Nearly one year ago, the Maine Celtics walked off the floor at the Portland Expo victorious. A 106-86 beatdown over the Oklahoma City Blue had the building buzzing, Maine just one win away from their first-ever G League Championship. Six days later, they stepped back onto the floor after a failed trip to OKC brought the series to a series-deciding Game 3.
The Blue absolutely clobbered them.
From the anxious high of victory to the devastating pit of defeat in less than one week. Head coach Blaine Mueller left to join Charles Lee’s staff on the Charlotte Hornets, DJ Steward left for a two-way contract with the Chicago Bulls, and Neemias Queta and Jordan Walsh became more Boston-focused guys. That’s how it goes in the G League. Continuity is rare. But not an impossibility.
Fast forward to the present day, and Maine finds itself in an eerily similar position to the one they were in just one season ago. Lots of faces are gone, but many remain the same. JD Davison just wrapped up an MVP-caliber campaign. Drew Peterson enjoyed a full season with the Celtics.
Maine, the three seed on the East’s side of the playoff bracket, is slated to take on the Capital City Go-Go in the first round. They were just one game behind the first and second seeds, finishing the season 21-13, but it was a long road to get there. A road that could have just as easily ended in an early-season flame-out.
The Maine Celtics want to win more than anything else
With an entire roster full of fresh faces, outside of a few holdovers, Maine limped through the Showcase Cup. Their 8-8 record was far below the standards they wanted to set for themselves, and the beginning of the regular season wasn’t much better.
On January 19, they were 6-7. Nothing was working.
Until James Banks III.
“Especially while I've been here, just seeing Banks come in,” DJ Rodman told Hardwood Houdini when asked for a reason for Maine’s season turnaround. “Someone who's been a vet. Really turned up the intensity here. Obviously, it was there before, but we needed that extra edge. We needed that anchor, and Banks was that anchor.
Banks returned to Maine on January 22. He was on the squad that lost to OKC in last year’s Finals but had been playing for Aris Midea Thessaloniki in Greece since September 2024.
Since rejoining the Celtics, Banks has started every single game, a decision partially aided by Boston waiving two-way player Anton Watson and Maine trading the rights to big man Dmytro Skapintsev, both of whom had played a lot of minutes at the five. With Banks in the first five, Maine has gone 15-6.
“On the court. Just defense and rebounding. It's what I bring. It's what I bring to the game,” Banks told Hardwood Houdini of his role in Maine’s improvements. “I mean, of course, I bring that veteran leadership. So that's just talking guys up, encouraging guys, letting guys know that things are fine. Everything's fine.
“This is the season. This is basketball. You're fine. Everything's great. You know what I'm saying? Just being that voice in the locker room, that's small.”
Banks’ interior presence and locker-room leadership provided Maine with a much-needed pillar to lean on. Yet he wasn’t an immediate solution to all their problems.
So head coach Tyler Lashbrook had to act.
A mid-season speech turned the Maine Celtics' season around
Lashbrook spent last season as a player development coach in Boston. He followed Sam Cassell from the Philadelhpia 76ers. When Mueller accepted the job in Charlotte, Lashbrook was eventually named the head coach up in Portland. A place he’s now made his own.
As Maine was spiraling, their season in danger of total collapse, he held a team meeting of sorts. He needed gratitude to take precedence over everything else.
“I think the biggest thing is, for all those guys, is having a real appreciation of where they are and understanding how far they've made it in their careers, and to understand that it doesn't last forever,” Lashbrook told Hardwood Houdini.
“These are kind of the good old days for them. And I thought that our guys really embraced that identity of, 'We do it together. We do it for each other,' and it's a really special mindset to have in the G League, but I'm very lucky. And the only way it works is if they buy in.”
It’s easy to look at the G League as 'stuck in the middle.' A mere stepping stone to get to the NBA. And while every player who steps foot on that court would love the chance to take their game to the next level, that’s not the end-all, be-all.
“I think we just take every day as a gift,” said Banks. “We try not to get too far ahead of ourselves, and we also try not to lose that gratitude. So, you try not to be too stoic. Not on either side of it. We go there, you see us, we jump around before every game. We encourage each other in the locker rooms. We try to have fun with it, but at the same time, maintain the seriousness of, 'Hey, yo, this is what we do.' But we don't get lost in the sauce of the seriousness to where we're too uptight.
“We still try to play loose, play together, have fun, but hey, let's play to win. That's the secret sauce. This is real life, but also, let's enjoy each other while we're here.”
“I think it was mid-January,” Jordan Schakel told Hardwood Houdini. “It's always good to get that realization in the middle of the season. You're tired, you're in Maine, it's snowing every day—Just finding things to stay grateful about helps you come to work each day and bring energy and stuff.
“And like I said, it's just the little things that matter. So, we had a couple of talks, one about gratitude and one about what each of us needs to do to pick it up. Stuff like that that helped us.”
That appreciation was enough to get the ball rolling. And from there, it was an avalanche.
Win after win, Maine rapidly began to climb the standings, highlighted by an eight-game win streak in early February. They won 14 of 16 games at one point, and a once-lost season transformed into another chance at a championship.
And it started on defense.
Defense spearheaded Maine Celtics change
“Definitely on the defensive end. We looked at it a lot,” Rodman said. “We had it up on the board the other day. Our defensive rating is 104, which would be second in the NBA. So, yeah, that's definitely been our identity now.”
In 13 of Maine’s 15 wins since January 29, they have held their opponent to 110 points or fewer. And in eight of those games, Maine allowed 100 or fewer.
Led by Banks in the middle, a slew of athletic defenders on the perimeter—Rodman and Tristan Enaruna among them—and the help defense of Hason Ward, Maine has wreaked havoc.
“It's little stuff,” Banks explained. “We don't have to be individually better defenders to be a better defensive team. Of course, we all strive to be better. Of course, mano a mano, but 'Hey, you got beat, I got you, don't worry about it. Just go out there and get my guy, bro. We'll do it.'
“We're gonna make them shoot tough shots all night. You want to have them in the half-court all night. That's just our thing.”
Nobody in Maine is going to win Defensive Player of the Year. They aren’t funneling guys to the rim for a Rudy Gobert of Victor Wembanyama-type defender because of necessity. Sometimes they feed Banks, Ward, or Kavion Pippen ball-handlers down low, but that’s just the game plan. It’s not for a lack of effort or skill on the perimeter.
Maine’s connectivity on the defensive end stems from intelligence. Knowing when and where they need to be. Understanding opposing personnel. Reading offensive tendencies and adjustments. But it’s rooted in determination.
The same goes for their offense. Davison and Peterson lead the way on offense, but Tyrell Roberts plays a role off the pine. Jay Scrubb needs to get hot here and there. They understand the ins and outs of who needs to do what on any single possession. Everything is a science, but simply trying isn’t enough.
They don’t want to be a good team. They don’t want to be a great team. They don’t even want to be the best team in the entire G Legaue.
They want to be the best basketball team that’s ever existed.
Why? Because why not?
“Everybody's philosophy is different,” Banks said. “I feel like you should be the greatest basketball team ever every time you step on [the court]. Offense, defense, timeouts, rotations, that's what you would want, in theory. Yeah bro, if we can be the best defensive team we can be every night, why not? We don't got to hang our hat on that, but hey, why not?
“Why not be the best at everything we can be the best at? Why not be our best selves on offense and defense? Why not get the best shots we can get? Why not run in transition? Why not be the best? Why not rebound every rebound we can get? Why not guard every shot we can guard? There's no reason to give them free anything.”
Why not? What’s stopping Maine from doing everything they can on every single possession of every single game? Why not dive on the floor for a loose ball? Why not jump through two opponents to fight for an offensive rebound? Why not sprint in transition to chase an easy bucket?
That herd mentality is exactly what helps Maine push forward. They play as one, win as one, lose as one. Every ounce of extra effort put forth by Banks is matched by Rodman. By Davison. By Roberts. By Enaruna.
By Lashbrook.
“Shoot, if he could play, he would,” Rodman said of Lashbrook. “And that's something that you really want from a coach, coming from a player's perspective. I want to play for someone who cares and wants to win more than I—Shoot, I want to win a lot, but sometimes it feels like he wants to win more than I do, and that's someone who I want to play for.”
“I've had to be careful to not dive on a ball,” Lashbrook said.
Winning is all that matters to Maine, and that's what Celtics basketball is all about
Maine’s final home game of the regular season wrapped up with a 117-99 win over the Delaware Blue Coats. A second-half surge led by Enaruna, Rodman, and Phillip Wheeler (who the Philadelphia 76ers recently signed to a 10-day contract) secured a victory.
Shortly after, fans flooded the sidelines. It was Fan Appreciation Day at the Portland Expo. Tables were set up on the court for the players and coaches to sit at. Fans decked out in green brought posters, hats, T-shirts, and more for the team to sign.
As Lashbrook sat signing autographs, the smile never left his face. He had a conversation with almost every fan who came up to him.
“This is the second Red Claws game I’ve ever gone to,” one fan said. “I’ve been to a couple of NBA games, but this is just—It’s different.
The entire New England area is in love with the Boston Celtics. And it goes well beyond that. It’s an international brand that has broken the walls of its city of origin. Now, anytime Boston is on the road, the crowd is infested with green and white. ‘Let’s go Celtics’ chants break out on a regular basis.
But there’s something different about Maine.
The intimacy of the Expo allows every fan a chance to be as close to a professional basketball game as they may ever be. They get to witness the development of guys like Davison, Peterson, and Miles Norris while also appreciating the unsung heroics of Rodman, Enaruna, and Kam Warrens.
Everything about the experience makes the fans feel like part of the team. More than simply supporters. Teammates.
It’s part of why the Celtics are desperate to bring a title back to Portland.
“Look at everybody here,” Lashbrook said, eyes glancing at the long line of Celtics fans, some waiting over an hour for autographs. “This is why we want to win.”
“I know we have three teammates with little babies at home. I know we want it more than most. And I just want it because we need something to prove,” Rodman said. “I can speak for me, Kam, Ty, freaking everyone else on the team that want to be proven. We want to prove ourselves, and being looked over is not something that we like. We're used to it, but we don't like it.”
There are only a few players still around from last year’s group. Davison, Peterson, Schakel, and Banks all felt the sting of defeat, and it’s part of the reason they’re so eager to avenge it.
“Last year, just felt—It was a let-down,” said Banks. “We worked hard for that. We had a good group of guys. We fought to get there. Came up short.”
Now, the only thing on their mind is winning. It’s the only acceptable outcome.
“It's ring or bust,” said Banks. “Like, barely missing the playoffs, missing the playoffs, that's not what you spend time for. We got JD, Davidson down here, we got our two-ways down here. Of course, they have bigger fish to fry, but they got their feet in this water with us every game.”
Nobody on the roster expects anything less. Davison is in his third season as a two-way player, meaning he’s ineligible to sign another. He has his future NBA hopes to worry about. Peterson and Norris want to continue to impress the big leagues.
All of that matters. But so does a banner in the Expo.
“This stuff's important,” Banks said. “We practice down here. We play down here. This is important. You go in the locker room and everybody's on their phone on the G League app, checking the standings. We want to win. Everyone is important.”
There’s no middle ground. Even when the team was fighting to stay in the playoff race, let alone the title chase, they knew they were poised for bigger things.
“Making it is not cool,” Banks said. “All that stuff, I hate to say it in an arrogant way, but that's expected. We got here, we were under .500, I was expecting to get back in the ‘ship. Anything less than that, I hate to say it, but it's like a waste of time, mostly. If you ain't get a call up or two-way, and you came down here, and you didn't win a ship, then it was a waste of time. You wasted your time. And that's bulletin-board material.”
For Davison and Peterson, there’s still hope of getting the 15th roster spot in Boston. The organization clearly sees something in Norris, as they waived Watson to bring him on board. Those are the Celtics’ guys.
Boston undoubtedly has its eyes on the rest of the roster in Maine, but it’s not necessarily a focal point. The two-ways are the top dogs in the developmental system. The rest are tossed around left and right. Team to team, 10-day to 10-day, available player pool to roster and back again. That’s life in the G League.
“It's the G now, not the D, man. They're not developing guys like they used to, bro. They're developing their guys now,” Banks said. “They want the twos and everybody else to [get theirs]. [The aim as a] part of that team is to get better while you're here in the game, in the flow, and it's to win something.”
That’s why winning matters. It’s what’s left. What’s the point of playing if not to win? That’s what matters to Maine. That's what matters to the team everyone in Boston, New England, and beyond should care about just as much as the one at TD Garden.
“Winning is hard,” Banks said. “Winning means something to a lot of people. Winning means something to me. Winning means something to my teammates. We want to win, bro. We want it more than everybody.”
Maine opens their playoff schedule against the Go-Go on Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. in Portland.
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