the Boston Celtics are reminded of the reality of their situation against the Cavaliers
The Boston Celtics created an otherwise unknown aura of confidence after securing the number one seed. Very few would have dared to say the Celtics could have a chance to win the East, but they looked like a team that should finally be able to compete against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
After the first two games, there has been no such competition. The Celtics have played miserably, failing to live up to their own standards, while getting a reminder of what a finished product can look like.
After suffering a franchise worse loss in game two in the wake of an apparent injury to Isaiah Thomas, who is going to be limited at best the rest of the way, the Celtics have a better understanding of what a team needs to look like to say they are done rebuilding.
The Cavaliers have successfully done two things that Danny Ainge himself has hinted at in the past. Firstly, this team does not have all the pieces. There are holes on this roster, and it really is unacceptable to not have a set fifth starter in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics need to make sure that starting unit gets their final piece in order to take out their biggest liability. The Celtics need that stability and consistently, and you need five starters that can all have an impact against the Cavaliers.
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The bench also has a lot of personnel issues. The Celtics have absolutely no front court depth, and that has forced them to go to less comfortable lineups that may not work as well. On top of that, a team that depends so much on three point shooting, has to be shooting off the bench, and they need many different options.
Not even Kelly Olynyk could be a trusted shooter coming off the bench all season, and that is unacceptable. The Celtics do not need 40 percent three point shooters off the bench, but they do need players that they can trust to be threats and that will hit their open shots way more often than they do right now.
The Celtics know that this roster is missing too many pieces to contend with a powerhouse like the Cavaliers, who have embraced speed and shooting and have given LeBron James the perfect tools around him to play like that.
The other reality is that even if the Celtics fill all those holes and make sure their lineup is made up in a way that does not kill them with matchups, they have a lot of players that need to improve. If the Celtics do not go out and get a free agent, they need these young role players to be a lot more than just role players.
The Celtics have given Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier and Jayen Brown significant roles in the playoffs, and all of them are far from a finished product. These players have the kind of high end potential to given the Celtics the kind of lineup depth that is necessary to keep up with the Cavaliers, and that development could be the most important part of the rebuilding process.
The Celtics know that they still need to rebuild part of the roster, and they know they have players that have a lot of developing to do. In many different ways, this team is an unfinished product, and the Cavaliers have exposed all their problems.
When the Celtics go up against other teams that are not quite complete enough, they can get by. If the Celtics have ways of attacking the opponent that can make up for their issues, they can get by.
If the Cavaliers are the standard of having a contending team, then the Celtics will not reach that height until they no longer need opposing weaknesses to take advantage of. The Celtics need to trust their roster top to bottom, and they need some of these young players to develop into the kind of talent that James has around him, and who will be more than just trusted on both ends
For as shocking as the blowouts feel to fans, this should not be too much of a surprise. A lot of people expected them to contend more, but the reality is that at no point in this season have the Celtics looked like a team that should be able to beat the Cavaliers, especially now that they look like the team everyone expected all year long.
The one luxury is that this is now the second time the Celtics have seen the Cavaliers in the playoffs in the Stevens era. Most rebuilding teams do not get that first hand experience against the top team, until they become a final product, but thats how you get results like the Raptors, where the debilitating series loss is a prompt to blow things up.
The Celtics know they do not have to blow things up, and now they have a better idea of how good this team needs to be by the time the rebuilding is done.
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It is still a long game, the Celtics have 20 year old Brown, the top pick likely to be a teenager, then another potential top three pick in 2018, on top of their draft and stash players from last year. The Celtics now see how much better they need to be against the Cavaliers, but they also know that there are going to be a lot of different options to get to that point.