Take yourself back to May 2025, just after Jayson Tatum ruptured his Achilles tendon in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks.
Imagine we tell you that the Boston Celtics will trade away Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, let Al Horford and Luke Kornet walk in free agency and make a series of cost-cutting deals ahead of the NBA trade deadline to duck under the luxury tax.
How many wins would you predict they’d have at the February 2026 All-Star break? Somewhere in the 20-25 range? And where would they be in the East standings? Somewhere in the play-in tournament?
Those would be fair predictions. They’d also be very wrong.
After demolishing the Chicago Bulls at TD Garden on Wednesday night, the Celtics enter the 2026 All-Star break with a 35-19 record and the No. 2 seed in the East. For context, they entered the 2025 All-Star break with … a 39-16 record and the No. 2 seed in the East.
Here’s a comparison of the 2025-26 Celtics at the All-Star break and the 2024-25 Celtics at the All-Star break. As a reminder, Boston lost a total of 8,749 minutes and 4,415 points — 46 percent of their total scoring output — between Tatum, Porzingis, Holiday, Horford and Kornet.
So, how have the Celtics been able to maintain such a high level of play despite losing nearly half of their scoring output from last season — not to mention their First-Team All-NBA superstar who led the team in points, rebounds and assists in 2024-25?
There are many reasons, but we’ll boil them down into two categories.
The “holdovers” have stepped up.
Let’s start with the main culprit: Jaylen Brown.
The recently-named All-Star starter has increased his scoring average by 7.1 points per game (22.2 to 29.3) despite essentially playing the same amount of minutes as last season. He’s tied for third in the NBA in scoring, is averaging career highs in rebounds (6.9) and assists (4.7) per game, and continues to play excellent defense while often guarding the opponent’s best player every night.
Brown is far and away the No. 1 reason for the Celtics’ sustained success without Tatum. But he’s gotten plenty of help.
Payton Pritchard is averaging a career-high 17.2 points per game (up from 14.3 per game last season) while making the most of his increased minutes. For all of his shooting struggles, Derrick White has also boosted his scoring average and leads the team in total plus-minus at +381.
Neemias Queta has stepped into a starting center role and thrived, averaging a near-double-double with 9.7 points and a team-high 8.3 rebounds per game. Jordan Walsh also has been a revelation; after playing sparingly last season, he’s averaging 18.4 minutes per game with 20 starts under his belt and has impacted winning on both ends.
All seven holdovers from last season’s roster have seen upticks in their scoring averages in 2025-26. That’s to be expected with more minutes available, but the majority of this group has exceeded external expectations to date.
The “new guys” have provided a boost.
It’s hard to have high expectations when you replace Porzingis, Holiday, Horford and Kornet with the likes of Anfernee Simons, Luka Garza, Josh Minott and Hugo Gonzalez.
But those fresh faces have contributed to winning in a big way this season.
Simons single-handedly won several games for the Celtics with his scoring outbursts off the bench, ranking fourth on the team with 14.2 points per game before Boston dealt him to Chicago for Nikola Vucevic ahead of last week’s NBA trade deadline.
Garza, who signed a two-year, $5.5 million deal with the Celtics in free agency last offseason, has been a workhorse off the bench, racking up 103 offensive rebounds as a reserve (fourth-most among NBA bench players) while providing valuable frontcourt depth behind Queta.
Meanwhile the 20-year-old Gonzalez — who leads all NBA rookies with +243 plus-minus — has injected energy into Boston’s second unit with his tenacious defense and aggressive rebounding. Even Minott made an early impact as a starter over the first two weeks of the season before falling out of Joe Mazzulla’s rotation and getting dealt at the deadline.
Can the Celtics sustain their success?
The C’s may not match their 61-win total from last season, but the future is bright: Vucevic looks like a great frontcourt pickup as he continues to get acclimated, and Tatum appears closer to a return than ever after he began 5-on-5 scrimmages with the team earlier this week.
Mazzulla has pushed all the right buttons to date with a roster that’s gotten increased production from returning players and surprising contributions from new additions. And when the Celtics take the court again next Thursday in Golden State against Horford, Porzingis and the Warriors, they can say with a straight face that they’re doing just fine without their old friends.
