The Celtics are one of the NBA’s best teams halfway through the season, and will look to have another deep playoff run. The team’s success goes back to last year’s unfinished business and the motivation they’ve taken from their Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors.
The teams meet again tonight, with the Warriors struggling on the road and Boston producing offense at record rates and finding their defensive form from a year ago. Beyond schematic lessons, the Celtics emphasized getting off to a hot start to increase the chances they would return to the NBA Finals.
“Even though no one says it, I feel like everyone from this organization wants to let people know we weren’t a fluke,” Robert Williams III said. “We’re all working hard over here … we want to go back as much as we can.”
The hard work is evident, with the Celtics posting a 33-12 record and leading the Eastern Conference by four games. The team extracted lessons from last season throughout the first half, the most important of which being that they need to hold themselves to a higher standard when the playoffs arrive.
“You always got more to give, whether that’s mentally or physically,” Williams III said. “That team has been put in that situation plenty of times before we met them there and it’s not easy winning the Finals.”
Al Horford echoed similar sentiments, saying that the group collectively experiencing the heightened intensity of playoff basketball prepared them to come out strong during the regular season.
“That playoff run last year, it’s a lot of experience we were able to gain as a group,” Horford said. “Carrying into this season, I feel like we started at a different level.”
The Celtics also emphasized strategic lessons from last year’s Finals. They addressed areas of the team’s offensive and defensive execution that the Warriors were able to take advantage of.
“Whenever you lose,” Joe Mazzulla said. “It shows where you need to improve. I think our offense has improved in recognizing coverages, I think our spacing has improved, I think our screening has improved, and areas of our defense will continue to improve as well.”
With the Warriors visiting Boston for the first time since last year’s NBA finals, the loss has been fresh on the minds of the Celtics faithful. After losing their first meeting this season in San Francisco, the Celtics — this time with Williams III and Horford available — feel excited to get another shot at Golden State. They also noted they won’t put too much stock into just one game.
“We want any win we can get,” Williams said. “This team showed us last year that the Finals aren’t easy, so this is a great test. There’s a whole lot of season left to go though and you can’t base it off of one game, but this is a great test.”
Mazzulla added that there isn’t a bad taste in their mouths from last year, and they’re continuing to look forward and improve.
“Everybody wants to win,” he said. “Do I think it plays a part in our open-mindedness to do different things in order to help us become the best team that we can by year’s end? Yes.”
Boston will look to even the season series against Golden State and win its eight straight game tonight at TD Garden tonight at 7:30 EST.
