The Boston Celtics' 3-1 collapse against the Philadelphia 76ers ended their 2026 postseason a round earlier than even the most pessimistic forecasts had projected. On the latest episode of The Deep 3 podcast, the panel — long-time Celtics watchers — opened the conversation by tearing into the franchise from every angle, then quickly moved past anger into the more uncomfortable question of what Boston actually does next.
"This is all in all one of the more disappointing things that I've seen in a little while because, you know, Tatum didn't play, but regardless if Tatum's there or not towards the end of the series, they still should have won this," one of the hosts said.
The panel was particularly sharp on Jaylen Brown. The 2024 NBA Finals MVP had what was statistically one of the best regular seasons of his career, but the show argued that the Game 7 series swing exposed the limits of a half-court attack that ran through Brown when Jayson Tatum was on the bench rehabbing his Achilles.
"Jaylen Brown first option hoops like really would lead you to a whole lot of nothing," the host said.
The hosts went out of their way to credit the Sixers — whose Joel Embiid changed the geometry of the series almost single-handedly after returning from his appendicitis stint — but the post-mortem kept circling back to one structural problem: Brown, Tatum and Joe Mazzulla cannot keep finishing seasons short of the conference finals without somebody being put on the table.
"At this point, I don't think as long as Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Mazzulla are there, I don't think we can expect them to lose games or lose series in any other way possible," another host said.
That set up the most provocative section of the show. The panel questioned, openly, whether Boston should consider moving Brown for a transformative star — explicitly floating Giannis Antetokounmpo as the player they would entertain.
"Maybe trading Jaylen Brown is our trading Drew Holiday for the Bucks. This Giannis-for-Jaylen Brown swap is going to hit so good," one host said.
The proposal was offered as a thought experiment rather than a prediction, but the panel was direct about what they thought of fan-base purism.
"I don't think Jaylen Brown — the idea of moving him should be some stupid thought that if you say that, you're some idiot that doesn't understand the Celtics. But if there is an opportunity on the table, like I don't think if they did that and traded for Giannis for Jaylen Brown, like straight up, I would not think that's crazy."
The other lever the show floated was the coaching seat. Mazzulla won a title in 2024, has piled up regular-season wins, and is broadly seen as one of the most innovative young coaches in the league. The panel still stopped short of declaring him untouchable.
"Out of the two — for what you're describing and what I have seen from a majority of Celtics fans — I think to appease that feeling, firing Joe would be the move because what it sounds like is, hey, I just can't live like this anymore."
The panel also pointed out that Brown's public comments through the season — including a now-controversial pre-Finals shot at Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's flopping that the show argued was hypocritical given Brown's own habits in the Embiid series — had soured a portion of the locker room and the fan base.
"He can go to Joel Embiid after Joel Embiid sun-ed him in a playoff series and made Jaylen Brown himself start flopping mid-game," one host said.
For now, the only certainty is that the Celtics' offseason starts earlier than anyone in the building planned, and that the once-untouchable core of Brown, Tatum and Mazzulla is — at least on basketball podcasts the Celtics fan base actually listens to — no longer untouchable.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/deep-3-celtics-3-1-collapse-jaylen-brown-trade-block-mazzulla-fired-may-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
