The Celtics Shaky Start

Nick Mello   October 25, 2018

There is no debate amongst NBA fans that the Boston Celtics have the most talent in the Eastern Conference, second in the league behind the Warriors. But for some reason, they have started the season 2-2 losing to a really bad Orlando Magic team. Now yes, arguably the two best players on the Celtics are coming off of major season ending injuries, and might be a little bit rusty. Gordon Hayward is even on a minute restriction, only playing 25 minutes each game, so he can only do so much. But Kyrie looks like he cannot buy a shot. He is struggling from the field and from three, and he is struggling to get into a groove at any point in any of the games so far. The Celtics are not living up to their expectations yet, but it is far from time to panic.

One of the many downsides to the slow start that the Boston Celtics have gotten off to, is the extremely slow start for Kyrie Irving. He has shown flashes of the great player that we know he is, but he has been that guy consistently. In the first game if the season against the 76ers, Kyrie shot 2-14, and ended the game with only 7 points. He continuously tried to get his shot, and create for himself, but he just could not do it, and instead f shooting himself back into the game, he shot himself right out of it.

Towards the end of the game, in the crucial moments where the Celtics were trying to ice the game, Coach Brad Stevens decided to go with Terry Rozier, rather than Kyrie Irving. Coming into the season, we were under the impression that Kyrie would be the Celtics number one option, and leading Boston to the number one spot in the Eastern Conference.

Now yes it is early, but the Bucks and the Raptors have both gotten off to fantastic starts, and don’t look like they are going to be stopping anytime soon. The Celtics have more talent on their roster than any otehr team in the Conference. No one is oarticulary upset with the way they are playing.

Now yes, they are not winning BUT, if you are watching their games, you csan see that they are still defending at an incredibly hig level. When they are on offense, tehy are running there sets effectively, they look explosive off of screens, and they are able to create their own shots most of the time. They are taking open shots, just the lo0ne problem being that they cannot make those open shots.

Another interesting thing worth noting on why the Celtics might be struggling, is there abundance of iso ball. Now yes I did say that they are running their sets very well, but that’s only when they run them. It seems like most of time they get the shot clock down to about 10  seconds, and then whoever has the ball tries to take his man one on one. This is making the Celtics play extremely inefficiently.

The one bright spot of the Celtics season so far has been the emergence of jayson Tatum. While Kyrie has been struggling, Jayson Tatum has been able to fill the role as not only the teams leading scorer, but the team’s leading rebounder as well. He ha been  by far the Celtics best player this season.

Through the teams first four games of the season, he has average 18.8 points per game, with 9.6 rebounds per game. The best part about all of this though, is that this is just the beginning for this kid. Jayson Tatum is only 20 years old, and is already one of the best players in the NBA, and leading the best Eastern Conference team.