Let's Just Turn The Page From The 2018-19 Celtics Regular Season
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Goodbye, 2018-19 Celtics regular season. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
An extremely frustrating and forgettable regular season has come to an end, with the promise of better times ahead. The Celtics have talked about flipping the switch when the postseason arrives for months, and it's time for them to put their money where their mouth is. As infuriating as the regular season campaign was, all will be forgiven if the Celtics go on the lengthy postseason run that was promised all summer.
Unfortunately, no one has any flippin' clue which Celtics team will show up in the playoffs.
The Celtics went just 49-33 during the regular season, a far cry from the 55-to-60-plus win predictions that created such a buzz throughout the summer. It's the first season that a Brad Stevens-coached Celtics team didn't improve on their win total from the season before.
The aww shucks head coach would be wise to take all the game tapes from the regular season, and go Office Space on the collection outside of the Auerbach Center.
For a campaign that started with so much promise, with a pre-season declaration from Kyrie Irving that he was going to stick with the C's long-term, it certainly went downhill quick. Boston won on opening night against the 76ers, because they always beat the 76ers, but then stumbled to a 10-10 start. All the praise for their depth meant very little when no one could figure out their roles, and were soon pointing fingers at each other. And then shoving each other. It was an absolute mess, and no one knew how to stop it.
Blown leads (big leads) and closed-door meetings followed. Lots of them. The Celtics showed very little backbone throughout the season, and no one was having any fun. They made that pretty clear on a number of occasions. It essentially boiled down to if Irving wasn't happy, no one was happy. And Irving wasn't happy for much of the season.
Whenever we thought the Celtics had their signature win of the season, they'd follow it up with a losing streak. Any time it felt like they had turned a corner, they'd fall back into their frustrating ways and let Kemba Walker torch them for 40. Irving started to call out his younger teammates, and then his coach. His pre-season promise to stick around started to crumble, and those pesky New York rumors reared their ugly head again.
Through it all, the Celtics teased us with some solid victories. They went 2-1 against the Raptors, and finished 3-1 against both the 76ers and Pacers. They even beat the Warriors in Oracle and won both of their games against Russell Westbrook and the Thunder. But it's hard to feel good about quality wins like that with putrid losses to the Phoenix Suns, the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks, who won 19, 17 and 22 games, respectively.
The East was there for the Celtics, but they were unable to take advantage of the LeBron-less conference. Despite all of that, things still fell in their favor to start the playoffs. They get a first-round matchup with the Victor Oladipo-less Pacers, a team they beat twice in the last three weeks. They should easily advance to a second-round meeting with the Bucks, a team they match up fairly well against as long as the team plays up to their potential. As it was all regular season, whether or not the Celtics will do that remains a mystery.
But the playoffs offer this disappointing Celtics team a chance to wash away the stink of that regular season campaign and finally live up to all their hype. The success of this season was not going to be measured in regular season wins, but how the Celtics play this summer. Their play of late, winning six of their last eight, inspires a little hope that maybe, even after all the frustrating nights from October to March, they can go on a deep playoff run. Irving seems happy again, Gordon Hayward has rounded into form, and Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are playing like they did last season. And you don't need us to tell you that Al Horford continues to be the straw that stirs the drink.
We've fallen into this trap before with these Celtics, and maybe we should know better. But this is what the C's were gearing up for when they did all their preseason pontificating about raising a banner. This is their opportunity to live up to the hype after being their own worst enemy for five months.
Burn the tapes. Flip the switch. Now is when the real season begins.