Celtics' Brad Stevens still reconciling how season that had sudden title hopes ended so quickly

BOSTON — Make no mistake about it, Brad Stevens still expected to be watching the Celtics in the playoffs right now. "I'm pissed. I'd rather be playing New York tonight," Boston's president of basketball operations said Wednesday during his end of season news conference. Stevens' bitterness is not just about the second-seeded Celtics losing to Philadelphia to mark the third time in the last four years that they have lost in the playoffs as the higher seed. It's more about how a team that started the season with Jayson Tatum sidelined, and with such low outside expectations, overachieved to a point that Stevens and the front office were thinking anything was possible when the postseason opened a few weeks ago. "If you would have told me last summer that we would have won 56 games in the regular season; that the young guys would all become contributors; that people would have great impacts, and all up and down our roster; that we would get Tatum back for (22 games) ... I would have been thrilled with those results," Stevens said. "But the reality is, is that we came up short and, so now the job is to do an honest assessment." Stevens said that introspection will begin with first taking a breath following Boston's earliest postseason exit since Stevens' final season as Boston's coach in 2020-21. It got him thinking about a small sign that hangs in his office that says, "What do you want, what's true and how do you get there." "There's no question what we want. There's no question when you look at what's true that, though we did a lot of good things, we lost in the first round," Stevens said. "And we're also 3-11 against the top three seeds in the West (Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver) and the other top two (Detroit, New York) in the East. And so, we've got to get better." Even before Tatum made his season debut on March 6, just shy of 10 months after rupturing his right Achilles tendon in the second round of the playoffs last season against New York, the Celtics were thriving with the feisty group led by All-Star Jaylen Brown. Brown set career scoring (28.7), rebounding (6.9) and assists (5.1) averages while getting into the MVP conversation for the first time. That continued when Tatum returned and played in 16 of the final 22 regular-season games, in which he averaged 21.8 points and 10 rebounds. He looked mostly like himself playing at what Tatum said was about 80-85% as he continued to rehab and prepared to play more minutes in the playoffs. But it also could have contributed, Stevens acknowledged, to Tatum leaving Game 6 of their first-round series with the 76ers early with an unspecified left leg issue. By the morning of Game 7 two days later he was experiencing left knee stiffness, and the decision was made for him to sit it out. The Celtics lost 109-100 without him. Stevens said everything about Tatum's return will be looked at by their sports performance staff, including how the ramp up in his minutes may have factored into the new knee ailment. Tatum averaged 36.3 minutes in his six playoff games, twice logging 40-plus. "He did play a lot of minutes," Stevens said. "Do we think that had an impact on his knee stiffness and in the injury in Game 6? It's hard to tell, but we can't cross it off. So we have to look at that. And, I know that they will." How much change to the roster will take place is unclear. The only unrestricted free agent this summer will be Nikola Vucevic, who was acquired from Chicago in exchange for Anfernee Simons at the trade deadline. But the Celtics received about a $27.5 million trade exception in that deal that Stevens could use this offseason. He said everything is on the table. He was coy about what they might pursue but did note that figuring out how to get to the rim more would be a priority. "I think that one of the things that we've got to figure out is how to have more of an impact at the rim," Stevens said. "And I think we need to add to our team to do that." As for who will be in charge of the roster once it's constructed, Stevens said he still has confidence in Joe Mazzulla and his staff. "I think our coaching staff, like all of us, can continue to improve and get better. That said, I think they're very good, and we need to continue to provide them the resources to grow and to get better and to continue to be the best that we can be."