The Boston Celtics are headed to the NBA Finals. And some of their biggest fans are across town at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox have been keeping a close eye on the success on the Celtics. Like the rest of us, they have been swept up in the excitement of the Celtics’ first run to the finals since 2010.
Before Sunday’s win over the Orioles at Fenway, Red Sox Manager Alex Cora was wearing a green shirt with the Celtics’ logo and “Believe in Boston” written across the top of it. He joked about the high cost of seats for the finals, which begin Thursday night in San Francisco.
That just happens to coincide with an off-day in the Bay Area for the Red Sox, who open up a series at Oakland on Friday.
“It’s very expensive to go to that game, even for (MLB players),” said Cora. “We’ll find a place to watch it.”
Cora isn’t just a fan of the Celtics. He’s a student of their success. He kept a keen eye on the team during the winter, when Ime Udoka’s team stumbled around the .500 mark mid-season. While fans clamored for Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens to break up the core of his team and reboot the roster, Stevens stuck with his group.
His faith has been rewarded.
“I like to follow the other teams to see how people react to them,” Cora said two weeks ago. “At one point, people were screaming to break that team up. … I think patience paid off.”
Indeed, the Celtics had a losing record on New Year’s Eve and still hovered around .500 a month later. That’s when they reeled off nine straight wins, a run that launched them on a 26-6 finish to grab the second seed in the Eastern Conference. They have eliminated the Nets, Bucks and Heat to earn a trip to the finals.
A series win over favored Golden State would add to the Golden Age of Boston Sports. We’ve seen 12 championships here since Tom Brady led the Patriots to a last-minute, winning drive against the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. All four teams have had their duck boat rides, but the Celtics have been on the clock since Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnet and Ray Allen won it all in 2008. It’s the longest drought of the group.
Regardless of what happens in the finals, this season has been a success for the Celtics and their first-year coach. And it’s a blueprint that Cora hopes his team can follow. People were giving up on this baseball team when it lost its fifth straight game on May 8, falling to 10-19 on the season. Cora’s group responded with a 13-6 run. They are still under .500 but they have been showing signs of life with more than two-thirds of the season remaining.
There are other examples of teams that stumbled early before putting together a championship run. Last year’s Atlanta Braves did not have a winning record until August. They went on to win the World Series.
That team didn’t stand pat. Braves President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos made deals at the trade deadline and brought his team to life.
The teams that play their best at the end of the season are the teams that generally succeed in the postseason. Thursday night’s Game 1 tipoff will be the ultimate reminder of that.
Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.
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