Celtics' high number of back-to-backs presents fun & familiar challenge

The Boston Celtics schedule has been released. Among the various initial twists and turns (it will be a while before Jaylen Brown makes his official return to Boston), one thing that immediately stands out is that the Celtics are among the teams with the most back-to-backs, with 16 in total.

This will be a challenge for the Celtics, as two of their biggest additions, Paul George and Mitchell Robinson, will be integral to their success but also have to handled with care. George is aging and injury-prone (which factored into the backlash from the Jaylen Brown trade) and Robinson is injury-prone.

Hence, Boston will do everything they can to conserve them as much as possible before the stakes get higher in the playoffs. Don't be surprised if both of them are rested on back-to-backs, and likely not at the same time if Boston can help it.

Luckily, the Celtics have faced this challenge before with previous iterations, and not only was it not too big a challenge, but depending on their depth actually proved to be kind of fun.

Those Blake Griffin-Luke Kornet-Neemias Queta days were fun to watch!

This challenge first presented itself back in 2022, when it was confirmed before the season even started that the Celtics planned to rest Al Horford on back-to-backs. To compensate for his absence, they typically depended on Blake Griffin, who was far removed from his All-Star days, and Luke Kornet, who hadn't proven a whole lot before then.

Anyone who remembers that time probably remembers that it was actually kind of enjoyable to temporarily replace Horford with players who weren't necessarily as good as Horford, but were impactful enough to mitigate his absence.

It was so fun to watch in fact that before it was all said and done, Celtics fans were excited for when Horford had to sit the night out.

Those days more or less continued when Boston was challenged with resting Horford and Kristaps Porzingis. Kornet played a role in how they kept the wagon going without them, but Queta also proved to be capable of holding the fort while Boston was undermanned.

This was the case for the next two years.

So it's fair to say that this is familiar territory for Joe Mazzulla and co.

The Celtics' depth is built to withstand this problem

George and Robinson are going to crucial components of Mazzulla Ball and could even bring it to new heights, but luckily the roster already has proven commodities for when they are inevitably rested this coming season.

Boston has quite a few young wings on their roster who bring their own unique qualities to the table. If their talents can help compensate for Tatum's absence, they should be able to do the same with George. If not, more so.

As for Robinson, well, Luka Garza did an awesome job once he figured himself out as Boston's backup big. They may not depend on him as much this season, but if Robinson gets hurt and/or gets rested, Garza has proven enough to show that he's up to the task as their backup.

Mazzulla definitely has a lot to prove this season following Boston's first-round collapse. However, playing more back-to-backs than most of the NBA shouldn't be among his problems.

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