The naysayers were quick to count out the Boston Celtics after news of Jaylen Brown's season-ending injury hit. If you ask Boston head coach Brad Stevens, however, the season is definitely far from over for his Celtics.
Coach Steven acknowledged how significant Brown's loss will be for the team, but was also quick to remind everyone that this is a predicament the Celtics have been in in the past:
“We’ve been here before, some of our best players aren’t available, and you head into the postseason,” Stevens said, via Alexandra Francisco of NESN. “We’ll see where we land and we’ll see what happens, but we have enough in the room to be a nuisance.”
It wasn't too long ago when Boston went on a fairytale-like run in the playoffs without their two best players in Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. In spite of the significant disadvantage, however, the Celtics still went all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals that season (2017-18), with guys like Isiah Thomas, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown all stepping up to the plate.
This is exactly what coach Stevens is hoping for this season, albeit without one of the team's key cogs in Jaylen Brown.
In spite of the daunting challenge ahead, Stevens remains confident that his team still has what it takes to be a legitimate threat come playoffs time:
“Now it is truly time to look at it and say, ‘Ok, this is how we think we’d have to do it to have our best chance,” Stevens added. “And I like the guys in the room, there’s gonna be a lot more required of the best players, and you know, that’s the challenge they’re going to have to step up to.”
It's going to be an undeniably tough road ahead for the Celtics, but at this point, it would be utterly foolish to count them out.
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