Karalis: Robert Williams saves the Celtics, and maybe stopped their spiral of bad losses to bad teams

If I had the time and expertise, I’d splice Robert Williams into the Baywatch show open and have him grabbing a float, running down a beach, and diving into this scrum to keep a possession alive. 

Williams helped rescue a Celtics team drowning against another bad opponent, but that play wasn’t even his signature play of the night, because this play a couple of possessions before that one was where it was clear Williams wasn’t letting Boston sink like they did against Oklahoma City Thunder. 

“I really thought it started with Rob and his effort on the glass,” Malcolm Brogdon said. “And then sitting down on defense, that's when we really turned the game around.”

A sequence like Williams produced makes it hard for the rest of the team to just stand there and gawk. When he’s diving and flying around, the rest of the team has to keep up with him, and keeping up with him is part of why they were able to avoid a total meltdown.

“I think we lose that game a month ago,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He started with his six offensive rebounds and just these plays that got us feeling good about ourselves. We talked about we learned to have different ways of winning. It's not always going to be just an easy game.” 

Unfortunately, no matter how much we beg for start-to-finish domination, the games aren’t always going to be easy. The Hornets hit some early shots and their confidence flew through the roof. What started as a shootout started to feel a little too much like an onslaught. When Derrick White and Marcus Smart collided, sending White to the back for the rest of the night, it felt like one of those nights. 

But instead of everyone falling victim to the circumstances, like they had been doing, someone decided that enough was enough. And then after Williams did it, Payton Pritchard joined in the fun. Once again, when the team isn’t coming out with the right energy, someone is stepping up with a B12 injection. 

I can’t help but go back to Brogdon’s quote after the win in Dallas … which followed the debacle in OKC, a performance they were starting to mimic in Charlotte. 

“A lot of the times we feed off of the energy of the first group, and whether it's come out flat or not making shots, whatever it is, it's our job to come in there and pick them up,” he said. “I think when we don't, we're not doing our job.”

That's one of those quotes that I’m going to hang onto all season, because the more games we see like this one in Charlotte, the more that quote feels like a lesson rather than lip service. I spend a lot of my time using the quotes from these guys to tell the story of these games, but so much of what these guys say has been rehearsed and honed over the years. 

But sometimes they tell the truth. Since that Thunder embarrassment, it feels like the Celtics have started to win differently. They also haven't lost since then. So maybe something has clicked. 

And it’s not just Brogdon’s words that have proven to be a flashpoint in the season, because he’s backing them up on the floor. December has been rough, but January has brought some stability to the Celtics, and we can point directly to Brogdon’s play as a key reason. 

On this night in Charlotte, with Jaylen Brown already out and White sidelined after scoring eight points in four minutes, the Celtics needed someone to help Tatum late in the game. Brogdon filled the void with 14 fourth-quarter points on relentless drives to the rim. 

“That's why we got him,” Tatum said. “We always talked about sacrificing. He’s coming off the bench, and that’s what's best for the team on those given nights, and he accepts it and he still comes in and is himself. And we need him to be. I think that's just what makes our team so special. We got guys like that sacrificing, but we got guys out and they step up even more and have big nights like this.”

Beating the Hornets isn’t some grand feat, but losing to them would have been tough. This win may have broken a cycle of spiraling losses to some of the league’s worst teams. They can actually be a good team that makes up for a slow start against an inferior opponent to pull away without everyone getting that feeling of dread. 

“It's just our growth,” Brogdon said. “We've had some tough losses, some tough whoopings, honestly … teams that shouldn't have beat us that really stomped us because we just didn’t come out with the right approach … And tonight, our approach wasn't bad. It wasn't where it needed to be, and I thought we were able to come on, dig out of that hole. And that's our maturation and our growth from them to now.”