Without Gordon Hayward, what's next for Celtics?

CLEVELAND — A new Celtics era came to a screeching halt before it really even had the chance to begin on Tuesday night. Gordon Hayward went down with a gruesome fractured left ankle injury at the 6:45 mark of the first quarter and was wheeled off the floor on a stretcher as the Quicken Loans Arena crowd await.

The painful glimpse of witnessing Hayward in agony on the court was probably the last time we’ll see the All-Star forward on the court for awhile. His fractured left ankle isn’t necessarily a season-ender according to the Boston Sports Journal medical expert Dr. Jessica Flynn, but he’s going to miss a significant portion of the season for the Celtics even during a best-case scenario for his recovery.

The Celtics looked shellshocked in the direct aftermath of Hayward’s injury, but they won’t have too much time to feel sorry for themselves in the upcoming weeks. The 0-1 squad returns to action Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks in a home opener, and actually play one of the most challenging parts of their schedule over the next few weeks.

We’ll find out more about Hayward’s timetable in the coming days, but Brad Stevens faces a number of tough choices in the upcoming days, weeks and months while trying to steady a Celtics team that lost one of its best players on both ends of the floor in Cleveland. Let’s examine a few tough questions that the team will need to consider in wake of the injury:

Who starts in place of Gordon Hayward?

Let’s start with the obvious question here. The Celtics are already down a body at the wing with Marcus Morris sidelined so the only real options here are to upsize or downsize in this spot. One choice would be to go with a bigger traditional starting lineup with Jayson Tatum at small forward, Al Horford at power forward and Aron Baynes in the middle. The more likely option, however, is downsizing with Marcus Smart. The fourth-year guard would start in the backcourt with Kyrie Irving, pushing Jaylen Brown to the 3. It’s the group the Celtics started the second half with against the Cavs and the one that is best situated to play the small-ball lineups the Celtics will see on a regular basis. Once Morris returns, Smart is likely headed back to the bench.

With Hayward out, will the Celtics bring Marcus Morris back sooner?

There’s no question the C’s need him a lot more now, but that doesn’t change the physical situation for the 6-foot-9 forward. A sore right knee isn’t going away overnight, and the Celtics are going to need Morris at his best later this month if they want to stick in the top half of the Eastern Conference while Hayward is sidelined. The Celtics can hang tough for a few games without their best forwards in the lineup (as we saw tonight) so the expectation here is that nothing changes with the Morris return timetable.

Will the Celtics add a shooter on the wing?

The Celtics lacked a lot of reliable 3-point shooting on the wing already this year and they easily just lost their best floor spacer in that spot with Hayward going down. Without him, the Celtics have a lot of unproven shooters eating up minutes at the shooting guard and small forward spots in Brown, Tatum and Smart, and that could signal trouble for Boston’s offense. Defenses will be able to key in a lot more on Irving and Horford without adequate floor spacing around them, taking their chances with the youngsters hoisting up deep shots from the outside. Tuesday’s 3-point shooting numbers (Celtics not named Irving were 4-of-23 from beyond the arc) foreshadow what could be a tough situation for Stevens to manage. Morris will help, but he’s still not considered more than an average shooter from downtown. With an open roster spot available, Stevens could use some help in this area. I’ll take a closer look at the available names in the coming days on the open market but one guy that could fit the bill who already has familiarity with the system: Gerald Green, who was waived by the Bucks last week.

Who gets to take Smart’s bench minutes?

Hayward was going to play 30-35 minutes per night and the same goes for Smart whether he was starting or coming off the bench. With Smart now likely to start, the Celtics are going to have to look further down the bench to soak up some of those bench minutes and we got a glimpse of a couple possibilities on Tuesday night. Semi Ojeleye underwhelmed in his nine minutes of first-half action after the injury (0 points, 0/2 shooting, -10 in plus/minus). It’s hard to fault the rookie for the performance since the entire team was shellshocked in wake of the Hayward injury, but he didn’t do much to inspire confidence that he’s ready for the job. In place of Ojeleye, Stevens turned to a more small ball in the second half with Shane Larkin playing point, Terry Rozier at shooting guard and Smart at small forward. Larkin held his own over the five-minute stint but missed a wide-open 3 from the top of the key. Neither Larkin nor Ojeleye is a particularly appealing for a Celtics bench unit that’s suddenly low on offensive upside, which makes me think a shooter will be brought into the fold to help. Until that happens, I expect to see more of Larkin than Ojeleye.

Can this team stay afloat in the East without Hayward?

Once Morris returns, this Celtics team will look like a slightly less talented version than last year’s squad. With less depth in place, the task will be tougher to beat out the likes of the Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors for a top-3 seed in the East, but there’s no question that there’s enough talent in place here to stay in the hunt without Hayward for a little while. We saw some encouraging fight from some of the youngsters on Tuesday, including a career-night from Jaylen Brown (25 points) and some serious bounce-back, second-half efforts from Smart and Tatum. The onus will be on that trio to show they can compete at that level on a regular basis. The veterans will do their jobs regardless, but this team will go for the next few months as far as the young guys are willing to take them.