Difficult' Boston Celtics Adopt Odd Identity As They Advance Towards NBA Championship

The Celtics appear to have a sense of direction now. Despite their top-ranked defense, impressive depth, some shrewd moves by team president Brad Stevens, the toughness of coach Ime Udoka, and the brilliance of star forward Jayson Tatum, the Celtics have embraced a rather uncomfortable approach to winning basketball games: They are the Team That Makes Things Difficult.

To their credit, the Celtics showed that in Miami on Sunday night, winning Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Heat by a score of 114-108 to clinch a first trip to the NBA Finals since their 2010 matchup with the Lakers. With 3:35 to go in the fourth quarter, they had a 13-point lead over the opposition, having led by as much as 17 points in the game. That's when Miami's 11-game winning streak ended and the Heat were once again in the game, this time down by just one point at 98-96.

The Celtics' Jaylen Brown stated, "That's what we do, we did all that on purpose to make it exciting." "I'm kidding, of course." That's just us. Throughout this entire season, we've been responding to adversity, and today was the most difficult test of our careers, not just for this year but for our entire lives. "We accomplished our goal."

Against Chicago on November 1, Boston lost a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and ended up losing by 14 points. Celtics squandered a 19-point lead with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter against Cleveland into a two-point defeat barely two weeks later. On January 7, the Celtics had a 25-point lead against the Knicks in New York and lost on a 3-point buzzer-beater. Udoka slammed the team's "lack of mental fortitude to battle through those bad situations" after the defeat.