Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics have built something rare in Boston: year after year, they’ve landed among the league’s best teams on both ends of the floor. ESPN’s season preview put a number on it - four - pointing to the four seasons in which the Celtics have finished in the top five in both offensive and defensive rating under Mazzulla.
That kind of two-way consistency is hard to find. According to ESPN’s Zach Kram, “In all four of Joe Mazzulla's seasons as Boston's head coach, the Celtics have finished with a top-five offensive and defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass.” He added that only three other teams have matched that stretch: the 2023-24 Thunder, the 2024-25 Thunder and the 2025-26 San Antonio Spurs.
But the stat comes with a sharp edge. Boston’s regular-season profile has not carried over cleanly when the games have mattered most in the playoffs.
“That consistent two-way excellence hasn't always translated to the playoffs. In those four seasons, Boston won one title but was upset in the three other series,” Kram wrote.
The Celtics’ postseason record under Mazzulla tells that story. In his first year, Boston fell to the No. 8-seeded Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The next season ended with a championship. Since then, though, the Celtics have been knocked out in the second round in 2025 and the first round in 2026, even as the higher seed in both series.
Over the full four-season run, Boston has gone 238-90 in the regular season, a .726 winning percentage, and 36-21 in the playoffs, a .632 mark. Those numbers are strong enough to put Mazzulla in rare company. He owns the highest regular-season winning percentage in NBA history and ranks seventh all-time in playoff winning percentage, per Basketball-Reference, ahead of names such as Steve Kerr, Phil Jackson and Mark Daigneault.
The big question now is the one the Celtics keep running into: whether that regular-season machine can finally turn into another long playoff run after two straight early exits.
In Other News...
Brad Stevens Nearly Changed The Celtics In A Way Fans Can Now Appreciate
Five years into his run as Celtics president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens has already earned plenty of credit for the way he has reshaped the roster, but one of the more intriguing what-ifs in that stretch almost sent Boston in a very different direction. Stevens reportedly explored a sign-and-trade that would have brought Lonzo Ball to the Celtics, and the framework would have required Marcus Smart going the other way, a swap that would have dramatically altered the teams identity at the time.
It never got across the finish line, and the timing of it matters now in a way it probably did not then. Balls time with the Bulls was later derailed by significant knee injuries, which makes the Celtics restraint look a lot different in hindsight, especially for a front office that has had its share of close calls before. Former executive Danny Ainge nearly took similar swings on Robert Swift and Justise Winslow, reminders that big personnel decisions often look much smarter, or much worse, only after the fact. [Read more 🡒]
Devin Carter's Celtics Chance May Have Started With One Lost Opportunity
Devin Carters path to Boston appears to have been shaped by a trade conversation that never quite got over the finish line. Reports say the Hawks and Hornets discussed a deal built around Buddy Hield and Dorian Finney-Smith, with Carter potentially in the mix, before Atlanta chose to waive him rather than fold him into the transaction. It leaves the impression of a player briefly caught in the machinery of bigger roster plans, then left to find his next opening elsewhere.
For the Celtics, that kind of opening can matter. Carter has since landed in Boston on a non-guaranteed deal, giving him a chance to prove he belongs in camp and beyond without any firm security attached. The unanswered part is the one that still lingers around the whole sequence: whether Charlotte ever truly wanted him in the first place, or whether being waived was something Carter preferred as he searched for a better landing spot. [Read more 🡒]
Celtics Found One Real Reason For Optimism After That Playoff Exit
The Celtics playoff exit landed hard, but there was at least one encouraging sign buried in the disappointment: when Boston put the ball on the floor, it found efficient offense from two of its most important creators. Jayson Tatum was at the top of the league in field goal percentage on drives among players with at least 50 attempts in the 2026 playoffs, and Payton Pritchard was right there among the top five as well, giving the Celtics a pair of reliable downhill options even as the broader postseason picture soured.
For a team trying to sort out what still travels when the games get tighter, that matters. Tatums ability to score and make plays going to the rim, paired with Pritchards efficiency in the same area, suggests Boston still has a foundation worth building on despite the early end to its run. The challenge now is turning that individual shot-making into something more complete the next time the Celtics get back into playoff pressure. [Read more 🡒]