While we may yet have more regular season games in the 2019-20 NBA season coming this summer if the league can find a way to re-start the season derailed by the coronavirus pandemic, for now, we’re all stuck without live basketball to watch.
The NBA has been gracious enough to give us free access to League Pass to watch old games while the suspension of games continues, giving fans the next-best thing to live-action contests to watch.
So, with that in mind, the Celtics Wire took a look back to highlight some of our favorite games of the 2019-20 NBA season as suggestions to take in again while we wait and hope for the best.
We’ve assembled five games in particular that stand out to us as especially worth re-watching (or, for some of is, seeing for the first time), so let’s dive in and see what stands out, moving through the season in calendar order.
The first of the five is the very first win of the season, earned in the second game of the season against the reigning NBA champions, the Toronto Raptors.
Shooting guard Jaylen Brown and swingman Jayson Tatum each scored 25 points as they both began to spread their wings this season.
At the time, we didn’t know that the Raptors would remain one of the league’s elite teams, with many believing the franchise might blow up the roster to rebuild after the departure of Kawhi Leonard to the Los Angeles Clippers over the summer.
But for the Celtics, still smarting over the loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in the season opener (and for that matter, the loss of Al Horford to them in free agency), just getting into the win column was hugely important for the chemistry that would fuel the team’s unexpected success.
Five days later on Oct. 30, another hugely important victory was earned — a 116-105 win over the Milwaukee Bucks despite shooting guard Jaylen Brown not being available to play.
Point guard Kemba Walker had one of his biggest games of the season with 32 points, Tatum added 25, and veteran forward Gordon Hayward added 21 points and 10 rebounds.
After a bit of a stumble following a season-long tailspin, the win over the Bucks was one of the first clues there was something special about this team.
That is came over the franchise that would hold the best record in the league at the end of NBA action on March 11th was significant — and that they did it without being at full strength even more so.
Next up was the overtime loss to the presumptive title favorites at that time, the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Nov. 20 contest probably should have been won by the Celtics, but bad calls and missed opportunities cost Boston one of the most entertaining of any NBA games of the 2019-20 season.
A Kawhi Leonard block of a late 3-point attempt by Walker snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, but there was so much more to take from this game than the missteps.
Even though it was a loss, the game established the Celtics as a fringe contender, the Massachusetts franchise demonstrating they could go toe-to-toe with anyone in the league.
The fourth game you should re-watch on League Pass is the Christmas Day blowout of the Raptors in a rematch of that early win for the Celtics.
While Boston wasn’t able to catch up with the runaway success of Toronto’s regular season in the standings, it showed it could likely win a seven-game series against their neighbors to the north, as well.
Brown’s 30-point outing on 10-of-13 shooting (including 5-of-7 from deep) was a sight to behold, and worth the rewatch just on the strengths of his performance alone.
Reserve center Enes Kanter had one of his best games of the season as well with 12 points and 11 rebounds. And this despite not knowing if he’d be able to participate due to his feud with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The win further cemented the Celtics’ case as a contending team in a season more wide open for chasing a title than any in a decade or longer.
Finally, the fifth game you should watch again on League Pass is the absolute shellacking of longtime rival Los Angeles Lakers, which saw the Celtics obliterate LeBron James and the Lakers 139-107.
Apart from the joy of seeing the Lakers faceplant in a nationally-televised game, there was a certain degree of pleasure visible in the play of the team living under the shadow of a potential Anthony Davis trade last season.
It was also Walker’s first win over James of his career; “I’m happy I got one at least, before he goes,” the UConn product said via the Associated Press at the time. “Who knows how long he can play, because he’s just incredible.”
The highlight reel dunk of Brown on LeBron might have earned the Georgian a technical for the stare down afterwards, but in terms of entertainment value, it was pure gold.
We hope this gave you some ideas for how to carry on without actual live games to watch in what would have been the final weeks before the 2020 NBA Playoffs — we’re missing the games every bit as much as all of you.
