Brad Stevens is creating an important new norm for playing time expectations

Brad Stevens surprised no one on Tuesday night by sticking with his projected starting five of Irving/Brown/Tatum/Hayward/Horford for the regular season opener against the Sixers. However, that grouping played together a grand total of seven minutes in their 2018-19 season debut together, six of which came in the opening moments of the game. Over the final 42 minutes of the game, they spent just one minute on the floor together.

That strategy, at least early on in the season, is a planned one. With Gordon Hayward facing a 25-30 minute restriction in the opening few weeks of the season, Stevens has elected to bench the All-Star at the start of the second half. That second half adjustment should become a staple of the C’s gameplan going forward in order to keep Hayward from hitting his minutes limit too early in the second half.

It was Aron Baynes who got the call to start in place of Hayward in the second half, but Hayward’s replacement in the second half remains a fluid situation on a game-to-game basis, according to the head coach.

Establishing that strategy early on in the year using the backdrop of Hayward’s medical condition creates a norm early in the year that should help keep everyone within Boston’s deep rotation engaged as the season continues.

The decision should serve Stevens well on a variety of fronts. It first works well from an ego standpoint with the starting group. There is no easy choice among that group to bench on a nightly basis. Instead of worrying about the backlash of such a move, punting on the need to make an adjustment until the second half on any given night is an easy way to solve the issue. No one cares about who starts the second half on a nightly basis compared to the starting five (at least from a media standpoint) and it no longer becomes a story if the lineup in that part of the game is a different one every night.

This arrangement should also help the Celtics from a game management standpoint. By integrating so much returning talent into the fold with an already successful group, it remains unclear what exactly are the best lineups for this group. The starting five looks like a force on paper but it remains to be seen whether it will be one of the best options the team has or whether a more balanced or bigger group is the better option. Stevens can let the smaller starting group try to build some chemistry in this next month without being forced to rely on them too heavily on a nightly basis if the cohesion is not there.

“We'll have a lot more information after this week, after the next three weeks and go from there,” Stevens said of his lineup choices. “The goal right now is to play as well as we can by playing to our strengths and playing with ultimate effort. We have no excuse not to play as hard as we can with our depth.”

A look at the Celtics schedule creates a lot of different possibilities for second half starting lineup combos. Baynes will surely get some extended run in upcoming matchups with the Bucks and Pistons (i.e. defending Giannis and Drummond) while a smaller more versatile choice (Marcus Morris, Marcus Smart) could be the better choice against teams that play smaller at the 4. The lack of consistency should help keep everyone on their toes in the early going and provide additional opportunities for Stevens to experiment without having to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes. In a month from now, Stevens might find a group he wants to stick with or he could keep the door open to mixing and matching all year long.

Setting a new standard on this front early should be paramount to this team maximizing their depth on a nightly basis. It should not be overlooked how Stevens opted to bench Kyrie Irving in crunch time on opening night in the midst of one of the worst shooting nights of his career. That decision sent an early message that no one is guaranteed anything on any night during crunch time on a roster that features nine starting caliber players. For emerging stars like Tatum, it’s a message that will likely resonate all year long as Danny Ainge noted on Thursday morning in an interview on Toucher and Rich.

“We knew going in that we have a deep team,” Ainge said. “It was interesting because I was telling Jayson Tatum just the day before the opener, that whoever is playing well, there are going to be different guys finishing different games depending on matchups and who has the hot hand. And he said, ‘Yeah, everyone except for Kyrie, right? Kyrie is going to finish every game.’

I go, ‘No. I don’t think so. Brad doesn’t view it as a Kyrie backup. Brad views it as a bunch of starters.’ He looked at me and rolled his eyes and said ‘Yeah right.’ He said when he saw that happen in Game 1, he realized that it was the case. If it could happen to Kyrie, it could happen to anybody.’

It’s going to be hard for anyone on this team to create a stink publicly or privately about playing time if one of the best players in the world is willing to take a seat during crunch time on opening night. Stevens is doing his best to destroy any preconceived notions now about who deserves what and it’s a move that should serve this group incredibly well over the long haul. He’s committed to finding the best ways for this team to win on a nightly basis and that is what is going to be needed for this team to have a chance to take down other top contenders all year long.