I have the flu and the Celtics try for #16 in a Row

Posted by Stiletto Jen 4,564 views

I have to apologize to everyone. I made the mistake of asking my father what I should write about today. But I’m really sick with the flu and my broken finger has gone from healing to swollen again. All I want to do is curl up on the couch with hot chocolate and my DVR full of holiday Lifetime movies. And maybe some old school episodes of Friends. Ooh and Grey’s Anatomy! And Love Actually!

Point being, really do not want to be researching sports stuff. When I’m sick, I want all the traditional girly comforts!

So anyway, asked Dad and of course, I was told to talk about the Celtics. See if there is one thing my Dad likes more than the Red Sox, it would be the Celtics. How they let this man live in New York is beyond me. However, in this instance, he was actually on point with an interesting topic!

I know I’m skipping waaaay ahead of myself since I’m supposed to be teaching football and I haven’t even given an intro to basketball yet but well, I’m sick and I wanna go do girly stuff so you are going to learn about the Celtics and you will like it!

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If you haven’t heard……

The Boston Celtics won the NBA championship last year. Lucky me because I was visiting my parents for a few months and forced to watch every one of their games from April till June. Even if American Idol was on!

Anyway, right now the C’s are on fire. They have won 15 games in a row! Winning streaks are very interesting, and rare! Sure you may get 4 or 5 wins in a row, even 10. But creeping past the 15 win mark is a pretty remarkable feat. The L.A. Lakers have done it four times, and currently hold the longest winning streak in NBA history with 33 wins in a row in the 1971-72 season. And actually, in the 1999-2000, they did it twice! They first had 16 wins in a row in December-January and then a whopping 19 in a row from early February to March!

Last season, the Houston Rockets joined the illustrious rankings after a really not-so-hot start of the season. They went on an amazing 22 game streak to become the second highest in history. And who ended their streak? That’s right, the Celtics!

If the Celtics continue on their roll and hit #16, they will join the Lakers as the only teams in history to hit that feat 4 times. Tonight the C’s are headed to Atlanta to try for #16. But anyone who was forced to watch the playoffs last year knows that tonight’s match-up is one to watch. The Celtics may have gone on to win the Championship but it took all 7 games of the first round of the playoffs against the Hawks to get them there. And none of their wins in that round came in Atlanta. Not to mention that just last week Atlanta put a stop to the Cleveland Cavaliers 11 game streak and the Hawks have only lost one game at home this season.

Did I mention that all of the 17 teams on the 16+ list went on to the playoffs during their streak year? Most of them passed through the conference finals and 8 of them became the NBA Champs. Just something to keep in mind while watching the game!

I’m skipping ahead of myself again a little bit here because after the New Year I was going to start challenging all of you to watch at least one game per month, then per week. Including myself. But I’m throwing it out there now because really, this is the game of the week. The month. You know, I may even say the game to watch before the New Year! Well, maybe not. But I do know that if you are only going to watch one game the rest of this year, I would say you can’t go wrong with this one.

My dad is so excited about it that he has me almost convinced that I need to watch too. Except, well, Top Chef is on tonight! But I will definitely be tuning in!

One more thing about winning streaks. See, streaks are, well, streaky. Lots of superstitions about them. And you never want to actually mention then because it tends to curse them. So here’s hoping that I, along with all the other millions of sports writers across the country, have not cursed the Celtics.

Here is a great site with lots of fun info about NBA streaks, both winning and losing NBA Hoops Online

About the author: Jennifer Taglione is the owner of this fabulous website Stiletto Sports. Despite writing well over 500 posts, she still maintains that she is not a sports writer! She is however a huge fan of Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Mark Sanchez, the Celtics, and totally kicks butt on March Madness brackets! Connect with her by following her on Twitter @StilettoSportsJ and subscribing to her weekly newsletter. For more info check out the About the Editor page!