On January 6th Boston Celtics Dawn leads to 25 points New York Knicks, and heartbreakingly lost when RJ Barrett heaped a 3 on the bell. It was the Celtics’ fifth loss in seven games and put them 11th in the Eastern Conference by 18-21.
Frustrated and frustrated, Im Odoka sat on the podium and left it to his team after that loss. The Celtics first-year coach called them “a lack of mental toughness to get through these trying times.”
“I feel like he’s 100 percent right, to be honest,” Robert Williams III said at the time. “We get very upset, especially when we face adversity. We must find within ourselves the struggle to come together.”
Five months later, the team not only reunited, but reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 2010. On Sunday night, the Celtics held on to a thread to defeat intense heat In game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals, 100-96.
The message after the game was a little different this time:
“Two Game 7s in the last two series,” Odoka said. “It shows what I said about our group. We have overcome many adversities this year. A resilient group. Tonight seems to be our season.”
The Celtics still have their pitfalls. They are prone to spin, can sometimes be taken out of games because they worry too much about the officials and have trouble scoring in times of crisis. They blew 14 points to lead Milwaukee Bucks In Game 5 of Round 2, they lost Game 6 of that series at home despite a late lead and saw their lead by 13 points in the closing minutes of Game 7 and they shrank to two points in the closing seconds.
But even if they don’t always make it easy for themselves, they always have an answer.
“That’s what we do, we did it all on purpose to make it fun,” said Jaylene Brown. “No, I’m just kidding. But that’s who we are. We’ve responded to adversity all year, all season. Today was the biggest test not only of the year but of our career to mentally get into the 7th game away after losing at home which was tough and we did it.”
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There were mini examples in this game. When their 17-point lead was cut to six by the end of the first half (due in part to questionable management), they quickly went 7-1 in the second half to push the score into double digits. When the Heat made another attack early in the fourth quarter to make it a three-point game, they shook the Celtics 8-0. When The Heat finally fell back to a two-second drop in the closing seconds, Marcus Smart hit two free throws to seal the deal.
That was the mental strength and resilience we saw in this group throughout qualifying. They’ve won 3-0 in elimination games including two away wins, won two 7’s and are still perfect 6-0 after the loss. In fact, they haven’t lost a straight game since late March.
It’s sometimes hard to believe that this is the same team that sat there on that fateful January night in New York wondering what all went wrong. Tatum still remembers that defeat. He referenced it again on Sunday, calling it his “lowest moment” of the season.
In another world, this could have been the beginning of the end for this group. Whether Tatum and Brown could play together has been a constant topic of discussion, not just in the local Boston media but nationwide. Marcus Smart’s ability to lead the team was always in question and he was once again the subject of commercial rumours. There were also doubts as to whether Odoka was the right man for the job.
Internally, too, doubts began to creep in.
“It was tough,” Tatum said. “I really liked it. There were definitely some tough moments throughout the season where — you’re not doubting yourself, but you’re probably asking, right, a question, can we do this? You start to realize how hard it is to win. You start questioning yourself, you’re good enough to be. the man?
“But I think you just trust yourself, you trust the work you’re doing to get to this point and to keep going. It can’t rain forever. The good days came. I felt like we were – whatever it was – just one step away from clicking all season and of course once we did that we didn’t look back.”
Not when they blew up that game for the Knicks and sat off-center in the tournament. Not when they smothered a Game 5 against the Bucks in the second round and had to win back-to-back games by elimination. Not when they collapsed in Game 6 of the East Finals and had to return by road to Miami for Game 7.
Regardless of the situation, the Celtics have always been confident in their abilities and eager for a chance to strike back. For the past four months, they’ve focused on the next game and opportunity. Now they have their biggest yet.
“I think it’s okay to enjoy tonight and be happy because it’s tough,” Tatum said. “It’s not easy – obviously this is my first time at this tournament. It is not easy. We know we have a tough job ahead of us.
