How far would we have gotten with a healthy Tatum?

[Muzzy66]

Do you think Tatum going down actually made the difference in this series? Or, do you think that down 3-1, the series was effectively over?

It's a little frustrating to look at how all of the other playoff series have gone so far, and realize that we should have had a fairly easy trip to the Finals.  With Cleveland bounced and OKC facing a Game 7, I'll always look back at this season as a wasted opportunity.

I don't think it would have made a difference because of the way we were playing.

This Celtics squad, if they had their head in it, should have steamrolled the Knicks fairly easily - and if that happened then they would have had an almost guaranteed trip the finals where they probably would have faced a hard fought series with the Thunder. 

But they way they played against he Knicks really left me scratching my head.  This is a team the Celtics have absolutely dominated over the last two regular seasons, and dominated for the first 3 quarters of almost every one of those playoffs games.  It seems almost impossible for us to be THAT dominant over the Knicks, and then to somehow give away every one of those leads and lose the games in the 4th. 

It's so head-scratching that it leaves me almost wondering if they intentionally threw the games for some unknown reason. 

But one thing is for sure - if they continued to play like that then it wouldn't have made a difference if Tatum was there or not, they aren't beating any half decent team in a 7 games series with that type of mentality. 

[DefenseWinsChamps]

My heart says we would have figured it out and given the Thunder a run in the championship.

My head says we would have lost to the Knicks in game 5 at home.

[Phantom255x]

We definitely wouldn't have gotten past Indiana anyways, but I'm still mad that we couldn't beat NY. IND blew a 20 point lead in Game 3, but otherwise they are now up 3-1 and have held on fairly well in the 4th. And Indiana isn't even the team with HCA. Meanwhile the C's blew not one, not two, but THREE 14+ point leads (a few 20+). And in all of the first five games, they had a 14-point lead and were still down 3-2 after that. Ridiculous

At the very least we should have been playing another 1.5 weeks.

[scaryjerry]

Quite frankly they may have lost to the Knicks in 5 instead of 6 with a healthy Tatum?it just wasn?t working and it took his injury for them to try something different and get a Celtic pride/role player kinda win in game 5. They certainly weren?t beating Indiana or OKC.
Had the entire team been healthy and everything go there way like last season? Maybe. But it didn?t?wasn?t there year

[scaryjerry]

Win the finals.   


I think he could have made a huge difference in game 6.

But can they even win game 5? Based on what I was seeing, nope.
Lol. I?d love to live in this delusional land where the Celtics win the championship every year and it?s always some unforeseen circumstance for the reason why they didnt.
They lost in 6 to the Knicks in the second round and were down 3-1 with a healthy Tatum. These are the facts. They werent going to and didn?t win the championship this year.

[gift]

Quite frankly they may have lost to the Knicks in 5 instead of 6 with a healthy Tatum?it just wasn?t working and it took his injury for them to try something different and get a Celtic pride/role player kinda win in game 5. They certainly weren?t beating Indiana or OKC.
Had the entire team been healthy and everything go there way like last season? Maybe. But it didn?t?wasn?t there year

games 1 and 2 were anomalous. they had 20+ point leads in every game except game 6. they were the better team that got burned by old, repeated habits and finished off by injury. had Tatum not been hurt they might've won in 6, but probably (unnecessarily) in 7. then they would narrowly beat the pacers in 6 tough games. i don't want to give my prediction for the finals because the thunder they were the biggest threat all year. in addition to tatum being healthy, jaylen, jrue and kp would've needed to suddenly be healthy in order to have a chance.