Viewed in a vacuum, independent of what happened last year and what’s currently transpiring in Cleveland and Oklahoma City, the Celtics are enjoying a very good season.

Just shy of the halfway point, Boston is on pace for 58 victories, which would have won the Eastern Conference by eight games in 2023-24. Its 9.5 net rating would rank second among all teams from the previous seven campaigns. Its plus-9.3 point differential would rank third in that span.

The problem: The Celtics are well behind their ’23-24 NBA championship squad in all three categories, and they’re staring up at two teams in the Cavaliers and Thunder that have been historically dominant thus far. Even after recent losses that snapped double-digit winning streaks, Cleveland and OKC both are on pace to win 69-plus games, a feat only four teams in NBA history have accomplished.

Head coach Joe Mazzulla raised those points after the Celtics needed a last-second missed layup to squeak past the 8-32 New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday.

“I would say the ultimate compliment is we’re 28-11, and these are the types of conversations that we’re having,” Mazzulla said after fielding a series of questions about his team’s inconsistency, poor shooting, unforced late-game errors and lack of production from its starting lineup. “So it’s a beautiful place to be. I’m serious. I think it’s great.”

Call it the curse of championship expectations. This is, after all, essentially the same Celtics roster that blitzed its way through the NBA a year ago, going 64-18 and 16-3 in the playoffs en route to the franchise’s elusive 18th banner.

Repeat champions have become a rarity in the modern NBA, however — no team has won back-to-back titles since 2018, and the last five Larry O’Brien Trophy winners all bowed out before the conference finals the following season — and Boston is navigating the pitfalls that doomed many of their predecessors.

Most notably, though the Celtics’ entire core rotation remains intact from last season, it hasn’t been nearly as fortunate from a health perspective.

Injuries have forced Mazzulla to shuffle his lineup on a near-nightly basis, with his top eight of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser missing a combined 56 games.

At this point last season, that group had sat out a total of 29 games, with only Porzingis and Horford — neither of whom plays both ends of back-to-backs — logging more than three DNPs. Pritchard and White are the only rotation players with fewer than three games missed so far this season.

The Celtics’ availability has improved of late — only deep reserves Jordan Walsh and Drew Peterson have missed time since the team’s recent four-game road trip wrapped up — but their connectivity remains a work in progress. Their preferred starting five has played just nine games and 138 minutes together, and those minutes have been some of Boston’s worst of the season.

The White-Holiday-Brown-Tatum-Porzingis grouping has been outscored by 8.9 points per 100 possessions. Of the 32 NBA lineups that had logged at least 130 minutes together as of Tuesday, only one had a worse net rating. Boston also is just 5-4 when that lineup starts, including their 120-119 escape against the lowly Pelicans, and 23-7 when it doesn’t.

Last season, that same Celtics top five was on the court for 623 total minutes and outscored opponents by 11.0 points per 100 possessions.

Boston, MA – Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis drives past New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson during the game at the TD Garden. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

Mazzulla has said his leading unit simply needs more time on the court together, noting its members just recently reached the number of reps they typically get by the end of training camp. Porzingis’ recovery from offseason surgery and the minor injuries he’s picked up since have been major contributing factors to this lack of cohesion, though not the only ones.

The difference-making big man is confident he’ll soon be back to 100% physically, and that his shaky shooting percentages will improve as he regains his rhythm. Giving him the runway to rebuild his on-court chemistry with Tatum, Brown, White and Holiday will be critical for the Celtics. It’s worth noting that same quartet with Horford at the five has the best net rating in the NBA (21.9) among lineups with at least 130 minutes played.

“I think that we’ve been injured for a good majority of the year,” Brown said last week. “Now a lot of our guys are all healthy all on the same floor at the same time, so just figuring that rhythm out. I believe in this group. We’re going to figure it out.”

Beyond injury concerns, the Celtics also have had to deal with the target that every reigning champion wears. They’re the biggest game on nearly every opponent’s schedule, and teams have schemed up new ways of taking away what they do best. Recently, this has resulted in a decline in 3-point attempt rate and a less efficient Celtics offense, which Mazzulla has blamed for some of the team’s defensive lapses.

“Just expect everybody’s best shot,” Tatum said. “I kind of remember my rookie year, we weren’t 8-30 or whatever, but I remember we played the Warriors and it was a big deal. Like, they won the championship last year. This is a big matchup, this is a big game. So just understanding that’s where we’re at, our place in this league. I think it’s just going to make us better that regardless of who we’re playing, we’ve got to expect the best from.”

And then there’s the undeniable mindset shift. Celtics players have essentially acknowledged that the regular season means less to them than it did a year ago. Effort has wavered at times, most recently in last week’s home loss to Sacramento, during which Boston was outscored by 17 points in the fourth quarter.

The ultimate goal is being as prepared as possible come playoff time, not winning as many games as they can before then. The Celtics, who are 7-6 since mid-December, entered Tuesday 5.5 games back of the first-place Cavs in the Eastern Conference. They’ll visit the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night.

“We don’t need to peak right now,” Porzingis said. “But we need to peak at the right moment as a team, and I’m confident we’ll get there.”

Confidence has been a common theme amid the Celtics’ recent stretch of mediocrity. In Mazzulla’s eyes, they’re in a desirable spot despite their scuffles — a highly competitive team with clear room to improve.

“It’s a great standard and a great expectation to have, and we have to deliver,” Mazzulla said. “We all know that. That’s the process towards it, but when you’re — what are we, the third team in the league right now? Which isn’t great, but you (reporters) sound like a morgue in here. And that’s how it should be, because of where we’re trying to get to. So it’s the ultimate compliment, and we just continue to work through it.”