As I watched the momentum of the Celtics eventual NBA Finals Series loss to Golden State swing the wrong way, it took me back to a childhood bitter pill.
The 1985 NBA Finals.
The teenage version of me along with all of my friends of the time, hollered for an entire summer about the first-ever, dreaded two-three-two championship format. It’s a flawed system and had the Celtics not won in 1986 or 2008, you would probably be hearing the gripes about it to this very day. In the two-three-two format (two games at home, three on the road, followed by two more at home), unless the series goes seven games, it favors the visiting team.
After a blowout win for the Celtics at the Boston Garden in game one, the Lakers stole game 2. Then went home to LA for three games. Celtics fans of the time like me could never circle that square, as the Celtics eventually lost in six games. Years later, I learned that it was the great and legendary Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach himself who called for the format change with longtime commissioner David Stern, due to his dislike of the back-and-forth travel.
Oops.
Travel format aside, which has long since been corrected and took me a long time to get over; a deeper look into that series tells the true story. The '85 Celtics were a player away and addressed the issue that very off-season in a stroke of Auerbachian genius. Your 2022 Celtics have a little more work to do but are also just a move or player or two away. The comparisons to what the Celtics did to fortify themselves for the 1986 season and what the Lakers did the following off-season in 1987, should offer Brad Stevens the necessary compass required to get this current oh-so-close Celtics team over the proverbial hump.
In 1985, Kevin McHale really began to emerge beyond the wildly effective sixth man he had been to date. It was clear that it was time for McHale to start at the power forward position. McHale was actually playing two positions, power forward and acting as backup center to Robert Parish. To unlock his full potential, the Celtics needed a true center that could spell Parish to keep him at peak effectiveness for his battles in the paint against the NBA’s giants of the East and against the Lakers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The measuring stick for all things Celtics in the '80’s were the Lakers and that same theory was in the reverse for LA.
They were the ultimate ying to each other’s yang and built themselves to stand up against and defeat the other.
For this well-oiled machine, whose core had already won two championships, it couldn’t be just any center though. He had to fit in, be special and special he was. That missing piece was a healthy Bill Walton. To get the too-often critically injured Walton, the Celtics had to give something up real and that was former NBA Finals MVP (1981), Cedric Maxwell.
The talented Maxwell out. Bird and McHale now starting forwards together. Parish and Walton switching in the middle. The rest is history. The richest of sports history. Auerbach now had the perfect mix on the court to defeat the Lakers. Though the Lakers didn’t do their part, losing to Houston in the western conference finals, they learned and applied that same logic that the Celtics executed the previous summer when the Celtics landed Walton.
In the winter of 1987, the Lakers traded for a center and former number one pick to spell the venerable but aging Jabbar. That player was Mychal Thompson, who proved to be a handful for the Celtics in their 1987 NBA Finals series loss to those same Lakers.
There is a double-sided history lesson here for Brad Stevens. One is to simply identify the issues at hand and address them on his roster. Second, however, is to define who or what it is you are building against. Unlike those legendary 80’s teams, the dynamic these 2022 Celtics face is different. The Celtics and the Lakers were the kings of their respective conferences, everything bubbled up to those two giants and their eventual heavyweight battle for the title each spring. It was like Game of Thrones but with only two legitimate houses.
For the Celtics, they have to correct and fortify themselves for another extended, long haul through the east, en route to the NBA Finals. Thinking of their current construct I recall something Danny Ainge said while building the eventual 2008 NBA Finals Champion Celtics. After acquiring Ray Allen at the NBA Draft and Kevin Garnett that summer, hope was restored to the Celtics galaxy. People were rightfully over the top excited but Ainge wasn’t done. Not stopping after those two prominent trades, Ainge kept building that off-season. He acquired the savvy and talented veteran James Posey and the sharpshooting Eddie House.
Posey and House literally willed the Celtics to their epic game four NBA Finals comeback victory in LA.
The team building for the 2008 Celtics didn’t end in the off-season either as Ainge added veteran championship winning point guard Sam Cassell and PJ Brown late in the season.
Lessons can be learned from each of those examples.
Daniel Theis is a fine complement to Robert Williams during the regular season but like the Celtics going into 86’ and the Lakers going into 87’ they need more help underneath. “The Time Lord” is a game-altering presence for the Celtics for sure but his ongoing health risk is a concern. The dynamic a healthy Williams adds to the Celtics, can literally win them a series but can you bank on him being there consistently? Like the Celtics needed Walton and the Lakers needed Thompson, the current Celtics need another big.
There are some free agents that can help sustain the defensive presence underneath that helps define this teams’ makeup. Restricted free agent Deandre Ayton would be the prize but there are cost-effective alternatives like Mo Bamba, Jusuf Nurkic and Mitchell Robison that can help. I’d still like to see the Celtics rectify their failed 2020 trade exemption disaster and try to pry Myles Turner away from Indiana.
Whatever the name, like in '86 for the Celtics and in '87 for the Lakers the player needs to fit into the current mix.
In the more current example from 2008, Stevens would be wise to follow Danny Ainge’s relentless pursuit of Banner 17 with a “we’re not done” mentality. None of the aforementioned Posey, House, Cassell or Brown broke the bank and the 22’ Celtics have more needs.
One is at point guard. A point guard that can simply settle the offense down when Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart cannot is desperately needed. Their ill-timed turnovers that began in the conference championship and did them in during the finals became their eventual undoing.
Point guard has been an issue since Rondo left town. I loved IT but he was a different animal entirely. I’m in no rush to trade Marcus Smart given his defensive dominance but the Celtics cannot pin their very real championship hopes during this Tatum-Brown window, simply on his growth at the position. Just as the 08’ Celtics added Cassell in season, these Celtics would be wise to stabilize their backcourt in the same way. Here are some realistic free agent names that can help in this area and none of them are named Kyrie Irving. (No need for him as chronicled here.)
Jalen Brunson. Ricky Rubio. Tyus Jones. Delon Wright and file this one under – turnabout is fair play, Gary Payton II. Just to name a few. This doesn’t even include the available trade market open to the Celtics, which we have learned, Stevens is far more willing to use than his predecessor from 2017 on.
Either way, as history shows us, self-examining and making the moves to get over that hump is exactly what championship-winning teams do and they do it urgently. Just check your NBA history books.