good thread and a christmas tp for you. this is an interesting topic and raises some potentially interesting discussions.
as you point out, a number of celtic loses are to good teams and not by a lot of points. this year a number of games were winnable going into the final few minutes, or at least the fourth quarter. to me, some loses were simply a lack of celtic talent. but others were due to execution or inconsistency by players who COULD have made the play.
next...
the celtics are 7th in total offense this year, scoring 103.7 points per game. pretty good for a team with a lot of young kids and no "go to" super star scorer.
the celtics are tied for 26th in defense, however, coughing up 104.3 per game. this is bad and may be less a case of talent in players.
in terms of differential between points scored and points yielded, the celtics are 16th, right in the middle of the pack.
are the celtics, as constituted, better than their record? my quick and dirty point is no, your record is who you are. but under that, a key question is if this young roster played consistently with the current talent, would they at least be a decent team?
my belief is yes. how many games did the celtics lose because of poor starts or poor finishes? consistency is the main devil this year, in terms of not being "decent" as a team.
now if the question is the celtics rising up to championship level, that is a different debate and involves serious star talent.
but if this current celtic team were consistent (and i do include mr. green) this team would be close to .500...decent.