If the Boston Celtics are feeling unstoppable, well, it is because they have been exactly just that over the past several weeks. In fact, Boston has not lost since Game 2 of the second round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs versus Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers to the tune of a 118-94 score. That loss served as a wakeup call for Boston, which has since stitched together eight wins in a row, including Thursday night’s 107-89 thumping of Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Finals.
After disposing of the Cavaliers in five games, Boston went on to rip the Indiana Pacers apart in just four games in a cakewalk of an Eastern Conference finals series for Jayson Tatum and company. And with Boston winning Game 1 against the Mavs, they have just set a new franchise record that no Celtics team touched in nearly 40 years, as noted by play-by-play man Sean Grande.
“Another franchise record. The Game 1 Finals win is the 8th consecutive playoff win for the Boston Celtics. That breaks the record (7) set by the ’86 NBA champions,” Grande wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
So, let’s have a little walk down memory lane to remember what Larry Bird and the Celtics did during that incredible run in the 1986 NBA Playoffs.
That year, Boston met a guy named Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the first round and swept them in three games. In the second round, Boston won the first three games of their series against the Atlanta Hawks, who then snapped the Celtics’ six-game undefeated streak to start that postseason. But after that, Bird and the Celtics finished the Hawks in Game 5 and then proceeded to sweep the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals.
Boston then carried a five-game win streak to the NBA Finals where they met the Houston Rockets. The Celtics took the first two games of that matchup before Houston took Game 3, snapping Boston’s seven-game undefeated run. For almost four decades, that streak remained unsurpassed in franchise history.
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