3 takeaways from the Boston Celtics’ 2022 Preseason

No. 1: The Boston Celtics depth is no longer hollow

One of the major issues of the Boston Celtics of yesteryear was the lack of depth or bench reinforcement beyond a top-heavy starting five. Ime Udoka kept it to a shortened seven or eight-man rotation for the majority of the season. When injury struck the guys who had next simply had no in-game rhythm.

Ideally, a team should be two deep at every position and the Cs may have the luxury in the 22-23 season. The backcourt is stacked with no shortage of options to slide into the rotation or experiment with different lineups. The reigning DPOY, Marcus Smart still mans the helm at the point guard position. There was the adjustment of adding Derrick White to the starters in the wake of Robert Williams missing time.

Malcolm Brogdon is the lead guard off the bench and by many is projected as the favorite in the sixth man of the year race. Payton Pritchard and JD Davison are more than the capable end of pine guards in case of injury.

Jaylen Brown moved over to the 3 spot and Jayson Tatum over to the 4, more in line with where each player was originally drafted. The bench wings and forwards consist of the sharpshooter, Sam Hauser, and versatile 3-and-D forward Grant Williams.

At the center spot it seems, they will be going smaller because Joe Mazzulla values the pace of play. Al Horford will be taking a larger load of minutes this year as the starting five. Luke Kornet and Blake Griffin have been mentioned as the logical backups.

The Boston Celtics through four games were 2-2 and posted the number one team offense scorching the nets with 124.8 points per game. They were the leaders of the pack in three-pointers attempted(49.3), three-pointers made (19.0), top four in FT% around 83%, and tops in assists per game (31.0).

Defensively it was more of a mixed bag of results which I will delve into in my next point.