Stats Prove Jrue Holiday Injury Could be Major Setback For Celtics

The trade additions of six-time All-Defensive Team guard Jrue Holiday and former one-time All-Star center Kristaps Porzingis to the Boston Celtics ahead of the 2023-24 season helped cement the club's eventual championship core, which also included six-time All-Star power forward Jayson Tatum, four-time All-Star swingman Jaylen Brown, and two-time All-Defensive Team guard Derrick White.

Boston finished the season with a sparkling 64-18 record and proceeded to obliterate the Eastern Conference opposition, 15-2, en route to an NBA Finals tilt against the Dallas Mavericks. The Celtics' 4-1 series victory was so dramatic that it convinced Dallas general manager Nico Harrison to ditch five-time All-NBA superstar guard Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in a stunning trade of his own.

In 2024-25, Boston mounted a solid regular season title defense, going 61-21 and finishing with the No. 2 seed in the East. The Celtics will open up their playoff run with a 2-7 matchup against the Orlando Magic, slated to tip off at TD Garden on Sunday.

Staring down the priciest luxury tax bill in league history next year, it's anyone's guess as to what kind of an appetite the Celtics' new ownership group will have to bring back all of its core pieces, which also includes sixth man point guard Payton Pritchard, reserve forward Sam Hauser, and impending free agent reserve center Al Horford.

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This could be the last year Boston's current eight-man squad is together.

And it could all hinge on the health of one top contributor.

Holiday has been grappling with a rare mallet finger injury on his right pinky for several months now. The 34-year-old's jumper has been a bit off, and as a consequence he has been more tenuous on both sides of the ball than he was last year, shooting less frequently than usual — although the rock has been going in more of late.

Per Nick Goss of NBC Sports Boston, when Holiday does score, the Celtics' success has been elite. Boston has gone 14-2 when the 6-foot-4 UCLA product has notched 15 or more points.

JRUE HOLIDAY WITH THE STEAL ‼️

CLAMPS. IN. THE. CLUTCH.

BOS up 1 with 1.1 left on ABC pic.twitter.com/w0lOiBeuOb
— NBA (@NBA) May 26, 2024

"Holiday's ability to knock down 3-pointers and shoot around 90 percent from the foul line will make him a very important player in this Boston playoff run," writes Goss. "How much will his finger injury impact him? You could argue he's played his best basketball of the season the last month-and-a-half despite nursing this injury. He shot 38.6 percent from 3-point range in March and 41.7 percent in April."

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As Goss notes, Holiday's steadying veteran leadership — which has already yielded two Olympic gold medals and two titles, with two different teams — went a long way to abet Boston last year.

This year, Holiday has been a nice release valve for the Celtics when opposing defenses load up on Tatum and Brown.

Jrue Holiday has turned a huge problem into one of the Celtics' most valuable tools pic.twitter.com/dM51YP59ih
— Jack Simone (@JackSimoneNBA) April 7, 2025

Do Boston's repeat chances rest on Holiday's health?

Across 62 regular season contests, Holiday logged averages of 11.1 points on .443/.353/.909 shooting splits, 4.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.1 steals a night.

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