NEW YORK — The playoffs, rather the play-in is here, and the Celtics are going to have to be ready or their season will come to an abrupt end this week.
Sunday’s season finale, a 96-92 loss to the New York Knicks, was meaningless and provided an opportunity for coach Brad Stevens to rest all his frontline players. The hope is that the respite will provide an opportunity for mentally and physically exhausted players to reboot and prepare for a legitimate playoff run.
The good news was the effort and compete level for the season’s final two games was back to Stevens’s expectations. The Celtics bench guys pushed the Knicks to the final minute despite New York needing a victory to clinch the fourth seed.
The Celtics needed these two games to get over what was a miserable four-game stretch that cost them a chance to avoid the play-in tournament. Now they will host a hot Washington team with triple-double king Russell Westbrook and All-Star Bradley Beal along with a veteran and motivated roster.
“Obviously Washington is rolling,” Stevens said. “They are a heck of a basketball team. Obviously it starts with Westbrook and Beal but they’ve got great size. They’ve got a lot of different ways that they can play. They’re a handful. We’ll start getting ready for that (Monday).”
Stevens said he isn’t certain all of the rested/injured players would be back and ready by Tuesday. The Celtics will conduct a rare and needed practice Monday to try to give a team that hasn’t been healthy or cohesive all season some work together.
The end of the regular season also means the end of back-to-back games, meaning point guard Kemba Walker should be available for all games in which he’s healthy enough to play. The plan from the beginning of the season was to give Walker that extra time to ensure his left knee would be sound for a long postseason run.
But can the Celtics return to playing capable and consistent basketball without the mental lapses and lack of effort stretches that have plagued them this season? Can the playoffs motivate these guys to become the team they were expected to be in December?
The loss of Jaylen Brown to wrist surgery is a devastating blow. But remember the 2018 Celtics made a run to the Eastern Conference Finals without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. The Celtics without Brown have enough talent to win their play-in game and at least challenge their first-round opponent.
It’s all between the ears for these Celtics.
“We’ll be prepared; I have no doubt about that,” Stevens said. “I thought we had a great practice Friday. I thought we played really well (Saturday at Minnesota). The key is how we come into practice (Monday). We’ll cover what we need to cover and then go out and play a fast game with a clear mind.”
There are no excuses. The fact the Celtics fell on their face against Miami and clinched the play-in round nearly a week ago allowed the franchise to give several players the weekend off to rest. The Wizards are a flawed team as are the Celtics, that’s why Washington finished with a losing record. The Celtics have a chance to use this play-in tournament as a boost.
That’s a better way to view it than the “we don’t want to be here” mentality that some teams that dropped into this situation will approach this. This has to be seen as a second chance, an opportunity for the Celtics to beat a quality opponent, feel good about themselves and then prepare for either Brooklyn or Milwaukee.
“This (season) has been really hard,” Stevens said. “We have not been perfect. That’s been well documented. We’ve dealt with a lot of negativity and we’ve stayed together. That’s the most important thing you can do. We just have to stay together and reset now, get ready with great preparation (Monday) and play our best that we’ve played this year, this week. That’s the old Belichick saying, ‘play your best when your best is needed.’ It’s needed now. It doesn’t mean we’re going to play perfect. It doesn’t mean we’re not gonna make mistakes. But we just need to put in a good day of prep, get ready to roll and play as well as we can.”
It’s the right approach and the hope is the players adopt that same motivation and make the best of the rest of this season.
Gary Washburn can be reached at gary.washburn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GwashburnGlobe.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/16/sports/celtics-start-preparation-play-in-game-they-hoped-avoid/
2021-05-16 22:43:34Z
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