BOSTON — The talk of these Celtics joining the rarefied 70-win club began on the offseason and gained a touch of volume with six victories by double figures in a 7-1 start.
And while Wednesday’s loss to Golden State and other circumstances may have led to a tap on the pause button (turns out the Celts aren’t quite as good without two of their starters… shocking), it was still an interesting subject to broach with an experienced practitioner of the feat.
Steve Kerr was a player on the 72-win Bulls of 1995-96 and is in his 11th year as coach of the Warriors, who set the standard with 73 victories in 2015-16. (What he had to say about the issue between those two gigs is a pretty cool story we’ll get into below … read on.)
Kerr acknowledged the current Celtics have earned their designation as TTTB (the team to beat), but added that things like the 70-win achievement are more a result of circumstances and opportunity than a stated quest to be undertaken directly out of the gate.
“I don’t think you go into the season trying to do that,” he told Heavy Sports. “We didn’t with the Bulls; we didn’t with the Warriors. Now, as you go and you get closer, you kind of go, ‘Oh, that would be cool.’
“But I think it’s the coach’s job to manage the season, no matter what you’re doing, and that’s all part of it. You have to navigate your own set of circumstances, the age of your players, the health. I can’t imagine Joe (Mazzulla) would chase that. I don’t know that any coach would.
“I mean, obviously we didn’t even win the ring that year,” he said of the 2016 Dubs who fell to LeBron James’ Cavaliers in the Finals. “I think the whole idea is to put yourself in the best position possible to win, and if you happen to win 70, you win 70.”
Celtics Have Had Good Starts Before
The Celts looked to be keeping that possibility on the table as they handled well the absence of Kristaps Porzingis through this season’s first couple of weeks. But as Jaylen Brown has missed three games with a hip injury and concern lingers, they are focused on just getting itself together and right — if ever the thought of 70 did arise in their collective head.
Fifteen years ago, no less a basketball savant than Rasheed Wallace was saying his Celtics, winners of a championship two years prior and hindered in its repeat attempt by Kevin Garnett’s injury, were ready to challenge the 72 mark. In the wake of Sheed’s screed, I sought out Steve Kerr, then the head of basketball operations for the Suns.
“I don’t think it’ll ever be done again,” he told me.
Though six seasons and a new job later he would prove that he ain’t quite Nostradamus, his points were well taken in the moment.
“Every year, somebody gets to 28-3 or something and then the talk starts,” Kerr said back then. “But it’s just too hard. And there’s really no reason to try, because, I mean, it can wear you out. And if you win 72 and you don’t win the title because you’re so beat up emotionally, it’s not worth it.
“The reason we did it was because Michael (Jordan) was just on a mission because we had lost the year before. He was a man possessed. He was pissed at the world. He wanted to re-establish his dominance, so he just never let up.
“I don’t know why the Celtics would push themselves that hard,” he said of those Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen Celtics. “They’ve got some guys who are older.”
Steve Kerr: Big Record but No Championship ‘Hurts’
Jordan would turn 33 in the record season, his first full campaign back after returning from baseball. Dennis Rodman was two years older, and Scottie Pippen, Ron Harper, Kerr and Bill Wennington had all celebrated the big three-0.
“Pretty much everything has to go right,” said Kerr in 2009, drawing on that Chicago memory. “You can’t have injuries. You have to fight through the doldrums, the dog days. You have to get lucky in a few games. You have to have somebody take over games.
“We probably had seven or eight games that year where Michael just said, ‘We’re not going to lose.’ We should have lost, and he just took over. So if the Celtics are going to do it, it’s got to be Pierce or Allen or whoever, but somebody just has to lift them up on their shoulders now and then.”
The 2009-20 Celtics won 20 of their first 24 games, but the things Kerr mentioned — age, injuries, doldrums, etc. — had them at a more mortal 50-32 by the end of the year. You may recall more vividly that they made it to the NBA Finals before squandering Game 7 in Los Angeles.
The ring remains the thing. In fact, the winningest team in Celtic history — the 1972-73 C’s of 68 W’s — fell in the Eastern Conference finals after John Havlicek dislocated his right shoulder in Game 3 against the Knicks. (The next three on the list — the ’86 (67 wins), ’08 (66) and ’24 (64) editions — all hung banners.)
Kerr certainly understands the pain of unfinished business. His 2016 Warriors led Cleveland, 3-1, but Draymond Green earned a suspension when he hit King James in the crown jewels in Game 4. The Cavs won the next three to remove some of the gleam from 73.
What people will ultimately take away is, you know, the regular season wins were many and pretty, but did you win the damn championship?
“That’s right,” said Kerr. “That’s right. It’s still pretty cool to have won 73 games, but we didn’t finish it off, and that hurts.”
Which is why you hear the Celtics speaking quite a bit about the desire to win another title and almost never about how many wins they’ll have by mid-April.
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