On February 9, TD Garden in Boston was full of surprises. Friday night game between Celtics and Pacers didn’t end so well for the home Team. In fact, everyone expected to see another stunning comeback after trailing 26 points against Indiana.
Pacers had the biggest lead at the end of second quarter as the result of the horrible Celtics' offense in the first half. After the halftime break, it looked like the locker-room brought some superpowers to Celtics, as they succeeded to storm back and took the lead in the middle of fourth quarter! Unfortunately, the Pacers were able to regain their footing down the stretch, and they won the game by six points.
Celtics’ quotes from their postgame press conference:
Brad Stevens told that the screening was bad and the players didn’t get on their spots at the time. He is planning to improve their offensive habits because they are not good as they were on the beginning of the season. He also thinks that the team needs to be less shortcut-taking and more crisply in the offense if they want to be the best version of themselves.
Kyrie Irving, the All-Star point guard, set the team high 21 points in this game and he added that this is a little bit foreshadowing and the team knows what it’s going to take to go to the next level in the future. He believes that regular season is the great test for the upcoming playoffs and that they are going to adjust and improve their abilities as a team.
His teammate Jaylen Brown admitted that they fought really hard to get back to the game and believes that if they could maintain that crazy runs in the first quarter, they would’ve been in a better position in the rest of the game. The young shooting guard scored 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting; it shows that team didn’t enter the game with much desire.
What can we expect from Celtics in the future?
The last game against the Pacers should not concern us, Celtics showed us how small amount of time they need to get back into the game. They are the great team that needs a few adjustments. The evidence is their 16 games winning streak and their 40-17 record so far.
This team is the mix of young prospective players and experienced veterans.
We can expect them in the finals if the young Cleveland team doesn’t make a miracle and defeat all Eastern Conference teams in the playoffs. We are expecting very exciting game today; these two teams are facing each other in Boston, their season results between each other is tied, so stay in progress.
