The Boston Celtics are not invincible. Their back-to-back losses to the Cleveland Cavaliers (105-104) last Tuesday and to the Denver Nuggets (115-109) on Thursday say it all. Still, for NBA legend Charles Barkley, the 2023-24 NBA championship is for the Celtics to lose.
Charles Barkley Gets Real About The Boston Celtics
During Thursday’s Inside the NBA, Barkley basically said that it’s a title-or-bust scenario for the Boston Celtics.
“If they don’t win the championship this year, it would be a total gag job,” Barkley said before the Boston Celtics-Denver Nuggets game (h/t Andrew Battifarano of the New York Post). “Because they’ve got everything.”
Barkley then went on to break down a bit more what makes the Celtics a dangerous squad.
“Dude, come on. You’ve got [Jayson] Tatum, [Jaylen] Brown, Jrue Holiday — Ernie [Johnson], your rotation is gonna shrink during the playoffs so your bench is not as important as you think it is,” Barkley responded. “They’ve got everything. You’ve got Brown and Tatum, you’ve got two of the best 10 players in the league probably. You’ve got a great leader in Jrue Holiday. You’ve got probably the best sixth man, even though he’s a starter — I’m talking about [Kristaps] Porzingis, I’m not even counting Derrick White.
The Celtics didn’t make Barkley look any better, though, as they went on to lose to the Nuggets. Over the last two games, the Celtics have averaged just 106.5 points on 43.5 percent shooting from the field. For comparison, the Celtics are fourth overall so far in the 2023-24 NBA season with an average of 120.8 points per outing.
There’s no reason for the Celtics to push the panic button, but they also don’t have much of an excuse to lose games and come up short in their bid to bring a title to Beantown this season for reasons that include what Barkley laid out in front of his TNT buddies.
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