Boston Celtics stud No. 2) Al Horford
With every passing day, Al Horford is proving to the masses more and more why he’s been arguably the most underrate contributor on the Boston Celtics during their midseason turnaround, and Wednesday against Utah was yet another fine display of all the reasons why.
An absolute glue guy for the C’s during his return stint to the ball club, the big man has had his hands in a plethora of aspects of the team’s production throughout the year–from scoring to rebounding, facilitating to contesting the veteran can simply do it all.
Tying for the best plus-minus mark on the team by game’s end, Horford once again found himself stuffing the stat sheet offensively with nine points, six rebounds, and three assists on 60 percent shooting from deep (where all his points on the night came from).
Now, while everyone finds themselves pointing to guys like Marcus Smart and Robert Williams for being the leading forces in turning Boston’s defense into the top-ranked unit in the league, the 15-year veteran has arguably been just as vital to their success on that end of the ball, and it showed Wednesday night as he finished with a highly impressive three rejections.
Al Horford is easily one of the team’s biggest X-factors heading into this year’s postseason and, should he continue to impact the game like he did against the Jazz, the C’s will only stand to benefit in a massive way.