Boston Celtics: B/R wants to see ultra-small lineup from Cs

The wait is finally over — Boston Celtics basketball is officially back!

After a rather long and busy four months of inaction, the Cs find themselves taking to the court Wednesday for their regular-season tip-off matchup against divisional rival, the New York Knicks.

Like many fans, we at the Houdini are unbelievably excited to see what this new-look squad has to offer, for the fresh faces found on the roster will now give the coaching staff a much wider variety of lineups they can roll out than in comparison to what they had to work with in 2020-21.

While we at the site have discussed some individual players that could be primed for an increased role this year, other outlets have already gone about and take things a step further, discussing specific five-man sets in which they would love to see utilized.

Most recently, Bleacher Report writer, Dan Favale, wrote a piece discussing one lineup for each ball club in the association that he feels fans “need” to see and, for the Boston Celtics, he opted to go with a small-ball set — a very small-ball set.

The proposed lineup reads as follows:

• PG – Payton Pritchard
• SG – Dennis Schroder
• SF – Marcus Smart
• PF – Jaylen Brown
• C – Jayson Tatum

Though he admittedly stated that such a lineup is rather unlikely considering the sound depth they have within their big man arsenal, Favale believes that, should they ever unload such a squad at the same time on the hardwood, it could easily lead to a much more fluid offense filled with easier set-ups due to the number of ball-handlers it would possess:

"The sheer number of bigs on the Boston Celtics roster suggests they’ll rarely, if ever, downsize to this degree.Do you care to sigh in exasperation right along with me?In the event they do embrace pocket-sized combinations, this is not the most likely route. Josh Richardson is bound to curry consideration over one of Schroder and Pritchard. But this unit offers five ball-handlers—and a whole lot of entertainment value if Pritchard brings his sugar-high dribble attacks from summer league with him."

In all likelihood, we’ll be seeing far more of the highly unpopular double-big sets this season than we will ultra-small ones. However, should this type of lineup ever hit the floor together, it would undoubtedly be an entertaining one (on offense, specifically) for fans to watch, to say the least.