What does the Celtics fail to defend their title mean? Return to the old-school basketball route in the playoffs?

Although the G5 Celtics briefly awakened and won a game back, many supporters also saw their hope of turning the tables again.

But to be honest, when the series suffered a 20-point reversal twice and when the core Tatum was seriously injured and reimbursed, the Celtics had already lost the initiative to play with their opponents. In the end, they suddenly collapsed and left the field in G6, which was not an unpopular event at all...

Since 2019, the NBA championship has been passed down between the Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors, and Nuggets, but no team can defend their title.

Last season, the championship baton was passed to the Celtics. After the Celtics won the championship, many experts couldn't wait to predict that compared with the previous five teams, the Celtics are the most defending and most likely to break the defending curse. Even the Celtics won two more championships to establish a dynasty, which is completely reasonable. This optimistic prediction of

is of course based on its basis. First of all, the Celtics is a nearly perfect team built on the theory of Magic Ball. In the past few years, they have been the top three-point team in the league. This season, they have averaged up to 17.8 three-pointers per game in the regular season, setting a new record in NBA history.

In defense, the Celtics also have almost no obvious blind spots. They have the best defense switching ability in the league and can match any opponent in terms of speed and strength. The addition of Porzingis and Holiday was once considered to have blocked the final shortcomings in the Celtics' defensive system.

In addition, unlike the previous teams that failed to defend their titles. After winning the championship last year, the Celtics did not blindly break up the team because of money. Last summer, they spent as much as $500 million to renew their contracts, including Tatum and White, and they almost kept the winning lineup.

However, the Celtics, which seem to be impeccable in every aspect, just had a problem in this year's playoffs...

In fact, in the first round of the series with the Magic, the Celtics began to encounter trouble. But after successfully passing the 4-1 4-1, Mazula and his players were arrogant and believed that as long as they continued to fight along with the previous inertia, their state would gradually rebound until they returned to their strongest form when they won the championship (last year).

However, when it was really time to reach the semi-finals, under the fierce oppression of the Knicks and the background of the verdict that the direction of the punishment encouraged confrontation, the Celtics were completely timid. They paid a heavy price for their arrogance and slackness, and the team's generals may suddenly realize that in the past year, while they were complacent, other teams have been making progress silently and narrowing the gap with themselves. In the first two games of the

series, the Celtics clearly had a huge advantage, and after taking the game with a 20-point lead, they could calmly take it away. But the Celtic Generals obviously looked down on themselves too much and looked down on the Knicks' resilience too much. As the head coach, Mazula's overconfidence and unrestrained efforts have deeply hurt the team. When leading the score, the Celtics could have made fewer three-pointers and more patient inside kills. They could have preserved Tatum's physical strength so that he would not continue to fight with the opponent's center in defense, and retain the essence of combat power to the offensive end and to the critical moment of decisive victory...

But the Celtics did not do this. So next, they not only depressedly broke two sets at home, but also watched the core of the team, who is also recognized as the most resistant to killing star in the league, Tatum, became ill after overwork, suffered a serious injury from a ruptured Achilles tendon, and finally swallowed the bitter fruit of being eliminated...

After the Celtics won the championship last season, their tactical system and their team building philosophy were once regarded as the norm by many insiders. The management and coaching teams of some teams believe that if they want to succeed, they must replicate the construction route of the Celtics, imitate the Celtics' playing style and have personnel configurations similar to those of the Celtics.

But now, with the Celtics being eliminated in a bleak manner, the rationality of their playing style and the value of the Magic Ball theory seem to have fallen into new doubts overnight.

Obviously, compared with the "pampering" of the Celtics, in the regular season, the Knicks' "cows and horses" have undergone more hell-level competition drills, although Thibodeau's employment has been criticized a lot in the past two years, and even his most diligent disciple Bridges has taken the initiative to question it. But when the Knicks successfully eliminated the Celtics and stood on the stage of the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time 25 years later, in the face of the obvious results, the ridicule of Thibodeau and the supporters of the small ball concept were speechless.

With the success of the Knicks' "farmer" basketball and the promotion of the New York team, the underlying logic of this year's playoff confrontation seems to be changing, and it is quietly returning to the 1990s, and returning to the old-style basketball route that emphasizes fist to meat...