Earlier Tuesday, Celtics forward David Lee talked about how he’d considered flying back to Oakland to be a part of the ring ceremony before returning to Boston in time for Wednesday’s opener against the 76ers. Instead, it’s a spark and a glimmer of hope that the team might have a star – or two – in the making.
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Yes, the Sixers have something with Jahlil Okafor. His front court partner Nerlens Noel scored 14 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, snatched 3 steals and had a pair of rejections.
Unfortunately, Sullinger is fifth in the Celtics’ frontline pecking order after the team acquired Lee from the Warriors and Johnson from the Raptors during the offseason.
“I think that’s the biggest thing”, the coach said. “He can score. He has an instinct for scoring in more versatile ways than I originally expected”.
So many players go their entire careers without being able to experience a banner-raising moment. With newcomers David Lee and Amir Johnson as well as the emergence of Isaiah Thomas previous year, Brad Stevens has a lot of options in both the frontcourt and backcourt.
Stevens had no doubts about what was coming next.
“Just as we are asking the team to be flexible and malleable, I have to be”, Stevens said before the game.
The Celtics drew many lessons of their own with 81 more games to go.
Danny Ainge doesn’t plan to leave the Celtics anytime soon and his main goal is to help Brad Stevens be successful.
That’s when the Sixers’ limitations were exposed, including Okafor’s. The Sixers committed 22 turnovers, including eight from Okafor, and the Celtics turned them into 34 points.
All of those turnovers led to points for the Celtics.
“I knew our offense was going to be poor”, Brown said. “My biggest thing is I just want us to win”. He added 12 more in the fourth quarter, showing low-post moves and splitting double teams to make passes to shooters on the perimeter. He also squared up from the elbow and hit a couple of shots from 10 feet away. Noel and Okafor combined for 11 of them.
“That’s my job. I’m not gonna be shy when I’ve got a job to do”, Thomas said.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a defense-first guard who can’t shoot that well is not the centerpiece player on a championship-caliber team.
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But Thomas got off to an unusually slow start, shooting 0-for-5 in his first 8 minutes. They were reminded that Isaiah Thomas (27 points and seven assists off the bench) provides indispensable energy when their ball movement isn’t producing. They work harder than we ever worked. “We have to do a better job at getting organized and under control”. Although the Philadelphia 76ers would have liked to have come out of Boston in their debut game against the Celtics on top, that’s not how it went, and fans will have to find peace in smaller wins that came within the game to keep their sanity. Moving Rajon Rondo to the Mavericks and Jeff Green to the Grizzlies, the (best?) two players entering the 2014-2015 season are gone. The potential is limitless. If the green and gold make good on so much preseason optimism and emerge as a solid playoff team come spring, the veterans will have been almost as influential as their younger teammates.
