The Boston Celtics have used everyone to get on this six game win streak
The Boston Celtics have now won six straight games, and even though a win against the Sacramento Kings is hardly impressive, they handled them the way a top team in the league should.
I’m not sure anyone could have predicted the Celtics would put together the longest active winning streak after losing Gordon Hayward and the the first two games, but they have turned the season around as quickly as it was thought to be lost.
The Celtics have been winning games in a way that most would not have seen coming, because their ability to defend, rebound, and score in the paint are their biggest strengths.
They have not been lights out shooting, they have not been one of the best passing teams in the NBA, and yet they continue to discover more ways that they can defeat opponents.
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The Celtics are using every player on the court at all times. Nobody is a liability, and everyone has some sort of purpose on the court. Everyone needs to contribute, and it is making things a lot easier for everyone on team.
What the Celtics are proving is that there is no one player that they absolutely need to have success. It starts with the Hayward injury. We can easily see how much losing him hurt their offense. The Celtics do not have the shooting we thought they would, and losing Hayward prevents them from reaching their ultimate highs on offense.
That being said, the Celtics have not allowed that to derail their season. They are realizing their potential and their limits on offense, and are using everyone and anyone to try and make up that impact.
Obviously, these players make the team significantly better, and would change what can be done with the season. That being said, the point is that this is a team that is proving they will find ways to make up for any kind of loses.
The Celtics have also done this without any game where you get the sense that it was won on the back of one player. Kyrie Irving has been brilliant, but it is not as if they have no way of being successful without him.
Al Horford has been dominant on both ends, but they do not need him to be a 20 points per game scorer to be successful, because every player on the court has been picking up the slack.
Brad Stevens has been at his absolute best for this team, and it hardly makes sense how quickly he was able to figure out how each of these players can carry their weight. Brad Stevens has always made sure his teams were deep and embraced all the talent.
Last season, may have been the exception, because the Celtics needed Isaiah Thomas and Horford to go out and win games by themselves on a regular basis.
This season, it feels as lot like Irving could have an off scoring night, or Horford could fall back into a rebounding liability, and they will find other players that can step up their impact just enough to make up for it.
The Celtics cannot afford for them to be complete disasters, but things are set up so that no one off day will destroy what the team is trying to do.
The Celtics know they still have players that can take over games on their own, but this six game winning streak has shown us the Celtics are not built in a way that depends on that.
Defense is the best way to enable this. The best part of this season has been how well every contributor has been able to play on defense. There is not a single player who has been a disappointment on defense and that has given the Celtics a lot of freedom to struggle on offense.
The Celtics could have descended into that team that just asked Irving to do everything on offense, and get Horford to just jack up more shots. Instead, Stevens is making sure that all these players get good opportunities to contribute and that has made this one of the smoothest turnarounds possible.
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The Celtics are finding all the different ways that this team can be successful, and are protecting themselves from the danger of one lost player ruining the season for the entire team.