Addressing the Impact of Injuries on the Boston Celtics
By Ian Riaf
With 23 games left in the regular season, the Boston Celtics have little experience together as a healthy cohesive unit
Let’s knock on wood. Why? Because the Boston Celtics have yet to encounter a season-ending injury so far. That being said, the team has had a flurry of minor injuries, especially to their core. This team has yet to get a consistent ten-game stretch together as a cohesive unit.
Kemba Walker is the most recent Celtic to miss time. Currently, ruled out with a knee injury, Walker has yet to play since the All-Star break.
The Celtics stood pat at the March 1st buyout deadline. Looking at the Boston Celtics current roster, they will likely have a very short playoff rotation.
The two most trusted and experienced bench pieces, granted the team is healthy, are Marcus Smart and Enes Kanter. Kanter, who still struggles at times defending the pick-and-roll, continues to be a trusted rebounder and offensive option and currently the only Celtic over 6’10”—aside from Tacko Fall who can’t play in the playoffs due to his contract situation.
Smart will likely close out games in place of Daniel Theis, but this is strictly matchup dependent. This hyper switchable lineup, featuring Walker, Smart, Brown, Hayward and Tatum has only seen 32 total possessions together.
Brad Stevens will probably allocate minutes to Brad Wanamaker, Grant Williams, Semi Ojeleye, and the now newly-cleared Robert Williams. It’s not as if the Celtics haven’t seen any production from the 8th and 9th spots off the bench, but the lack of experience is certainly notable.
Brad Wanamaker played well during the early stretch of the season and in December. He shot 63 percent from beyond the arc in February, on an increased number of attempts.
Despite missing his first 25 three-point attempts, Grant Williams, has filled in nicely as a switchable big man. Javonte Green also had a good January, despite sporadic minutes. But when playoff time comes, the rotation pieces will see their minutes squeezed.
So let’s call this group of Smart and Kanter plus the starting five, the “playoff seven.” The “playoff seven” has played together only eight times this season. That’s 8 of 59 games, 13% of all competitions so far with a healthy, playoff-prepped core.
While eight games is a small sample size, this lineup has gone 3-5 during when healthy. Taking these eight games for what they are worth, the Boston Celtics have yet to string together a healthy stretch where this playoff seven can get consistent chemistry together.
Games missed this season
- Robert Williams — 39
- Gordon Hayward — 18
- Kemba Walker — 13
- Enes Kanter — 12
- Marcus Smart — 11
- Jaylen Brown — 10
- Daniel Theis — 6
- Jayson Tatum — 4
The Celtics current starting lineup, their most-used lineup, has only played a total of 390 total possessions together filtering out garbage time. This ranks 25th among all teams this season.
The average starting lineup has played around 644 possessions together thus far. Despite the lack of time on the floor together, this lineup ranks:
- 93rd percentile in effective field goal percentage
- 93rd percentile in transition points added per possession
- 91st percentile in limiting opponent three-point attempts (giving up the right shot)
- 89th percentile in three-point percentage (44.6%)
- 87th percentile in points per possession
This is a good sign for the Celtics, but more repetition on the floor together wouldn’t hurt this team moving forward.
At the trade deadline, and during the buyout market days, the Eastern Conference got incrementally better—especially at the wing. It will be interesting to see how the Celtics manage their switchable players.
Brad Stevens is already making these slight playoff-esque lineup tweaks. This season, Marcus Smart, Gordan Hayward, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum all have played their most minutes per game during February. Each player saw at least one game where they played over 38 minutes.
With Gordon Hayward out for a significant period, the second most used lineup, at 308 possessions, features Marcus Smart in place of Hayward. As expected, this lineup drops a bit in terms of offensive efficiency but outperforms the starting lineup in specific defensive metrics such as opponents’ points per possession and effective field goal percentage.
It’s tough to know how good a healthy playoff seven is for this Celtics team. Eight games scattered throughout different parts of the regular season will not give us an accurate measure of a playoff-ready Celtics.
Despite two-back to-back games, this upcoming schedule for the Celtics is a mixed bag in terms of difficulty. They have many first and possible second-round playoff tests versus the Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Toronto Raptors.
The Boston Celtics are projected, per Fivethirtyeight.com, to surpass the Toronto Raptors record-wise to obtain the coveted second seed in the East. Kemba Walker, who is expected to return sometime next week, will hopefully allow the Celtics to experiment with their playoff seven.
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