There’s only so many times I can do this and get away with it.
Last year, I wrote a moderately inflammatory piece saying that the Boston Celtics were going to sweep the Indiana Pacers, which happened. I looked like a genius, but genius is usually just irresponsible foolishness that got lucky. And we’re going back to the well, bringing out luck-fishing rod and packing plenty of foolishness.
The Celtics are going to sweep the Orlando Magic.
The prediction last year was based on a quasi-spiritual desire for the Celtics to actually be as good as I thought they were. Ahem…
“We must dig deep within ourselves and find what it is we truly believe, and then loudly proclaim it to the world—no matter the consequences—because that is what it means to be free… We hear the beckoning of fame and glory at the top of the mountain. Though the road may be perilous, the spoils of correctly predicting that the Celtics will sweep the Pacers shimmer like diamonds. The promise of victory laps, ego trips, and a place in the pantheon of correct NBA Playoffs predictions for the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals loom too large not to push forward.”
This year, we’re not doing that. This prediction isn’t based on some sort of deeply-held conviction that the Celtics are chosen by heaven and earth and the nine realms of Odin to conquer the known world. It’s not based on any desire to be vindicated, to be saved, to be released from the pains of playoff anxiety and guided to the meadows of calm. None of that.
I’m only saying this because I could not live with myself if I didn’t. I watch basketball all the time. I write about basketball all the time. I peruse basketball reference for statistics, advanced and plebeian. I am what you might call an NBA junkie. And I have no idea how the Magic are going to win a game against the Celtics.
Listen. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but the Magic… suck. There are stretches where they literally cannot score. It’s not that they’re struggling, or just cold; I mean they literally, scientifically cannot score for eight minutes at a time. They take terrible shots, look like they’re playing in a phone booth and lose all their touch at the rim. Their lineups that can score can’t defend, and their lineups that can defend can’t score. It’s a joke, and the Celtics are better at spots one through eight.
Obviously, most people don’t predict sweeps, but I don’t see why. I get that they’re pretty rare, but NBA games are not… like, stages of historical materialism. Their results don’t depend on past forces or follow broad historical trends — they are completely independent events, and your ability to predict them relies entirely on your understanding of how good the teams are and how well they match up. And this is… not a matchup.
Yes, Orlando was 2-1 against Boston this year, but let’s take a look at those losses. The most recent was a 20-point defeat in which the Celtics rested their top six players, and the other was a four-point loss in December that was probably the single-weirdest game of the season. The Celtics didn’t have Jayson Tatum, while the Magic didn’t have… anyone. Getting fried by Trevelin Queen and Tristan da Silva was wack, but you can’t use that as evidence that the real Magic team will beat the real Celtics team unless you believe Orlando’s coaching staff has some secret sauce.
Most sweep-avoidant individuals fall into three camps: those who are afraid of being wrong, those who rely on the past to predict the future and those who are anti-sweep purely on principle. I can’t help the first group, nor can I really do more to explain to the second group why the past isn’t going to help them. As for those who just refuse to accept sweeps as possible, I’d ask them why?
Is it because of that vague concept of “wanting it more” that happens after a team is down 2-0? Is it the tendency for basketball to become about runs and three-point randomness, thus unable to reliably say one team will win a coin flip four times in a row? I would only respond that I have more faith in my knowledge that the Magic probably can’t score on the Celtics and the Magic probably can’t stop the Celtics from scoring than any of that even being real.
Why do we watch basketball for five months to say things like “the Magic might steal one or two games?” Sure, it’s historically pretty likely to happen, but I don’t see any argument why it will happen. I don’t believe in historical determinism, nor do I believe in superstition. And I’d rather be wrong for defensible reasons than be right for boring ones.
