Before the season started I wrote that Boston would finish with a record of 37-29. I missed by two games, as they went 39-27. I could blame the Heat and Bucks for tanking the final games even worse than the Celtics did; but instead I'm going to attribute those two extra wins to the Avery Bradley effect. As recently as mid February he was just a guy on the end of the bench. Now I'm convinced he'll be an All-Star sometime in the next few years.
On March 1st Boston was 17-17, tied for the 8th seed in the East, and facing a brutal schedule the rest of the way. I still thought they were more likely to win the division than miss the playoffs. One thing that did really surprise me about the Celtics this year though was their success on the second night of back to back games. I thought that would be a major issue for an aging team in a condensed season, but it turned out to have little to no effect; Boston went 12-9 in those situations, including 8-0 at home.
Paul Pierce finished the regular season with 22,591 career points scored, 33 more than Tim Duncan's 22,558. What does this mean? The Celtics enter the playoffs with 3 of the all time top 25 scorers in NBA history, and 3 of the top 5 active leading scorers in the league (maybe they should bring Shaq back too?).
And in case you weren't following me on twitter late Thursday night, here's some unusual stats from the meaningless victory over Milwaukee in the season finale:
- Boston scored only 27 points in the second half, and still won by 13. When was the last time that happened in a NBA game?
- Rondo was the only active player on the Celtics who didn't score, yet he still had 15 assists; the most assists without a point in an NBA game in over 25 years.
- Paul Pierce played the fewest minutes (7) of anyone in a Boston uniform, but he still managed to finish the game as the team's second leading scorer (12).
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