I saw /u/King_Of_Pants do a
recent post on Reddit which cautioned against glorifying the 2016-17 team. It made me think of a post I've wanted to make about the 2017-18 that I've tried to write a few times now, but abandoned.
Up front, I'm still plenty optimistic about this team. I think we have a real shot to make it out of the Eastern Conference this year. I still have faith Hayward is turning the corner and I continue to see Tatum blossom. We're going to be a menace in the playoffs.
I'm getting a little uncomfortable with how much fans (and possibly some of the young guys on the team) are overstating what Boston accomplished in the playoffs last year. I think we should be honest about it.
Kyrie needed surgery late last season and once he sat out expectations plummeted. Nobody expected anything of this team. Most expected it to be an early first round exit. We had zero pressure and the element of surprise working in our favor.
Final 15 games of the season, the team went 9-7 without Kyrie. That's a solid 49 win pace. We beat some quality teams during that stretch - including an 11 point victory over the Raptors... who subsequently adjusted when they played us again a week later and beat us by 18.
Round 1 - Bucks: We were fortunate to match up with the 44 win Bucks in Round 1. That Bucks team had fired coach Jason Kidd in late January and were being lead by interim coach Joe Prunty. Opinions on Prunty range from "awful" to "mediocre", but plenty has been written about his inability to exploit the team's strengths and manage funky rotation. He used 16 different lineups in Game 7. Nonetheless, the Bucks won all 3 home games and had it not been for Terry Rozier playing out of his butt (Game 7 stats: 26 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block on 10-16 shooting), the Celtics could have certainly lost in the first round of the playoffs. Kudos to Rozier, but it was clear the Bucks didn't respect him and he made them pay. It's funny how many fans push the narrative that the team is better without Kyrie while at the same time pushing the narrative that Rozier is the worst player on the team. These two narratives can't coexist. If you support the illogical idea that "we don't need Kyrie" then you also much support the fact that Rozier catching teams with their pants down in the playoffs by playing like a borderline all-star vaulted us further than anyone expected. Scary Terry Round 1: 17.6 points, 6.7 assists, 4.3 rebounds with 42%/38%/80% shooting. It's why this kid made comments yesterday that suggested he truly believes he's on Kyrie Irving's level and sees him as competition (literally said he didn't see Kyrie as a friend when he's on the court). Anyways, credit us sneaky by the Bucks in 7 games with Rozier's huge performance and questionable coaching (Joe Prunty was promptly dismissed after the playoffs for underachieving)
Round 2 - Philly: Let's be real. The 76ers were just happy to be there. They celebrated their first round victory with emotional speeches and
pouring champagne on their coach. I'd expect nothing less from a team that drops confetti during a loss. They came off that emotional Round 1 victory woefully unprepared. All around the effort and focus just wasn't there. While Boston was certainly youthful as well, Philly's inexperience showed. "Rookie" Ben Simmons had no answer for Boston's defensive schemes. Joel Embiid (clearly frustrated with his face mask) got schooled by the veteran Al Horford (a trend that's continued into this season). Their lack of guard defense was exploited hard - once again Scary Terry played out of his butt (19 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.2 steals with 43%/42%/88%). They had no answer for a hungry Jayson Tatum (averaged 23.6 points on 53% shooting). While Boston's young guys have a right to be proud, more-so the Sixers should be embarrassed. They were widely seen as having more talent and they humiliated themselves. I'm honestly surprised Brett Brown is still coaching them. The Celtics have continued to own Philly this season and hopefully that continues into the playoffs this year - because one could make the case they grossly underachieved.
Round 3 - Cavs: Truthfully, the teams LeBron has played on have a history of letting lesser teams come close to knocking them off. I mean seriously... the 48 win Pacers nearly knocked off the Cavs in Round 1 during that very same playoff run. Cleveland barely snuck by with a 4 point Game 7 victory against Indiana. A couple different bounces and the Cavs get eliminated in the first round. The Celtic/Cavs series reminded me a lot of the 2012 playoffs when the Heat let the elderly Celtics (who played at a 44 win pace that season and barely beat the below .500 Sixers in a 7 game Round 2 series) come close to beating them - until Bosh returned from injury and the Heat rallied. Once again we were making things interesting against LeBron and yet fell short. Let's keep in mind that in addition to almost getting beat in Round 1, that Cavs team was lacking a quality supporting cast around LeBron. Kyrie was no longer there, afterall. Kevin Love wasn't very effective (playoff averages of 14.9 points with 39% shooting and 34% from three). They predictably got steamrolled in in the Finals. In the 4 game sweep, the Warriors beat the Cavs by 10, 19, 8 and 23 points. The idea that Boston went toe-to-toe with a juggernaut isn't all that factual. Since LeBron has left, the Cavs have 14 wins. Meanwhile, despite having an arguably more talented supporting cast, LeBron's own team is currently below .500 and outside the playoff race.
So we went 11-8 in our games vs Bucks, Sixers and Cavs (47 win pace). Impressive run. Unprecedented run, actually... the league has never seen a team so young go so far.
Bottom line: Our kids overachieved for a variety of reasons. Our team had nothing to lose and caught teams off guard with some exceptional (probably unsustainable) play from young guys who had no pressure whatsoever on them. The disrespected Terry Rozier likely played the best basketball he'll ever play in his career. Highly confident Brown and Tatum were exceptional. The injury-riddled roster had a side-effect of consolidating the minutes/rotation and allowing guys to embrace each other and their roles. That likely wasn't repeatable. They were also fortunate in their matchups. I'm not sure Boston would have matched up as well with the Raptors as they did with the Bucks and Sixers.
Honestly, there's an alt universe where Rozier doesn't have a career game and the Bucks coaching staff makes some better decisions - and Giannis knocks off the plucky young Celtics in Round 1. Nobody would have thought any less than Boston since nobody expected anything of them. The young guys would have come into this season humble with an openness to accepting their roles. A guy like Rozier wouldn't have this perception of himself as Kyrie Irving's equal. Likewise, nobody would have projected Boston as a 67 win juggernaut, because much of that was based on the hype of the young team nearly making the Finals and "adding two all-stars to a contender". Instead, they'd be seen as the 50ish win team that played at a 49 win pace without Kyrie, was knocked off in the first round, and had a chance to make some noise with the return of Hayward.
Imagine a world where Boston got knocked off in Round 1 and this season is playing out exactly as it is right now... Boston playing at a 50 win pace and in the mix to make the conference finals despite Hayward continuing to rehab himself towards 100%... It would make a lot of sense. Nobody would have the audacity to argue that this team would somehow be a contender without Kyrie Irving, because there would be no basis for it. It just wouldn't make any sense. Instead... "boston is doing fine... every other team got better and we're still trying to figure out some stuff. We should hopefully go further than we did last year when we were eliminated in the first round."
Conventional thinking was that the deep playoff run would give our young guys experience that would be huge for their confidence and help them contend immediately when the "stars" returned. In reality, it might have actually backfired a bit. If there's any truth to some of these kids thinking they are world beaters, because of that playoff run - it's kind of off base. A lot of unrepeatable circumstances lead to that unprecedented run and they would have been very unlikely to have that same level of success again.
Tl;DR: I think we're going to be fine, but everyone would be best served to ignore the fluky playoff run that happened last year and just pretend we lost game 7 vs the Bucks
Topic: The Myth of the 2018 Playoffs (Read 4816 times)