How about those first three games for our Boston Celtics?
Entering this season, I was (and still am) confident that this team had the talent and ability to repeat as champions. However, it’s a long grueling season and I feared coming off of a summer of non-stop celebrations that Boston might start the season slow.
Well if the first three games have taught me anything, it’s that the Celtics are motivated.
Jayson Tatum is playing like a man on a mission. Currently averaging 33 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 6.3 assists all while shooting 54.7% from the floor and 48.6% from beyond the arc. He’s had one great summer between winning his first NBA Championship, winning another gold medal, and signing a supermax deal to stay with Boston.
But although he had a great offseason, it was also one filled with anger as Steve Kerr decided not to play Jayson Tatum in a few Olympic games. Jaylen Brown recently admitted that he texted Tatum during the Olympics saying that he’s “mad” for him. Well, it looks like Tatum took the benching personally because he’s been on a heater since the first game against the Knicks.
Then against the Pistons, when we needed a clutch basket to win the game, he delivered. Tatum’s not the type of player to admit it publicly, but Steve Kerr may have brought out another level of Tatum’s game, so thank you, Steve.
A player who I was a bit concerned about was Al Horford. Not necessarily for the long run, just with the initial start to the season. With Kristaps Porzingis out until December, Horford will be the fifth starter and play more minutes than he did last year in the regular season. To go along with the decision to only have Big Al play one preseason game I was concerned about how his conditioning would be.
Well, clearly Al knows his body better than a guy watching his games from the couch as he’s had a great start. Against the Detroit Pistons, he scored 17 points in the first half. Then late in the game when he checked back in when the Pistons rallied back, his ball movement and unselfishness were the reason we left Detroit with the win (to go along with Derrick White’s big block on Cade Cunningham and Jrue Holiday’s big threes).
Credit also needs to be given to Joe Mazzulla, the youngest coach since Bill Russell to win an NBA Championship and nothing has changed in his demeanor or message to the media since winning the Larry O’Brien.
As a matter of fact, Mazzulla has been enjoying being “hunted” as Boston begins the quest to repeat. On a podcast this offseason, when asked about being the team at the top this is how he responded:
“People are gonna say the targets on our back but I hope it’s right on our forehead between our eyes. I hope I can see the red dot,” Mazzulla said.
We all know how Joe is but I think he’s going to use the fact that they’re the hunted as motivation to try and do something that hasn’t been done since the Golden State Warriors era, and that’s to repeat.
It’s only three of 82 regular season games, but I like the attitude of this Celtics team.
