Post-Mortem: 2021-22 Boston Celtics

[L3GEND4RY]

My team just lost the finals. It absolutely sucks.

Am I going to spend the next few weeks in every single Warriors thread whining like you? Absolutely not.

Why would I even be salty? You realize your team lost. If anything I m glad I got spared the heartbreak of losing the finals. But hey keep on insulting guys.

Insulting? What are you talking about?

You’ve been in every Celtics related thread trolling and labelling pro Celtics posts as homerism. Haters gonna hate.

No kidding. It’s really bizarre when you think about it. I remember that Prokorov poster for the Nets and now this weirdo. Some people have nothing better to do.

[KGtabake]

We'll be fine. We must find a Horford replica soon tho.

[bearadonisdna]

Unfortunately if the fmvp didn’t exist they would have the title .
They got the pieces but it’s mental .
Of course both their stars can improve on the butterfingers .
RW3 good but the sub hurt their momentum , probably rookie mistake by coach but team lost their identity when Tatum wasn’t their best player.

Marcus smart was playing great but celts still was losing .
In game 6
He had best on court presence +7.

[Raps in 4]

Blow it up.

[ShootersShoot]

Great fanbase..young core..theyll be back soon enough..just need a decent #3

[Jerry Maine]

Unfortunately if the fmvp didn’t exist they would have the title .
They got the pieces but it’s mental .
Of course both their stars can improve on the butterfingers .
RW3 good but the sub hurt their momentum , probably rookie mistake by coach but team lost their identity when Tatum wasn’t their best player.

Marcus smart was playing great but celts still was losing .
In game 6
He had best on court presence +7.

True, if Curry didn't exist Boston definitely would have won, even with Wiggins taking Tatum's soul.

[bearadonisdna]

Unfortunately if the fmvp didn’t exist they would have the title .
They got the pieces but it’s mental .
Of course both their stars can improve on the butterfingers .
RW3 good but the sub hurt their momentum , probably rookie mistake by coach but team lost their identity when Tatum wasn’t their best player.

Marcus smart was playing great but celts still was losing .
In game 6
He had best on court presence +7.

True, if Curry didn't exist Boston definitely would have won, even with Wiggins taking Tatum's soul.

Haha yea , curry being born was a tough hitch for the Celtics to overcome.

[makubesu]

Feels like the Celtics will be the 2022-2023 Phoenix Suns, huge expectations but fall short when father time catches up to Horford. Upgrading point guard position to a pass first 1 most likely means sacrificing defensive versatility, which was crucial for their switch everything defense. They’d be scary with Rubio and Horford having enough gas in the tank for one more run. Think its more likely they are a 2nd round out next year though

Good comparison. Ideally Grant improves and can be that kind of glue guy, but we will see.

It’s also a question of Tatum’s ceiling. If you want to win it all, you need to have arguably the best guy in the league. The Celtics didn’t even have the best guy in any of their playoff series. It would’ve been quite fluky for us to have won.

[Froob]

We could try to make a run at Beal, otherwise try to use the Fournier TPE and make another run. Not sure we can beat the Bucks with Middleton back.

[Champ1on]

The thing i really believe is that Marcus Smart has to really work on his leg work next year, squats and stuff, because he seems to fall down and collapse a lot.

Are you saying that's a conditioning problem? I was here thinking he was trying to draw a whistle from the refs the whole time.

[Jerry Maine]

I think he should get his inner ear checked.

Just for fun I counted in game 4 how many times in the fourth quarter he hit the floor. I think I counted 7 from memory, although one was forcing a jumpball and another drawing a legit over the back foul, both with Looney. He was launched into space by all 100lb's of Jordan Poole going for an offensive rebound.

There was some poetic justice in the push off Klay three after he went sprawling, and then the near hit to the face on Poole, both in game 5. Live by the sword.....

Say what you like about Dray, but at least he stays on his feet and can take contact

[Jerry Maine]

double

[holdenwait]

As a neutral who has only started watching Celtics more regularly during playoffs, I was impressed by Brown a lot, crafty scorer. But at some point isn't him and Tatum too similar as far as the skillet being on offer?

They need a PG who is playmaking first, Smart trying to create for himself or others is a bit painful at times

[Childs]

Read on Twitter

[Celtics1993]

This was our one shot and they blew it. I don't see this team making it back to the Finals anytime soon

[nfmos]

The thing i really believe is that Marcus Smart has to really work on his leg work next year, squats and stuff, because he seems to fall down and collapse a lot.

Are you saying that's a conditioning problem? I was here thinking he was trying to draw a whistle from the refs the whole time.

haha no i was being sarcastic, yeah he was definitely trying to draw fouls. But i would hope someone like Harden would have shown people by now that concentrating so much on drawing fouls will only get you so far, and at some point you need to be able to execute even when the refs swallow their whistles.

[weekend_warrior]

I'm super interested how the Celtics will move forward. To me it feels like they have a big decision to make: either come back with a very similar team or try to use of on their good pieces to make a little bit of a shift in style. As currently constructed, they have great defense and 2 high-level scoring options but they are lacking a reliable offensive hub that can also playmake or even more generally in the playmaking aspect. With that, they have relatively small margin for error due to offensive limitations.
However, they could risk their defensive identity and cohesiveness by moving one of their main pieces.

They have a bunch of really nice pieces on their roster (meaning: good to great players on good to great contracts):
Brown, Tatum, R. Williams, Smart. They all are at worst fairly paid.

If they could consolidate the remaining pieces and get a starting quality guard to add to the group above, they'd be almost unstoppable.

Unfortunately, the salaries they could trade away don't come with much value. Derrick White at 16 million for next season looks really bad and Theis at 9 million doesn't look great either. You probably need to attach draft capital to get something useful back here. This is why they might decide to make a bigger move if they feel like it's unrealistic to make it back to the finals next year with that group.

[dribble1614]

very surprising offensive rating of 9th in the league. based on the finals performance they look more like a 20-25th ranked offense.

[weekend_warrior]

very surprising offensive rating of 9th in the league. based on the finals performance they look more like a 20-25th ranked offense.

This is why relying on RS stats can sometimes be a bit deceiving. They have a lot of very solid shooters and 2 great scorers on that team. In a typical RS game that should give good results.

But teams don't specifically gameplan in the RS. During a PO series, tendencies become more obvious and you need to have reliable backup plans. The Celtics didn't really have that.

You could see it in the final series: the longer that series lasted, the better GSW managed to clamp down on and the Celtics found very little reliable offense in the last 3 games.

[Jerry Maine]

very surprising offensive rating of 9th in the league. based on the finals performance they look more like a 20-25th ranked offense.

Great defense will make you look worse, and that's what happened. Dubs are elite defensively, Curry did a great job on switches and is noticeably more buff than ever before in his career, as well as being a savvy vet. Dray was Dray, after he was benched in game 4 anyhow, and when able to stick to single coverage Wiggins took Tatum's lunch. Klay did okay on Brown and GP2 and Looney played their roles well.

Conversely the Dubs had enough offensive counters to Boston's also stellar defence. I think a critical mistake was going away from trying to stay with single coverage on Curry for game 5, which turned out to be the only game Curry's outside shot was off. They panicked after his game 4 explosion and went off script. They needed game 5, I don't think there was much belief left after that loss