The odds of winning the championship are still ranked first in the Eastern Conference. Is the Celtics the most stable team in history?

The Boston Celtics fell behind 0-2 at home in the home game, and they are no strangers to this situation. In 2023, they were 0-3 behind the Heat and finally dragged the series to tiebreak, but unfortunately lost at home. In fact, this is the fourth time that Horford was in the team, the Celtics fell behind 0-2 at home. The other two were the Bulls who fell behind in 2017 and were eliminated by five games in the same year.

The two-game losing streak at home is hard to accept, but interestingly, it doesn't seem that surprising to the Celtics. Looking back at the playoffs in the past four years, the Celtics have a home record of 23 wins and 16 losses. Only the Heat have lost double-digit home games during this period, but they only lost 11 games. In the away game, the Celtics have 22 wins and 9 losses (71.0%) in the past four years, and have won at least one away game in 12 rounds of the series. During the same period, no team can win 3 games with a 50% away game.

Specifically for the first two games of this round, facing the Knicks who were swept by themselves in the regular season, the Celtics suffered two 20-point reversals in a bizarre way. They lost 45 three-pointers in their first game, setting a record of three-pointers in a single game in the NBA playoffs, and then continued their cold long-range pitching feel in G2. They are the second team in the past six years to hit 25% of the three-point shooting percentage in the first two games of the series, and the other team is the Hawks in the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals.

In addition to the three-pointer error, the Celtics' performance in two-pointers was not ideal, especially in the areas outside the reasonable collision zone. They only made 8 of 33 shots here in these two games, of which Tatum made 0 of 5 shots on two-pointers outside the penalty area. When he was chased by his opponent in the fourth quarter, Brown and Tatum made 0 of 5 two-point jump shots outside the penalty area, and they lacked a way to break the scoring drought.

Although many people have the impression that the Celtics had a bad key ball, they are actually the third highest offensive efficiency in the league at critical moments this season. In last year's playoff championship journey, the Celtics netted 47 points in a 100-round win at critical moments, leading all teams.

Considering that the Celtics had led significantly in both games with three-pointers and their defense was always online, this Celtics may be the one who has the biggest hope of turning the tables in history that are behind 0-2 at home. ESPN's odds show that the Celtics are still the Eastern Conference team with the highest odds to win the championship.

(text/Thai Fu)