Topic Tuesday: Can the Celtics still win the Championship?

Sep 27, 2022 - 1:00 PM

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This season I’m going to try out a new series called “Topic Tuesday.” The idea is pretty self explanatory but I’ll explain it anyway. I come up with a topic to discuss (in the comments section) and I’ll write about it (you guessed it) every Tuesday. This harkens back to my roots nearly 2 decades ago when I was just a message board moderator starting topics to talk about in the forums. I know I don’t have all the answers, and I legitimately like to hear other viewpoints that add to the discussion and deepen my own understanding. Hope you enjoy (and participate)!

I’ll start this off with the only basketball topic that really matters. Can the Celtics still win the Championship?

I start here for a lot of reasons. First of all, I hate the topic that we’ve had to discuss for the last week. I just want to talk about basketball and cover my favorite team. I fully acknowledge that there are topics much more important than basketball, but this happens to be my passion and past-time.

We talk about the Boston Celtics here and this team is all about Banners. They also still happen to be the odds-on favorites to win the title. A lot has gone wrong in the past week (and month) but this still is a phenomenal basketball core.

Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the stars. Marcus Smart, Derrick White, Al Horford, and (once he returns) Robert Williams are the foundation of the league’s best defense. Adding in Malcolm Brogdon to initiate offense and knock down shots is an element sorely needed from last season.

There is a lot of pressure on Joe Mazzulla and the coaching staff to pick up the pieces and move on and put this team in position to win. The good news is that the team is familiar with Joe and it sounds like he plans on keeping the game plan largely the same as last year. But that doesn’t mean that things will be easy for any rookie head coach.

So what do you think? Are the injuries and controversies too much for this team to overcome? Are the other teams out there just too much to overcome even if it wasn’t for distractions? Or can the Boston Celtics rally around each other, push aside the noise, and focus enough to bring home Banner #18?

Let’s hear it in the comments below!