The unlikeliest of heroes emerged out of last night's New York Knicks-Boston Celtics, with Trey Burke nailing a "step back three" right in Jayson Tatum's face, giving the Knicks an unassailable 6-point cushion in the dying seconds. But Trey's clever shot metrics don't account for the Celtics performing below expectation, not in the eyes of their coach Brad Stevens. In fact, Trey Burke's late-game heroics may very well be the "wake-up call" the team needs to climb the ledge.
"I just don’t know that we’re that good,” Stevens said. "Maybe it’s not a wake-up call if you keep getting beat. I mean, the results are speaking for themselves." Although Brad Stevens remains optimistic the team can facilitate an array of changes into their game, one team dynamic remains an area of concern, in his estimation.
"We’re not playing with the same personality that we played with last year,” he added (post-game). “That's the easiest way to describe it, and the 50,000 issues that are below that, we have to tackle one at a time."
Brad Stevens is nonetheless committed to weathering the storm, as he does on the fly in a game setting. The Celtics face the Atlanta Hawks tomorrow in Atlanta, a team they would have no trouble putting away, under normal circumstances.