Drew Peterson puts his hand in alongside his teammates at the end of Maine Celtics practice Monday at the Portland Expo. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press He

The Maine Celtics enjoyed last year’s NBA G League playoffs so much, they’re following the same formula this season.

Maine will head into the playoffs for the third straight season, after earning the third seed in the Eastern Conference. The Celtics open against the sixth-seeded Capital City Go-Go at the Portland Expo on Tuesday at 8 p.m., and will look to continue the momentum that has seen them win 15 of 19 games after starting the regular season 6-9.

It’s an awfully similar situation to how the Celtics entered the postseason last year. Maine’s 21-13 record is the same as it was in 2024. The Celtics were fifth in scoring defense last year, and are fifth this year. The season has even trended the same way; Maine had a sluggish start last year, too, going 11-11 before heating up in the second half.

So it looks the same. Does it feel the same?

“Yeah, for sure,” said guard Drew Peterson, who’s averaging 20 points per game. “The big thing is always playing well through the end of the year. The first half of the season … we were kind of figuring things out, a lot of guys in and out. … We kind of fine-tuned our team, and this definitely feels similar. We’re hoping to make a similar run.”

Maine certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the similarities continue; the Celtics last year made it all the way to the G League Finals before falling to Oklahoma City.

“Everybody knows our goal. The end goal is to try to win a championship,” said guard J.D. Davison, the team’s leading scorer at 25.1 points per game. “We had a lot of injuries, a lot of guys going up (to the NBA) and down. We just had to get the team fully together, and once we got the team fully together, I think everybody locked in.”

The strong finish was a far cry from the 6-9 start from a results standpoint, but with five of those losses coming by three or fewer points, the team knew a turnaround was coming.

“There was a feeling that we had enough in the room,” coach Tyler Lashbrook said. “We all sort of knew that. … The players were always confident that they could do it.”

Still, like last year, there was a collective realization that it was time to raise their games. This year, it came in the form of an upstairs meeting at the Portland Expo.

“(It was) about just some things that we could do from an individual standpoint,” forward Tristan Enaruna (11.6 points) said. “We were just talking about everybody bringing 1% extra every day. I think that kind of helped us to find our groove.”

The team has also received some additions that have helped solidify the mix. Miles Norris, James Banks III and D.J. Rodman have been among the newer players that have helped Maine rediscover the winning ways.

“Everyone’s got great energy,” said Norris, a forward averaging 14.5 points. “I feel like we’ve got a great group of guys, chemistry-wise. We hang out off the court as well. So I think that’s a really good thing. Guys like each other off the court.”

And they embrace the dirty work on it. Defense once again has been a Celtics strength, as Maine is sixth and seventh in opposing 3-point and field goal shooting percentage, respectively.

“It tells how locked in we are,” Davison said. “They know defense wins games, defense gets you paid.”

Now comes the challenge of translating it to the playoffs, where each round of the Eastern Conference playoffs is a one-game deal.

“It’s just like March Madness, in a way, where it’s one game and the seeds don’t matter,” Peterson said. “These are all good teams, there’s a small margin of error to make the playoffs. … Every team’s really good, every team’s got a ton of former NBA guys. It’s all going to be close games, everything’s competitive.”

There’s a key difference in all the similarity: Last year, Maine’s record was good enough for a No. 2 seed, which gave it a bye through the first round and, following No. 1 Osceola’s loss, allowed the Celtics to play all of the Eastern Conference playoffs at home.

This year, there will be three rounds to navigate as a No. 3 seed, and at least one road game ahead should they win Tuesday. It’s a tougher road, but not one they’re fearing.

“The special thing about the people in this building is that they want to win,” Lashbrook said. “They want to get to the next level of their career … but they’ve committed themselves to the things that are required to win.”