The Boston Celtics were lauded as one of the NBA's deepest teams when the season began, but they've struggled at times to prove it.
Monday night was not one of those times.
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The Celtics put eight players in double figures at TD Garden in a 116-95 beatdown of the Brooklyn Nets. No C's player even reached 20 points, as Kyrie Irving led the way with 17.
How balanced was Boston's attack? Here's a little perspective on Monday night's box score:
You have to go back three seasons to find the last game where the Celtics put eight players in double figures.
Those kinds of games were common for the 2015-16 C's, a scrappy bunch led by Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder that entered the season with zero All-Stars on their roster and needed complete team efforts to win games.
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These Celtics have more overall talent, but a crowded roster produced some early-season growing pains as players like Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier adapted to minimized roles.
The New Year is off to a promising start, though: Monday was the fourth straight game Boston has had at least five players in double figures. Irving was sidelined for two of those contests with an eye injury, and his teammates picked up his scoring slack en route to two wins.
But even in Irving's return Monday, the C's kept the ball moving: Marcus Smart's four 3-pointers gave them an early boost, while Gordon Hayward, Terry Rozier, and Daniel Theis combined for 33 points off the bench to pull away from a Nets team that had won 12 of its last 15 games.
That Brown (four points on 2 of 6 shooting) wasn't one of the eight Celtics with 10-plus points is cause for concern. But such a balanced box score still is a great sign for a C's team that will need strong play from its second unit to compete with the likes of the Toronto Raptors and Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference.
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