Boston Celtics Preview: The black horse in the East?

The Boston Celtics have been on a tear recently. Will they be the black horse candidate to get out of the Eastern Conference?

The Boston Celtics have been on a tear recently. They have won 16 of their last 18 games and are on a 5 game winning streak right now. The team began the season struggling to win games and received a lot of criticism. Marcus Smart even came out publicly and called out the superstars of the team, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, out. They also had a new head coach in Ime Udoka who also received criticism for not having control over the locker room.

Despite all that the Celtics have overcome those struggles and come together as a team. The coach needs to get a lot of credit for bringing his players back up in his first year there. The leaders of the team Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown also talked and discussed how they could be better and lead the team to wins. All of that has resulted in the Celtics rising to 5 seed in a competitive Eastern Conference.

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Jayson Tatum has been especially amazing in the last 5 games. He has scored the second-most points in a 5 game stretch right behind Celtics legend Larry Bird (Tatum -199 points, Bird – 206 points). Tatum had 54 points in TD Garden against Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving a few days back. He followed it up with a 44 point performance against the Hornets and 31 against the Pistons. He had 33 points against the Hawks and 38 against Ja Morant and the Grizzlies before the game against the Nets.

With how great the Celtics are playing not just offensively but also defensively, they have put the entire league on notice. The Eastern Conference was extremely competitive with them out of the picture but now with the Celtics joining the mix of contenders, the East has become a whole lot crazier. The Playoffs this season are going to be amazing and I can’t wait for it to be April