The Boston Celtics have shown to have success utilizing around nine players in their rotation this season. It’s the perk of having a deep team while also managing minutes along the way of the season to keep their top guys fresh for the playoffs.

The trio of Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, and Luke Kornet have led Boston’s bench this year, not to leave out Al Horford, who’s technically part of the bench, but he also receives plenty of starts and minutes.

I’m talking about players seven through ten on the roster, the players who’ve stepped up and carved roles for themselves on this team. It’ll be hard not to see them in the playoffs considering what they bring to the team at this point in the season.

Let’s take a look at the minutes available to the Celtics in a playoff series.

The top-six players are all going to play at least 30-minutes in the playoffs. Here’s how I broke it down:

40-minutes

Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White.

35-minutes

Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday.

30-minutes

Al Horford.

The top-six players total 220-minutes of the 240-minutes available in a game. This leaves only 20-minutes left to distribute to key role players like Pritchard, Hauser, and Kornet, who’ve all played important roles to the team as of late.

10-minutes

Sam Hauser.

5-minutes

Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet.

I gave Hauser half of the available minutes due to his 3-point shooting ability and how it can pull Boston away from the opposition in any game. But it’s possible that if he has an off night that Pritchard could get more of those minutes as a facilitating scorer from the point guard position, which we’ve seen from him as of recent.

Kornet needs to have a handful of minutes to allow Porzingis and Horford to catch some rest throughout a game. He’s played exceptionally well over the last month of games, as head coach Joe Mazzulla has said that Kornet is the best at their defensive system.

Xavier Tillman could receive some of Kornet’s minutes due to matchups but not much more than that.

The possibility of promoting two-way center Neemis Queta to a standard deal is still an option for Boston. Queta currently has only three games of two-way eligibility remaining for the season and will not be available in the playoffs if he’s not promoted before the end of the regular season.

The rotation in the playoffs is obviously going to get minimized, but considering how deep of a roster Boston has, it’s fair to speculate how it will look and how many players will see the court.

I would expect the playoff rotation to include Hauser and Pritchard, but as I broke down the minutes distribution above, there isn’t going to be many minutes left to go around after the seventh man.

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