BOSTON – When it comes to challenging for an NBA title, teams tend to run in packs.
There are those who are leading the charge, usually the defending champ (Cleveland this year) and the team expected to knock them off (Golden State) followed by a handful of others who are good but not quite at the title-contending stage.
Even the most die-hard Boston Celtics fan doesn’t foresee them winning a title this season, but one thing is very clear.
The Celtics, a team that has been among the hunters since Brad Stevens arrived in 2013, are trending strongly towards being the hunted.
Adjusting to this new role will be among the many challenges awaiting the Celtics this season which kicks off tonight at the TD Garden against the Brooklyn Nets.
As much as the Celtics talk about not buying into the lofty expectations so many have for them this season, it’s impossible to ignore.
And there’s at least one major player in the Celtics organization who likes the idea of there being lofty expectations outside of the franchise.
“We’re not going to be able to sneak up on anybody,” said Danny Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations. “The team has earned a great deal of respect around the league the way they’ve played the last year, the last couple of years; that’s a good thing, that’s progress. That’s where we want to be. We want our expectations to be higher. And learning to live up to those expectations is part of growing.”
The increased optimism in the Celtics begins with the addition of Al Horford. Not only was he the most significant free agent signing under Danny Ainge, but for this franchise which has been a part of basketball royalty due to their ability to add talent through the draft and trades.
But free agency for years has been about filling in holes around the team’s core group.
But signing Horford to a four-year, $113 million contract was indeed a game-changer for the this franchise.
“As a player you always want to be in the best position you can,” Horford told CSNNE.com. “I felt for me being on this team would put me in a position to be able to contend and win an NBA championship. That’s my ultimate goal.”
Adding Horford was certainly a major step in the right direction for Boston.
But he wasn’t the only new name to the roster who will be counted on to make an impact.
Rookie forward Jaylen Brown, selected with the third overall pick in last June’s NBA draft, has proven himself to be a quick study since arriving in Boston.
The 6-foot-7 forward was expected to play mostly small forward this season. But after impressing the coaching staff with how quickly he picked things up defensively, head coach Brad Stevens now plans to play him at both forward positions this season.
In many ways the use of Brown speaks to how the Celtics will be a different and in some ways, a tougher team to score on than last year’s squad which limited teams to shooting just 44.1 percent against them which was the seventh-best field goal percentage defense in the league.
Boston also had the fourth-best defensive rating as they limited teams to 100.9 points per 100 possessions last season.
“We can be very good (defensively),” said Avery Bradley, a member of the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team last season. “As individuals, we all set goals for ourselves. As a team, we set a goal for ourselves. If we’re able to lock in and be consistent … we can be a top-1, top-2 defense in the NBA.”
Head coach Brad Stevens isn’t ready to proclaim this team will be better defensively than last season’s unit, but he knows having more guys like Horford and Brown who can play more positions only bodes well for Boston’s chances of being an impact team defensively this season.
“The bottom line is we have to be more versatile defensively,” Stevens said. “We have to be able to do more things, be able to tweak on the fly, be able to play either big or small. It’ll be interesting to see what our best lineups are. But our idea is we should have some versatility.”
And the Celtics need to shoot the ball better.
Despite leading the NBA in field goal attempts (89.2) per game last season, Boston ranked in the bottom-10 in field goal percentage (.439, 24th) and 3-point percentage (.335, 28th), respectively.
Celtics All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas has talked about being a more efficient scorer this season.
Although he averaged a team-best 22.2 points per game last season, Thomas shot 42.8 percent from the field and 35.9 percent on 3s.
“That’s what I worked on this summer, just consistently knocking down the open 3-point shot,” Thomas said. “Trying to shoot 38-40 percent (from three-point range) and being more of a consistent shooter. They still don’t want to leave me open. But I’m working at it and I’ll continue to work at it each and every day to be more consistent at that end.”
And by doing so, Thomas becomes an even more impactful player this season which could position the Celtics to do what no team has done under Brad Stevens – make a deep playoff run beyond the first round.
“If we can put it all together we could be special,” Thomas said. “I’m not saying we’re going to the NBA Finals or anything like that, but like I said, … We just need to put it together, find our identity which is going to be on the defensive end, and everything else will take care of itself.”
And the Celtics will adapt to their new NBA lot in life which is to be among the hunted.
Not so fast, says Avery Bradley.
"I feel like our mindset has to be to continue being the hunters," he said. "People are going to come after us, but we're coming after them as well. We understand that every game is important, no matter who we're playing against. That's our mindset."