The easiest championship schedule: The Celtic Avenue?

Looking back at the Celtics' championship season, they scored 64 wins and 18 losses in the regular season and won the first seed spot in the division's playoffs early, but looking back at their first three rounds of the playoffs, to a certain extent, it may be really easy.

defeated the eighth seed Heat without Butler in the first round of the playoffs, and easily defeated the fourth seed Cavaliers who were absent from Jarrett Allen, Mitchell, Leville and others in turn. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they also failed to encounter any difficulty in defeating the sixth seed Pacers without Halliburton in the last two games.

Judging from this championship trajectory, it is no wonder that some fans think that the Celtics in the 23-24 season are the easiest way to win the finals in history.

But throughout NBA history, this statement is actually not completely correct. From the early days, the first seed of the division sometimes only needs to win a series to advance to the finals. For example, the Celtics did not play in the division finals in 1959 and 1961, and then defeated opponents with a winning rate of less than 50% in the finals.

But since the modern playoff system began to be implemented in the 1983-84 season, from this range, the Celtics in the 2023-24 season have indeed had the easiest road to winning the championship.

But if we look at the record alone, the Celtics' road to winning the championship is not the easiest compared to the teams that have reached the finals in the past few decades.

Eastern Conference playoff opponents are the 46-win Heat, the 48-win Cavaliers, and the 47-win Pacers, with an average regular season win of 47. Referring to the average number of wins of such opponents, the 19th lowest among the 80 finals teams since the 1983-84 season.

The above chart is the "easiest finals road" ranking list after 1984. In the mid-1980s, the Lakers first team occupied four of the top five. In the 1980s, the Western Conference teams except the Lakers were not outstanding; at the same time, since some teams had not yet joined the league at that time, the 16 of the 23 teams entered the playoffs, which also means that for the first few seed teams, it is much easier to defeat the first round opponent than now.

It is also worth noting that seven of the eight teams listed above won the championship that year, and the only team that missed the championship was the Lakers in 1984, and the final defeat was another team on the list: the 1984 Celtics.

Obviously, a relatively easy way to reach the final does not mean that you will suffer losses at the last moment. Therefore, even if the Celtics did not pass through high-intensity opponents in the 2023-24 season, it does not necessarily mean that they will inevitably fail when facing opponents with close strength. The reason why Celtics' finals road is considered easy by some fans is that the opponent's team's injury problem directly reduces the opponent's qualification level.

If the injury factor is taken into account, the Celtics' ranking will rise a lot on the "Easiest Finals Road" ranking. The following uses the BPM positive and negative values on the Basketball Reference to determine the MVP of each finals opponent team, and adjust the opponent's record downward if these players miss part or the entire playoffs.

The following is an example of calculation:

The conversion shows that Butler's equivalent value is 9.2 wins higher than the substitute player. Since 46-9.2=36.8, it can be estimated that the Celtics face the Heat is more like a team with a record of 37 wins. This may not be a perfect calculation method to evaluate the team's level, but it probably shows that Butler's absence from the Heat due to injury, and the Heat lacking Butler is as expected by fans, and they performed poorly against the Celtics, but they first easily defeated the Bulls with 39 wins and 43 losses in the play-offs.

Next, if this method is used to examine the Cavaliers they face in the second round, if there is no injury, their strength should be a team with a record of 48 wins; if Allen is missing in the first three games of the series, it is equivalent to 40 wins, and if Allen and Mitchell is missing in the fourth game, it is equivalent to only 29 wins left. On average, the Cavaliers are equivalent to a team with 35 wins in the same round of the series.

As for the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, if they compare their actual record with the adjusted record after Halliburton's absence from two games, it can basically be estimated that the Celtics defeated a team with an average record equivalent to 40 wins.

Repeat this calculation process for the teams that have reached the finals since 1984, and the ranking adjusted after injury factors can be obtained. The table below shows that it can be seen that the Celtics' road to championship has indeed jumped directly to the top of the "easiest road to the finals" ranking in modern playoff history.

After adjusting the "Easiest Finals Road" after 1984, the team ranked first in the first ranking also benefited from the weak opponent's strength and the opponent's major injuries. The Lakers in 1985 were also one of the mid-1980s Lakers who ranked in the top five in the previous rankings. The reason why they ranked first was that they faced the Suns with fewer top three scoring players and a record of 36 wins and 46 losses in the first round. As a result, the Suns were swept away unexpectedly, and the two main players of their division final opponents that year were injured in this round of series.

On the other hand, the Cavaliers were on the list in 2007, which was a bit surprising because they defeated a strong opponent in the division final: the first seed Pistons with a record of 53 wins and 29 losses. But they faced Caron Butler in the first two rounds, Arenas, who was selected for the second team of the All-American team that year, the Wizards with a record of 41 wins and 41 losses, and the Nets with a record of 41 wins and 41 losses..

Reference teams on the ranking list, the obvious point is that the strength of the East and West teams is uneven, which means that one of the championship teams will encounter fewer strong teams on the way to the finals. In the 2006-07 season, the winning rate of the Eastern team against the Western team was only 43%, and there was a similar situation in the 2023-24 season. The winning rate of the Eastern team against the Western team was only 42%.

At the same time, the Celtics and the second seed in the East have a 14 highest win in history. Even if all the Celtics opponents remain healthy, their finals will still be relatively easy.

In the 1980s, when the Lakers dominated the West, the divisional situation was just the opposite. The Western teams all lost in the finals in that decade. Between 1984 and 87, the Celtics reached the Finals four times in a row, while the Lakers reached the Finals three times. However, in the mid-1980s, other excellent teams such as the Bucks, 76ers, Pistons, etc., they only challenged the Celtics in the division, and were unable to compete with the Lakers in the West.

However, decades later, almost no one remembers what the Lakers Finals was in the peak of Magic Johnson. The injuries of English and the Big Three of the Suns in 1985 were also forgotten in the torrent of history; it was no longer important for the Lakers to defeat a team with poor record in the division finals in 1987, and these factors did not at all damage the legend of the Magic or the Lakers in the Magic Birds showdown.

By the same token, the Celtics successfully held the championship trophy in the 23-24 season, and the seemingly relaxed process will only be annotation in their winning story; and, more or less, the first seed should have faced a relatively relaxed matchup in the playoffs, and now almost every finals, there will be more or less injury factors.

According to the above definition, 47% of the teams that reached the finals from 1994 to 99 benefited from the injury of at least one opponent's key player in the playoffs. In the 21st century, the probability of this data is as high as 82%. 40 of the 49 teams reaching the finals were affected by injuries, including every finals team since 2020. Since the Celtics' opponent Mavericks avoided the injured Leonard in the first round, Halliburton's injury also occurred in this finals, and this record continues.

But not all injuries have the same impact. The Celtic opponents suffer more injuries than most teams. According to the above calculation method, the Celtics set a new record. Among the teams that reached the finals, their opponents' performance gap in the regular season and playoffs after experiencing injuries, and they are even the first in the related list.

The previous record belongs to the Suns in 2021. They defeated Davis' injured Lakers, Murray's injured Nuggets, and Leonard's injured Clippers to finally reach the finals.

The above factual arguments, coupled with the fact that the Celtics have not won their 18th title in the past decade, these off-court factors force the team to face the serious situation of either winning the championship or losing. Fortunately, the Celtics successfully won the championship and wrote a historic moment.