New York, NY (SportsNetwork.com) – When Boston Celtics’ GM Danny Ainge came to the decision it was time to rebuild, and traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn as part of a blockbuster deal with Nets, the fans of Boston probably didn’t expect there would be a whole lot to cheer about this season.<\/p>\n
In addition to the departure of two cornerstone players, the Celtics also began the season awaiting the return of Rajon Rondo as he continues to rehab from a torn ACL.<\/p>\n
But despite the absence of their three best players from last season’s roster, the Celtics have been fairly competitive, and actually find themselves in first place with a 10-13 record in what’s been an atrocious Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying Boston fans should be doing cartwheels, but there are encouraging signs and some hope for the future, especially considering the stock pile of first-round picks the Celtics got from the Nets in the big offseason deal.<\/p>\n
Another reason to be optimistic is that a number of Boston’s young players have shown some nice improvement this season.<\/p>\n
Let’s start off with Jordan Crawford, who was acquired from the Washington Wizards prior to the trade deadline last season for Jason Collins and Leandro Barbosa.<\/p>\n
The fourth-year guard, who was the 27th overall selection in the 2010 draft by the Nets, is playing the best ball of his career.<\/p>\n
Celtics’ coach Brad Stevens inserted Crawford into the starting lineup at the point on Nov. 30, and the decision has paid immediate dividends.<\/p>\n
In his first start, the Celtics lost in Milwaukee, but Crawford had 18 points, five assists, three rebounds and just one turnover.<\/p>\n
Boston won its next three games, and Crawford was clearly the best player in each one.<\/p>\n
In their second game of a back-to-back with the Bucks, Crawford had 25 points on 8-of-14 from the floor, including 4-for-7 from downtown.<\/p>\n
The following game against the Denver Nuggets, he put up 22 points, eight assists and four rebounds and connected on 9-of-13 from the floor.<\/p>\n
Then, in the Celtics’ 41-point rout of the Knicks in New York on Sunday, Crawford lit it up from long range, hitting six 3-pointers en route to a 23- point performance. He also dished out seven assists without committing a single turnover.<\/p>\n
That three-game stretch was good enough for Crawford to be named Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played Dec. 2-8. He averaged 23.3 points, 6.7 assists and just 1.7 turnovers and was lights out from the field, hitting 61 percent of his shots, which included 12-of-23 from 3-point range (52 percent).<\/p>\n
The Celtics did see their three-game winning streak end in Brooklyn Tuesday night, but Crawford did put up 15 points, four assists and just one turnover.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Crawford’s backcourt mate, Avery Bradley, who struggled through an injury-riddled season in 2012-13, is looking more like the player the Celtics saw in the 2011-12 season. He has really benefited from the move to shooting guard with Crawford now playing the point.<\/p>\n
Since the shift to the two, the 23-year old Bradley has played five games, averaging 15.4 points on 46 percent shooting from the floor and 50 percent from 3.<\/p>\n
His scoring average is up over four points from last season, going from 9.2 to 13.5 points per game, and he’s been a more accurate shooter. Last season Bradley shot 40.2 percent from the field and 31.7 percent from 3-point range, while this season he’s knocking down 44.8 percent of his shots from the floor and his 3-point mark is up to 36.1 percent.<\/p>\n
While Crawford and Bradley have bolstered the Celtics’ backcourt, Jared Sullinger has done the same in the frontcourt.<\/p>\n
Sullinger’s rookie year was cut short last season when he had back surgery in early February, but he’s been healthy this season and has made significant strides in his game.<\/p>\n
The former Ohio State star played 45 games last year, averaging only 6 points while playing just under 20 minutes per games. This season he’s playing nearly 26 minutes per game, but has more than doubled his scoring average at 13.4 ppg.<\/p>\n
Sullinger started the season coming off the bench, but was moved into the starting lineup on Nov. 20 and has stayed there since.<\/p>\n
If Boston can get Rondo back within a reasonable amount of time and the young players continue to produce, the Celtics will certainly have a reasonable chance to make the playoffs, and if the Nets continue to have problems staying healthy, they might actually stay in the Atlantic Division race for the long haul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York, NY (SportsNetwork.com) – When Boston Celtics’ GM Danny Ainge came to the decision it was time to rebuild, and traded Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to Brooklyn as part of a blockbuster deal with Nets, the fans of Boston probably didn’t expect there would be a whole lot to cheer about this season. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}