If the Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks and Washington Wizards each weren't bent on finishing seventh in the Eastern Conference before, they sure as hell are now.
Kyrie Irving will miss the rest of the season, including the playoffs, because of complications with a left knee injury that was already expected to sideline him through the first round. ESPN.com's Adrian Wojnarowski first brought word of the tumultuous turn, and the Boston Celtics confirmed the news shortly thereafter.
"Following a mid-March procedure to remove a tension wire that had been implanted at the same time as the screws, pathology indicated the presence of a bacterial infection at the site of the hardware," the team explained in its official announcement. "To ensure that no infection remains in the knee, the screws will be removed."
Though Irving is expected to make a full recovery in four to five months, his absence through the postseason puts Boston in a bind. Gordon Hayward is—cover your eyes, conspiracy theorists—done for the year after his opening-night ankle injury, and Marcus Smart, as Woj noted, won't return from thumb surgery until "sometime early in the playoffs."
So, now what?
Are the Celtics done? Should they pat themselves on the backs, exchange "good job, good efforts," labor through a first-round exit and look toward next season? Or is Irving's injury merely an extension of Hayward's absence—a springboard for them to, again, upend a bleaker outlook and transcend expectations?
There's one thing the Celtics have going for them: None of this comes as a surprise. They were already operating under the assumption Irving wouldn't partake in first-round festivities, and his status has long been touch-and-go.
This is the same knee he injured during the 2015 NBA Finals as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and team president Danny Ainge admitted his All-Star point guard would eventually need to go under the knife to help address it.
Granted, his sentiments came before Irving's March 24 surgery. And the emphasis was on the concept of "eventually." A season-ending stay on the shelf never seemed to be part of the plan. But the original prospect of surgery at all had to leave the Celtics bracing for the worst.
Besides which, this team is built for the bigger picture. The presence of multiple superstars never expedited the Celtics' timeline; it allowed them to straddle two different ones. They were prioritizing the development of youngsters with Irving and would have done the same with a healthy Hayward.
This latest dose of misfortune doesn't come as some damning blow to their primary aim. It removes the light at the end of tunnel they were using as a convenient shortcut, and nothing more.
Still, the Celtics are not just happy-to-be-here postseason participants. They've played their way into the East's No. 2 seed without Hayward. There was even a brief moment when it looked like they could overthrow the first-place Toronto Raptors without having Irving, Smart or Daniel Theis (knee surgery) for the stretch run.
They are, in that sense, victims of their success. They've reset the bar high enough for us to wonder whether they can, whether they should, leave their mark on the postseason, short-handed and banged up as they are.
More than a handful of Kyrie-less anecdotes support this reflection. The Celtics are outscoring opponents by 2.1 points per 100 possessions without him on the court—roughly akin to the could-be-50-win Portland Trail Blazers' season-long net rating (plus-2.2). They've been worse since he last played (plus-0.6) March 11, but they're still 7-4 through that 11-game span, with wins over the Blazers, Raptors, Oklahoma City Thunder and scorching-hot Utah Jazz.
Terry Rozier provides a more-than-adequate bandage in both Irving's and Smart's stead. He's played 173 possessions with the starters, during which time the Celtics have a net rating north of 19, according to Cleaning the Glass. He's shooting under 38 percent overall since Irving went down but canning 40 percent of three-pointers.
Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are already pitching in at more profound levels. Head coach Brad Stevens has tested each as the primary option. The returns have been mixed.
Both Brown and Tatum headline the equivalent of a league-worst offense as the go-to scorer. But the Celtics defense staves off disaster in those situations, and the two kiddies have shown signs of offensive progress in recent weeks when co-piloting lineups—albeit at the expense of that defensive identity.
Enter Al Horford, Boston's last star standing, and the foundation of its survival mode.
In the nearly 1,000 possessions he's played without Irving and Smart, the Celtics offense rivals its usual output outside garbage time while posting what would be a top-five point differential, per Cleaning The Glass.
That hasn't changed over the most recent span. The offense is hovering close to the bottom five in efficiency but perks up considerably when Horford is in the game. His passing and shooting—he's putting down 45.5 percent of his triples since Irving last played—opens up the floor everyone.
Boston can get by with him as its offensive hub, much to the dismay of points-per-game purists. And when it can't, a league-leading defense rooted in depth and interchangeability can tilt games.
But can it sway a series? Because it will have to.
Regular-season numbers don't perfectly translate to the postseason crucible. The offense will stall without Irving. He is their most reliable from-scratch weapon. The Celtics don't have anyone else who melds volume and efficiency in isolation. He averages almost twice as many pull-up jumpers per game as anyone on the team.
The Celtics' distant second-leading launcher? Marcus Morris.
No one is fit to supplant Irving—or even begin to replace him. Brown and Tatum may one day follow his lead. They're not there yet. Horford isn't that guy. He isn't supposed to be.
Even Stevens' magic touch won't be enough. Out of timeouts? Sure. Overall? No way. As Yahoo Sports' Dan Devine wrote:
"Ever since he moved from Butler to Boston, Stevens’ flowing offensive system has been a rising tide that’s lifted all boats, but it still needs a dynamic captain at the controls, one capable of turning the possibilities it creates into points. And besides, there comes a point in the playoffs when the other guys have you scouted dead to rights, and they know where you’re going just as soon as you do, and what’s your first read after that, and what’s the second option on the backside of the play if it all blows up. At that point, you’d better have a teleporting locksmith with a ratchet and the confidence to go get the buckets that need to be gotten.
"The Celtics thought they had theirs. Now, Boston will enter the postseason without its leading scorer, its top assist man, its highest-volume 3-point shooter (and its third most accurate, at 40.8 percent from deep) and its most reliable generator of free-throw attempts. When they find themselves in close games late in the fourth quarter, they figured to rely heavily on Irving’s one-on-one brilliance and shot-making talent; now, Stevens and company will have to figure it all out without the NBA’s third-most prolific clutch-time scorer.
Among 339 players who have appeared in at least five games that entered crunch time this season, Irving has a usage rate second only to LeBron James'. That isn't an accident. Nor is it by design.
It's born of necessity. Hayward's injury, the inexperience peppered throughout the rotation, the strengths and play styles of surrounding talent—everything.
So you can understand why the East's most likely seventh-place finishers (Miami, Milwaukee, Washington) would relish the opportunity to face the Celtics. They have what it takes to escape a first-round set, maybe even make life hell later on for any team that doesn't have LeBron.
At the same time, without Irving, the Celtics' only guarantee is that they're assured of nothing.
Not even that first-round escape.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference and accurate leading into games on Thursday.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.
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