Can the Boston Celtics make any noise in the postseason without Jaylen Brown?
The Celtics announced Monday that Brown has been diagnosed with a torn scapholunate ligament in his left wrist and will undergo surgery, ending a breakthrough campaign for the fifth-year wing and first-time All-Star.
Brown's injury is the latest blow to a Boston team that has battled absences all season. Without Brown, the Celtics have lost back-to-back games at home to the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat, dropping them two games behind the Heat and Atlanta Hawks in the race to avoid the play-in tournament in the Eastern Conference.
Is Brown's injury a death knell for Boston's season, or can the Celtics still rally to advance to the playoffs and threaten a higher-seeded opponent? Let's take a look at the impact.
Boston was rarely at full strength
Monday's news means the Celtics will finish the season having played just 18 games all season with their top four players -- Brown, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker -- available. Granted, Boston hasn't been very good even with its full complement of players, going just 9-9 in those games. (The Celtics are 26-24 in all other games.) But the inability to stick with a single lineup has been one of the challenges for head coach Brad Stevens.
Between the injuries, absences due to the NBA's health and safety protocols and the midseason trade of starter Daniel Theis, the Celtics have already used 34 different starting lineups this season. That's double their total in 2019-20 and the franchise's most in a season since starters were first tracked in 1983-84, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
As a result, Boston's absences might have been more impactful than it looks on the surface. Overall, Celtics players had missed games through last Thursday in which they would have been expected to contribute 8.5 wins above replacement player, by my WARP metric, the NBA's sixth-highest total. However, Owen Phillips' F5 newsletter has pointed out that lineups used might be a better measure of what causes teams to perform better or worse than expectations.
With the Brooklyn Nets (35 starting lineups) as a notable exception, the other teams that have been forced to change their starters as frequently as Boston have ended up lower in the standings. The Toronto Raptors, who lost to the Celtics in last year's conference semifinals, are likely headed to the lottery after using 34 starting combinations this season. The only other team to use more is the Houston Rockets (40), who have the league's worst record.
Surely, some of this relationship goes both directions. Stevens wouldn't have changed starters so frequently if the team's healthy players were performing on a more consistent basis. Instead, he sorted through a variety of options as replacements when Smart and Walker were out of the lineup. Still, it's understandable Boston never found much of a rhythm this season.
How can the Celtics replace Brown?
Boston's deadline deal for Evan Fournier takes on greater importance now that he can step into the starting lineup. In fact, Fournier has started the Celtics' past seven games -- the first four in place of Walker and the last three after Brown's injury.
After struggling with his conditioning and shooting in his first four games after returning from a bout with COVID-19, during which he shot 5-of-31 (16%) from the field, Fournier has started to look like himself recently.
Over the past four games, Fournier has averaged 21.5 points while shooting 17-of-24 (71%) on 2s and 17-of-27 (63%) on 3s. Those percentages obviously aren't sustainable, but Fournier can pick up part of the scoring load lost without Brown, who averaged a career-high 24.7 PPG this season.
The concern is that even with Fournier playing well, Boston was crushed by 22 points in Chicago Friday night and beaten at home by the Heat Sunday. After all, the Celtics acquired Fournier to fortify a bench that has been a liability all season, and he's no longer able to fill that role in the second unit. So even with a career-high 16 points from rookie Aaron Nesmith Sunday, Boston's reserves were outplayed by Miami's deep bench.
It's fair to wonder how many Celtics players Stevens trusts in a playoff setting, particularly with starting center Robert Williams III hampered by turf toe. (He missed Friday's game and was limited to 11 minutes of action Sunday, all in the first half.) Tristan Thompson is a sixth player Boston can count on when he's not forced to replace Williams as a starter.
After them, Nesmith has probably played well enough in April and May (when he's shot 16-of-33 on 3-pointers) to qualify. Beyond that is a series of question marks. No other Celtics player saw more than 10 minutes of action Sunday as Boston rallied in the second half when Stevens leaned more heavily on his starters: Smart, Tatum, Thompson and Walker all played more than 19 minutes after halftime.
Why a short playoff run is likely
Even without Brown, Boston is still nearly certain to make the playoffs. A win in Tuesday's rematch with Miami would keep alive the possibility of passing the Heat and advancing directly because the Heat face potentially difficult matchups with the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks over their last three games.
If the Celtics end up in the play-in tournament, as the seventh seed they'd need to win just once in up to two games at home against the No. 8 seed and the winner of the 9-10 matchup in order to make a seventh consecutive playoff trip. That should be doable with at least one of those two games likely to come against either the youthful Charlotte Hornets or short-handed Indiana Pacers.
If Boston gets to the playoffs, competing against one of the East's top three seeds will be much more difficult. Brown's absence might be most keenly felt in a possible matchup against the Nets. With Tatum likely to defend Kevin Durant, that would mean either Fournier or Walker checking one of Brooklyn guards James Harden and Kyrie Irving. The Celtics would match up better with Milwaukee or Philadelphia, because Tatum could defend their second perimeter options (Khris Middleton and Tobias Harris, respectively) while Smart checks Jrue Holiday or Ben Simmons, allowing Fournier and Walker to guard less threatening opponents.
Either way, Boston will be at a talent disadvantage in the first round of the playoffs without Brown, suggesting the strong likelihood of a Celtics first-round exit for the first time since 2016.