The Boston Celtics were the league's most disappointing team this season, and their lack of production on the court had everything to do with their lack of togetherness off of it.
Celtics general manager Danny Ainge says that the Celtics simply did not have the same type of resolve he had hoped for:
“Right before the trade deadline last year, like, we were playing really well. We won 10 out of 11 games,” said Ainge, according to Steve Bulpett of The Boston Herald. “You know, we had these stretches that gave us more hope and where things were going better. But that resolve and that fight collectively, when things got really tough, went away.”
Ainge then mentioned the Milwaukee Bucks as a team that clearly had a tight bond:
Article Continues Below“Milwaukee was really good, and they were a very together team,” said Ainge. “That’s the team that we have been the last five or six years. Like, we’ve been one of those teams, and this year we were not — and we will be next year.”
Boston is set to undergo sweeping changes this offseason, as Kyrie Irving and Al Horford are almost certainly goners in free agency. The C's also traded Aron Baynes to the Phoenix Suns on draft night, and it's entirely possible that Marcus Morris and Terry Rozier leave the team via free agency this summer, as well.
Expected by most to win the Eastern Conference, the Celtics ended up winning just 49 games and getting bounced in the second round by the Bucks, marking the first time since 2016 that Boston did not make the conference finals.