jersey Nets (45)

9. 1995 Orlando Magic (44.7)

8. 1991 Chicago Bulls (44.3)

T6. 2013 Miami Heat (44), 1983-84 Boston Celtics (44)

5. 1988 Los Angeles Lakers (43.7)

T3. 2023 Denver Nuggets (43.3), 1985 Los Angeles Lakers (43.3)

2. 1984 Los Angeles Lakers (40.7)

1. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers (39.3)

Some observations:

• Those years between Michael Jordan’s last dance with the Chicago Bulls and LeBron James’ rise to the top were tough in the East. The 2003 New Jersey Nets won 49 games and faced opponents who won an average of 45.3 games. It’s amazing that they won two games against the Spurs in the NBA Finals.

• The Western Conference at the height of Magic Johnson’s 1980s Lakers: Woof.

• It’s difficult to analyze injuries, mainly because guys in the 1980s played big minutes on butt legs. For example, Larry Drew, the starting point guard for the Kansas City Kings in 1984, played all three games of a first-round series against the Lakers with what he later described as “a knee that wasn’t healthy.” only 60% and I was hanging around everywhere.” “. No box score can adequately explain these health problems.

• Ten of the 18 teams won the title, so preparation has little to do with championship value.

• Many of these teams were heavyweights. Eleven of them have won 62 games or more, including the 1985 Lakers (65-17), the 1986 Celtics (67-15), the 2013 Heat (66-16) and the 2016 Warriors (73- 9). They inflicted numerous regular season defeats on their conference brethren, and they earned their easy path.

• The opposite is true for teams on more difficult roads. The eight toughest paths to the NBA Finals include those of the 1995 sixth-seeded Rockets and the 2020 fifth-seeded Heat, two of the four lowest seeds ever in the title series . Higher seeds face teams with fewer wins; Lower seeds face teams with more wins. So it stands to reason that the 64-win Celtics — who have won 14 more games than any team in the conference — would face an easier schedule. By the way, this list of the most difficult roads:

One or both of the fifth-seeded Mavericks and sixth-seeded Pacers could join this list of toughest roads to the NBA Finals. While Indiana trails its series against Boston, 2-0, Dallas leads the Western Conference Finals by the same margin against the Minnesota Timberwolves after a thrilling Game 2 win.

If the Mavericks win this season, we’ll applaud their difficult path to a ring, but that scenario would be lost to time once we start the legacy-based discussion about when Luka Dončić officially arrived.

We generally understand that the West was a challenge in the 2000s, but no one today is having a meaningful conversation about how tough the sledding was for the Lakers of the early 2000s. We talk about the dominance of Kobe Bryant and of Shaquille O’Neal and one of the worst officiated games in NBA history – Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals – and its relationship to the league’s officiating scandal.

Every champion has their story, and there’s a chance the cupcake road will be Boston’s this season. It will depend on how the Celtics’ path goes from here. Are the Timberwolves or Mavericks a worthy threat in the next round? Could Jayson Tatum capture the Finals MVP in convincing fashion, marking his place in Celtics lore? If Kristaps Porziņģis never gets healthy and Boston still wins, are we having a different discussion about health? What if the Celtics did it again and became their own dynasty?

The program is the history of Boston right away. It might not be in two weeks. It won’t be in two years, unless they manage to win and this group is still looking for a first title. Then they will be the eternal bridesmaid who couldn’t even finish the job when most of the work was done for them through injury and happenstance.

Here’s what we know right now: These Celtics are one of a handful of teams that have never had to face a 50-win opponent on their way to the NBA Finals, and, if Haliburton doesn’t can’t come back, they would be the only ones who could. beating these opponents without their best player on the court for any of the series’ deciding games.

Even luckier for them, perhaps, are the injuries that led these Celtics to the Heat, the Cavaliers and the Pacers. Indiana beat Milwaukee without Giannis Antetokounmpo and New York without half its rotation. Joel Embiid’s knee injury impacted Philadelphia’s standings And his ability to come out in the first round.

Injuries are part of the process. No one remembers the 1985 Lakers beating the Phoenix Suns without their three best players in the first round, even as Los Angeles’ Bob McAdoo said. during the series“I’m not going to sit here and get political and say, ‘Oh, they have a great team,’ because they’re without Walter Davis, James Edwards and Larry Nance. Without those players, we’d have to run away with it. That.”

An excerpt from a UPI article about those same Lakers-Denver Western Conference Finals: “(Alex) English isn’t the only Nugget injured, just the most seriously injured. The others are Calvin Natt, Mike Evans and Lafayette Lever with knee injuries, Dan Issel with a bruised thigh and Wayne Cooper with a rib injury.” Yet all we talk about is how the Lakers got their revenge on the Celtics in the 1985 NBA Finals.

We don’t need decades to forget the path to a championship. Is anyone claiming that the 2022 Warriors beat the Nuggets without Jamal Murray, the Grizzlies without Ja Morant, and the Mavericks with a diminished Dončić? No, they taught the Celtics a lesson in the NBA Finals and restored their dynasty.

Last year, Denver beat the Timberwolves without Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid, the Suns without Chris Paul for four games and Deandre Ayton for the clincher, and the Lakers with LeBron James for a foot injury that two doctors said required apparently a surgical procedure. We immediately pegged Nikola Jokić as an all-time great and his Nuggets as a potential dynasty.

It seems like the only absence we really discuss is Jordan’s in the mid-1990s, when his baseball career opened a big championship window for the Rockets. Hell, we even discredit Orlando’s road to the 1995 NBA Finals, even though Jordan was on the court for the entire six-game series. Maybe this is all mystical.

Maybe it’s just the stories we tell. But a champion is a champion, and Boston will be one if there ever was one.