If you watch the post games and pre games that year BS said it a few times. And don't be fool by the total win difference during the stretch they played a lot of bad teams that helps it. They had a ridiculous stat that was being covered by a few sports media sources of games being very close with the last 3 mins. Don't remember the exact number but they also said the win % in that scenario was like double the league average. There were a few teams that really gave the C's the win in that stretch as well with unforced turn overs in under 2 mins. It was very much a lot of luck.
The Celtics could go 82-0 and Stevens would still find things to be critical of. That's his humble Indiana roots, not proof that the team struggled despite going 30-10 without Hayward. Why are you still clinging to this invalidated claim 4 pages later?
Invalidated? Please, the evidence is there that there are issues. A few posters have stated them over the last few years. I am stating it now. The thread is about a report BS is beating himself up about the season. I am pointing out something he is doing wrong and the BS fan club want's to come at me with one half of a season. I broke down the errors in their rebutle. The facts are he has struggled, some teams over achieved but he has made mistakes. Mistakes I point out that need correction. I'm critical because that's what a non-homer is.
The definitive truth is the Celtics did not start the 2017-2018 season in a hole when they went 30-10, and nobody in their right mind would claim otherwise. This has been pointed out repeatedly. Each subsequent attempt to rationalize it — the team came back to win several times, they only won some games by a few points, they got lucky at the end of a few others — teeters farther into the absurd. Now you're calling me a homer and a BS fan club member for holding a mirror to reality, rather than simply saying you spoke in error.
If they weren't having problems, why didn't they finish well? They got lucky in the first half.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe because Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending injury?
Also, here's a little secret: each year every team but one, by definition, doesn't finish well.
Just for the record, they 'finished out' the 2017-18 season at pretty close to the same rate that they played most of that season.
After the red-hot 18-2 start, the team played at about a 62% (51-win) pace in the games Kyrie played in.
In the games in which Kyrie did not play (including playoffs) the team played at about a 61% (50-win) pace.
It's mathematically ingenuous to not count the 18-2 start.
The team was 41-19 playing with Irving that year. A 68% winning rate or a 56 win pace.
The team finished 14-8 in the regular season and 11-8 in the playoffs. That's 25-16, 51% rate or a 51 win pace.
Nothing ingenuous about stating the observable fact: Since the end of the 16-2 start (which was 174 games ago) the Celtics have never played any stretch of games with anything remotely like those results -- with or without Kyrie. They've been nowhere near a "56 win pace". That's just not who this team has been.
If a player started his career hitting 12 shots in a row in his first few games, and then from that point commenced to consistently hitting at a 45% clip, how long are you going to wait before you stop giving much statistical significance to those first 12 shots when describing what kind of shooter that player is?
Time to let go of that red hot start to the Kyrie era. Because those games don't paint an accurate picture of what the Kyrie era really has been like.