From 4-0, to 2-4, the defending champion is overrated, the double-Tanhua will be disbanded as soon as possible

When the Boston Celtics defeated the New York Knicks 1-4 in the second round of the 2025 playoffs, the high-profile defending champion ended the season in a nearly shameful way. From the "false prosperity" of sweeping the Knicks 4-0 in the regular season and easily eliminating the Magic in the first round to the collapse of the second round revealing fatal shortcomings, the Celtics' failure is not just a simple tactical mistake, but also a comprehensive "collapse" of team building logic and team culture. This team, once regarded as the biggest favorite to win the championship this season, eventually became one of the most overrated teams in the league, and the offseason storm may have been inevitable.

Celtics were perfect in the regular season of the 2024-25 season: the league's best record with 61 wins and 21 losses ranked second in the Eastern Conference, the offensive efficiency ranked second in the league, and the defensive efficiency ranked fifth in the league. They ranked first in the league in terms of 3-point shooting and hits per game, reaching 48.2 and 17.8 respectively. These data show that the Celtics maintain high efficiency both offensively and defensively, especially when it comes to 3-point shooting. However, behind these gorgeous data, there is a hidden crisis.

First, the team relies too much on three-pointers. During the regular season, the Celtics averaged 48.2 3-pointers per game, accounting for nearly 50% of the total shots. Although this "magic ball" style is efficient in the regular season, it has become a fatal weakness in the playoffs. In the first two games against the Knicks in the second round, the Celtics made a total of 25 of 100 three-pointers, setting a record of missing two consecutive three-pointers in the NBA. When the three-pointer is missing, the team lacks stable inside killing and back-to-door singles ability, and the "five foreign lineup" that the management is proud of has become a shackle for the plot.

Secondly, the core limitations of DoubleTanhua are masked by the data. Tatum and Brown averaged a total of 49.5 points per game in the regular season, but their hard-solving ability was still insufficient at critical moments. Tatum still had efficient output when playing against the Magic in the first round of the playoffs, but in the second round, facing the Knicks' targeted defense, his difficult backward jump shot and strong three-pointer were exposed; Brown completely became the "pseudo-second leader", with an average of 22.1 points, an overall shooting percentage of 44% and a 3-point shooting percentage of 33% in the playoffs dropped significantly compared to last season. The highlight data of the two people comes from system bonuses rather than real superstar dominance. The second round of defeat of the Celtics is a reflection of single tactics and loose discipline. In the first game against the Knicks, they were reversed with a 20-point lead, and they repeated the same mistake in the second game. These two losses exposed three major problems: ① Tactical rigidity, the team's offense relies too much on three-point shooting, and after the Knicks relied on unlimited replacements from Bridges and Anunobi to lock out the outside space, the Celtics neither had the ability to break through and pass the ball, nor did they lack strong attack methods in the inside. Porzingis's degeneration is particularly fatal - this "unicorn" who averages 20 points per game in the regular season, with averaging only 7.7 points per game in the playoffs, completely becoming a burden of high salary; ②, lack of spiritual leaders, although the Celtics have double-Tanhua, none of them has the iron-blooded temperament of Butler or Mengmeng Green. Although Tatum's 42-point performance before being injured in the final quarter of G4 was shocking, his "lost hero" style of playing actually split the team's rhythm; Brown has never been able to break through the positioning of "efficient scorer" and has been invisible at critical moments.

Tatum's Achilles tendon tear in G4 became the turning point of the Celtics' season. The fall of the team's core not only ends hope of reversal, but also reveals that the Celtics are not prepared for the playoffs in the face of high-end teams. In the 23-24 season, Tatum took the bonus of the whistle and won the championship, but the slap in the 2025 playoffs was significantly relaxed. In order to improve the viewing of the game, the league encouraged physical confrontation, which also led to the Celtics being unable to match this high-intensity confrontation. Tatum and Pozin were injured one after another. In contrast, although the Knicks and Thibodeau's coaching philosophy of "exploding the main force" was criticized in the regular season, it was effective in the playoffs - core players such as Brunson and Towns became more and more courageous in the high-intensity rotation, and the fighting spirit of role players was even better.

What makes the Celtics desperate is that next season, the team's total salary will exceed US$250 million, of which the double-Tanhua contract is 618 million. Among them, Jaylen Brown's five-year, $304 million contract may become the team's negative asset contract, and its performance is seriously incompatible with salary; the decline in the status of veterans such as Holiday and Horford further aggravates salary pressure. The team has been undercurrents, and the loss has completely triggered these contradictions. The salaries of Porzingis, Holiday and Horford are likely to leave the team this summer. At the same time, if Tatum is absent for a year, the Celtics may choose to rebuild temporarily, and using Jaylen Brown for young players and draft picks has become one of the team's first choice strategies. The success of teams such as the Pacers, Timberwolves and Thunder is conveying a message that the risk of blindly pursuing "multi-giants" in the championship is increasing. When the team pours resources into the top-paid stars and ignores lineup balance and mental resilience, no matter how gorgeous the paper strength is, it cannot escape the fate of defeat.