The Boston Celtics’ epic 32-point victory over the Los Angeles Lakers at TD Garden on Monday didn’t come without some serious preparation.
But getting ready for this particular game was anything but ordinary.
The team took part in a rather unusual film session Sunday in which players were asked to assess themselves based on the footage presented. And quickly, they began to pick up on what they were (and weren’t) doing right on the court.
It was anything but conventional, but it got the job done.
“Normally the coaches just look at (the film) and tell us their thoughts on it,” Semi Ojeleye said, per The Athletic’s Jay King. “But honestly, I liked it a lot. We were just real and just honest. And saying, like, ‘Hey, I messed up. I can do that better.’ So that was good.
“(The evaluation system) was just basically a yes or no: Did we do our jobs? And we had a lot of nos. We had a lot of yeses too, but just not enough plays where everybody did their job. It was just an honest look in the mirror of what we can do better, how to improve. I think we need that more. Instead of just the coaches telling us and us taking the feedback, us being honest and being like, ‘What can we do better?’ Because at this point in the year, even if you’re a rookie, you know what’s right on the court. We know what we need to do. And we know what we need to do to have a chance to win.”
Marcus Smart echoed that notion.
“It was really just holding ourselves accountable,” he said. “We looked at every possession and he would pause it and we would ask ourselves, ‘Did we do our job?’ We went through the game plan and we checked off the list if we did our job. If we didn’t, we put a mark up on the board, ‘no.’ If we did, we put a mark up on the board, ‘yes.’ So for us, it was really not so much getting on us but really allowing us to learn. And not overreacting too much (to a recent losing skid).”
Now that’s a winning mentality right there.
The Celtics will try to repeat the success they found Monday when they welcome the Memphis Grizzlies, who have won eight of their last 10 games, to town Wednesday night.
