After an offseason of change, the new-look Celtics, with eight new faces on the roster, begin their season Wednesday night at TD Garden against the Philadelphia 76ers.
With Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis traded in an effort to get under the NBA’s dreaded second apron, Luke Kornet and Al Horford gone in free agency, and Jayson Tatum sidelined indefinitely while recovering from a ruptured Achilles, five of Boston’s top nine minute-getters from the past two seasons won’t be on the floor this year.
So what should we expect from the Celtics this season?
Joe Mazzulla hasn’t announced a starting lineup and says they could use 82 different ones. He won’t commit to having a set rotation, either.
That should tell you how unpredictable this group might be.
But there are still predictions to be made. So let’s dive into it.
Derrick White will be an All-Star
White has flirted with All-Star consideration for the last two seasons. This year, he will finally get in.
Tatum accounted for 26.8 points (23% of the team total), 20.3 shots (22% of the team total), 8.7 rebounds (19.2%), and 6.0 assists per game last season (22.9% of the team total). That doesn’t even account for Porzingis (19.5 points, 2.1 assists, 6.8 rebounds), Holiday (11.1 points, 3.9 assists, 4.3 rebounds), Horford (9.0 points, 2.1 assists, 4.8 rebounds), and Kornet (6.0 points, 1.6 assists, 5.3 rebounds).
Somewhere, that production has to be made up. And White (who posted a 25.6% usage percentage in the preseason) will play a significant role in that.
He averaged 21.7 points, 7.0 assists, 6.3 rebounds, and 3.0 (!) blocks through three games in the preseason. And while preseason numbers don’t always translate to the regular season, White will be one of Boston’s highest-used players and will undoubtedly see a boost in his numbers, with the potential to reach new career highs in points (16.4), assists (5.2), and rebounds (4.5).
Jaylen Brown will make his second All-NBA team
Since earning Second Team All-NBA honors in 2022-23, Brown has finished just shy of cracking the list again. In 2023-24, he narrowly missed a spot on the Third Team by 20 points. Last season, he had an outside chance but didn’t reach the 65-game threshold required to qualify. Assuming he reaches 65 games, Brown should find his way back on the list this season.
The scoring will be there. It comes down to whether his playmaking continues to improve after he bumped his assists from 3.6 to a career-high 4.5 last season.
In the 10 games he played without Tatum last season, Brown averaged 24.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 6.7 assists, which are All-NBA numbers. Notably, his playmaking typically improves when Tatum is out. Playing at a faster pace also only helps him, as he is one of the best players in the league in transition.
Brown seems excited about the opportunity to carry this team. He is more than up for the challenge.
The Celtics will be among the league leaders in forced turnovers
The Celtics have finished second, second, and fourth in defensive rating over Joe Mazzulla’s three seasons as head coach. But as good as they’ve been defensively, they haven’t been a team that forces many turnovers.
In 2022-23, they averaged just 12.7 forced turnovers per game, ranking 26th in the league. That number dipped to 12.0 per game in 2023-24, last in the NBA, and was 12.8 per game last season, ranking 27th. Their 986 total turnovers forced in 2023-24 were the second-fewest in franchise history. The 2022-23 and 2024-25 totals of 1,040 and 1,048 weren’t far behind, ranking sixth- and seventh-fewest in team history.
Forcing turnovers has been something the Celtics have stressed, wanting
to do more of over the last couple of seasons, and this is the year they will, as they deploy a more aggressive, chaotic defense.
As the Celtics ramp up defensive pressure, take “calculated risks,” and speed up the opposition, the turnovers will come. Expect the Celtics to finish top 10 in forced turnovers this season, a complete 180 from recent years.
Hugo Gonzalez will double the number of games played compared to any previous rookie under Mazzulla
Historically, it’s been tough for rookies to find the court under Mazzulla. JD Davison (2022) played just 12 games in his rookie season. Jordan Walsh (2023) only nine, and Baylor Scheierman (2024), 31. Now, part of that, of course, is due to the talent on those teams. So perhaps the different circumstances make this a bit of a cop-out, but don’t expect Hugo Gonzalez to follow the trajectory of past rookies, especially as the Celtics plan to deploy a deeper rotation.
It wasn’t really clear what to expect from the 19-year-old when he was drafted from Real Madrid. But part of his appeal was his experience. He’d been in Madrid’s system for nearly a decade, joining the club’s youth team at just 10 years old. He made his debut with the senior team in 2022-23 at just 16, becoming the fourth-youngest player in team history. He won two Spanish championships, two SuperCups, and a Copa del Rey. That winning environment, and the teammates he did it with (10 players with NBA experience on last year’s team alone), was part of the draw with Gonzalez, who appears ready to contribute.
The instincts are there, especially on the defensive end.. He is smart and physical. He has the tools to contribute in this rotation, especially with the Celtics’ emphasis on pace and chaos. Expect Gonzalez to contribute this season.
The Celtics will once again lead the NBA in made threes
Last season, the Celtics set a new NBA record with 1,457 made three-pointers, surpassing the previous mark of 1,362 set by Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and the 2022-23 Warriors. Three of the top five single-season three-point totals in NBA history belong to Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics, with the 2023-24 team ranking third (1,351) and the 2022-23 squad fifth (1,315). The 2018-19 Rockets (1,323) sit fourth.
Boston also set a new league record with 17.8 threes made per game, eclipsing the 16.7 mark set by the 2020-21 Utah Jazz. With that volume came the attempts, as they launched 48.2 per game, breaking the previous record of 45.4 held by the Houston Rockets.
Eight players made at least 100 threes last season. Four of those players — Tatum (250), Horford (114), Holiday (108), and Porzingis (103) — won’t be on the floor this season, although Tatum could return.
Still, the Celtics have plenty of capable shooters. Derrick White (265) and Payton Pritchard (255) finished fourth and fifth in three-point makes, respectively, and they’ll continue to hunt the three-ball. Anfernee Simons (215) had the 17th most three-pointers made last season and should have plenty of opportunity.
Sam Hauser remains one of the league’s most consistent shooters, never shooting below 40 percent from three in his career. Jaylen Brown is a respectable career 36% shooter on 5.3 attempts per game.
Even without the stretch-five they’ve had in recent years, the Celtics will still fire away, and they should.
The Celtics will be among the league leaders in pace
As alluded to above, pace will be the theme for the Celtics this season. They don’t have the same level of talent on the floor to ease into their offensive sets and attack mismatches, so they’re shifting their play style by speeding things up on both ends of the floor.
It’ll be much different from what we’ve seen in recent years. Last season, the Celtics ranked 29th in pace (96.59). That won’t be the case this year.
Mazzulla appears willing to go deeper into his rotation to keep the intensity and tempo high. They finished seventh in pace (106.13) during the preseason — a significant jump from last year. They also ranked sixth in offensive rebounding percentage (36.4%) and sixth in turnovers forced (19.8%), both of which figure to be hallmarks of this faster, more aggressive Celtics team.
Defensive rebounding will be the weakness with this team
The Celtics grabbed only 65.7% of defensive rebounds through their four preseason games. Opponents averaged 16.3 offensive rebounds per game, resulting in 19.8 second-chance points per game. Even with Mazzulla pulling anyone who allowed an offensive rebound, it remained a problem — and it’s likely to continue all season.
Tatum, their best rebounder, is sidelined indefinitely. Al Horford and Luke Kornet, who ranked second and third in total rebounds, are gone in free agency. Kristaps Porzingis, who averaged the second-most rebounds on a per-game basis, is now with the Atlanta Hawks. The personnel simply won’t be as strong, and the Celtics will need to make up for it elsewhere.
Defensive rebounding will be this team’s biggest weakness.
Anfernee Simons will be the Sixth Man of the Year (If he stays in Boston)
In two of the last three years, the Sixth Man of the Year has been a Boston Celtic — Malcolm Brogdon (2022-23) and Payton Pritchard (2024-25). That trend continues this season, as Anfernee Simons brings home the John Havlicek Trophy.
Simons averaged 19.3 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.7 rebounds in 70 games (all starts) with Portland last season. He led the team in scoring 28 times and in assists 31 times, averaging 32.7 minutes per game. He’s made at least 200 threes in two of the last three seasons.
The dude is a bucket.
Pritchard, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, averaged 14.3 points, 3.5 assists, and 3.8 rebounds in 28.4 minutes per game last season. The runner-up, Malik Beasley, averaged 16.3 points, 1.7 assists, and 2.7 rebounds. Naz Reid, who won it for the 2023-24 season, averaged 13.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.3 assists.
Is Simons capable of those numbers? Absolutely. Of course, his defense will need to improve to keep him on the court — a challenge he seems willing to accept and meet.
As long as he stays in Boston, he’ll be the Sixth Man of the Year. But with his $27.7 million expiring contract, he remains a trade candidate for the Celtics, who currently sit roughly $12 million over the luxury tax line and about $4 million above the first apron. If they finish the season above the tax, their payment would be around $39.5 million. Furthermore, if the Celtics don’t view him as part of their long-term plans, they could also explore moving him to yield future assets.
Jayson Tatum returns in late February
Tatum has made it crystal clear that he wants to play this season. And by all accounts, his non-stop recovery process is on the right track.
The Celtics have also been adamant that they won’t rush things. Their top priority is getting Tatum back to 100% healthy.
That said, if he checks every medical box and is FULLY cleared, Tatum — who has logged more combined regular season and postseason minutes than anyone in the NBA since entering the league in 2017-18, and who fights with team leadership to suit up for a Monday night game in Charlotte against the Hornets in January — will be itching to play.
And they should let him. Regardless of how the team is performing, getting him back on the court, reacclimated to NBA speed and rhythm, and ramping up toward rediscovering the best version of himself would be invaluable. It’s going to take time for him to return to his All-NBA form.
By February, nine months will have passed since his Achilles rupture. And if he’s fully cleared, with no further risk, there’s a real chance we could see him back out there.
The Celtics hit the over on their 40.5 wins
Boston’s over-under is set at 40.5, its lowest since the 2014-15 season.
As long as they stay healthy, they will hit that over. The core of Brown, White, Pritchard, and Hauser is too prideful. Guys like Simons, Minott, Garza, Queta, Boucher, Walsh, and Tillman are too hungry, as they are playing with something to prove, and in some cases, what’s next.
It’s fitting that the Celtics used Isaiah Thomas as the voiceover artist for their preseason social media video because this team has the chance to capture the city’s hearts in the same way Thomas’ team did: a scrappy underdog that plays hard every night and just might outplay their expectations.