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OKLAHOMA CITY – The energy was immediately different.
In the first game of the second half, the Celtics performed their action – a back-to-back game that collapsed the defense against Jayson Tatum under the hoop – and found Gordon Hayward open in the corner, which has let fly the ball to the 12th goal of the team 3-point attempt of the game.
The previous 11 had all failed, with the Celtics spotting the Oklahoma City Thunder with 16 points in advance. But as Hayward stood up and fired, the entire Celtics bench was up. Jaylen Brown turned around and came back in defense before the balloon reached the edge. Tatum raised a hand with three fingers spread over his head.
The shot splashed. A game later, Tatum isolated himself against Steven Adams and was swept by the big player, finishing with a huge one-handed dunk at the edge. The Celtics bench was wildly celebrated.
For the first time in a while, the Celtics seemed to be having fun.
"I do not think it's an attack or a defense," Brad Stevens said after Boston's 101-95 victory. "I think it's enjoy playing together, so that's what we remember.I do not think it's urgent.You saw it with our attack.When we started to missing shots, we stopped moving the ball and we stopped trusting if the next one was to fall in. You just have to do that.It's easier said than done with guys who have not played much together and regarding the integration of our new guys, we think we finally looked like ourselves. "
This could be the missing part of the equation – the ??? at the "profit" of Boston. The Boston attack has created decent looks in two consecutive games. Sometimes the defense was a stifling blanket, stifling opponents. Good attack + good defense + ??? = Profit.
??? = fun.
"Honestly, the guys were frustrated," Tatum said. "We did not hit, and Brad came into the locker room and told us we were getting good shots, we were playing pretty well, we were too tense, no one was smiling, no one was having fun. was the difference in the second half. "
As they develop, this Celtics team could be very fun. Kyrie Irving is a magician – perhaps the most intuitive handler and ball finisher the NBA has ever seen. Tatum is only 20 years old and undeniably spectacular, a burgeoning superstar who could abandon the "booming" qualifier as the season progresses. Gordon Hayward can do a little bit of everything. Jaylen Brown had some difficulties (Stevens said that Brown just needed to defend himself and that he was expecting the third year wing to be fine), but that was not enough. is a sprung dynamo. Al Horford and Marcus Smart are appreciated by fans of the NBA who love the details.
There is so much fun basketball in this team, that the recent game without joy was shocking. Nobody looked selfish, really. In fact, the opposite has been true: players who are often at their best when they are looking for their own bucket have tried to involve everyone instead of just doing the things that come naturally.
"It's a difficult thing to keep a certain way for a while in your career and when you find yourself in a situation like this where you play with a lot of good players, you can sometimes soften how much you are or think too much about how you are supposed to play, "said Irving. "… When you are not on the same page, it may sound very, very bad, so I think we would want to err on the side of being one, of being together and of being good. playing together, it's just better, that way. "
"It's basketball at the end of the day," added Tatum. "We are getting a lot of money to do what we love and start having fun again.
This will be the challenge of the Celtics in the future. A team that desperately wants to be synchronized must stop forcing the problem and simply exploit the strengths of everyone, even if these forces may seem selfish.
"I think the guys are just trying to make it work," said Marcus Morris. "… we must always be who we are, we still have to play our games individually."
More simply, the Celtics must have fun. If they manage to gather all the individual talents, the result might look less like that of the team in the first period that sank into a double-digit deficit and much more similar to that of the team. in the second half that sent Oklahoma City back in shock to Morris. -out punch.
"We all have excellent relationships outside of that," said Irving. "But I think going out of the summer, having a short pre-season and starting the season of" this team "somehow is talking – it might be a little bit of a knock on your ego, when you realize it's not going to be exactly what you thought the season was going to start is not last year, it's a totally different team and we kept the same players but its dynamics are totally different guys have improved, some are filling better roles and different areas, the timing of the game, and literally, it's a challenge for all of us to be really supportive, but in any case, we have to stay the course. scared to think as professionals, we must always do it better as individuals and as a team, but this year it is far more special to see the growth we can have, we we are improving every day as & # 39; team. "
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