This is who the Celtics always were

The regular season told us everything we needed to know.

BOSTON — In the week off following a four-game sweep of the Indiana Pacers, a common refrain heard around the Celtics practice facility was that we’d finally find out how good they really are. That it would take 91 games to come to a definitive conclusion about this team spoke to a feeling that was both hopefully revisionist and dismissively sarcastic.

They had convincingly shown us over the course of the regular season that these Celtics were a team that played together when it felt like it and didn’t deal well with adversity. They were booed off the court numerous times for their effort as much as their execution, and the collective response to these challenges was to question each other and point fingers.

It was a baffling turn of events for a team that had reached Game 7 of the conference finals last season without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. How could a team that thrived on being mentally tougher than their opponents continue to crumble under pressure?

The four-game sweep over the Pacers suggested that maybe it had all been a ruse and the regular-season issues were behind them. Their team defense finally locked into place consistently, and everyone seemed to thrive in their roles. It was a nice thought while it lasted, but like so many other false premises this season, it was merely an aberration.

The Pacers, as gritty as they were, simply didn’t have enough offensive talent to really force the issue. The 60-win Bucks with the league’s presumptive Most Valuable Player in Giannis Antetokounmpo would provide a far greater test for the Celtics. And they failed miserably.

After taking Game 1 in surprising fashion, the Celtics melted down in a Game 2 blowout that saw the Bucks get whatever they wanted. It got worse at home in Game 3 when they drifted away from their team concept and reverted back to a season’s worth of bad habits. Surely, it couldn’t have been them, though. Must have been the officials.

Facing a do-or-die Game 4 on their home floor, the Celtics were gifted a golden opportunity to even the series. The calls went their way this time, so much so that Anteokounmpo had to check out early in the third quarter with foul trouble in a tie game. When Khris Middleton joined him a few minutes later, the moment was there. The Celtics responded with all the urgency of mid-January contest.

By the end of the frame, the Bucks had an eight-point lead behind stellar performances from bench players like George Hill and Pat Connaughton. The Celtics went down the way the way they have all season, in a flurry of quick shots and poor transition defense.

“It’s tough,” Al Horford said after that game. “That was a moment there where we could have capitalized more and we didn’t, for some reason. I have to look at the film, but I didn’t feel like we really exploited or played the way we wanted to play. We did it at times but we didn’t do it enough in stretches.”

It somehow managed to get even worse in a Game 5 wipeout that ended with Irving on the bench for the final eight minutes following a 6-for-21 disaster. A gross ending to a miserable campaign.

This is who the 2019 Celtics are and we should have known it all along. As tempting as it was to pretend that the regular season didn’t matter, it told us everything we needed to know about this team. They have performed in this series like an overmatched 4-seed, which is exactly what they are.

***

To be sure, there have been a handful of squads throughout history who have kicked into a higher gear once the postseason rolled around. Those teams were blessed with both great talent and an inherent togetherness born from successful histories together. The Celtics had neither.

It turns out that the talent part of the equation was overstated.

Some of that was simple misfortune. Gordon Hayward was supposed to be the secondary playmaking option next to Kyrie Irving, but his return from a gruesome leg injury has been slow and arduous. Aron Baynes was in and out of the lineup with a variety of big man ailments. Marcus Smart was injured at exactly the wrong time in a meaningless regular-season game, which pretty much summed up the regular season.

Some of that was age. Horford, who remains as invaluable a player as there is in the league, hasn’t been able to match the lofty heights of his postseason play from a year ago when he outplayed Giannis and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid.

On the flip side of the generational divide, Jayson Tatum’s progress stagnated in a never-ending series of long twos and passive fallaways. Terry Rozier never quite figured out what was needed of him.

Credit where credit is due. Jaylen Brown and Marcus Morris were both solid throughout the postseason and for most of the regular season, as well. More than any of the young players, Brown ultimately accepted his role and found ways to contribute. As he’s done throughout his time in Boston, Morris has performed in every role. The dude is just a gamer.

While the Celtics clearly have “talent,” what they didn’t have was cohesion. Some of that must fall on coach Brad Stevens, who was so masterful at putting players in position to succeed during last year’s run. Beyond X’s and O’s, a coach’s first responsibility is getting buy-in from their players and that didn’t happen consistently.

That manifested itself in a lack of on-court trust and left Irving doing way too much. The Bucks and coach Mike Budenholzer wisely used that against him, loading up their defense to limit his flights of one-on-one fancy. Irving saw waves of double teams and shot just 25-for-83 after Game 1.

“Who cares?” Irving said after Game 4. “I’m a basketball player. Prepare the right way. Like I said, it’s a little different when your rhythm is challenged every play down. You’re being picked up full-court. They’re doing things to test you. The expectations on me are going to be sky high. I try to utilize their aggression against them and still put my teammates in great position, while still being aggressive. I’m trying to do it all. For me, the 22 shots, I should have shot 30. I’m that great of a shooter.”

Like so many Kyrie quotes, it was part inflammatory and part revealing. Who cares may wind up being his Boston epitaph, but buried within the woe-is-me bravado is the tension that defined this Celtics’ season.

What Kyrie is, and what the Celtics achieved without him last spring, has been a constant source of creative friction. The idea/hope was that he and they would form a dynamic machine that could beat you in a number of ways. The reality has been far less than the sum of those experiences.

It was a tempting belief to buy into, given Irving’s unique talent and the Celtics’ tough-minded approach without him and Hayward. Yet, it hasn’t clicked and while there are dozens of reasons why the C’s underachieved, it keeps coming back to that disconnect between what they were and who they’ve become.

***

Before the playoffs began, a Person Who Knows Things whispered in my ear that Kyrie was gone. I asked him if he was telling me or trying to convince me. A little bit of both, he responded.

As everyone knows, Irving can opt out of his contract this summer and become a free agent. This has long been part of the plan because once he does, Danny Ainge will be able to go after Anthony Davis in a trade setting up a partnership that would launch the next Boston era of contention. It’s a weird twist on an unusual set of circumstances.

Irving’s situation is a first for the Celtics. Never before have they had to convince a player to commit to staying after they got to Boston. Throughout their long and storied history players from other teams — some just as eccentric as Kyrie — arrived in town with battle scars from other franchises. Once they became indoctrinated in the Celtic mystique, they never wanted to leave.

Rather than embrace that lineage, Irving has chafed at the expectation at times. He noted on a handful of occasions that people expect perfection, which isn’t exactly true. What they want is effort and commitment, and they’re savvy enough to understand the difference. The result is that this Celtics’ season suffered from an identity crisis.

The working idea was they would go all out to win a championship with their current group. At the same time, they would convince Kyrie to sign on for the long haul and continue laying the groundwork for a potential dynasty that wouldn’t include many of the players on the roster who were asked to sacrifice for the greater good.

How this manifests itself in the offseason remains to be seen. Throughout the season, the Celtics maintained confidence that Kyrie will be back and that a trade for AD can be consummated. The two moves are essentially intertwined. After this disastrous season, how can anyone be truly sure of Kyrie’s intentions?

There are many other considerations. Horford and Baynes can also opt out of their contracts. Morris is a free agent and Rozier will be a restricted free agent. Would an AD deal include Tatum or Brown? Would they have to give up Smart, who has become a beloved figure within the organization and the city?

It’s dangerous to assume anyone has any idea what will happen between now and July, but then this season has always been based on a series of assumptions. The reality is that in an all-or-nothing campaign, the Celtics repeatedly came up empty. Now there’s nothing left but the fallout.

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