If nothing else, Monday night in the NBA showed us what kind of luxuries are at the Celtics’ disposal.
Let’s start with the game in Atlanta, where the Celtics were without Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis. The Hawks are not a good team, but most of the NBA loves to face Boston and good teams are always at risk of playing down in these situations, especially at the end of a road trip.
So the Celtics responded by starting … Neemias Queta?
If you had told me in September that Queta would be starting a game on November 4, I’d have asked you what happened to Al Horford, Luke Kornet, and Xavier Tillman. But Joe Mazzulla, in his infinite wisdom, decided to roll with Queta and it paid off.
“It's a credit to all those guys, right? We went with Luke the other night, went with Neemie tonight,” Mazzulla said. “Just having that versatility and the selflessness that those guys have is great. We started out switching tonight, and so he just gives us that athleticism and that ability to switch and play different defenses. So you can't go to those things unless the guys are willing to buy into that. And they did that. So it's great.”
What a luxury!
It’s not like Queta was a world-beater out there, but he doesn’t have to be. He has the luxury of playing with Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Horford. All he has to do is defend, rebound, set some good picks, and catch a lob or three.
Mazzulla, meanwhile, has the luxury of being able to develop Queta, who already has some NBA-ready skills, in a situation that still helps his team. So when Queta wasn’t having his best start to the season, Mazzulla simply pulled him and set him straight. And then in the next timeout, some of the Celtics starters came over to him with words of encouragement.
“When you're as good as he could be, we all gotta hold him to that standard every single night,” Mazzulla said. “It's a credit to him for just allowing us to coach him. It's a credit to the guys for supporting him. But you see what he's capable of when he's at his best, and he could be a real asset for us towards the season.”
What luxury that would be when the Celtics are at full strength.
Okay, I’ve used that word enough, but it doesn’t change what the Celtics have at their disposal. From Queta in the middle to Payton Pritchard, now the actual betting favorite to win Sixth Man of the Year, off the bench, the Celtics have been able to pretty easily navigate this early part of the schedule with only one hiccup so far.
Other teams can’t say the same.
The Milwaukee Bucks lost their sixth straight game on Monday night, dropping them 6.5 games out of first. Of course, Boston isn’t currently in first, a detail that flies in the face of my premise, but I’ll overlook that minor detail at the moment. The Cavaliers won’t go 82-0.
Regardless, it’s a worst-case scenario for the Bucks, who not only have started terribly slow but also have to hear people talk about trading Giannis Antetokounmpo every day. That's the kind of noise that can filter into a locker room if they're not careful.
The Philadelphia 76ers have also stumbled to start the season. Paul George got hurt and Joel Embiid’s knee wasn’t ready for the opener. The team’s buffoonery in handling that situation created another failure that allowed Embiid to get into a confrontation with a reporter. Regardless of the nearly unanimous consensus that the reporter had it coming, it’s another distraction that threatens a team that has joined the Bucks at the bottom of the standings. The Sixers spent their Monday giving up a 10-1 run to close a loss to Phoenix.
In fact, a quick glance at the standings, something typically not advisable at this point of the season, shows only two teams in the East with winning records. You can count me in with the majority of people who don’t put a ton of stock into these early-season performances, but even if these teams do turn things around, they are essentially spotting the Celtics a lead in the standings.
That gives them the … oh let’s go with “security” this time … of a cushion at the top should a few things go wrong. Whether it’s injuries or a ridiculous cold streak, every game it takes the rest of the non-Cleveland teams to figure themselves out, the more wiggle room Boston gets.
They can handle the Cavs on November 19 and December 1. Cleveland can continue getting fat on a weak schedule until then. Because every other team in the East is still in “figure it out” mode, the Cavs aren’t adding to the pile of threats facing Boston. They are, as of right now, the only threat (something Brad Stevens saw coming, if we remember our annual GM Survey results).
Instead of me writing a story about the packed East race, I’m tilting my head at Cleveland and thinking “they came to life. Good for them.” And yes, I’m being dismissive of them at the moment only because I have the lux … errr … I can wait a little while to see how real this all is.
The Celtics are as good as everyone expected, and they can pull from their deep roster to win games in different ways. They did it again in Atlanta while their competition struggled again (I didn’t even mention the Knicks, who lost to the Rockets to fall to 3-3). It’s too early to make much of a lot in this league, but giving the Celtics this much good fortune this early just makes catching up later that much more difficult.