BOSTON — If you’re searching for the root of the Boston Celtics’ rather unique ability to consistently challenge the Golden State Warriors, you can start by digging up the game film from April 1, 2016.
The Celtics had dropped the front end of a back-to-back in Portland the night before and arrived in Oakland with the daunting challenge of playing a Warriors team that had won an NBA-record 54 straight games at Oracle Arena. Celtics coach Brad Stevens saw something in his team early on and repeatedly told his players in the huddle how they were going to win the game.
His Celtics trusted him and gritted out a 109-106 triumph that sort of announced that Boston was on the path back to being a legitimate NBA force.
Marcus Smart’s face lights up now thinking back to a game that, truth be told, sorta feels like a lifetime ago. "It was crazy. It was chaos. It was real hectic but it was a fun experience,” said Smart. "To go in there and do something like that on a big stage, it’s something incredible. But this team has been doing that time after time, that’s what’s makes us unique.”
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Smart is one of only three players still on the roster from that win (Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter, rookies that year, are the others). Despite the radical roster overhaul that occurred in the aftermath, Smart agreed with the suggestion that Boston’s win that night, against a team bound for a 73-win season, essentially set the tone for the confidence and swagger that the Celtics have maintained each time they've encountered the Warriors since that night.
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Consider this: Since the start of the 2015-16 season, the Warriors own a regular-season record of 232-62 (.789 winning percentage). The Celtics are 3-3 against Golden State in that span and are the only team in the NBA that does not having a losing record against the Warriors.
What’s more, since the start of the 2015-16 season, the Warriors own an offensive rating of 114.9 and have averaged 115.4 points per game. In the six games they’ve played against Boston, Golden State's offensive rating plummets to 102.1 while scoring just 102.8 points per game.
It was Smart and Avery Bradley that set an aggressive defensive tone on the perimeter back in 2016 and, as Boston’s roster has morphed, the team has only added more versatility and more pure defensive talent. Boston’s success against Golden State has pushed a narrative that maybe no team in the league matches up as well against Golden State, something that Rozier himself echoed last June when he boldly suggested that Boston would have paired better with Golden State in last year’s Finals than Cleveland did.
But why exactly do the Celtics match up well with the Warriors?
"We’re athletic. We got guys that can play different positions, especially with our wings and guards. It makes us real versatile,” said Smart. "We can switch a lot of screens and really really kinda contain them — or as much as possible, maybe more than most teams probably could.”
But what might set Boston apart is its swagger, something that certainly further elevated with the arrival of Kyrie Irving, a player who was instrumental in Cleveland rallying from a 3-1 hole against the Warriors while winning the 2016 Finals. Irving’s play seems to go to another level whenever he sees those blue and yellow jerseys.
To be sure, every team in the league gets up for a game against a team like the Warriors but Golden State has a way of razing a team’s confidence with their offensive talents. The Celtics go into the game believing they can make the Warriors work for their points.
"When you play with that effort and you play with that edge, it can work out for you,” said Rozier.
The Celtics are not hiding from the fact that they are particularly amped up for Saturday night’s showdown. Both teams come in with momentum — Boston having won five in a row overall and 10 straight at TD Garden, while the Warriors have won nine in a row and recently added a healthy DeMarcus Cousins to their All-Star-filled starting lineup.
Working in Boston’s favor: These Celtics routinely save their best basketball for top competition. Boston, for all its warts this season, owns wins over each of the four teams ahead of it in the East standings. Now it has a chance to prove it can hang with the defending NBA champs.
"This is more than a regular-season game when you play the Warriors just because of the caliber team that they are. And the hype that they bring with them,” said Smart. "It’s a regular season game but it’s so much more than that from a competition standpoint.
“As a competitor, you dream about this type of competition.”
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The Celtics typically downplay the noise surrounding big games but they’ve been refreshingly open in admitting that Saturday’s matchup carries extra heft. Maybe that’s in part because Boston could use a bit of a measuring-stick matchup, a chance to gauge its recent progress, and against the best team in the NBA after putting together a decent stretch of basketball.
"I mean it’s a regular-season game but, at the same time, I do think it’s different,” said Al Horford, who is back after sitting out Wednesday’s win over the Cavaliers to rest a knee that gave him fits earlier in the year. "It’s just everything that [the Warriors have] done and how good of a team they are. It’s going to be a fun challenge for us.
“We know it’s going to be a much more intense game because it’s Golden State.”
There’s a healthy dose of respect on both sides, which only helps fuel the competition. Draymond Green suggested Thursday night that Boston is still the best team in the East, and Boston players have gushed about all the talent on the Warriors’ roster.
There’s no shortage of intrigue in the individual matchups. Steph vs. Kyrie. Al vs. Boogie. Mook vs. Draymond. Kerr vs. Stevens. For all their struggles early in the year, the Celtics can send a real message about their potential ceiling if they can continue their trend of being competitive with the Warriors.
The Celtics shouldn’t lack for confidence. They won’t need any additional motivation. And everything we’ve seen over the past three seasons suggests they’ll be ready for the challenge.
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