Celtics thrive while building for future
Boston utilizes young talent for extraordinary run
BOSTON — The Celtics have brought the unfazed player-replacement philosophy of the Patriots to the NBA.
“Next man up” isn’t supposed to work in the NBA playoffs. It’s supposed to be straightforward — you lose your stars, you lose games. Yet here are the Celtics sending metaphorical “wish you were here” postcards from the Eastern Conference finals to franchise point guard Kyrie Irving and All-Star forward Gordon Hayward.
What the Celtics have done in returning to the Eastern Conference finals to take on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in a series that commences Sunday at TD Garden is remarkable. The Celtics are engaging in the basketball version of industry disruption. They’re Amazon or Uber, rewriting the rules. The Celtics are outliers, both in their playoff success and in the parallel approaches to building a championship contender that have made it possible. Oddity in the NBA
The version of playoff success the Celtics are enjoying doesn’t happen in the NBA, the most stardriven and star-dependent of the major North American pro sports leagues. The Celtics have defied the skeptics, the odds, and NBA convention by winning two playoff rounds without Irving and Hayward. It’s a testament to their culture, coaching, roster depth and brand of basketball.
How many other teams could walk into the playoffs without their top two talents and reserve a date in the conference finals? The Rockets aren’t sniffing the Western Conference finals if James Harden and Chris Paul are out. What would the Cavs be without James and Kevin Love? The answer is the Sacramento Kings. The San Antonio Spurs won 47 games and made the playoffs without Kawhi Leonard this season, but if you subtracted LaMarcus Aldridge as well they would have been cooked like Texas barbecue. The Philadelphia 76ers, dispatched by the Celtics in five games in the Eastern Conference semis, would be long gone if Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons had been unavailable for the playoffs.
The only team that could possibly pull off what the Celtics have is the basketball embarrassment of riches in the Bay Area that is the Golden State Warriors. Subtract Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, and coach Steve Kerr has All-Stars Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, along with 2015 NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala. Season sans Hayward
Here is where we must inject honesty into our praise of the Celtics. We knew Hayward wasn’t going to be a part of this playoff run. He got hurt less than six minutes into the season opener in Cleveland, dislocating his left ankle and fracturing his fibula in gruesome fashion. The Celtics recalibrated, relying on born-ready rookie Jayson Tatum and sophomore swingman Jaylen Brown. They won 55 games without Hayward and established themselves as one of the favorites to reach the conference finals without him.
They morphed from one version of a contender to a different version, led by Irving and Al Horford, the heartbeat of the team. Hayward’s absence is an obstacle the Celtics had overcome. We’re crediting them for it twice now.
The improbable run is really about prospering in the postseason without Irving, a top-10 player in the league who was the fulcrum after averaging 24.4 points per game on a career-high 49.1 percent shooting. Irving’s infected knee was supposed to be the death knell for the team’s postseason aspirations.
Boston’s imperturbable coach, Brad Stevens, said nothing but nyet to that. With his coaching acumen, preparation, and creativity, Stevens is like a sixth man on the court for the Celtics. He draws up great plays and draws the best out of his available talent. He has created a culture of expectation, responsibility, and toughness that doesn’t allow for pity or excuses when key players become unavailable.
“The thing that I would say is that I always hoped that we would get to the point where if things don’t go our way we’re still extremely competitive because we have sort of a foundation in place,” said Stevens, after his team ousted the Sixers. “Again, that’s not a given. Things haven’t always gone our way, but these guys are really talented. They’re really tough. They fit Boston. Hopefully, we’ll keep playing well.” Two rising stars
Of course, the Celtics owe this playoff run to their redoubtable players. The Celtics have an advantage that most teams that have lost star players do not. They have stars under development in Tatum and Brown, the last two No. 3 overall picks, and a starting-caliber NBA point guard behind Irving in third-year man Terry Rozier to turn to.
Tatum (18.8 points per game) is the Celtics’ leading scorer in the playoffs and has scored 20 or more points in his last seven playoff games. Rozier is second at 18.2 points per game. Brown is right behind Horford in scoring at 16.9 points per game and is shooting 48.7 percent from the field in the playoffs and 41.5 percent from 3-point range. That’s not bad for a player whose selection was booed by Celtics fans on draft night in 2016.
“It’s no surprise why we are in this position,” said Horford after the Philly series. “If [Brown] and a guy like Tatum weren’t growing as players we couldn’t have been at this point, so it’s a lot of credit to both of them.” Kudos to Ainge
Give Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge credit, too. He forged a path that allows the Celtics to build the NBA’s brightest future while competing for Banner 18. In the last two offseasons, Ainge signed Horford as a free agent, Hayward as a free agent, and traded for Irving. But save for the last of the Brooklyn picks (this year’s first-rounder) he shipped to Cleveland as part of the Irving deal, he hasn’t sacrificed potential future starts to do so.
The deal with the 76ers to move from the No. 1 pick to the third pick to select Tatum looks like an Auerbachian heist. The Sixers owe the Celtics a firstround pick from the Tatum deal.
It could be Ainge’s version of Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach convincing the Golden State Warriors to send him Robert Parish and the No. 3 pick to move up to No. 1 in the 1980 NBA draft. The Warriors took Joe Barry Carroll. Auerbach used the third pick to take Kevin McHale.
In the end, playing without Irving and Hayward should expedite the Celtics’ arrival as a true championship contender. If Tatum and Brown play like this, Boston has the depth to challenge the Warriors. It’s easy to salivate over what the Celtics could be while appreciating what they are.
The Celtics are bound to eventually overthrow King James in the East. LeBron rules the present, but the Celtics own the future.
They’ve blazed a path this postseason that has the whole league taking notice. They’ve rewritten the laws of contention in the NBA. Christopher L. Gasper is a Boston Globe columnist.