Who are the Boston Celtics?

Lets quickly go back to October. The bubble had the Celtics in the ECF for the 3rd time in 4 years. Now the results were not what we expected especially against a Miami heat team that could easily be argued was not the better team. Fast forward to the beginning of the season and expectations in my opinion dwindled just a bit.

You lose Gordon Hayward and replace him with… Aaron “Peachbaskets” Naismith? Ya, even Glass Gordon is giving you more than “the best shooter” in the draft. You also were coming into the season with out Kemba because of the knee expecting question marks around that all year. Long story short the roster in my minds was ECF at the very best more likely a 2nd round exit vs a #1 or #2 seed in the east.

This was the season the team was officially handed over the the Jays. The rumors of discord has circled for years between the young and veterans and this was the season to put that to bed. There was no denying this team belonged to Jayson and Jaylen and it would only go as far as they would take them.

Well, I think it’s safe to say for a goo long stretch that looked like they are taking them right back to the lottery. After a decent couple wins over the Bucks and Pacers the Celtics looked pretty good and then Covid hit. From there it was off the rails. The February stretch of blowing a 20 point lead to the Pelicans, then a 4th quarter lead to Luka, then getting blown out by the lowly Hawks at the time was the bottom of the barrel for the C’s only to be out down by the two week stretch in March that had people calling for Tatum to be traded.

All of this is to say, are the Celtics back now? And if they are what team are they? Is this a successful season if the Celtics take the 76ers to 6 games in the 2nd round? Some would say yes considering the hole they dug themselves. I would agree in a sense that I want to believe the struggles and embarrassing displays by Tatum and his team in February and March were big ass learning curves for the leaders of this team who by the way are in their early 20’s.

So if my optimism is correct, how good can this team be? Should we be expecting another ECF run? Could they possibly give the Nets a run for their money? Logic and the rosters say no, but if Tatum has legitimately made this leap and can sustain it, it sets your team up for a lot of success. Everyone falls nicely into their roles with Jaylen as the #2, Kemba supplemental scoring, Marcus playing defense, so on and so forth. It all relies on Tatum being the guy he believes he is night in and night out. If we get more “Dukie” Tatum forget it. It’s curtains in the 1st round against the Hawks. If it’s Super Star Tatum then lets go fuck up Kyrie.