Brad ,Danny and Hayward

[rollie mass]

Obviously the chemistry has suffered as Hayward was allowed to play himself back into shape.Brad and Danny know that Hayward needs to be ready for playoff season Recently Hayward was making spins to hoop and on a sideline steal that emphasized how quickly game by game,move by move he is growing.
Brad has the perfect personality to allow Hayward the latitude that he needs .So much of his recovery has been physical and the hardest part mental.
Building trust, being able to play through contact in the air, Just being freed from those fears.It seems that it has been a management decision to not lower his confidence by sending him to d league but by getting better against NBA players and in 4th quarters under pressure.

A tough season of expectations ,playing time with young players that achieved early against a much easier East competition and could come down to home court advantage or making that extra play.
Kyrie understands what it takes to win and the small window between winning and losing and the habits that must be built
That trade deadline and looming free agency this summer  has a lot to do with the team morale and the divide of who might get traded.

[Silky]

Haywards issues for the majority of the season has been exclusively Mental.

and if the team REALLY wanted him to work through them faster they would have moved Morris and Rozier at the deadline which would have given him more opportunity.

[KGBirdBias]

Hayward wasnt ready to start the season and the players saw it but Stevens started him anyway. That is what caused all of this. Stevens maybe should've eased him into the lineup and slowly increased his minutes. So here we are. The playoffs are a different season. If he's still struggling by the playoffs I believe he will be out the rotation...it will be go time for everyone else.

[csfansince60s]

TPs to KGBB and Silky for expressing how I feel.

The young guys (Rozier, Tatum, Brown especially) I’m sure can’t help but be resentful of Hayward. Hopefully they work through it, and the loss of trust in Brad and the team cohesion damage isn’t irreparable.

Smart gave Hayward some tough love in a practice in December, bangingb him around, bumping him hard and getting in his face. The next night vs Minny he plays out of his mind....which is why it’s all in his mind.

Sports fans can be tough on players and in their expectations of players. Physical limitations and injuries are accepted and tolerated. Lack of mental toughness not so much.

[KGBirdBias]

Parish was just on NBA Radio and pretty much eviscerated Kyrie. LOL

Summarizing - Celtics players are resentful that when he plays the ball doesn't move and everyone is watching him, when last year the ball was moving. They can't find a rhythm because he's in and out the lineup so much. 🤷🏾‍♂️

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Haywards issues for the majority of the season has been exclusively Mental.

and if the team REALLY wanted him to work through them faster they would have moved Morris and Rozier at the deadline which would have given him more opportunity.

Nah. You don't trade away talent and depth on a contender. You work it out.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Hayward wasnt ready to start the season and the players saw it but Stevens started him anyway. That is what caused all of this. Stevens maybe should've eased him into the lineup and slowly increased his minutes. So here we are. The playoffs are a different season. If he's still struggling by the playoffs I believe he will be out the rotation...it will be go time for everyone else.

He wasn't ready mentally. We didn't see him in practice. He looked just like everyone else -- tentative in the offense and playing off one another. It was just accentuated because he was coming back from an injury. Who should have started over him? Morris? No one saw his production coming.

Hayward is not falling out of the rotation for so many reasons. He is still the best shot creator on the second unit, even with as inconsistent as he is. He is still a great facilitator on offense, although his control of the game and its pace is still coming back to him.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Parish was just on NBA Radio and pretty much eviscerated Kyrie. LOL

Summarizing - Celtics players are resentful that when he plays the ball doesn't move and everyone is watching him, when last year the ball was moving. They can't find a rhythm because he's in and out the lineup so much. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Apologies to the Chief, but that's not what I see when I watch the games. The Celtics problems on offense have not primarily been when Irving was on the court. The Celtics are at their best on offense when Irving is on the court (113.8 offensive rating). In fact, for players with at least 35 games played and at least a 25% usage rate, Irving ranks 8th in the NBA is offensive rating, ahead of Westbrook, George, Giannis, Walker, Embiid, Beal, Griffin, Doncic, and James, to name a few.

I've seen greater movement when Irving was on the court than when Rozier was trying to initiate the offense.

[Kuberski33]

Hayward wasnt ready to start the season and the players saw it but Stevens started him anyway. That is what caused all of this. Stevens maybe should've eased him into the lineup and slowly increased his minutes. So here we are. The playoffs are a different season. If he's still struggling by the playoffs I believe he will be out the rotation...it will be go time for everyone else.

Hayward is not falling out of the rotation for so many reasons. He is still the best shot creator on the second unit, even with as inconsistent as he is. He is still a great facilitator on offense, although his control of the game and its pace is still coming back to him.

This is how I see it.  He's probably not going to make it all the way back this season - but he's one of the 3 main distributors on the team along with Kyrie and Smart.  If anything the ball needs to be in his hands more - but someone needs to clue Rozier in on that.

[footey]

If I had to guess, I'd say the young guys are more resentful towards Kyrie than Gordon. Gordon is incredibly unselfish, and works to get the ball to Brown and Rozier a lot as soon as they are open. Kyrie doesn't play that way. I'm not criticizing Kyrie, he is a much more efficient shooter and scorer than Gordon, particularly this season. Just saying I doubt Hayward is the source of any lingering resentments. Truth is, Brad pulled Gordon from the starting lineup quite some time ago, and has limited his minutes to about 25/ game, similar to Brown. And Hayward has not said one word of criticism of his young teammates the way Kyrie has.

[celtics4ever33]

If I had to guess, I'd say the young guys are more resentful towards Kyrie than Gordon. Gordon is incredibly unselfish, and works to get the ball to Brown and Rozier a lot as soon as they are open. Kyrie doesn't play that way. I'm not criticizing Kyrie, he is a much more efficient shooter and scorer than Gordon, particularly this season. Just saying I doubt Hayward is the source of any lingering resentments. Truth is, Brad pulled Gordon from the starting lineup quite some time ago, and has limited his minutes to about 25/ game, similar to Brown. And Hayward has not said one word of criticism of his young teammates the way Kyrie has.

Hayward is a great teammate.

His play hasn't been good and it doesn't help that he gets minutes for it. Its a sucky situation.

[TheSundanceKid]

I can't really get being the "young guys are resentful" theory.

This is how it is... Max guy comes back from injury, is given opportunities you'd expect a max guy to get..

Everyone knows you earn your stripes, then you get the respect and freedom to shape things yourself. Gordon has done that, he's earned the freedom and space to ease into his old self.

The young guys need to accept that. God forbid they ever get injured, I'm sure they'd want to be treated the same way.

And a reminder, this team didn't win it all last season, they lost in the conference finals. So there was never the reasoning that they didn't need Kyrie and Gordon. If they want to do better this spring, they need to find a way to do it with them.

[GreenEnvy]

Hayward wasnt ready to start the season and the players saw it but Stevens started him anyway. That is what caused all of this. Stevens maybe should've eased him into the lineup and slowly increased his minutes. So here we are. The playoffs are a different season. If he's still struggling by the playoffs I believe he will be out the rotation...it will be go time for everyone else.

Help me understand what caused all of this.

So Hayward returns as less than 100%, clearly. Max player, All-Star, gruesome injury, we all know his deal. So who was upset? Brown, the guy still starting? Tatum, the guy who started last season alongside him as well as this one (and every game of his career in between)?

Maybe it was Baynes, the one guy who actually lost his starting spot? He seems like a problem in the locker room, it must be him!

Then again, maybe it was Morris. He was so mad a still-recovering-GH was starting over him that he did nothing but start the season playing the best ball of his career. Then he was inserted into the starting lineup and has since regressed a bit.

And then there is Terry Rozier III. I do believe he thinks he should be starting this weekend on Team LeBron (1st pick!), but was he really expecting to start over GH? Where, at the 2 and Brown at SF?

Im not even gonna mention Smart because he doesn’t care when he plays, he’s giving his all whenever #36 gets called.

So in all honesty, only Rozier could logically be the problem and I don’t feel like giving him credit for all this. Even though Hayward started, he was on a minutes restriction and those guys were still getting adequate minutes themselves.

I think there is a lot more to this than just “Hayward got too much playing time and I’m salty about it.” I think Kyrie and Morris definitely have a part in the “vets vs. youth” picture we are having painted for us.

[rollie mass]

Celtics management have essentially stuck to the plan of Haywoods recovery.It has been tough on everybody
including fans but has to be done.Danny has a huge investment in Haywood and if he is back to his Utah play it is like adding an all star.
All those periods of un-comfortableness and Brad sticking with Gordon playing him in crunch time and getting those reps certainly showed last night and right on cue.
There is still the back end of season and if Hayward makes the strides we have seen lately then Danny and Brad's stay the course will be applauded.

[LarBrd33]

Haywards issues for the majority of the season has been exclusively Mental.

I really don't agree with that.  Physically he hasn't been right, but he's slowly showing more and more of the explosiveness that he use to have.  I think there's reason to be optimistic he's going to turn the corner after the all-star break.