To me, "packing the courts" means creating new court positions in order to gain an ideological advantage, something the Biden camp has refused to discount. That is different from filling existing openings due to death or retirement.
It was interesting to see that there used to be an unspoken rule that federal judge nominees of a lame duck administration would not be confirmed by the Senate. It's a shame that the Democrats abandoned that during the last days of the Carter administration, opening the doors for the Republicans to do the same.