The Boston Celtics are going to be just fine

Everything is going to be fine.*

*While I firmly believe the above statement, I admit that the word “fine” is doing a double shift of work here.

Forgive an old writer for waxing poetic and attempting to share some “King Solomon in Ecclesiastes” type wisdom. When you’ve covered a team for a couple of decades, you pick up on some macro trends. We deal with a lot of the daily minutiae here on the blog and I’m just as frustrated as the next guy with the recent rollercoaster ride. However, it is always healthy to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Let’s start here: I firmly believe that the Celtics could have won any of the last 3 Championships if a few things went their way. 3 years ago they got a front row seat for Steph Curry’s legacy showcase. But if a butterfly flapped its wings leading to chain of events that pushed a few Jordan Poole shots an inch or two to the left, maybe we’re having a whole different discussion. The next year you could replace Poole’s name with Caleb Martin and the statement would be just as true.

We talk a lot about what lessons the team learned along the way that made them Champions last year. There’s certainly some merit to that. However, I would submit that sometimes things just fall your way, and sometimes they don’t.

I’m not saying that the Celtics were just “lucky” last year, though every Champion in history has had some amount of luck on their side. It goes back to the philosophy that Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzulla live by. Develop good habits, execute the gameplan, and put yourself in position to succeed. It won’t always work, but you learn from the mistakes and keep refining the process to give yourself a better chance the next time.

Or said another way, if you are making the right cuts, moving the ball to the next logical option, and shooting the shots that open up, then you are taking the right shot. The best shooters in the world fail 60% of the time, but that’s still 5% better than most. Maybe the Warriors Finals was a good shot that just didn’t go in. Maybe the Heat loss the next year was a missed read that led to a slightly rushed shot. Last year was just a full year of the ball whipping around the court and draining an open 3. Make…