
Boston Celtics are breaking spirits across the NBA, and even rival fans can't believe their dominance. With Jaylen Brown emerging as an MVP candidate and Jayson Tatum poised to return, can anyone challenge the Celtics' momentum heading into the playoffs? The conversation centers on the emotional impact of Boston's win streak, Payton Pritchard's ability to silence opposing arenas, and how Joe Mazzulla’s disciplined game plans have reshaped expectations for Celtics Nation. In this bonus podcast, John Karalis of Celtics On SI and Tom Westerholm of Boston.com dissect the Celtics’ strengths, examine playoff concerns, and warn fans against overconfidence. Key topics include Derrick White’s offensive consistency, the evolving role of Brad Stevens, and the importance of maintaining perspective as Boston navigates the NBA landscape. With teams like the Lakers, Bucks, and Sixers suffering at Celtics' hands, will Boston sustain this elite run—or are tougher postseason realities looming?
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Tom Westerholm
Every day.
Aaron Judge
I'm Aaron Judge. Welcome to MLB the Show 26.
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Jake
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Tom Westerholm
The Boston Celtics are breaking opposing fans, but a word of caution here with bonus content on the Locked On Celtics podcast. We'll do this every once in a while. We'll drop a fun little bonus 15 minutes or so, whatever, when we have a little something extra to talk about. And it's me. It's Tom Westerholm back for back. Oh, wait.
Aaron Judge
Wow. Wow.
Tom Westerholm
That was.
Aaron Judge
No.
Tom Westerholm
Anyway, so the Boston Celtics. There was a Reddit post.
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
Where it's from a purported Sixers fan.
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
Who said, this Celtics team being good has broken me. This is on the Bill Simmons subreddit and basically saying, let me clean this up a little bit this year, though, with the Celtics 20 game over.500 and kicking the bleep out of seemingly everyone. Jalen Brown being an MVP candidate, losing all these people, blah, blah, blah. I can't do it anymore. I'm literally Jesse Pinkman now. They can't keep getting away with it, man. So opposing fans are looking at like, this was the year, right? This was the year that the Celtics were going to be bad. And you can come in and smack them around a little bit and be like, hahaha. Everybody point and laugh. Everybody loves to point and laugh. When you're right and they're wrong. Everybody loves to point and laugh. I can't. I can't judge because I do. I'm Mr. Victory Lap. So you know what I mean?
Aaron Judge
So we're a victory Lap positive Podcast.
Tom Westerholm
Yes, that's right. We're very pro victory lap here. So, you know, but it's. It's just kind of wild to see. We're just talking about, in the last podcast just how good. Like this. There's no. There's no, like, surprising. This is just who these guys are. You're seeing it. And these opposing fans, you're like, I can't believe it. They're. They're just good now. They're still good. You know, I was listening to. I was listening to, actually the Sixers podcast after that game, and. And it's like, kind of like the same idea. Like, these guys are just good, and we can't get away from them. And so it's just kind of. It's kind of. If you want a little bit of the schadenfreude, it's the. The. Go listen to Sixers fans as they try to navigate this season, whatever the season is for them, and look up and be like, the Celtics, they're still there. They're still up there in the standings.
Aaron Judge
Yeah, yeah. Between them and, like, the Lakers fans after that Lakers game. I. I mean, and then, you know, like some Bucks fans after yesterday's game, like, there's a lot of fans of teams who do not. Like the Celtics, who have probably made you mad with something that they said online at some point about your favorite players over the past five years that you can go find and, you know, feel good about if you're a Celtics fan. Like, it's. It's everywhere right now.
Tom Westerholm
It is. It is. I don't know. I think it's. It's just kind of fun to see, like, the. The trickle effect of what the Celtics are doing, what they're doing to opposing fans, how they're. How they're being, you know, perceived around the league. It's just if you. If you ever want credit, not that Joe Missoula cares, but if you want credit for what you're doing. I always talked about, like, when I was playing, the best part was, you know, silence on the road. Silence on the road was great. You know, you play. I'm sure these guys, you know, you play in front of the Garden and. Yeah, of course. Of course. 19,000 people who are there to cheer you on are going to cheer you on. Even in some bad moments, just out of nowhere, there'll be a let's go, Celtics chant. But the. When you're on the road and everyone is rooting against you to have that, like, silence and just that you can feel the Seething. It's just like this, this warms my soul because you're here specifically to cheer your other team and you can't do it because of what we did to you. So that's satisfying.
Aaron Judge
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's interesting, right, because I think there may be some element of youthfulness to it, like to, to some element of age to this, right, where it's like you're a young player and the Garden like, you know, you play at the Garden, it goes crazy. That has to feel insane, right? Like to just like you hit a three and TD Garden just, you know, hits the decibel level that TD Garden can hit. I mean, like, that has to hit so hard, right? But as you get a little older and you start to, you know, you've been in the league for a while and listen, I mean, you've made TD guard, you're Peyton Pritchard, you've made TD Garden hit high decibel levels before. You may never match the decibel level that TD Garden hit after you hit that half court shot in the finals, right? Like you're paying for like that, you know, it's like, you know, it's like tough to get back over that hump again. But when you go to an opposing, like, like you're saying, right, you go to an opposing team's stance arena and you make them and you just like, it's just quiet, right? And everybody's just like, I hate this guy. You know, I, I, I posted on Blue sky that it was like, I thought it was kind of striking that like the Bucks announcers sent it to, to break after the third quarter. They were like, peyton Pritchard, that guy that we hate, or something like that. I was like, like, you know, I, yeah, say what you want. I mean, I, it's fine to, you know, local broadcasts are, are certainly allowed a level of fandom, but like hate, like, hate. Like this guy's, he's, he's, you know, kind of an unassuming dude. He just kind of.
Tom Westerholm
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Judge
He doesn't, he doesn't talk a lot of trash or anything.
Tom Westerholm
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Tom Westerholm
Thank you for making lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Would like to invite you to join the Everydayer club. You're with me every Monday through Friday. Why not, why not join the club and get ad free audio which is compatible with every major podcast app. And get onto our Discord server for in game chats for Celtics and NBA games. Check it out locked on celtics.supercast.com a whole lot more. Check it out at locked on celtics.supercast.com
Aaron Judge
before we started on here, I, I said I think that to you. I said I think, I think Celtics fans need to just be a little careful during this time. Right? Because the first one is like I, I have seen some people on social media really like crowing about this and being like, yeah, well obviously like you know. Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's the Celtics. Like you know, we're all, it's like that one to me. It's like you get like pump the brake just, just a bit. Like I get it, I get it. I know like fans should be thrilled about this team. You should be over the moon about this team. This is incredible. Joe Missoula is incredible. Brad Stevens is incredible. This, this roster is excellent and it's admirable. These guys are like, you know, fun to watch. Like all that stuff. I think. Just nobody thought that this team was going to be this good, right? So, so when you're like, yeah, obviously like we're this Good. It's just. Nobody thought so, right? So like, like, celebrate it, like, scream it, all that stuff. Be as a, you know, online. Like. Yeah, but like, when you start saying like, well, obviously the Celtics are this good, that's where I think it's a little unreasonable. You're kind of pushing it a little too far here.
Tom Westerholm
Here's the one thing that my word of warning. And I don't know how Tatum. It really depends on how Tatum is going to look. I don't know how Tatum's going to look when he comes back. The playoffs are a little bit of a different story.
Aaron Judge
They are 100%.
Tom Westerholm
I don't know what the matchup's going to be. And we saw it last year with like, the Knicks, like, they, they got Mitchell Robinson back and the dynamic changed and they went through that series with Detroit and, you know, I, I heard Pistons. I mean, Knicks players say, man, good thing we, good thing we played that Detroit series. Because that got them ready for what? If they, if they played any other team, maybe they wouldn't have been ready for what the Celtics were bringing physically. And maybe if the Celtics played a different team other than Orlando, they wouldn't have gotten as beat up as they did over.
Aaron Judge
Correct. I was just gonna say that. Yeah. 100.
Tom Westerholm
Yeah. So that's. We don't know what the players are going to be. And if Tatum is some version of Jason Tatum, then that will change everything that I'm saying here because it gives the Celtics another guy that they can go to. I, I do have a concern come playoff time, like, if. What's the Celtics plan B? What's their pivot point in the regular season? You can do all the things that are upsetting other teams, fans. They're disciplined. They are, you know, doing everything to Joe Missoula's liking. The specifications they, they're executing. Well, when the other team can game plan for you, then, then what do you do when they game plan Jalen Brown, I'm not going to say game plan him out, but when they mitigate him, if Jason Tatum isn't ready to handle that, what's their plan? That's. That's going to be my question. If Jason Tatum is ready and he can play however many minutes, 25, 30 minutes, then the plan will be, well, we've got Jason Tatum and that's fine. But is. Is Derrick White going to be enough to get Derek White and whomever going to be enough to get you past another team four out of seven games? So I'm not saying this to say, I don't think they can. I think they're good. I think they're going to get to at least the conference finals, but it's still going to be harder. Yeah, I think, right. It's got it 100%. Kind of has to be harder. It's the playoffs. It has to be harder.
Aaron Judge
Yeah, no, I, I think. I think I. I think you'd be ridiculous to think that it wouldn't. I look, there you've got, like, you're saying, right, not only do you have time to game plan for, say, a Jaylen Brown, you also have a game and then time and then another game also against Jaylen Brown. So you not only have time to plan for him, you. You have time to refine your plan and then refine it again and keep refining. It's. It. It is hard. I mean, the playoffs are. The NBA playoffs are brutal. Like, it's. It's just such a slog. It's. It's so difficult. And I think, you know, I think that there are obviously counters, right? If you do throw, you know, everything at Jalen Brown, if you are throwing things at Jalen Brown, you know, then the Celtics have the nice advantage of having Joe Missoula. One of the things that we've seen with Missoula is he can, like, he is an amazing coach and he has. He has built this team, you know, he's. He's built this team's mentality to where it needs to be. He's built this team's discipline to where it needs to be. And I mean, all that stuff is incredible in the regular season. And, you know, he's won a championship. This is certainly not a point that, like, oh, Joe Missoula can't coach in the playoffs or anything like that. It's just like what we've seen from this team so far is an unbelievable regular season team based on discipline, based on showing up every night and doing the right thing every night and giving effort and. And all of this great stuff, admirable stuff that they have done. All the stuff that you admire in a sports team. The Celtics do that stuff. And immense credit to Joe Missoula for that. And the playoffs are just a different game. So it's going to look different. Very similar to the. The Tatum. When Tatum comes back, how will the. How will it change the Celtics? Like, when the. Like, it's going to change the Celtics in some way, right? Whether that's positive, you know, it will be positive, but it will change things for the Celtics, right? When Joe Missoula gets to the playoffs, it will be different. Joe Missoula is a great coach and good things will like he will do good things in the playoffs, but it still will look different than this team that he has just perfected for the regular season. The playoffs are just different.
Tom Westerholm
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Aaron Judge
And I I I change the oil in your Car.
Tom Westerholm
Like, listen, if whatever needs to be done, Joe Missoula is going to say, either I can do it or I know how to get somebody to do it. You know, like, he's just going to find a way. And the person who does it, who changes my oil will somehow become the best oil changer in. In New England.
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
So my assumption is that Joe will or even is currently formulating a plan like, how do you. How do you beat the Boston Celtics? And he's probably looking at his team and saying, if I was coaching against these guys, how would I beat them?
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
And then he would go through all that stuff and then say, okay, how. How do we beat this game plan? Right. That. I think that's how you. You need to approach this. And that's why the Celtics are as good as they are. That's why they're breaking opposing fans. The stuff that. The stuff that I even, like, have these concerns about, it's not even. I won't even call it a concern. It's just the thing that could happen. And with Joe and the staff putting together their plan and saying, okay, here's our plan for the other team here. What do we anticipate their plan for us being? And you have all of your strengths and weaknesses laid out and the if then scenarios, no one's going to be more prepared than Missoula. The only question mark is, is the answer to whatever the other team is doing? Is the answer to that something that the players are willing to do? And that might be Jalen, that might be Jason, that might be Derek. Is it something that the players are willing to go out there, whatever it is, for that series, either not shoot, shoot more, you know, not pass, pass more. All of that stuff, it really is going to come down to, I think the. The staff will be ready. The players, will they be willing to do all of those things? Well, this entire regular season has told me that these players are willing to do whatever Joe Missoula says.
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
And so answering my own questions about what's. What could happen in the playoffs, I just. I trust that this team will have a plan and will have a counter. And so, yeah. And again, this goes back to this post on Reddit where, you know, I can't watch. You know, I can't watch them be disciplined on defense and win the math on offense every game. But that's what they do. The discipline to. This is what we do. This is how we. Even when I asked Joe. Sorry, I'm rambling.
Aaron Judge
No, you're good.
Tom Westerholm
Even when I asked Joe about the Hot Hand theory. You know, he. He was just like, listen, sometimes you gotta ride you. You gotta call plays to try to steer things towards that. But everything is a balance. Everything is. We're not going to break from what we do. We can try to lean this way or lean that way, but we're not going to break from what we do. So that I just. They've earned this level of trust. And by earning that, they're just driving other fan bases crazy. Because the way the Celtics have bought into all of this stuff, the execution has been just almost perfect.
Aaron Judge
So I want to give my one other little caution for Celtics fans. Yeah. Before we wrap up here. Okay. So this Celtics team is really good. Joe Missoula is going to be here for. I. I would assume for a long time. I can't imagine he wants to go anywhere else. And as long it seems. It seems to me Mike's.
Tom Westerholm
Aaron. He's here.
Aaron Judge
It seems like he's just here. Speaking of Mike Zarin. Mike Zarin also here, Brad Stevens. I don't think he's going anywhere else. Like, it seems like these guys are here. That means that the Celtics have, hey, one of the best cap guys in the NBA at a time when it is really important to have a great cap guy. They apparently have one of the best talent evaluators these two eyes have ever seen just running things. Right. And they also have one of the best coaches, if not the best coach in the NBA right now, all together. At the same time. They are going to win a lot over the next however many years. Right. They have some really great players right now. They have some nice prospects. I think that as the, you know, the NBA evolves, as the situation evolves, the Celtics will probably figure out the best ways forward. They're going to be good for a long time. Right. I think if you're a Celtics fan. Right. I think it's. It doesn't matter really, but I think it would be. You will feel better about yourself if you avoid the trap of becoming a. Like, there are. There are really smart Lakers fans right there. Like a lot of really, really, really smart Lakers fans. So I am not bashing all Lakers fans by any stretch of the imagination. But you know the guy with the chain who's like, Lakers, like, I think you should be careful if you're a Celtics fan. Celtics fans are really smart a lot. There's a lot of really smart Celtics fans.
Tom Westerholm
Yeah.
Aaron Judge
Don't become the Lakers guy. You know what I mean?
Tom Westerholm
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Judge
I think that There is, you know, this Celtics team is. This is. This is kind of amorphous, but like, this Celtics team is really smart and really well run, and it just like, they do so much smart stuff, and then the fan base seems to kind of pick up on that, and it. It almost create, like, it almost engenders a lot of smart fans in return. I just think that that's a nice cycle that Celtics fans should try to preserve for as long as possible. Continue being smart. Don't be the Lakers guy. Don't be the. Like, yeah, you should have known. We've been trying to tell you about this team.
Tom Westerholm
This team's awesome.
Aaron Judge
It's like, no, no, no, no. This is a special team. This is a special group. But like, remember that at the start of this season, it was. There were people who genuinely thought, like myself included, but many, many others who thought that this team should have been in the lottery. Right. Who thought that this team's best path forward was the lottery. Like, just not.
Tom Westerholm
Don't.
Aaron Judge
Don't do too much hubris. That's what I'm trying to say for Celtics fan. Don't. Don't take on too much of it. You know, enjoy it, though, because this is. This is going to be one probably a fairly long run of really watchable Celtics basketball, I would imagine.
Tom Westerholm
Yeah, I, Yeah, like, the, The CBA is supposed to like, tear. Tear teams apart.
Aaron Judge
Yeah.
Tom Westerholm
You're supposed to rebuild. You're supposed to bottom out. The Celtics, I, you know, at the beginning, I was like, I was saying, yeah, they're going to bottom out too. Everybody's. Everybody's going to. I don't know, man. With. With Joe and with Brad and with these cap guys. Just feels like it's. It's not bottoming out as much as it's going to be a little dip, a little slow, one more. More actual gap years. Not this year gap year, but like more actual kind of gap year type of things versus tanking. Get to the bottom. Whatever. Whatever. Unless. You know what? No one less. No.
Aaron Judge
Unless. Yeah, this is.
Tom Westerholm
This is too well run a franchise. And as long as Joe Missoula is the coach, they're just not going to tank. He's not going to let the team be awful. He's. They're going to win. So, yeah, we'll just enjoy it. To Tom Westerholm's point. Tom.
Aaron Judge
Brad Stevens. Brad Stevens always says, never get too high, never get too low. That's. That. That. That's, you know, smart guy. Take that. Yeah, it's very smart. Guy. That's a good life advice for all.
Tom Westerholm
Well, that's not. I'm Greek so that's just impossible for me it's nothing but highs and lows. So sorry. But great again why I'm doing a podcast and not running a team. And the only reason why I'm not
Aaron Judge
the only reason why too excitable in that front.
Tom Westerholm
I'm just too passionate like all us Greeks. So that's it. Tom, thank you as always.
Aaron Judge
Appreciate you man.
Tom Westerholm
I do appreciate Tom Westroom and I do appreciate you bonus podcast here. So I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for checking it out. Thank you for subscribing. If this is your first podcast, we're normally a 30 minutes Monday through Friday daily podcast. So subscribe. Get it here, get it wherever you get your audio. If you'd like that, get into the comment section, share your thoughts there. Would love it if you share the podcast and tell everybody they should be listening to and watching the Lockdown Celtics podcast Here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. It's your team. Every day.
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Tom Westerholm
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Ross Jackson
Hey everyone, this is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Locked On Podcast network. If your group chat's been a little quiet lately, I want to invite you to come and join ours. If you sign up for the Everydayer Club, you get access to the members only group chats for your favorite teams, plus national chats for every sport. Personally, I love watching folks talk a little smack in the NFC South. Trash talk chat. You also get an ad free version of your favorite Locked on show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the Everydayer Club link in the show notes.
Episode Title: Are Opposing Fans CRUMBLING Under the UNSTOPPABLE Boston Celtics and Joe Mazzulla?
Host: John Karalis (with guest Tom Westerholm, co-hosting most of the episode)
Air Date: March 4, 2026
This bonus episode dives into the Boston Celtics’ current dominance in the NBA, reflecting on both the joy and the challenges this success brings to the fanbase—and the psychological impact on rival supporters. Tom Westerholm and Aaron Judge dissect the effects of the Celtics’ sustained excellence, the evolution of the team’s culture under Joe Mazzulla, and how Celtics fans should handle success with humility and awareness.
“This Celtics team being good has broken me… I can’t do it anymore. I’m literally Jesse Pinkman now. They can’t keep getting away with it, man.”
— Tom (quoting a Reddit post), 02:03
“We’re very pro-victory lap here.”
— Tom, 02:57
“Silence on the road was great… you can feel the seething. It’s just like, this warms my soul because you’re here specifically to cheer your other team and you can’t do it because of what we did to you.”
— Tom, 04:13
“They were like, Peyton Pritchard, that guy that we hate, or something like that.”
— Aaron, 06:08
“When you start saying like, ‘Well, obviously the Celtics are this good,’ that’s where I think it’s a little unreasonable. You’re kind of pushing it a little too far…”
— Aaron, 09:54
“I do have a concern come playoff time… What’s the Celtics’ plan B? What’s their pivot point?”
— Tom, 11:09
“No one’s going to be more prepared than Mazzulla. The only question mark is, is the answer to whatever the other team is doing, is the answer to that something that the players are willing to do?”
— Tom, 18:16
“Don’t become the Lakers guy… Continue being smart. Don’t be the Lakers guy. Don’t be the, ‘Yeah, you should have known, we’ve been trying to tell you about this team.’”
— Aaron, 23:09
“Remember that at the start of this season… many, many others thought this team should have been in the lottery.”
— Aaron, 23:43
“Brad Stevens always says, ‘never get too high, never get too low.’”
— Aaron, 25:38
This episode captures a moment of rare joy for Celtics fans, celebrating how dominance on the court is rippling through the fanbases of rivals—while urging the Boston faithful to savor the moment, but remain humble, measured, and smart. The trust in Joe Mazzulla and the Celtics’ leadership is unwavering but always cautious, knowing that true greatness is measured not just in victories, but in how one handles both success and adversity.