One of the things I try to avoid most completely as a writer covering the Boston Celtics is reacting too quickly to a chain of events, or a small sample size.
The NBA, after all, is a highly complex and complicated league in which 30 teams play a highly complex and complicated game. Broad patterns (Kelly Olynyk’s 35.1 percent shooting from long range in his rookie season, for example) are much more likely to be indicative of future success than small ones (Olynyk’s 25.6 points per game in the last three games of his rookie season). Context is crucial in the NBA, and few things offer context better than a large sample size.
So when I — like hundreds of others already have — point out that the Boston Celtics have begun the Brad Stevens-era 0-6 in the postseason, I want to be very clear that in no way am I saying Stevens can’t coach in the postseason, or that his teams are unable to deal with pressure-packed situations. That would be an incredibly hot (and also bad) take, similar to saying that when the 2013-14 Celtics started 0-4, Stevens didn’t know how to win a regular-season basketball game.
That being said, for an antsy Celtics fanbase, it would be very comforting if Boston could just pull out tonight’s game.
There was always a very real chance that the Celtics would lose in the first round this season, no matter what seed they received, and those chances rose when they had the poor luck of drawing the Atlanta Hawks. A 48-34 record is better than many analysts predicted for Boston before the season, which should make any kind of postseason success gravy on an already gravy-laden pile of potatoes. Future picks! Great contracts! Flexibility! The Celtics lead a charmed rebuilding life where any success is celebrated guilt-free at the expense of the Brooklyn Nets’ failures.
Given that context, a second-consecutive winless postseason should barely rankle, but it does. This is largely due to Boston’s proven ability to outperform expectations, particularly under Stevens. Sure, the Celtics have limits, but they have shown the ability to overcome them in some capacity every season. As unfair as it seems in the broader picture, those successes make any postseason failures difficult to deal with.
CelticsHub’s Ryan Bernandoni smartly pointed out after Game 2 that Stevens needs to make some adjustments, and that making those adjustments can be difficult for him — Stevens also has an aversion to overreaction, which is part of the reason for my own.
But getting a win would not be about Stevens, no matter what the narrative will say. It would be about a beaten and bruised team missing several of its best players, most notably its best shooters, overcoming an Atlanta team that is quite frankly more talented. That’s not a surprise — if both teams were completely healthy (a construct that almost never happens in the postseason), the same would probably still be true.
Getting a win would be about the players — about Jae Crowder and Isaiah Thomas battling through injuries that have visibly limited them in the first few games, Marcus Smart making winning plays, Amir Johnson continuing his level of play. Any win the rest of the way will reflect on them far more than it would reflect on the coaching staff.
Brad Stevens is probably going to be with this team for as long as he chooses to be, no matter what his postseason record is going into the 2016-17 season. The same is not true of Boston’s core. You can bet Danny Ainge, Mike Zarren and the Celtics decision makers are watching this postseason run with significant interest. Those men are well aware of context — they know that the Celtics would be a lot more likely to a win postseason game if Bradley could play, and if Crowder, Thomas and Olynyk were all fully healthy. But they also know that this is a team with clearly defined limits, and if putting together a team whose limitations are less clearly defined means moving players around, they won’t hesitate to do so. Winning a game or two — making this series competitive without full health — would muddy the limits on the current roster.
Postseason failures won’t define this current iteration of the Celtics — this gritty, determined, hard-working group that resonates so perfectly with the aesthetic of the city of Boston. But overachieving in the postseason actually could define them. That’s pretty important context to follow tonight.
Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.
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