After the Boston Celtics’ recent loss to the Denver Nuggets, this year’s Celtics team no longer qualifies for Phil Jackson’s benchmark for true championship contenders. According to Jackson, hitting the magical mark of securing 40 wins before 20 losses ensures you are among the league’s elite. The 2025-2026 Celtics are 39-20 after their win against the Brooklyn Nets, so the question becomes: does missing Jackson’s mythical contender benchmark signal the end of the Celtics’ championship hopes?
The 40/20 rule has held up remarkably well over the years. Since the NBA added the three-point line in the 1979-80 season, only four teams have won an NBA championship without meeting this benchmark. We will examine if there was anything special or unique about those teams a bit later.
I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t believe there is anything magical or especially insightful about the rule Jackson came up with. Having a record of 40/19 or better means that a team is on pace for at least 56 wins. NBA teams that win at least 55 games are incredibly good. It’s essentially another way of saying that unless a team is a top-3 seed, they are incredibly unlikely to win a championship. A top-3 seed has won 77 of the last 79 NBA championships. That’s not because the top-3 seeds are given special powers; it’s because the best teams are almost always top-3 seeds. The same goes for winning 40 games before 19 losses.
Next, it’s time to address the ridiculous flaw in thinking that winning 40 games before 20 losses is any different from winning 40 games before 21 losses. Logically there is no difference between winning 39 games before 19 losses, or winning 41 games before 22 losses. A one or two game difference in a 60-game sample does not, or at least should not, spell the end of a team’s season. That’s the logical, rational argument when discussing the 40/20 rule. On the other hand, there are those who believe in the Basketball Gods, and reaching 40/20 is a rock-solid prerequisite for winning the title.
I like to think of myself as Basketball God agnostic. I believe in a higher power; for example, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown needed to experience Steph Curry levitating to a higher plane in the 2022 NBA Finals to unlock more powerful versions of themselves. But I can’t believe something as small as a single win or loss in February determines who wins the NBA championship.
There have been plenty of teams that have missed the 40/20 mark and made it to the NBA Finals. In fact, all four past NBA Finals losers have failed to reach 40 wins before 20 losses. The ’25 Indiana Pacers, the ’24 Dallas Mavericks, the ’23 Miami Heat, and the ’22 Boston Celtics. There are countless more examples over the past 45 years. Drilling down to these recent examples, did these teams lose because of a mystical 40/20 rule, or because they simply weren’t good enough? The ’25 Indiana Pacers made it to Game 7 of the NBA Finals and were tied with the Oklahoma City Thunder 16-16 when Tyrese Haliburton ruptured his Achilles tendon. The Pacers, in my opinion, could have easily won that game if Haliburton had not gone down. The ’24 Dallas Mavericks never stood a chance and were a good example of a team going on a late run, and not quite being a bulletproof title contender. The ’23 Miami Heat are a good example of the Basketball Gods not being real. If they were, they would never have allowed Caleb Martin to shoot 50% from three for an entire Eastern Conference series against the Boston Celtics. That Miami Heat team is another example that supports the 40/20 rule. The ’22 Boston Celtics provide another interesting case. Another team that got hot late in the season and missed 40/20 because it didn’t build its championship profile from the start of the season. However, that Celtics team was up 2-1 in the NBA Finals, with a lead in the 4th quarter of Game 4. I firmly believe that if Robert Williams hadn’t torn his meniscus in March of that season, the Celtics would have won the title. The team was never the same after Rob’s injury. Did the Celtics lose because they didn’t hit 40/20? Or because Robert Williams’ knees couldn’t hold up? The answer is in the eye of the beholder.
History says the best the 2025-2026 Boston Celtics can do this season is win the Eastern Conference. This feels like a good moment to take a second to appreciate the season the 2025-2026 Celtics have given their fans. Many analysts (myself included) expected the Celtics to be a sub-.500 team. Fast forward to 59 games through the regular season, and the Celtics are the second seed in the Eastern Conference, are on pace for 54 wins, and currently hold the third best point differential in the entire league. Even the most optimistic predictions did not anticipate this season.
There have been four teams that have been exceptions to the 40/20 rule since 1980. The 95’ Houston Rockets, the 04’ Detroit Pistons, the 06’ Miami Heat, the 21’ Milwaukee Bucks. Taking a closer look at these four teams, a common thread emerges that could also apply to this year’s Celtics. The 95’ Rockets traded for Clyde Drexler at the trade deadline. The 04’ Pistons traded for Rasheed Wallace at the trade deadline. The 06’ Heat traded for Derek Anderson at the trade deadline. If you just asked yourself who Derek Anderson is, that makes sense, as he didn’t play a second in the 2006 NBA Finals. The 21’ Bucks traded for PJ Tucker at the trade deadline, who played 29.6 minutes per game for the Bucks in the playoffs on the way to the championship. Three of the four teams made significant acquisitions halfway through the season to bolster their title chances. Two of the teams traded for All-Star-level talents. If the 2025-2026 Boston Celtics get Jayson Tatum back, they will be getting back an All-Star-level talent.
As currently constructed, I don’t believe the Boston Celtics can win a championship this season. It has nothing to do with the 40/20 rule and more to do with them not having a gear necessary to take down several high level opponents in the playoffs. While this year’s Celtics team has been objectively awesome, they have struggled against the league’s elite. The Celtics are currently 5-10 against the top 10 teams in point differential. If Jayson Tatum can return, even in a diminished form, to the player we saw in the 2025 NBA Playoffs, then winning the championship is very much on the table for this year’s Celtics team. They have already proven they are in the fringe contender range. Adding a player who can elevate every aspect of their team’s profile would thrust them into true contender status.
Lastly — and most importantly — if Red Auerbach heard someone say the 2025–26 Celtics can’t win the title because of something Phil Jackson came up with more than a decade ago, we all know exactly what Red would say to that.
