Celtics Can Learn Major Lesson From ECF Matchup

The Boston Celtics were hoping to still be playing basketball at this time of year. They wanted to defend their title, and they thought they had the roster to do it.

Instead, the Celtics lost to the New York Knicks in six games. They were going to be down 3-1 even before Jayson Tatum suffered his devastating Achilles injury.

It's clear that even if the team were fully healthy that they were not going to be good enough to win the championship this year. They can learn from this Eastern Conference Finals matchup.

It's clear that the way the Pacers and the Knicks have built their teams is how teams need to be built in the future. Both teams are built in different ways, but are still built differently than the Celtics.

Boston has a very expensive starting lineup, as all five guys are extremely expensive. It's one of the reasons why they are in the salary crunch that they are about to face this summer.

New York does have some expensive guys, namely KAT, Jalen Brunson, and OG Anunoby. The key thing for them is that not all five of their starters are super expensive.

For the Pacers, only two of their players on the roster are making a ton of money. They have two max contract guys in Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam.

Everyone else is making reasonable money, and they have a team that is very unselfish and loves to move the ball. That is the kind of team that the Celtics need to build moving forward.

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It's clear that this is the way that the NBA is trending with the CBA restrictions that are in place. This is the summer to start gearing the roster towards that kind of team building.

As long as they have Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the team is going to be good. They just need to find some other pieces around the league who can play well on non-max contracts.

The Celtics are a good organization, but how new owner Bill Chisholm is going to put his stamp on how they will be built.

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