Are the Celtics fixed?
Through the closing days of February, the C’s seemed to be a lost cause. The team had dropped seven out of 10 games, Kyrie Irving was feuding with the media and there was clear discontent on the Boston bench.
But since heading out to the West Coast, the Celtics seemed to have turned a corner. They blew out the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday and followed that up with a dramatic win over the Sacramento Kings the next night.
Irving and other Celtics noted that the team’s long flight out West helped them clean the air surrounding the team, which Jaylen Brown had called toxic in the days leading up to the road trip.
Now details are emerging as to what happened on the flight.
Al Horford credited Irving for getting the ball rolling on bringing everyone together, according to NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg.
“Kyrie was instrumental because he was the one that initiated everything as far as being like, ‘Hey, let’s have conversations, let’s play cards, let’s do this, let’s do that on this plane ride,” Horford said. “And we were all engaged at that point.
“He’s the one who got that ball rolling … We spent a good amount of time together, we talked, we laughed, stuff like that. It just happened to be extended. As opposed to an hour or two hours, almost seven hours. You’d think we’d get sick of each other but, actually, it made the plane ride go quicker. We were just hanging out and talking.”
Time together off the court often does wonders for teams. The 2007-08 Celtics famously came together during a long preseason trip to Rome. So it is not all that surprising that some quality team time on the flight gave the C’s a boost.
Whether they can keep their recent turnaround going remains to be seen, however, as the team has been prone to up and down spurts all season.
