Steve Bulpett: Next year's team could be worse than this years

[celticsclay]

 

The Celtics played very well in the last couple months of this past season, but how will they sustain that energy over time as they face opponents who have faced this version of the Celtics multiple times, and without the benefit of being the ones who are always giving more effort and hustle every night?

Why weren't the teams we faced down the stretch last season giving the same effort and hustle as the Celtics?

We played a bunch of teams over the course of the last thirty games that were in a dogfight with us for those last two playoff spots; teams like Brooklyn, Indiana, Miami and Charlotte.  We were six and one against those teams from the end of February until the end of the season. 

We beat a Grizzlies team in early March that was healthy and still playing for playoff position.  A week earlier we beat a Pelicans team on the road that was fighting for their playoff lives.  We had a big win up in Toronto in April, in a game that was meaningful to the home team.  We beat them again in our house right at the end of the season in a game that still had seeding implications for the Raptors.

When we went on the road and beat a Phoenix team that was one game over .500 on February 23rd. I'm guessing the Suns still saw the playoffs as a possibility at that point.

We had a tough win against Utah over this span.  I remember this as a much anticipated, tough battle against a team that was playing well and had become a bit of a darling of the NBA based on their young talent and improved play.  Their star player really wanted to beat his old college coach in that one. 

So, if your theory is that all these teams just laid down against the lowly Celtics because they didn't respect us or didn't really care about the results, I say if that's the case, shame on them.  Power to us.

I don't really believe that's what happened, though.  I agree that grit and hustle was a big part of why we won those games, though.  I also believe that grit and hustle is a big part of the identity established by this year's team.  I hope they carry that identity and culture into the future.

The whole part that we snuck up teams is also a little ridiculous in my opinion. Perhaps that happens for a game or two in november or maybe even december. However, as you point out when we were playing great down the stretch we were playing against a lot of teams trying to make the playoffs and we were also playing against a ton of teams that had played us already. The idea that we somehow snuck up on them with our effort holds as much water as saying a major league baseball team lost cause the concept of a curve ball snuck up on them.