Oct 14, 2026 3 min read

Keeping It Moving

Thus far in the preseason, the Boston Celtics are keeping the ball moving. (Image Credit: A Tribe Called Quest "1nce Again")

I always enjoy watching Boston Celtics basketball. It's like, my jam. I enjoyed the teams of my youth that played inside the three-point line. Larry Bird and Reggie Lewis would deliberately step inside the arc to get a little extra wiggle room on their defender to take long two's. Such behavior would get them benched today.

I enjoyed the exact opposite, when the 2002 Celtics became the forefathers of the three-point revolution – Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce and Rodney Rogers bombing away. 'Toine led the NBA with 8.0 threes attempted per game that season. The local media had a fit about it, but fast forward 24 years, and that mark would have only ranked 11th last season, and would have seemed completely normal.

I obviously enjoyed the last two championship teams, and they were very different team stylistically. In the 2008 NBA Finals, the C's didn't crack 100 points in four of the six games. In 2024, that would only happen in the Game 4 aberration when the team smartly threw in the towel early.

I enjoyed last season, because the C's did what they needed to do to create an effective offense. But it was a little gummy. The team's 94.8 Pace was easily last in the NBA. The 24.6 assists per game they averaged was tied for 27th. The style worked, as their 120.8 Offensive Rating was second-best in the NBA behind just the Denver Nuggets. But it wasn't pretty, and it ended up being fairly one note, and when Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard isolation plays predictably dried up in the playoffs, it got harder to manufacture offense.

You can see the vision of what the braintrust and coaching staff want to do differently this season. The ball. is. moving. It is hard to read too much into three preseason games, especially since Cleveland and Philadelphia were not exactly giving a full effort in the first two games. But the difference in the ball movement, motion, and energetic nature of the offense is eye opening thus far. Nobody is dancing with the ball. Dancing with the ball has been the No. 1 criticism of Jayson Tatum by even his true believers, but if anything, JT is making the fastest decisions right now. That is good to see on a number of levels.

It seems like a stretch to suggest the C's will never dance with the ball this season. When the rotations tighten and defensive intensity amps up, the offense won't flow quite as freely as it did in these three games, but you can see the vision nevertheless. The ball is hopping, and it's leading to easy buckets. In the first half tonight, the C's won the points in the paint by a wide margin – I believe it was 26 to two. It finished at 56 to 20. The two and 20 on Charlotte's part are a bit extreme. If you think the C's take too many three's, do yourself a favor and don't watch Charlotte games, because it's all they do. But the C's winning in the paint didn't feel forced or not repeatable.

I'm never going to love the Jaylen Brown trade, nor the timing of the Jaylen Brown trade. But in watching these three preseason games, you can see the team's logic. They have just been more active on both sides of the ball, and it has been fun to watch. The biggest takeaway of these past two games is that Jayson Tatum seems very happy to modify his game to play faster and quicker, and if he is able to do this – shoot 47% from the field, keep the ball moving, and yank down those defensive rebounds – the MVP talk is going to start quickly. This team is moving with zeal and desire, and it's incredibly hard to not get excited about the season.

Other Players Considered

I forgot to put the "Other Players Considered" players in at the bottom of my 10 Most Intriguing Eastern Conference Players piece the other day. I've gone in and added it for posterity, but here it is also here – listed in order of how strongly I considered them – so you can save yourself a click:

Pelle Larsson, Jayson Tatum, Immanuel Quickley, Collin Murray-Boyles, Jarace Walker, AJ Dybantsa, Mario Hezonja, Jaylon Tyson, Ron Harper Jr., Isaiah Joe

Season Predictions Coming!

I'll get them done before Tuesday, somehow. My West picks feel a lot more solidified than the East, but it is going to be exciting to put it all down on paper. We're less than a week away!!!