After a dominant 6-0 start, speculation has been running rampant regarding potential 72 win talk with this Celtic team. Zach Lowe has pleaded for sanity on the topic and I share the capacity to agree with him. Is the feat possible? Absolutely. Probable? Nope. Worth our time pondering this early in the year? Not a chance.
With this in mind, there has been another milestone I have kept my eye on for these 2009-10 Celtics ever since they came out of the gate firing all on cylinders. Right away, I looked up what was the best start to a regular season NBA history. Currently, the record for longest winning streak to start a season is 15 games, as both the 1948-49 Washington Capitols and 1993-94 Houston Rockets started their respective campaigns 15-0.
Ironically, it was the late great Red Auerbach who coached that Washington team to a tremendous start. The NBA actually ceased to exist in that era, so technically The Capitols were part of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) at that point, the forerunner of the NBA.
Thankfully as described by Red in the John Feinstein book Let Me Tell You A Story, (a must read) Auerbach got into a tiff with the Capitols owner a couple years later over rebuilding the team, and despite his earlier success, he resigned as coach. Two years later, he was at the helm in Boston and the people of Beantown have counted their blessings ever since.
In any case back to the record. The Celtics are all ready 40% of the way home in matching this winning streak. I figured it would be smart to take a look at their upcoming ten games to see if Paul Pierce and company have a reasonable shot at threatening this record. A look at the upcoming schedule and the team’s prospects, after the jump.
Nov. 6th: Phoenix
Nov. 7th: @ New Jersey
Nov. 11th: Utah
Nov. 13th: Atlanta
Nov. 14th: @ Indiana
Nov. 18th: Golden State
Nov. 20th: Orlando
Nov. 22th: @ New York
Nov. 25th: Philadelphia
Nov. 27th: Toronto
Now that right there is what you would have to call a very favorable slate of games. With seven out of 10 at home, and the road games coming against three of the worst teams in the league, I would have to bet that a few of you more reasonable Celtic fans even raised your eyebrows about the preposition now after perhaps dismissing it intitally. Zach Lowe, I’m looking at you.
Now, before we get ahead of ourselves here, there are still some tough matchups in that lineup. Clearly Orlando plays the Celtics tough whenever they match up and are arguably improved from their Finals run last year. That should be the toughest out in theory.
We all saw what the athletic Hawks could do 2 years ago in pushing the C’s to game 7 in the 1st round. They also proved they could hang with the Celtics in Boston early on last year, just missing out on a win at the Garden thanks to a buzzer beater by Paul Pierce. They can’t be dismissed either. Phoenix, Golden State and Toronto are also capable of shooting the lights out on any given night as well so they can’t be counted on either.
With all that said, the Celtics will be favored, likely by a significant margin (sans Orlando) in all of these games. As Minnesota proved on Wednesday night, there is no such thing as a “gimme” win in the NBA but if the Celtics maintain their focus they could conceivably win these next 10 games…and quite honestly, I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did. They got past their toughest hurdle of the potential sequence in game 1 by winning in Cleveland. By passing their toughest test that early on, this record became a real possibility in my mind.
A couple of other things also line up favorably for the Celtics in this stretch. First, they only have 2 back to back games. Back to backs are always a source of worry for NBA teams, especially older ones like the Celtics. Even with ample rest against Philadelphia Tuesday night, the Celtics starters looked very sluggish at times Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Luckily, the Celtics will be playing two of their easiest opponents on the 2nd night of those back to backs in New Jersey and Indiana. There should be some margin of error in both of games, despite the fact The Pacers have had the tendency to play the C’s tough in Indy the past couple years.
So if the Celtics do in fact find a way to win these next 10 wins, when do they finally take a loss? Here’s a look at their next few games:
Nov. 29th: @ Miami
Dec. 1st: @ Charlotte
Dec. 3rd: @ San Antonio
Dec. 4th: @ Oklahoma City
Three of the team’s next four games are on the road as well.(Wash, Memphis, Chicago) Thus it’s safe to say that if the C’s do in fact set this record, it won’t take too long for them to be taken down after facing some quality opponents on the road.
I have held off a few days even writing this post, not wanting to jinx the team. With my luck, they will be going down against Phoenix tonight. I guess my question for everyone is am I reaching too much by even considering this? Clearly the schedule lines up well, but as Kevin Arnovitz likes to tell me anything can happen on any given night in the NBA.
With that in mind, I won’t be going out to bet the house on the C’s breaking this streak. With the way they are playing right now though, it seems to be fair to have a conversation about it. It’s more worthy of a discussion than any 72 win talk is, that’s for sure.
What say you though Celtics fans? Could the Celtics break this record? And if not, who will they fall to first? Also be sure to vote in our poll at the bottom right of the page on this.
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That Orlando game is going to be really, really fun. No matter whether the C’s have lost by then (and watch out for Atlanta on 11/13), the hype will be big.
Don’t sleep on Utah my friends. Indiana’s also got a nice little team there. Not saying they’re definitely going to be tough, but Hibberts been getting some Double Doubles and Rush has shown he can score. We all know what Granger can do…just sayin’
Utah can’t guard anyone. They are not coming to Boston and winning.
Deron Williams is a tough match up for Rondo, let’s see what everyone else can do
I wrote about this on another C’s site yesterday. To wit:
“The C’s will have played 27 games going into Orlando on Christmas. As Minny proved last night, every game is a potential challenge, but the only games that should actually be a legit challenge are 11/20 against Orlando and 12/3 at San Antonio, neither a back-to-back. So, the C’s (and us fans) could reasonably expect at worst to be 23-4 going into that game and possibly as good as 27-0.
“After another 10-0 after Christmas, their next challenge is 1/18 against Dallas. 38-0 at that point? Very worst case 31-7.”
Is it weird to you that it probably took you longer to write this article than it did for the very reason you wrote it to become impossible?
Way to go Phoenix for serving up a whopping dose of humility for all the Brian Robb’s and Kevin Garnett’s out there.
I guess you did jinx it.
Celtics = Fail….you should delete this article. What a joke.
Haaaaaaaaaa
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