The season may have ended yesterday. If they end up playing in the play-in tournament, there are two bad scenarios. If they win the 7-8 game, they are the 7th seed and face Brooklyn, a team they went 0-3 against this season and not once played them with Durant, Kyrie, and Harden in the same game. If they lose the 7-8 game and face the winner of the 9-10 game, it could be very likely they miss the actual playoffs. I could easily see this team looking past the 9-10 winner, and being more concerned about what they need to do against Philadelphia. That is how the team has seemingly operated all season with looking past the opponent in front of them and focusing on team’s ahead on their schedule. Too many times, they don’t respect opponents with worst records than them, and act as if they just show up, the other team will just lay down.
Call me a bad fan but I'd rather they lose a couple of close games against Charlotte and Washington than have them make it to Round 1 and get their doors blown off by Kyrie and co. or by Embiid / Simmons.
I understand the sentiment, but I just cannot wrap my head around this team being a middling or bad team. I am sick of the excuses that this guy got hurt, or they played 10 games without (name your player). However, what Van Gundy said on Friday night resonated with me. The term "Next Man Up" implies that all the players are equal, which they are not. What I don't understand is whether the Celtics are just cursed with injuries and the like, or is it something with team conditioning or the staff?
I have mixed feelings about blaming Brad, but I do think he was dealt a raw hand. The players' health has been so inconsistent, it has forced him to play less than ideal lineups and his gameplan needs to change more game to game than almost any other coach in the league, rather than having the more talented team (which IMO, would be at least 70% of the season, when fully healthy) and forcing the other team to adjust to us.
I am not sure where they should go from here, but I cannot believe this team was in the ECF last year, given what we are seeing now.
Boston is 35-33 on on pace for a 42 or 43 win season over a full 82 game season. I don't really see how anyone would think they'd have been much better than that. Maybe a couple of extra wins (I thought they'd be around 44-49 wins), but this isn't a 50+ win team and never was going to be (without near perfect health). And looking at the standings, NY, and maybe Atlanta, are the only teams that are surprisingly ahead of Boston, though both Indiana and Toronto are behind it, so I think that evens out some.
I never really understood why this board was so high on this particular team. Tatum and Brown are both on the upswing, but they aren't top 10 players and while I think Tatum is a back end top 15 player, it is debatable. Brown is probably in the 20-25 range and Walker is probably in the low 30's. The rest of the team is, quite simply, not very good, including Smart who still mostly acts like he is Michael Jordan on offense. A team that lacks true top end talent and that isn't very deep, needs to be very healthy to be really good (much like Phoenix and Utah both are this year - though they are both deeper than Boston, but it is also why I don't think they are true contenders either). Boston wasn't healthy and doesn't have true top end talent. Given that, this team has performed about as expected.
All that said, if Boston beats Miami tomorrow, the next two games should be wins, which would set up a huge game at NY to close the season. The 4th seed is still in play and the 5th seed may actually be the most likely result, if they beat Miami. If they end up playing NY or Atlanta in the 4/5 match-up, I'd expect Boston to win (Miami would be tougher, but still is doable). It all starts with Miami though. They have to beat Miami.