By this point, we all know what happened last summer; the Celtics got upset by the Knicks, Jayson Tatum tore his achilles, and the team was way over the second apron. Everybody knew that changes were coming, that the team was going to have to shed money for the good of the franchise, and that they’d likely take a step back before re-tooling in a year or two.
And yet, it’s hard to watch what played out this season in Boston, and look at what Jrue Holiday is doing for the Blazers in the playoffs, and not wonder what could have been.
The Celtics are struggling to get enough support for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, with Derrick White mired in a massive shooting slump and Payton Pritchard showing some inconsistency in his role as a core player. Meanwhile, Holiday, who was able to play in just 53 regular-season games due to injury, has turned into a demon in the playoffs.
He put up 21 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists in Portland’s play-in victory over the Suns, then had 16, 5, and 9 with a steal and 2 blocks in a huge road win over the Spurs in Game 2. Friday night in Game 3, though his team came up short, Jrue was amazing, putting up 29, 6, and 5 with 4 steals, doing absolutely everything to keep his team in the game.
5 THREE-POINTERS FOR JRUE HOLIDAY!
— NBA (@NBA) April 25, 2026
He leads all scorers with 25 for the Blazers 🫡
Portland leads midway through the 3Q in G3! pic.twitter.com/EZhvARLUvz
His contract is likely an overpay, and he’ll surely start to fall off due to age before long. He’s already basically a part-time regular-season player. At the same time, he’s still one of the most reliable guys in the league, and he’d be making a massive difference if he were still in Boston right now.
Celtics would be a better playoff team if they still had Holiday
Having another guard, an elite defensive Swiss Army knife, and a guy who can handle the ball and create offense would be a massive boon for the Celtics. They weren’t sure he’d be able to keep doing it, and they got out of his contract in the first step towards eventually getting out of the luxury tax, but if they knew he’d still be this version of himself in the playoffs, maybe they would have found another way.
At this point, it’s nothing more than a hypothetical. There’s no way anyone could have seen the Celtics being this good this season, or Tatum coming back to a team that’s contending for a title, or that Jrue would keep being a playoff killer as his 36th birthday approaches.
But man. If Jrue was doing this for the Celtics, fans in Boston would be sleeping a lot more comfortably at night.
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