Was the Celtics' past championship fraudulent?

TJ Morin

Was the Celtics' past championship fraudulent?  image

Ex-NBA player Gilbert Arenas said the Boston Celtics basically were a fraudulent team who only won because they had a super team. 

“Were they the better team? Hands down,” said Arenas. “Did they play championship level basketball? No.”

Arenas went on to say that Dallas’ defense was poor, and the Celtics were chucking up shots that they had no business making. Is that true? Yes, to a certain degree. The Celtics' whole game plan for the year was 3 and D, so if they have a bad game from three, they usually lose. However, they rarely had games like that, considering they only lost 17 times over the entire regular season and playoffs. 

Arenas used Jayson Tatum as his main example. “Tatum is my dude, and he was frustrating me. You taking sidestep jumpers against [Max Kleber]? 

Another fair point, but doesn’t present the whole picture. Sure, Tatum definitely had some really, really bad shots, but consider this: He was being doubled or tripled almost the entire time. So his shot selection is going to be bad, but he was also an amazing playmaker, getting 8, 9, or 10 assists a game. 

With all this in mind, were the Celtics fraudulent? No, but they did play their worst games against the Dallas Mavericks in the Finals. By saying they were the better team in the Finals, implies they played championship basketball.

 

 

MORE CELTICS CONTENT: 

Former NBA All-Star thinks the Celtics are going to be back-to-back champs

Former Celtics All-Star thinks Jayson Tatum will win MVP next year

Celtics will be facing rival Knicks on opening night
 

 

 

TJ Morin

TJ Morin Photo

TJ Morin is a Sports Media graduate of Butler University. When he isn’t writing, or arguing about sports, he’s sitting on the couch with his dad cheering for one of their various teams, the Washington Commanders, the Boston Celtics, the Boston Red Sox, the Virginia Cavaliers and the Butler Bulldogs. TJ can be found ranting about them on X @_Big_3_Sports_.