This is what the Boston Celtics were waiting for.
When the Celtics—sans Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward—were eliminated by the Cleveland Cavaliers in a thrilling seven-game series in last year's Eastern Conference Finals, their entire goal was to get back to that point again in 2019, but to finish with a different result.
The 82-game regular season was just supposed to be a tune-up.
We all knew the Celtics were going to make the playoffs. It was just a matter of getting through the dog days of the season, building camaraderie and staying healthy along the way.
Well, now, the playoffs are just about here, and on Tuesday night, Boston clinched a postseason berth with a win over the Cavaliers.
But this is not the journey that any of us expected the C's to take.
The Celtics look like they will finish no higher than fourth in the Eastern Conference, when pretty much all of us had them penciled in as a top two seed (at minimum) in the East.
How is that possible? How can a team with that much talent be this inconsistent and this mercurial?
The answer is, none of that really matters anymore.
There are only seven games left in the regular season, so the time for the C's to use the regular season as a dress rehearsal for the postseason are pretty much done.
The Celtics likely aren't going to find any new wrinkles between now and April 13, the first day of the 2019 NBA Playoffs. Sure, Brad Stevens can experiment with new lineups, and he actually has recently, inserting Aron Baynes in the starting five and sending Marcus Morris back to the bench, but, honestly, that's immaterial.
What really matters is how well Boston plays as a whole, and that is the issue. None of us knows what to expect from this C's ballclub heading into the postseason.
Will we get the team that routed the Golden State Warriors by 33 points at Oracle Arena earlier in the month? Or will we get the club that has posted puzzling home losses to teams like the Orlando Magic, New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns?
The thing is, we all do know that the Celtics are capable of when they are engaged. When Boston is hitting on all cylinders, there is no team in the Eastern Conference that comes close. Not the Milwaukee Bucks. Not the Toronto Raptors. Not the Philadelphia 76ers. No one.
No other team in the conference has that much talent up and down the roster and has that much depth and that much versatility.
As a matter of fact, the only other squad in the NBA in general that can match the Celtics in that regard is the Warriors, a team that Boston has historically played very well.
But we also know what the C's look like when they become unhinged. They take bad shots. They don't move the ball. They turn the ball over. They have lapses on defense. They point fingers.
Talent is not the issue for the Celtics. It's want and desire, and if Boston wants to make the deep playoff run that it is entirely capable of, it needs to come together on April 13 and focus on one goal: winning a championship.
Ironically enough, last year, it was the other way around for the C's. Heart and effort were not problems. It was actually talent, as the Celtics entered the playoffs without Irving and Hayward, and their frontcourt depth was also compromised with the loss of Daniel Theis.
But their will and determination and togetherness carried them through to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they came within minutes of upsetting LeBron James and facing the Warriors in the finals.
That Celtics team was incredibly likeable and fun to watch. This one, on the other hand, is just maddening, as this current group seems to go through stretches where it simply does not care.
Could it just be regular season malaise? Maybe. Again, Boston could not wait to get back to the playoffs, so perhaps all of its struggles during the regular season was code for “are we there yet?”
I do believe that this C's team has a “switch” that it can flip. We have seen it all year long against top competition. I also believe that if the Celtics keep that switch on throughout the entirety of the playoffs, they will get to the finals.
Do they have it in them, though?
Another Boston club that immediately comes to mind is the 2010 Celtics, a team that had plenty of struggles during the regular season but then plowed through the Eastern Conference in the playoffs and were a healthy Kendrick Perkins away from beating the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals.
The difference is, however, that Celtics squad was a veteran group that had already won a championship and understood the grind.
There is no reason why this C's team, mainly consisting of guys in their 20s, should be coasting during the regular season to conserve energy for the playoffs.
Plain and simply, the Celtics need to get their minds in the right place and understand that they cannot get by in the playoffs based on talent alone. Even if they don't really like one another, they need to see the common goal and push toward it.
Hey, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant could not stand each other during the Lakers' three-peat years in the early 2000s, but once the playoffs rolled around, it was all business.
Heck, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish did not particularly care for one another, either, but they were still a dominant force in the '80s.
Not everything has to be kumbaya, but the Celtics players need to understand that they are all chasing the same thing, and that if they can come together just for two months, they can end up hoisting a Larry O'Brien trophy.
They have the talent, and to be quite honest, they should get to the finals. But it's going to take a consistently concerted effort, not just on the court, but in the locker room.
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