Boston Celtics: 3 key takeaways from this year’s postseason

After finishing a disappointing seventh in the Eastern Conference this past season, the Boston Celtics are now entering the process of retooling the roster.

While for most teams playoff experience is significant no matter how long their run lasts, that isn’t really the case for the current roster as the core players in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart were all in tow for each of the C’s three Eastern Conference Finals appearances in the four years prior to this season.

At this point, fans are starting to get impatient, and at least one championship with Jayson Tatum leading the team is becoming the expectation rather than just a dream scenario, considering both Tatum’s individual success and the team’s success since he was drafted.

However, in order to build a true title contender in the coming years, new President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens, needs to not only learn from the team’s recent mistakes, but also take away certain lessons from current teams competing for a championship, like the Bucks and the Suns who just faced off in the Finals.

Starting off with…

Boston Celtics key takeaway No. 1) Depth

This first takeaway relates to something that most Boston Celtics fans already knew too well entering the playoffs — the roster severely lacked depth this season.

Not only was the need for depth hammered home throughout the C’s underwhelming, injury-riddled season, but it was further proven by other teams in these playoffs as well.

A big headline of this year’s playoffs was injuries to star players, so the teams that made it far either had a ton of depth to make up for their injuries or had less significant injuries than other teams.

Taking a look at Phoenix, other than Chris Paul with some injury scares early on and Dario Saric’s serious injury towards the end of their playoff run, they were relatively lucky when it came to health.

Along with that increased luck compared to other teams, due to their great depth the Suns were able to beat a great team like the Lakers in the first round despite Chris Paul playing hurt for a lot of the series, as the roster consisted of a plethora of young and talented role players who were able to step up and help support their star players.

While depth was a key factor in a Finals run for the Suns, lack of depth was the downfall for their first opponent in the Western Conference favorites, Los Angeles Lakers.

With LeBron James playing through injury and Anthony Davis going down towards the end of the series against the Suns, the Lakers had to rely more on guys like Andre Drummond, Dennis Schroder, and Kyle Kuzma to help support those two as well as help replace some of their production (when Davis went out with injury).

Those three key players did not play up to expectations, leading to a first round exit for a very talented team too reliant on two star players (sound familiar?).

The same can be said for the Eastern Conference favorites, the Brooklyn Nets, even though they were able to push the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks to seven games, and if not for Durant’s massive feet, they would have won the series and maybe went on to win the title instead.

While the Nets did have decent depth beyond their stars with solid role players like Blake Griffin, Joe Harris, and Jeff Green, they were still very reliant on three players, making their run to a championship much more difficult after two of those players, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, essentially alternated being injured.

Looking at the title winning roster of the Bucks, they didn’t have incredible depth, but they had just enough to overcome an injury to one of their starters, Donte DiVincenzo.

Deadline acquisition, P.J. Tucker, seamlessly replaced DiVincenzo in the starting lineup, and Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton, and Bryn Forbes were able to provide solid production off the bench.

The main thing the Boston Celtics can takeaway from all of this is that even if you don’t necessarily have the most star power among other NBA teams, if you have more depth than others you are putting yourself in position to have a chance at winning a title.

The Suns are a fantastic example of that from this season as previously mentioned, and the Toronto Raptors are another great recent example of that back in 2019.

The Raptors, like the Suns, were able to take advantage of injury riddled teams who had less depth than them to not only make the Finals, but beat the heavily favored but injury plagued Golden State Warriors for the championship.

A rotation of at least eight or nine trustworthy players is a must in the playoffs if you don’t have supreme star power like the Nets or Lakers, which, as of now, the Cs are still in the process of developing that star power, so adding more depth this offseason should be a top priority.

If the Celtics can have not only Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown in terms of rising star power but great depth as well, the roster would at least be in position to win a championship if another fluky year with lots of injuries occurs again in the near future.