stop the Thunder’s good series • Basket USA

Even if Boston is still solid, with 26 wins for 9 losses, the Massachusetts franchise must run behind a Cleveland team (30-4) which never ceases to surprise… and win.

Enough to keep the Celtics under pressure and in their quest for excellence. The start of 2025 was a good opportunity to put everything back together through a meeting where all members of the locker room were invited to express themselves on what the team could do better. Looking for solutions to progress, move forward, and above all win more, that’s also how we nourish this famous culture of victory!

The Celtics have since responded on the field with two “back-to-back” successes on the floors of Minnesota (115-118) and Houston (86-109). Enough to restart the machine in the most beautiful way. Even though Kristaps Porzingis missed the first game and Jaylen Brown was absent in the second, Boston provided the essentials.

“We had a good meeting before this road trip, where we all looked in the mirror, to see what we could improve, how we could do better,” KP said. “Of course, our opponents are waiting for us and some of them are playing their best basketball against us. So it was just little adjustments that we wanted to make, try to move forward as a team and continue to play the same way. Minnesota was a tough game, but we came away with the win, and in the second one, I felt like it clicked in the second half. So in these two games, we look pretty good.”

The month of December as a reminder

After Derrick White, who returned to action against Minnesota and has just had two good outings, it is Kristaps Porzingis who has returned to the Celtics rotation after missing four games to treat his ankle while Jaylen Brown was missed. ‘call. This is also the state of mind that this team continues to cultivate, maintaining the same level of play despite the comings and goings in Joe Mazzulla’s rotation, even concerning major players.

So far, the group has managed to cope rather well, even if the month of December served as a reminder of a mixed record at the end (6 losses in 14 matches).

“This is the approach with which we started this new year”confirms Jayson Tatum about the new dynamic of the C’s. “As I said recently, the month of December did not turn out as we would have liked. We are trying to find our identity, who we are, on both sides of the field. We will try to play our basketball better this month of January, knowing that we have a lot of away matches and difficult matches. The last two games, we were missing JB or KP, but we found ways to get the victory, which makes these two victories special.”

And now, OKC!

As Derrick White also pointed out, winning in Minnesota then in Houston the next day was not an easy thing, far from it. But they had enough to point out the level of determination of the reigning champion, who will obviously have to be counted on in the second part of the season. The opposition will continue to move up a notch with a new trip to Oklahoma City this evening, against the team in good form at the moment, which remains on 14 straight wins in the regular season!

A new daunting challenge for Kristaps Porzingis and the Celtics, chief among them trying to contain a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who has been impressive in recent weeks.

“It’s a duel that presents particular challenges, we will particularly want to try to limit his drives towards the circle as much as possible, try to complicate his task as much as possible, try to tire him out. But it will be a big challenge. They have great players who can support him too, we can’t just focus on him alone. But we’ll see. It’s sure going to be an interesting opposition,” concluded the Latvian.