Following their season-worst 21-point loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics finished up their road trip on a high note. They took down the Dallas Mavericks 122-107 in an NBA Finals rematch on Saturday night, ending their four-game trip against Western Conference teams with a 3-1 record.
It was a nice bounce-back win against an injury-plagued Mavericks team. Though Dallas was missing Luka Doncic, Dereck Lively II, Naji Marshall, and others, the Celtics’ performance was still significantly better than how they’ve looked in recent weeks. It was a perfect change of pace to help get Boston back on track.
And they needed it, according to Kristaps Porzingis.
Kristaps Porzingis called the Celtics 'house cats'
After the game, Porzingis said that the Celtics have looked like a ‘house cat’ more than the ‘lion’ they were last year. (via Tim MacMahon of ESPN)
"We were a lion last season, and some games this year we've looked like a house cat," Porzingis said. "We want to have that spirit as a team this year, and it's tough. Obviously, we can't trick ourselves and make it [like] it's playoffs every game.
“It's tough, just human nature. But we know the group that we have and we know that we're going to bring it to the big games, but we need to bring it consistently and keep building on top of good wins like tonight."
That’s exactly what Celtics fans have been begging for for the past month. As the Celtics have failed to bring the energy for games against the Toronto Raptors, Lakers, and others, fans have been banging at the doors of TD Garden, begging for Boston to pick up their intensity.
So, hearing Porzingis admit that he feels the same way should be a breath of fresh air. But at the same time, as Porzingis alluded to, it’s harder than most people want to admit.
Last season, the Celtics were fighting every night because they felt like they had to. At the time, they hadn’t won anything yet, so they needed to push themselves every single game until they accomplished their ultimate goal, which they did when they won Banner 18.
Now that they’ve already won a championship, it’s naturally harder to get as pumped up for every single game, especially a random game in the middle of January.
Porzingis said it best when he called it “human nature,” but that doesn’t mean it’s an excuse. It’s the Celtics’ job to fight human nature as best as they can so they can get back on track to winning another title.