It has not been the year for the Boston Celtics. Last night’s 119-115 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder needs to be rock bottom. Any further down than the Cs are now and that extension that Brad Stevens signed last summer before the Lake Buena Vista bubble down in Walt Disney World’s Wide World of Sports complex is going to be under the world’s largest microscope by every single NBA talking head…including this one.
Jayson Tatum, Kemba Walker, and Robert Williams were all absent, but so was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and outside of him, the Thunder shouldn’t have anyone dropping 20+ on them, no matter how depleted the roster is.
There Boston was though, dropping a winnable game against a team that had not seen their hand raised in 14 games. Give credit where it is due, OKC is filled with scrappers that are proving their place in the league and playing the game the right way. There’s a semblance of a supporting cast in Oklahoma City, unlike what the Houston Rockets have going on right now.
There’s no rest to be had either, with the Charlotte Hornets on the schedule. A loss tonight would ignite Boston Celtics Twitter in flames. Kendrick Perkins already thinks the team should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s easy to be hard on the Cs…but it’s just easy to make excuses.
Because this season, there are legitimate reasons why Boston has underperformed. Here’s 3 Hardwood Houdini has in mind:
Boston Celtics excuse #1: Hardest hit by COVID-19
Every single team across every professional sport is dealing with COVID-19. Beyond that, every single human being across the planet is dealing with the effects of COVID-19 in some form.
In the NBA, due to the league’s Health and Safety protocols, teams are facing an unprecedented number of game absences. That has an obvious effect on how this season has played out.
Boston has been hit by COVID-19 in a way no other team can claim, though:
The @celtics missed 167 games for COVID according to Fansure.
— Sean Deveney (@SeanDeveney) April 28, 2021
Pacers, Cavs, Pels, Hawks, Pistons, Clips, Blazers, Thunder, Warriors, Hornets & Magic combined to miss 157 games bc of Covid.
11 teams and the Celtics missed 10 games more COVID games than the entire group combined.
Numbers don’t lie folks. Hard to win consistently when you don’t have the same group of players due to having a virus that has impacted millions globally.
Boston Celtics excuse #2: Strength of schedule
The reason why the Boston Celtics haven’t won as many games as many expected may be because the season isn’t over yet.
There are still 10 games remaining on the slate, and business is far from finished around the league. While an easy thing to point at is the strength of the top team in the conference, the Brooklyn Nets, and say the Cs are unlikely to match their firepower considering they reached 42 wins with a far from healthy lineup themselves, a harder thing to do is practice patience.
Boston could rip off eight wins in these final 10 games and snag the #4 seed and the panic of last night post-Thunder loss would be a thing of the past very soon.
Playoff non-contenders Orlando, Minnesota, Cleveland, and Chicago profile as easy wins–although so did the Oklahoma City Thunder so who knows–and the New York Knicks façade has to be peeled back at some point. Portland and San Antonio are far from the most difficult draws out west either.
Things could end up just fine in Beantown, and given Brad Stevens’ confidence in his players and his city, they should almost (I say almost because, ya know, 2020-21) be expected to.
Boston Celtics excuse #3: Short offseason
Typically, the most successful teams in the NBA will have the shortest offseasons because–by nature of playing deep into the playoffs–they have played more games and have had less time to prepare for next season.
The discrepancy between some teams (New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks) who had a nine-month offseason and others (Boston Celtics, Miami Heat) who played deep into September (and in the Heat’s case, October) is the most profound in the history of the league.
COVID-19 has been slamming the Cs in a more profound way than any other team, but other teams have almost benefitted from not having to play as many games as usual while also having more of an offseason.
Obviously, no one has benefitted from COVID-19 as I am talking about from the perspective of wear and tear.
That said, time in the Lake Buena Vista bubble was notoriously less fun than life in the outside world, and Boston had the third longest stay out of any team.
The short offseason has clearly taken its toll on the Cs.
With all of these excuses said, though, Boston could render them naught with a strong finish to the season.