Then the Celtics became the first team in franchise history to blow a 3-1 lead when the seventh-seeded 76ers ousted them in the first round of the playoffs. It was a sour ending.
But when Brown did a Twitch stream Sunday night, one day after the Game 7 loss, he reiterated that sentiment. He called it the favorite year of his career. This time, it felt tone-deaf, particularly given the timing. He sounded like a player motivated more by the extra scoring opportunities he received while Jayson Tatum was out than by winning. It wasn’t a team-first approach.
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During the stream, Brown went on to criticize the referees once again for their treatment of him — a season-long gripe — and he took a shot at 76ers star Joel Embiid for flopping to draw foul calls. Yes, Brown had an excellent season, but in this case, someone close to him should have encouraged him to log off.
▪ Here’s what Tatum had to say during his end-of-season news conference Sunday after missing Game 7 Saturday because of left leg tightness:
“It was just unfortunate timing, but I guess a little bit to be expected. I was away for 10½ months and then I came back and I’m playing every other day and I was playing 36-40 minutes. So, it’s not unusual that something would come up.”
But that heavy workload was avoidable. When Tatum returned March 6 from his Achilles injury, he was restricted to 27 minutes per game. That limit lasted only three games. By his 10th game he was at 37 minutes, which is more than he averaged in any full season of his career.
Then he topped the 39-minute mark in five of his final seven games. Based on Tatum’s comments, it’s fair to wonder if the leg tightness might have been avoidable if his playing time had been slightly reduced.
▪ When Joe Mazzulla was asked March 30 about the possibility of being named NBA Coach of the Year, he called the award “stupid” and “dumb” and said it should not exist. Based on a good number of ballots that have trickled out online, and conversations I’ve had with some voters, it appears to be all but a lock that Mazzulla will soon be named Coach of the Year, potentially by a wide margin.
It is a regular-season award, so the optics of the honor will be unfortunate following the Celtics’ first-round collapse. But it is unlikely that Mazzulla would have embraced the award even under sunnier circumstances.
▪ The Celtics were locked into the No. 2 seed prior to their April 12 regular-season finale against the Magic, so they sat eight of their top rotation players and turned their attention to the playoffs. The Magic were trying to secure the No. 7 seed, which would have given them a home game in the play-in tournament, so all their top players were active.
Somehow, the Celtics secured a 113-108 win anyway. Now, it’s fair to wonder if that result was fateful for Boston. The Magic traveled to Philadelphia and lost the play-in game, setting up the Celtics’ first-round matchup against the 76ers. And we all know how that went.
Sure, the Magic might have lost to the 76ers even if they had been at home. Or the Magic, who took the top-seeded Pistons to the limit in the first round, might have toppled the Celtics in a seven-game series. But the ripple effects of that feel-good April win certainly did not end up helping Boston.
▪ Celtics owner Bill Chisholm has been quite impressed by president of basketball operations Brad Stevens during their first full season working together. Both are hopeful that this will be the start of a long-term partnership.
“Despite all his success and people telling him all the time how great he is and how great the Celtics are, he’s very grounded and self-aware,” Chisholm said. “A lot of times you see people who are really successful and they believe that they’ve got it all figured out, and the hubris creeps in. And that’s when people who have been very successful make bad decisions. You basically think, ‘I’ve got this. I don’t need people to help me. I don’t need input.’ And that’s not Brad.”
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.
