Steve Kerr’s Assessment Of Celtics Struggles Brings Good News
The Boston Celtics haven’t looked like the reigning NBA champions for close to a month.
But that changed Monday when they went up against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors at Chase Center.
The Celtics laid a 40-point beatdown on the shorthanded Warriors and cruised to a 125-85 win. But the lopsided victory doesn’t completely erase Boston’s struggles as of late. The Celtics are now just 9-8 over their last 17 games.
But the up-and-down nature of Boston’s play doesn’t come as a surprise to Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who guided Golden State to the NBA’s last repeat champion in 2018. And Kerr issued some advice to Celtics fans that should ease their worries about Boston’s chances to go back-to-back.
“They’ve been at it for seven or eight years, playing deep into the postseason, and it’s not like this was a brand new team last year winning at all,” Kerr told reporters prior to the game, per MassLive. “They’ve had to fight through a lot of difficult seasons, so perfectly natural for them to have a little bit of an emotional hangover and maybe not be at their best game after game.
“I’ve seen that a million times in this league. But what I would expect is come playoff time though, they’ll be ready to roll. They’ve still got guys in their primes, well-oiled machine, well-coached, they know who they are. I wouldn’t worry about the Celtics if I were one of their fans. This is normal.”
Celtics fans might breathe a sigh of relief after hearing that from Kerr.
The Celtics surely haven’t looked like the team from a season ago which went 64-18 in the regular season and then went 16-3 in the postseason en route to Banner 18. Boston currently holds a 30-13 record after beating Golden State and sits in second place in the Eastern Conference — 6 1/2 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Celtics dismantling the Warriors certainly was a step in the right direction. But Kerr’s words alone won’t entirely rid Celtics fans of their worry. Only what they see on the court from the Celtics over the second half of the regular season will do that.