By Liam McKeone

It’s been a rollercoaster of a season for the Celtics. There were exceptionally high expectations for the team coming into the season that were promptly dashed by Gordon Hayward’s broken ankle. Only five minutes into the new season, and the Celtics were already dismissed as contenders for the 2018 title. Then, they unexpectedly ripped off a 16-game win streak and have steadily remained at the top of the conference since. But, with the news breaking that Kyrie Irving will be missing the playoffs due to knee surgery, the Celtics have once again been left for dead in the Eastern Conference.

Without two of their three best players, will the Celtics even scrape by the first round?
Anyone outright ignoring Boston as a playoff contender is severely underestimating head coach Brad Stevens, who is a frontline Coach of the Year candidate. Stevens took a team last year that was much less talented and brought them to the No. 1 seed and a trip to the conference finals. He’s one of the five best coaches in the league already, and it is largely due to him that the season didn’t fall apart following Hayward’s injury back in October. The Celtics’ roster has missed over 200 games due to injury combined, yet still won over fifty games and managed to keep themselves in the mix for the No. 1 seed until the last two weeks of the season. This is coming off a summer which saw significant roster turnover and only brought back four players from last year’s roster. That lack of roster continuity is extraordinarily difficult for coaches to deal with, but Boston never seemed to miss a step, almost entirely thanks to “President” Brad Stevens. If there’s any coach that can get the most of out of a roster, it’s him.

Of course, a coach can only do so much. The two up-and-coming studs for the Celtics will need to step up big-time if they want any chance of getting past the first round. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum have both coped well with a gradually increased workload as the season has gone on. Tatum has had a typical rookie season, with an excellent beginning and end with a shaky middle, but in the games since Irving has gone down, he’s looked comfortable as the first scoring option in the offense. His ability to produce points will be huge going forward; even last year’s team, with their overall lack of talent, had an efficient volume scorer in Isaiah Thomas. The Celtics’ offense has ranked in the bottom five of scoring efficiency without Irving. Tatum is the key to turning that around.
Brown will be the key to the other side of the court. The Celtics have been a very solid defensive team all year, despite Irving’s well-documented defensive issues. Al Horford and Aron Baynes have been their anchors in the middle all season long, and their stable of wing defenders has proven to be effective in switching. Stevens has even broken out the 2-3 zone at points this season. But Brown is the team’s best chance to have a defensive stopper. If he can step up his game to Andre Iguodala-level defending—and all of his defensive potential indicates that wouldn’t be as big a jump as we’d think—then the Celtics not only have a chance to get past round one, but potentially beyond. Nobody, in Boston or elsewhere, is expecting much out of this squad. But they may just surprise you.