Al Horford’s defense will continue to be vital after the Boston Celtics add their top talent next season
The Boston Celtics will be going into next season with true championship expectations. When you add Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward to a team that got to game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals against LeBron James, you have to deal with a the highest standards that exist in the NBA.
When you add on the fact that they are joining a 20 and 21 year old who are already playing well beyond their years, with all kinds of room to improve, and they are establishing a level of talent that might be unprecedented.
Keep in mind, both Irving and Hayward are still at the very beginning of their prime. The is a realistic scenario where what we see from Irving, Hayward, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will be the absolute best basketball of their careers, and that should absolutely terrify the rest of the NBA.
Right now, the entire Celtics core is either at the very beginning stages of their prime, or have not even reached it yet. These guys are all entering what could be the best situations of their career, with a coach that has built a reputation on getting the most out of his players.
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The only player the Celtics have any reason to think might regress next season is Al Horford. Keep in mind, he is coming off the best season of his career. He absolutely should have been a defensive player of the year finalist, while shooting just under 50 percent overall and just under 43 percent from three.
Horford brought his game to a new level in his 11th season, but any time someone is on the other side of 30, you have to question how they can maintain things. When you thin about how much is going to be asked of Horford to do on defense playing beside three wings and a point guard, it is vitally important for him to be able to keep up what he was physically capable of last year.
Horford needs to be strong enough to hold his own inside, and fast enough to go out to the perimeter. The Celtics know they can trust their versatility of their athletes that are certainly in their prime, but the standard Horford set this season may not be attainable next year.
There is no doubt that he is going to be a crucial part of the team. His defense is going to continue to be the most important, and he should be able to maintain his passing and efficient scoring. Horford has a lot of responsibility, but it will be easier for him to maintain what he does on offense than defense.
The Celtics are going to look like a transformed team next season, and they are going to be a lot better at a lot of different things. They will be able to win a lot more games by doing a lot more different things than this season.
That alone will take a lot of pressure off Horford, who was essential to anything the Celtics wanted to win with last year. The Celtics could not maintain any kind of winning if Horford did not impact everything they wanted to do, and a lot of that is by design.
Next: Looking into Jaylen Brown's Role
Next season, a lot of that pressure will be taken off Horford. Nevertheless, if he has a significant drop off on defense, the Celtics could have a lot of regression on that end. They know how many different ways Horford can impact the game, and if he can repeat what he did last season, then this could be the most dynamic and balanced starting unit in the NBA.