Boston Celtics: 3 keys to victory for “win and you’re in” game seven

Boston Celtics key to victory No. 2) C’s bigs must dominate the boards

The fact that I tried to look for a Getty image of a Boston Celtics big man rebounding the ball in this series and couldn’t find one kind of speaks to my point. For the record, the image used above is from the C’s bout against the Raptors during their seeding-game exhibition.

Far too often do we see Boston’s bigs get outrebounded by, not even Toronto’s own bigs necessarily but, frankly, everyone. In game six alone Daniel Theis was boxed out quite easily by OG Anunoby — who is two inches smaller and 10 pounds lighter — on four separate occasions and, in turn, the box score showed the rebounding battle going in the forward’s favor (13 in comparison to seven).

Just twice has one of the team’s primary big men led the Celtics in rebounds (Theis in games one and two) and, subsequently, they wound up winning both outings. It may sound obvious, but Boston severely needs their bigs to be more aggressive on the boards if they want to make a win more attainable tonight.

Any chance Toronto gets of nabbing a rebound is one less opportunity for Boston to capitalize on a second chance or fast break opportunity.

A fire needs to be lit under the bums of Boston’s bigs otherwise they’ll continue to get outrebounded by the likes of the 6-0 Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry. Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, AND Marcus Smart should not continuously find themselves collecting more rebounds than Theis and Robert Williams.

That is not a recipe for success as far as the Houdini’s concerned.