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...The Awakening??

‘Don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.’

This quote, from the movie Inception, is a sentiment that the whole Boston front office embodies every time they pick up a phone or scour over the league’s rosters. One could argue that over the last ten transactions, little improvement has been made to a squad that made the NLL Finals just last season and had come off two consecutive 60+ win seasons, boasted multiple all-star players and a plethora of first round picks.

Two ago, I would have agreed with you. I would have agreed that all the hasty, under-researched and under-tested moves that the Celtics made would have been for nil; likely at a cost of a lot of GM points of first rounders. Within the last two weeks, there was a 48 hour period where a head-spinning amount of transactions took place – here they are:

Boban Marjonavic, Ish Smith, Andre Roberson and two 2nds for Jordan Clarkson, Dewayne Dedmon and a 1^st





Nikola Vucevic, Michael Beasley and a 1^st for Andre Iguodala, Mason Plumlee and a 2^nd

And then, before the dust had even settled, and before any of the acquired players (bar Dedmon) had even had time to be shown to their locker in Boston, they were forwarded on in another deal; one of the biggest blockbusters of recent memory:

Jeff Teague, Mason Plumlee, Wesley Matthews, Jordan Clarkson and a 1^st for Kyle Lowry, Brook Lopez, Shelvin Mack


Wow. Now, to make sense of it, the highlighted players are the ones that Boston ended up with – and were the players that the Celtics targeted as important players, not just assets.


Kyle Lowry, Brook Lopez, Andre Iguodala and Dewayne Dedmon.

The new age of Boston Celtics basketball – one where defense is just as important as offense.

Well… one where defense is valued a lot more, and more sought after, than in recent years.





While the sample size is very small, there was a very different basketball team out on the floor this week for Boston. Yes, ok, of course it’s going to be a different team – half the previous team is gone. That’s not what I meant…

This team had more ‘agro’ and intensity than almost any Celtics line up I had scene before. Boston has been able to put up a lot of points over the years, but scoring hasn’t been the issue - it has been stopping the other team.

Particularly against the Knicks, it was clearly evident that this was a much different team. Sure, they only won the game by 3, and due to poor communication, still let the very dangerous Knicks take a lot of option jumpshots. Apart from that, this is what was evident:

Paint protection – the team totaled 11 blocked shots and really stifled the Knicks bigs when they went inside.

Aggression – I am yet to see a Celtics team that showed some much aggression and physicality. A lot of strong body defense.

Steals – anticipation, playing the passing lanes; this lead to 9 steals as a team.

Intent – Lowry, Iguodala, Durant, Dedmon all had moments where they stifled their opponents and outmatched them physically. In particular, Iguodala and Dedmon held Harden and Howard to 8 of 23 shooting.




So, the defense is better – but did we sacrifice our offensive strength?

The team averaged 115 points for the week, on 48% shooting from the field. Durant, Lopez, Evans combined for 63 points per game.

The new squad has a better balance of offense and defense, but hasn’t sacrificied any offensive talent. Lopez and Lowry are still elite offensive talents and the recent trades allow Tyreke Evans to play a huge role as the ‘sixth starter’ on the team.

Small sample size, sure. But there is something different about this team… they hate to lose and they love to win. Defense wins games, so they say. If this team can continue to play that kind of defense, all those head-spinning, sideways deals over the years were worthwhile.



Next time, we will discuss each player in more depth and what they have brought to the team.