Los Angeles Times

Rolling green: Brad Stevens has led his starless bunch to the East finals

There was a vision for the Boston Celtics before the 2017-18 season, one that included franchise-altering additions of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward paired with the spoils of the most lopsided NBA trade in the last decade.

A team that had reached the conference finals the previous season seemed destined for more.

This was the culmination of a rebuild that began when Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Doc Rivers left the organization in the same summer. A rebuild that began with a 57-loss season and a first-time NBA head coach had morphed into a legitimate championship contender in five years.

It lasted for less than six minutes.

In the first quarter of the season opener, Hayward

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times4 min readCrime & Violence
Robin Abcarian: Criminalizing Homelessness Is Unconscionable, But Is It Unconstitutional?
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a small Oregon city can cite and prosecute homeless people for sleeping in public places when they have nowhere else to lay their heads. If the case reveals nothing else about the state
Los Angeles Times8 min read
Bit By A Billionaire's Dog? Or A Case Of Extortion? A Legal Saga From An LA Dog Park
LOS ANGELES -- A dog-bites-woman story usually isn't much of a story at all. But an incident in one of L.A.'s wealthiest enclaves has become something else entirely. What began in a Brentwood park on a summer day in 2022, when a dog owned by billiona
Los Angeles Times5 min read
Kevin Baxter: How Former Galaxy Player Eddie Lewis Became A Soccer Training Tech Innovator
LOS ANGELES — Eddie Lewis played his final soccer game at the age of 36, old for a midfielder but young for just about everybody else. So with more than half a lifetime ahead of him, he had plenty of time to build a new career. Yet like many former p

Related Books & Audiobooks