I’ve recently discovered a foolproof way to identify Celtics fans that don’t actually pay much attention to the Celtics:
They’re blaming this relatively slow start on Gordon Hayward.
The Celtics entered the new season as the consensus favorite in the Eastern Conference, the team with the best hope of advancing to the Final and presumably either getting mauled by or stunning the three-peat questing Golden State Warriors.
The Celtics should have been the consensus favorite, too. After all, they reached Game 7 of the 2017-18 conference finals without injured stars Hayward and Kyrie Irving. They even led the game with 6 minutes left when precocious rookie Jayson Tatum buried a 3 to put the Celtics ahead.