Maybe this team’s jaw isn’t made of glass after all.
The Boston Celtics are far from a perfect team, but they’ve been a better team over this 3-1 stretch to climb back to within a game of .500. One of the reasons they’ve improved is the return of some toughness when adversity strikes in games.
“Got tired of getting our ass kicked,” Marcus Smart bluntly said after the team’s 104-88 win over the Toronto Raptors. “We continue to go out there and play 48 minutes, too, and that was the difference. They came in last time and they ran us off the floor and we made sure that that didn't happen again tonight.”
The Raptors hung around in the third quarter, taking advantage of sloppy turnovers to get out in transition and keep the game close. But the Celtics, just like they had in every game of their road trip, withstood the opponent's run and pushed back with a run of their own.
“They started trapping a little bit and we got too loose. We called time out there and it felt like we were chirping at the refs a little too much,” Ime Udoka said. “It felt great to bounce back. We've had some leads that we lost. ... Teams have come back, Miami dropped the lead to single digits and it feels good when you can respond and bounce back. We put it in certain guys' hands and they delivered tonight.”
Let’s face it, that wasn’t happening much last season. A sense of toughness that had been a trademark of past teams seemed to disappear, as did the Celtics late in games.
“We need that toughness, man. That’s all I’m worried about right now, toughness,” Robert Williams said. “Mess ups are gonna happen, but I’d rather go out there with guys that are gonna go hard as hell any time we play, you feel me? So that’s what I’m looking for.”
A lot was expected of Williams this season, and he’s delivering often, albeit in ways we might not have expected. Slinging passes from the high post has given way to banging down low to either keep the ball alive or grab offensive boards for put backs, which he did very often against Toronto.
He’s averaging 8.8 rebounds per game, and that’s split almost evenly between offensive and defensive rebounds.
“Showed him some film and talked to him about the effort it takes and how he can impact the game,” Udoka said. “He has really worked on that over the last few games. Obviously his athleticism and his effort there have been great but something he was just a little stagnant in the weak-side dunker [a spot on the floor along the baseline] early in the season, and now he is really working to make guys pay.”
There’s a fine line between explanations and excuses. The Celtics have spent the early part of this season understandably struggling to learn and execute Ime Udoka’s game plan. The explanation for why certain things weren’t going well was simply that they needed time to figure out how to do all these things.
That, however, doesn’t mean they had an excuse for easily giving up on plays or games, even though they took that excuse a bit too often.
“You just gotta change your attitude. That’s what it was from the start,” Smart said. “Chicago came in with an attitude, Toronto came in the first game with an attitude that we didn't match, and it showed. They triumphed against us in those games. So we had to change our attitude and we had to get our mindset right.”
Smart’s comments after the collapse against Chicago may have played a role in that attitude change. For better or worse, the team had to confront each other in Florida and face facts. Whether Smart was right or wrong about the reason, something wasn’t working for Boston. That team dinner, and maybe a gathering or two after that, has at least nudged the Celtics in the right direction.
“I feel like we’re coming together off of the court more, bonding, actually finding out stuff about each other,” Robert Williams said. “We’re all basketball players, we’re all hoopers, but we’ve got to build that bond, that strength of knowing I can go to war with these guys beside me, off the court too, knowing I can go to war with these guys. I feel like we’ve been stepping up on there, but we’ve got to carry it over all year.”
That they do. This really is meaningless if they abandon it because they had one good win over Miami, a nice win against Toronto, and a comeback that fell short in Dallas.
However, this is definitely a “walk before you can run” scenario for this team. From Jayson Tatum going from trying to take over to learning how to take over, or Williams learning how to quarterback a defense, or the Celtics figuring out how to win without one of their star players, these moments are bricks in the foundation of future success.
There’s no guarantee of that success, but that success will never happen without these early moments of proving to themselves that they have some fight in them.