Leave it to Brad Stevens to throw cold water on the Boston Celtics’ 14-game winning streak.
Wait… what?
Yup, the Celtics head coach, who’s watched his team rattle off 14 consecutive wins after starting the season 0-2 (an NBA record), apparently isn’t convinced that the C’s are all that and a bag of Cape Cod Potato Chips. Here’s what Stevens said about the streak ahead of Boston’s matchup with the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena on Saturday:
“We haven’t played well enough to consider this win streak to be valid in my opinion,” Stevens said Saturday morning during a shootaround, via ESPN’s Chris Forsberg. “We’ve figured out ways to win games. We gotta play a lot better.”
Oh, the horror.
After the Celtics’ thrilling 92-88 win over the Golden State Warriors on Thursday, the bandwagon is about to crush under the weight of Green Teamers. Heck, even before that win, Celtics legend Paul Pierce declared the C’s the favorites in the Eastern Conference.
But the reality is that Boston really hasn’t played like a 14-2 team for much of the streak. Sure, the defense has been preposterously good (Boston leads the NBA in both team defensive efficiency and opponents points per game by wide margins), but the offense has been equally as bad, as the Celtics are 27th in the NBA with a 42.7 percent team shooting percentage.
(Thanks, Marcus Smart.)
And if the Celtics are going to achieve goals beyond early-season hyperbole, they must play better all-around.
“We’ve got to be better, and we know that,” Stevens said, per Forsberg. “We can’t get so caught up in the results of all these games and ride that emotion. We’ve been fortunate to win a lot of the games in this streak, including Thursday night.
“If we dig ourselves a 17-point hole every other game, it’s not going to be as much fun as we’ve had recently.”
Listen, have the Celtics given fans reasons to get excited this year? Absolutely, with Jaylen Brown perhaps leading the charge on that front. Plus, given the New England-wide devastation felt when Gordon Hayward suffered a horrific ankle injury opening night, Green Teamers can be forgiven for getting a little carried away with themselves.
But it’s important to remember that Boston resides in the kingdom of the Eastern Conference, which has a throne room currently occupied by LeBron James. And, unless the Celtics clean up some of their issues on offense, King James will keep that seat warm for a little while longer.
