The Celtics are good except when they're not

BOSTON -- Just what are we supposed to make of the Celtics? They came into the week riding a wave of good feeling after taking the Warriors to double overtime and then earning a gut-check win in Charlotte less than 24 hours later. They had won five of their last seven, including victories over Miami and Chicago. Even their losses during that span -- tight contests against San Antonio and Golden State -- gave them a jolt of credibility and led to speculation that the Celtics just might be that most mythological of NBA unicorns: The Second-Best Team in the East. It didn’t last long.

On Tuesday, they were manhandled by the Cavaliers in what was the most sobering setback of the season. If the Golden State game provided a thrilling reminder of the kind of energy and excitement that used to pulse through the Garden, then the Cavs contest offered a stark reminder of how much further they have to go. Then they went to Detroit and that’s when things took a turn from disappointing to outright distressing.

The Celtics gave up 119 points in a loss that snapped a streak of 10 straight wins on the road in back-to-backs, which is just about the oddest nugget radio play-by-play man Sean Grande could unearth, and Grande’s got a trove of them on file for this bizzarro team. They followed that up by blowing a fourth-quarter lead against the Hawks that had them shaking their heads and Isaiah Thomas suggesting they get them out of their respective asses.

Here’s the strangest thing about the Celtics: They came into the week with the fifth-best point differential in the league and by the end of it they would be out of the playoffs. It seems like every other week this space is devoted to yet another think piece about a mid-level team struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of expectations, but here we are.

Let’s start with a premise: Despite the trials of the past week, the Celtics are a good team. They have built a top defense without an elite rim protector thanks to a sound scheme and active defenders on the perimeter who force a ton of turnovers. On offense they take a lot of threes and share the ball. Almost all of their lineups are productive and produce net positive results. When people talk about them being well-coached, that’s exactly what they mean. In other words, Brad Stevens puts his players in position to succeed.

Night after night, opposing teams offer admiring words of praise. If the Celtics don’t necessarily overwhelm you with physical talent, they have earned their respect around the league for how they play.

"They can really get after you defensively," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "They’ve got a toughness and physicality that a lot of nights creates problems for a lot of teams including ourselves. Offensively, different guys can do it every night. When they’re playing well they’ve got lots of different guys that can do things. They’ve got lots of different guys that can defend. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts."

And that’s the crux of the issue. When they play well together they can beat anyone in the league and when they don’t, they can get "exposed," to use Stevens’ word from the Atlanta loss. One can look at their net ratings and other exotic measures and say that they’ve underachieved a bit, but it’s hard to look at their roster and reach the same conclusion.

The Celtics have a lot of solid players, but with the exception of Thomas, they lack the kind of scorers who can take over games. Thomas has been great this season, but he’s the only one who is truly capable of creating his own shot in their halfcourt offense and his size limitations are an issue when teams switch taller defenders on him in the closing moments.

That’s not to say they have a bunch of scrubs. Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder are both having wonderful seasons, arguably the best of their respective careers. Every team in the league would love to have them on their side. Evan Turner has become a valuable and trusted reserve. Amir Johnson has been everything they hoped when they signed him in free agency and Jared Sullinger has put his career back on track. Marcus Smart was playing well before a knee injury kept him out of the lineup and Kelly Olynyk has had a breakthrough year defensively. (Seriously, he’s been very good on that end of the floor.)

That’s a solid team most nights, and Stevens has consistently said that he’s happy with the team’s progress. He hinted on Saturday that a lineup change may be coming and one possibility would be limiting David Lee’s minutes in favor of Jonas Jerebko and playing more smallball. Lee is the only regular with a negative net rating and the C’s have been more than five points better when he’s off the floor.

But that’s tinkering on the margins. If the Celtics are going to move beyond this stage then Danny Ainge will have to make a move. There’s been speculation for months -- years even -- about Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, but that seems unlikely at this juncture. There has never been universal agreement in the team’s front office that Cousins is the player to go all in for and it’s not even certain that Cousins would be available at all. A knockdown shooter would definitely help matters, considering their woeful 33 percent mark from behind the arc, but there aren’t many of them available right now. Denver’s Danilo Gallinari, for example, can’t be traded until February. Not that the Nuggets have shown any interest in moving him either. The NBA’s version of parity has produced a number of interesting side effects and one of them is the notion that with more teams competing for playoff spots, there are fewer sellers than usual. As it stands, the Celtics’ best chance to land a game-changing player is in this summer’s draft where they own Brooklyn’s pick without protection as the latest installment of the KG/Paul Pierce heist. In addition to their own choice, they also have Dallas’ first round selection (top-7 protected) and Minnesota’s first rounder if it falls out of the top 12 picks (doubtful, but not out of the realm of possibility). They’ve also got a bunch of second rounders with protections too numerous and complex to list here. Suffice to say, they’ve got a lot of picks coming and more on the way in the future from Brooklyn and Memphis.

Those picks are Ainge’s best resource in trade talks. He also has Lee’s expiring contract to match up in terms of salary plus a roster full of players who are either on rookie deals or team-friendly veteran contracts. There are no bad salaries to clear or albatross contracts to stand in the way of making a deal. Now Ainge just needs to find a willing trade partner.

It’s Year 3 of this massive rebuild and while it feels like the Celtics have been in a holding pattern for a while, consider that it was only a year ago when they traded Rajon Rondo to the Mavericks. A few weeks later, they dealt Jeff Green to the Grizzlies, acquiring more players and more picks along the way until they ultimately landed Thomas at the deadline. The Celtics went 20-11 down the stretch and snuck into the playoffs, surprising many and putting them on a slightly accelerated timetable.

A few things have changed since then, but not many. Ainge signed Johnson in free agency, acquired Lee from Golden State and drafted a few more kids, but the core players have largely remained the same. Given the limitations of the roster and the bounty of picks at their disposal, this season could hardly be called a referendum on their rebuilding process since the ultimate piece remains tantalizingly out of reach. It would be one thing if Ainge had blown his chips on a .500 team, but he’s managed to build a competitive squad while hoarding assets and keeping his options open.

The Celtics are what they are: A good but not great team that’s a pain in the neck to play against, but with a much thinner margin of error than most of their competitors. That should be enough to get them back to the postseason and it may even be enough to secure home court advantage for a round. That’s progress of a sort, but it’s not enough to make them a legitimate threat. No matter what the numbers say in their defense.