Do the Boston Celtics Have the Easiest Finals Path in NBA History?

Getty Images/Ringer illustration We analyzed the playoff road of every finalist from the past 40 years to see how the 2023-24 Celtics stack up There isn't any region in the United States that cares less about college football than New England. But on Tuesday night, as the Boston Celtics begin their sixth Eastern Conference finals in eight seasons against the Indiana Pacers, New England's NBA team inspires a chant straight out of the college football playbook: The Celtics ain't played nobody! The Celtics earned the playoffs' top seed with a 64-18 record in the regular season, but their journey through the first two playoff rounds could hardly have been easier. In the first round, they hammered an eighth-seeded Heat team missing Jimmy Butler; in the second, they coasted against a fourth-seeded Cavaliers squad missing, at various points, Jarrett Allen, Donovan Mitchell, and Caris LeVert. Now set to face the sixth-seeded (but healthy!) Pacers in the conference finals, the Celtics have incited claims that theirs is the easiest path ever to the Finals. That isn't actually true throughout all of NBA history. Back in the early days, top seeds sometimes needed to win only one round to...