A Piece by: Andrew P.
(@celticreportNBA)
The regular season will now seemingly end with the Boston Celtics fighting for their playoff lives in the NBA Play-In tournament.
After another frustrating loss against the Miami Heat on Sunday afternoon, the fate of the Boston Celtics is now even more clear: Boston is bound for the play-in. With their 130-124 loss at home against Miami, the Celtics now fall 2.0 games back of the Heat, with another matchup coming on Tuesday night. Now, I’d love to be optimistic here and say that the Celtics are gonna come back stronger than ever and are going to go on a 4 game streak to avoid the seeding games, starting against the Heat. But let’s be real for a second here. That’s not happening.
At the end of last season, the Celtics were in a great spot, even though they had lost to the Miami Heat (ironically) in 6 games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Yes, the result was disappointing, but there were reasons why Boston fell short. For starters, during most of the playoffs, the availability of Gordon Hayward was uncertain, whether it was from injuries or the birth of his child (he never ended up leaving the bubble for that). Hayward actually left the bubble during the first round because of an ankle sprain, and returned to play after a good bit of time after returning to the bubble. Secondly, Kemba Walker also battled injury in the bubble, he never seemed like himself. His knee was the culprit, and although he played, his impact was not as great as it could have been if he had been healthy. These were the main two issues that held the Celtics back, although their playoff run was still impressive. But, there was a silver lining to all of this: The Celtics made it to the ECF on the shoulders of 24 year old Jaylen Brown and a 22 year old Jayson Tatum. Boston’s young stars led to way through a deep playoff run to the conference finals, and took the Heat to 6 games. Boston was poised to make another deep run after a break in the offseason.
During the offseason however, plans changed. Boston completed a sign-and-trade deal with the Charlotte Hornets for Gordon Hayward, receiving a couple of 2nd rounders, and most importantly, a $28.5M trade exception to use later on. This was a major loss for the C’s, who would later find out the hole that Gordon Hayward’s consistency left in the roster. Enes Kanter was traded to Portland in a messy 3-team deal with the Blazers and the Grizzlies, which really didn’t bring much back to the Celtics. In terms of additions, however, Boston brought in Payton Pritchard and Aaron Nesmith through the draft, and signed Tristan Thompson and Jeff Teague in free agency. This roster shake up was the beginning of a season-long uphill battle for the Celtics.
This season, the Boston Celtics struggled with consistency. Now, this can mostly be blamed on COVID-19 protocols, as the Celtics led the NBA in “COVID days missed”. COVID hit Jayson Tatum pretty hard, as he later mentioned that he had to use an inhaler before games, something that he had never done before. Earlier in the season though, the Celtics, in a matchup with the Lakers, lost Marcus Smart to a calf injury. I can remember at the time, the injury looked to be season ending; think KD’s injury against the Raptors in the finals. Luckily, he only missed a few weeks. However, in Smart’s absence, the Celtics really began to struggle defensively. Brad Stevens’ is a good defensive coach, but the Celtics went from top 5 in defense to one of the worst defenses, and that trend continued, even after Smart’s return. These two factors are what I believe caused the inconsistency that still haunts the Celtics to this day. This inconsistency can only be fixed during the offseason, and that is something that the Celtics MUST address before the start of next season. This team, although led by 2 “youngsters” can be a NBA Finals contender when they play their best basketball. This season was rough, anyone in the NBA could tell you that. But it’s time for the Celtics to rise again and take over the top seed that is rightfully (and normally) theirs!
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