The Boston Celtics are starting to look like the team everyone expected them to be.
After a rough start to the season, the Celtics are starting to find their groove and unsurprisingly the team has started to click as they've all gotten healthy. Boston has been marred by injuries and positive COVID-19 tests throughout the 2021-22 season so far but finally have their starting unit back together and it's led to wins in four of its last five games, including an impressive 122-92 blowout win over the Eastern Conference-leading Miami Heat on Monday night.
Celtics center Al Horford discussed how big of a role the health of the starting lineup is playing with the squad right now during his postgame media availability.
"That's important," Horford said. "That's obviously the first part of it and we're fortunate to have that and now we can kind of see what we can do and who we are. It's just a good opportunity for us to work and see how good we can be defensively with that group. The way that we fly around out there, I feel like we're always going to be in a good position. I think the other part for us is figuring out offensively how we can make it work and the guys starting with (Jayson Tatum) and (Jaylen Brown). It's been working really well."
The Celtics still are just tied for eighth place in the Eastern Conference after the win, but somehow only are 5 1/2 games out of first place. To put it into context, the Western Conference eighth seed Los Angeles Clippers currently are 16 games behind the Phoenix Suns.
Boston realistically has a chance to climb the standings if it's able to stay healthy like it is right now, and it doesn't hurt that the NBA trade deadline is coming up so a big splash could be coming.
