These Celtics Might Be the Best Challengers to LeBron’s Throne Yet
Channel: Tey Yomiko
Date: 2018-05-10

These Celtics Might Be the Best Challengers to LeBron’s Throne Yet

Yes, even without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. To cite last year’s embarrassment in the Eastern 

Conference finals is beside the point. This team is built differently, and it could have enough to keep the 

Cavaliers around LeBron in check.


The Celtics are surrounded by the ghosts of playoffs future and past. It’s hard not to wonder how good they 

will be next season, when Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward return. It’s even harder to forget how easily 

they were beaten by LeBron James and the Cavs in last year’s Eastern Conference finals. We may end up 

remembering this season as a transition year for the franchise, but the team’s 4-1 second-round victory 

over the 76ers, who were one of the hottest teams in the NBA, is proof these players are a special group in 

their own right. Brad Stevens is great, but he’s not coaching a bunch of scrubs. They have the players to 

at least put a scare in LeBron.


They don’t have much in common with last year’s team. Al Horford and Marcus Smart are still the defensive 

backbones of the team, but Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier have taken quantum leaps forward. Everyone else is 

new. Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Kelly Olynyk, and Amir Johnson have all been replaced by 

bigger, faster, and more versatile players. Those Celtics were overachievers who emptied their tank to 

sneak past the Wizards in the second round. This year’s team has lottery picks at almost every position.

Stevens has shifted his lineups several times over the course of the playoffs, but he will likely bench 

Aron Baynes and move Horford to the 5 to start Brown on LeBron in the Cleveland series. That would put 

three no. 3 overall picks in their frontcourt (Horford, Brown, and Jayson Tatum), and a no. 6 overall pick 

(Smart) and no. 16 overall pick (Terry Rozier) in the backcourt. All five are plus athletes for their 

respective positions, with the defensive versatility to slide around the floor.

Boston exposed Philadelphia’s supporting cast in the second round. The 76ers destroyed the Heat in the 

first round by surrounding Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid with elite 3-point shooters like J.J. Redick, Marco 

Belinelli, and Ersan Ilyasova. The Celtics dared Simmons and Embiid to beat them one-on-one, and they 

ruthlessly hunted those shooters on defense. There aren’t many places to hide a bad defender against 

Boston: Rozier, Tatum, Smart, and Brown can all attack off the dribble, as can Marcus Morris, their first 

forward off the bench. Smart is the only one of the five starters who can’t consistently knock down 3s, but 

he does have the ability to get to the rim and facilitate out of the pick-and-roll.

Tatum and Rozier have stepped up in the playoffs. Tatum is averaging 18.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.2 

assists a game on 45.9 percent shooting. He doesn’t play like a rookie. The game rarely appears too fast 

for him, and he knows exactly how much space he needs to create to get a shot off, even against elite 

defenders. The Celtics go from a net rating of plus-6.2 in his 423 minutes in the playoffs, the highest 

mark on their roster, to a net rating of minus-11.7 in the 163 minutes he sits, by far the lowest. He could 

have another big series against the Cavs, who don’t have many stoppers on the perimeter.

Rozier will be even more important, especially if Shane Larkin ends up missing time after sitting out Game 

5 against Philadelphia with a sprained shoulder. Rozier has emerged as a starting-caliber point guard in 

the playoffs, averaging 18.2 points a game on 42.3 percent shooting, with an incredible ratio of 5.8 

assists to only 1.3 turnovers. Rozier put Eric Bledsoe in a body bag in the Celtics’ first-round victory 

over Milwaukee, dominating his matchup with the eight-year NBA veteran. Bledsoe is far more explosive than 

any of the point guards on the Cleveland roster, none of whom have the quickness to keep Rozier in front of 

them and contest his 3-point shot.

The adjustment Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue made to slow down Victor Oladipo in the first round was 

sending multiple defenders at Oladipo in the pick-and-roll to take the ball out of his hands. Boston will 

have an easier time adjusting to that strategy than either Indiana or Toronto because its center (Horford) 

is a fluid playmaker who can read the floor and make the right decisions in a four-on-three situation. The 

Cavs still had an awful defensive rating of 110.1 in their sweep of the Raptors. It just didn’t matter 

because they had an even more eye-popping offensive rating of 121.5, a massive improvement over the 103.0 

they put up against the Pacers.

Kyle Korver played a key role in that resurgence. He went from playing only four minutes in Game 1 against 

Indiana to averaging 31.5 minutes a game against Toronto. Cleveland unleashed the two-man game between 

Korver and Kevin Love off the ball in that ser