The Celtics are a bad basketball team right now. No energy. No defense. No ball movement. No ability to fight adversity.
The Celtics have been in more clutch situations, which is defined by a 5-point margin in the final five minutes, than any other team in the NBA. Boston is 16-23 in those games, the most losses in the league.
The 2020-21 Celtics are 26th in net rating with a putrid -9.7.
How does that compare to the 2019-20 team? They were 23-19 in “clutch” games with a 4.4 net rating. They didn’t crumble at the sign of a team coming back or by an early deficit.
The Timberwolves and Cavaliers have a better net rating and winning percentage than Boston in clutch games. That’s pathetic.
You’d be insane to believe this team can win a title. But let me explain why I still believe this team can make noise in the playoffs.
Reason 1: The Bench when fully healthy shouldn’t be awful.
We really haven’t seen the entire 8 or 9-man rotation healthy together this season.
A bench of Evan Fournier, Tristan Thompson, Payton Pritchard, Romeo Langford and Jabari Parker is a C+/B- group on paper. Brad Stevens hasn’t been able to coach with his full array of options this year.
No team in the NBA has been impacted more by COVID than the Celtics. The team has had player/players in the health and safety protocols for 167 days as of April 26. The next closest team? Dallas with just 118 days.
Some of the best teams in the league have been impacted very little by COVID compared to Boston. The Jazz have the 19th most days in COVID protocols with just 30.
Fournier has spent the second most amount of days in COVID protocols among all NBA players with 27, one behind the league leader and one day ahead of his new teammate Tristan Thompson.
Romeo Langford spent 24 days in the protocol. That’s the third, fourth and seventh most days in the protocols of all players. Don’t forget Tatum also spent 18 days in protocol along with the Timelord with 12 days.
Some people downplay the 167 days in COVID protocols. It’s really hard to develop chemistry and continuity as well as shooting rhythm when Stevens is forced to constantly shuffle guys in and out of the rotation.
No lineup in the NBA has played more games (49) and minutes (676) together this season than the Suns starting five.
The Celtics starting lineup? Just 10 games and 111 minutes played together And if we include Daniel Theis, that number increases to just 17 games total and 190 minutes.
(Credit: Fansure’s NBA COVID-19 Database)
Reason 2: Kemba Walker is playing better and with more heart than any other Boston player.
As bad as the start of the season was for Walker, he’s bounced back to be within a point of his career shooting percentage of 41.8%. His FG percentage has increased month over month since the start of the season and is at 45% for the month of April. His free throw shooting has always been good but now it is great -- 91%.
He looks like he is playing pain free and with a ton of effort. Kemba leads the Celtics in charges drawn with 20. That’s eight more than any other Boston player.
Charges are a true hustle and heart start. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have zero charges drawn in over 3,800 minutes. Zero.
Reason 3: Evan Fournier can’t possibly play any worse!
I blame Jeff Teague. He left town and somehow transferred his inability to hit twos to Fournier. Evan is hitting only 25% of his two point attempts. This won’t last. He is way too talented to be playing this poorly with this collection of talent around him.
Fournier was able to score 17 or more points a game for the past six seasons in Orlando with essentially a bunch of Smush Parkers and Guerschon Yabuseles around him.
Reason 4: Little to no matinee games in the playoffs and no back to backs
The Celtics are 0-3 this year in games starting at 2 p.m. or before and aren’t even competitive. Boston has lost these games by an average of 18 points. This team sleepwalks in early timeslots.
The 2019 playoffs (I’m throwing out last year’s schedule due to it being in a bubble with no travel) featured just three games that tipped off before 2 p.m. in the entire first round.
Boston is 5-7 in back to backs this year and it feels so much worse.
Reason 5: Robert Williams likely returns Tuesday night
The dropoff from having Tristan Thompson as your back up big man to Luke Kornet has been underestimated. Kornet ideally should never see the court and likely will not in the playoffs. He would get abused and picked on as teams ramp up their matchup hunting.
No Robert Williams means no above the rim factor on both ends of the floor. No one’s throwing lobs to Thompson or Kornet and those two are not rim protectors.