{"id":3318,"date":"2017-04-19T17:12:10","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T21:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sullyonsports.com\/?p=3318"},"modified":"2019-06-26T16:48:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T20:48:43","slug":"are-the-celtics-the-weakest-one-seed-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sullyonsports.com\/?p=3318","title":{"rendered":"Are the Celtics the Weakest One Seed Ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Charles Krupa\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through two games of the NBA Playoffs, the Boston Celtics have looked less like the best team in the Eastern Conference and more like a seventh or eighth seed. That’s good, because they’ve been easily handled on their home floor by a team that was a self-imploding<\/a> caricature<\/a> of<\/a> itself<\/a> during the regular season and only got into the Playoffs because the Brooklyn Nets rested all of their semi-decent players in their last game of the season (by plus-minus, the best player on the floor for Brooklyn against Chicago last Wednesday\u00a0was Spencer Dinwiddie<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But through two games of their first-round series, they have easily handled the top-seeded Celtics, dominated the rebound battle<\/a>, and looked like the far superior\u00a0team of the two. The Celtics are just the second one seed in NBA history to lose the first two games of their first-round series; the 1992-93 Phoenix Suns dropped their first two games to the Los Angeles Lakers before winning the last three in what was then a five-game series. The Suns later went to the Finals last year and Charles Barkley proclaimed that the team had a very famous fan<\/a> on their journey. The rest is history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, while the Suns made the NBA Finals after such an inauspicious start to their Postseason, the Celtics don’t look as though they’ll have the same fate; after all, they are in the same conference as LeBron James. But, there is a bigger question to be asked:<\/p>\n

Are the Boston Celtics the weakest one seed the NBA has ever laid eyes upon?<\/p>\n

This discussion will be limited to teams who have secured the honor in the modern NBA Playoff format of sixteen teams, an arrangement that began with the 1984 Playoffs. We will also exclude the lockout shortened 1998-99 and 2011-12 seasons, as both seasons saw significant chunks of time knocked off the regular season.<\/p>\n

Including and since 1984 but excluding\u00a0this past regular season, a total of 20 teams have obtained the number one seed in their conference without getting to 60 wins;\u00a0that number is generally regarded as the threshold for safely earning a one seed. Out of those 20, every single one won at least one Playoff series, and 19 reached at least the Conference Finals. Additionally, 12 of the original 20 reached the NBA Finals with three (the 1989-90 Detroit Pistons, 2009-10 Los Angeles Lakers, and 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers) winning the championship. History has shown that stumbling to a top seed and going far in the Playoffs are not mutually exclusive things.<\/p>\n

In the modern Playoff era, just five eight seeds have defeated one seeds in the first round. They are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 1994: Denver Nuggets (42-40) def. Seattle SuperSonics (63-19) (3-2)<\/li>\n
  2. 1999: New York Knicks (27-23) def. Miami Heat (33-17) (3-2)<\/li>\n
  3. 2007: Golden State Warriors (42-40) def. Dallas Mavericks (67-15) (4-2)<\/li>\n
  4. 2011: Memphis Grizzlies (46-36) def. San Antonio Spurs (61-21) (4-2)<\/li>\n
  5. 2012: Philadelphia 76ers (35-31) def. Chicago Bulls (50-16) (4-2)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    *note: until 2003, the first round of the NBA Playoffs was a five-game series<\/em><\/p>\n

    Of the five one seeds that lost to eight seeds, the worst by win percentage was the 1999 Heat; their season, like all others that year, was abbreviated by the lockout and did not commence until February 5, 1999. If their win percentage was converted to a full season, they would have gone 54-28, just one win better than this year’s Celtics squad. However, with so short of a regular season, only six wins separated them and the eighth-seeded Knicks. It’s also important to remember that the ’99 Knicks went to the NBA Finals before losing to the Spurs, and the Heat put up the best fight of any team in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. In fact, it took this miraculous shot from Allan Houston to eliminate Miami:<\/p>\n