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Opinions. Everybody’s got ‘em, but some more than others.
These days, Boston Celtics legend and Hall of Fame finalist Paul Pierce has a lot of opinions on why his former franchise continues to struggle.
At 20-21 and seemingly headed in the wrong direction — losers of four of five since the All-Star break — the current Celtics are a far cry from the dominant squads Pierce played with in the 2000s and ’10s. (Though, to be fair, the same could be said for almost every other team in the league.)
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What Pierce sees as the biggest problem facing Boston’s current iteration is a lack of consistent play from the bench, which results in too much pressure being put on their young stars night in and night out.
“I think they lack depth, man, I really do,” Pierce told WBZ-TV’s Steve Burton this week. “You have two All-Stars in Jaylen (Brown) and Jayson (Tatum) up front. [But] people don’t realize how young these guys are. They’re young 20s and you’re relying on them to win games and take you to the next step in getting to the Finals.” The Celtics lost in seven games to the Miami Heat in last season’s Eastern Conference finals.
“When you look down from top to bottom, off the bench you have (Marcus) Smart and you have other guys that are NBA players, that are solid contributors — it’s just that they don’t have anything consistent,” added Pierce.
Ainge Under Pressure
According to Pierce, the franchise’s second all-time leading scorer, it’s the bench’s inconsistency that forces the Celtics to rely too heavily on their starters in big games — and that’s been the case for some time.
“This has been the story of the Celtics for years,” Pierce told Burton. “That’s why the starters play heavy minutes come playoff time, and if they don’t play well then most of the time they’re in a dog fight.”
Pierce joked that the pressure on Boston’s president of basketball operations Danny Ainge to win a championship is at an all-time high. Both the Celtics and Lakers have 17 championships and Pierce doesn’t want Boston’s archival passing them in the record books. But make no mistake, the pressure on Ainge is real.
Ainge has come under especially heavy fire this season for creating a roster low on veteran experience and for his apparent reluctance to trade for a difference-making piece with the $28.5 million traded player exception reaped from Gordon Hayward’s sign-and-trade deal last offseason to Charlotte. Some have speculated that Ainge could be shown the door after this season if things don’t turn around.
‘Anything is Possible’
Pierce, who was traded from Beantown to Brooklyn in July 2013, reiterated his opinions regarding Boston’s lack of depth to NBC Sport’s Kendrick Perkins and Brian Scalabrine (both former Celtics themselves) before Wednesday’s embarrassing 117-110 loss to a poor Cleveland Cavaliers team.
“I know they’ve dealt with COVID protocols, they’ve dealt with injuries,” said the 10-time All-Star. “But this team just lacks depth, I believe.”
Although Pierce believes the Celts could be staring down the barrel of a short playoff stint or not even making the playoffs at all, he’s not endorsing anything rash. Not yet at least.
“This is a team that looks like it could possibly lose in the first round or possibly not make the playoffs or get to the Conference Finals,” said Pierce. [But] you know, when you have two All-Stars, anything is possible. These guys get in a playoff setting and have a good two-month run — we saw that happen with Miami [last year]. Anything is possible. So right now, I wouldn’t push the panic button. They have a little over 30 games left and I don’t think there’s no need to panic or try to trade. Hopefully, Kemba can rally for them, they can start playing more consistent basketball because they’re more healthy than they’ve been and see where they’re at at the end of the year and evaluate them after the year is over.”
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